Chess Nerds: The Secret to Web3 Adoption?

TL;DR

• There’s a new Web3 chess game being supported by Chess.com and Magnus Carlsen (chess has ~605M global active players, who are now all potential new Web3 users).

Full Story

There’s this dude on our writing team, let’s call him “Bevvy Shmassar”…

If you were to ask Bevvy what his favorite book was, he’d say “Walden, by Henry David Thoreau.“

But here’s the thing…

This guy’s never actually read Walden - he just thinks that claiming he has will make him look smart.

In reality, his favorite book is ‘The Name of the Wind,’ by Patrick Rothfuss - a 672 page nerd bible, for fantasy freaks.

Why’re we telling you this?

Because we all have a “Bevvy” in our lives - and it’s our guess that they’re all about to start secretly playing a new Web3-powered game that goes by the name ‘Anichess.’

Here’s the basic gist of it:

It’s Chess…

But with the addition of magic spell casting, a fantasy storyline and free-to-collect NFTs known as ‘Orbs of Power.’

(Seriously, this is a real thing).

And we’re genuinely excited for it! Not so much for the game itself, but for the stats behind it…

Check this out:

• Chess is played regularly by 605M adults worldwide

• Anichess is being supported by Chess.com and Chess’ #1 player / poster-child / bad boy Magnus Carlsen.

Now, consider this…

• Fortnite and PUBG, the two largest video games by active player-base, have 525M monthly active players COMBINED!

• Chess.com alone gets 191M visitors per month (if that were ranked as a video game, it’d be #3 in the world by monthly active users).

• Plus, getting an endorsement from Magnus Carlsen on a chess-based game, is like getting Tom Brady’s backing on an NFL video game.

Is Anichess going to be a hit? No idea ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

But! If it does manage to catch on, it will have plenty of room to grow.

And with every new Anichess player, comes a new Web3 user.

We love to see it!