Zed Run

Zed Run was an NFT-based digital horse racing platform built by Australian web3 studio Virtually Human (Virtually Human Studio, VHS) and launched in January 2019. Players created a digital stable, acquired horse NFTs on secondary marketplaces such as OpenSea, and entered them in races held throughout the day. Each horse carried on-chain attributes — bloodline (Nakamoto, Szabo, Finney, Buterin), genotype/Z rarity, breed type (Genesis, Legendary, Exclusive, Elite, Cross, Pacer), coat colour, gender and class — that determined performance, rarity and value. The stable interface doubled as a portfolio tool showing horses and their win percentages.

Racing was organised into classes based on a horse's Z rating, with new horses required to run a Griffin race followed by nine Discovery races to establish a class rating before moving up or down the six classes according to results. Both free races and paid events with prize pools were offered. Breeding was a second economic loop: owners of male horses set stud fees, with proceeds split between the male horse's owner, the prize pool and the platform, and a minimum base breeding fee of 0.075 ETH varying by bloodline and breed type. Male horses could sire three offspring per month and females could breed once per month, and horses could not race while breeding.

In August 2022 Zed Run launched a ZED governance token, distributed initially via an airdrop to wallets qualifying on racing, ownership and breeding activity across Ethereum and Polygon, with a 1 billion token cap and future use planned for platform payments, in-game functionality and special events. Virtually Human announced the discontinuation of Zed Run after six years, closing the game on February 28 and redirecting development to a new title, Zed Champions.

Founding story

Zed Run was launched in January 2019 by Virtually Human Studio.

Business model

Virtually Human Studio operated Zed Run as a consumer web3 game monetised around NFT racehorses: entry fees for paid races and tournaments (free races were also offered), and a platform share of breeding stud fees, which were split between the male horse's owner, the prize pool and the platform. Horses themselves traded peer-to-peer on secondary NFT marketplaces.

Paid race and tournament entry fees, alongside a cut of breeding stud fees paid in ETH; race entry costs were reported at roughly $2-$15 per race and up to $100 for some events.

Traction

By July 2021 the platform reported more than $30 million in racehorse NFT sales, over 14,000 unique stable owners and 125,000 connected users, with horses selling for between $130 and $45,000 (and some assets changing hands for as much as 30 ETH). Zed Run recorded its one-millionth race in January 2022. The ZED RUN collection on OpenSea comprises 646,453 items held by 69,734 unique owners.

Latest developments

Virtually Human discontinued Zed Run, closing the game on February 28 with a three-day Sunset Stakes finale carrying a $100,000 ZED token prize pool, and launched successor project Zed Champions. Reward badges remained claimable, purchasable or tradable for one month after closure and transfer to Zed Champions, granting eligibility to acquire new horses, while Zed Run horse NFTs do not carry over.