48,000 Wallets, One Year: How Nova Shots Onboarded Esports Fans to Polkadot
Over the past twelve months, Nova Shots has been a fixture of the BLAST Premier circuit. Across eight tournaments and four continents, ~48,000 esports fans were onboarded into the Polkadot ecosystem through a live, free-to-play prediction game played alongside the world’s best CS2 matches. What follows is a look back at each of the eight tournaments, including the broadcast reach, the on-chain metrics, and even a little bit of colour about the matches themselves at times.
Nova Shots is a live, free-to-play prediction game for BLAST.tv Counter-Strike 2 tournaments. It is powered by the Polkadot and Hydration blockchains.
Nova Shots is for Counter-Strike 2 fans who want to engage with top-tier professional tournaments in a new way. It is perfect for crypto-curious gamers who are ready to dive into blockchain-powered gaming. Nova Shots is ideal for strategically minded players who enjoy prediction and competition games.
Nova Shots acts similarly to a stock market, where the in-game value of each team’s token¹ rises or falls depending on the activity of other players. This adds a level of strategic complexity for savvy players, who, in addition to accurately predicting the winners of individual games within the tournament, also attempt to predict swings in sentiment among their fellow players.
At the end of the tournament, the prize pool is split proportionally between the eligible winners who hold the tournament winner’s team token.
The Nova Shots × BLAST Partnership
Across eight tournaments spanning four continents and twelve months, Nova Shots has ridden alongside the BLAST Premier circuit through every format the organiser has to offer — Majors, Opens, Rivals, and Bounty events — from Austin to Hong Kong, London to Malta, Copenhagen to Rotterdam, and most recently Fort Worth, Texas.
The combined broadcast reach is staggering: 368.4 million hours watched, 2.28 billion live views, and 603 hours of broadcast airtime across 342 individual matches. The Nova Wallet and Nova Shots branding was visible alongside every one of those broadcasts, through live analyst desk features, pre-recorded educational ad segments, and persistent in-game broadcast integrations — putting the product in front of one of the most engaged audiences in esports, again and again.
On the ground, 93,397 fans passed through the doors of the LAN finals venues across the campaign, from the Moody Center in Austin and OVO Arena Wembley in London, to the AsiaWorld-Arena in Hong Kong, Ahoy Arena in Rotterdam, and Dickies Arena in Fort Worth.
The broadcast and venue numbers only tell half of the story. Nova Shots being active during each tournament drove on-chain engagement at a scale that’s almost unprecedented for a Web3 esports integration. ~48,000 esports fans claimed their free BLAST tokens to play Nova Shots across the campaign, collectively generating ~2.86 million on-chain transactions.
Each user is an esports fan who was onboarded to the Polkadot ecosystem via Nova Wallet. That is the real story of this partnership — a measurable on-chain footprint from Web3 curious esports fans who all now have a Polkadot wallet, and are all now comfortable accessing decentralised applications through Nova Wallet.
BLAST Austin Major (Austin)
The very first tournament where Nova Shots featured was the BLAST Austin Major, and there’s no bigger stage in all of esports than a Valve-sponsored Major. Held at the Moody Center on the University of Texas at Austin campus from June 3–22, the Austin Major was the third CS2 Major, and the first to expand the number of participating teams to 32.
The competition unfolded across three Swiss-system stages before culminating in an eight-team single-elimination playoff bracket, with the world’s best battling for the $1.25m prize pool and Counter-Strike’s most coveted trophy.
Team Vitality lifted the trophy after a 2–1 victory over The MongolZ in the Grand Final, with ZywOo claiming his second career MVP. It was the first Major held in North America since Boston 2018.
The Major lived up to its scale on the broadcast side, generating 172.4 million hours watched with a peak viewership of 3.12 million. Across 181 broadcast matches and 135 hours of airtime, the tournament also drew 37,788 fans through the doors of the Moody Center.
Beyond the broadcast, Nova Shots had a physical presence on the ground at the Austin Major. Our booth sat in the venue corridors alongside the Major’s other sponsors, where attendees could learn about Nova Shots and go head-to-head in a 1v1 tournament for merch and prizes. The queue rarely let up, a sign of just how much appetite there was among the in-person crowd to get hands-on.
The highlight, though, was a visit from none other than Minh “Gooseman” Le, the creator of Counter-Strike itself, who stopped by the booth and jumped into the 1v1 action.
A huge thanks to the HEROIC team for helping us organise our on-the-ground presence at the BLAST Austin Major.
BLAST Rivals Season 1 2025 (Copenhagen)
BLAST Rivals is built around a simple premise of bringing together the best in the world and letting them settle the score. Held at the BLAST Studios in Copenhagen from April 30 to May 4, 8 teams battled it out — four directly invited from the top of the Valve Regional Standings (VRS), plus four regional wildcards — all for the shot at the $350k prize pool.
Two sets of 4-team double-elimination GSL-style groups fed into the 6-team playoff brackets, with the Grand Final being played out as a BO5.
The compact studio format delivered 31.1 million hours watched and a peak of 1.84 million viewers — strong numbers for a 13-match, 43-hour broadcast window with no live audience.
BLAST Bounty Season 2 2025 (Malta)
BLAST Bounty provides a unique experimental format for the CS2 calendar. 32-teams entered the Closed Qualifiers that ran between August 5–10, with the top 16 teams having cash bounties placed on their heads, ranging from $15,000 — $60,000. The lowest-seeded teams pick their opponents and the chance to claim their bounty. The top 8 teams proceeded to the LAN finals at the BLAST Arena Studios in Attard, Malta, from August 14–17. The finals were played out in single-elimination BO3s, with a BO5 Grand Final for a share of the $480,000 dynamic prize pool.
The first Bounty event in the Nova Shots run drew 28.5 million hours watched and a peak of 1.52 million viewers across 31 broadcast matches in the BLAST Arena Studios.
On the on-chain side, 2,772 users claimed their BLAST tokens to play Nova Shots throughout the tournament — generating 392,798 on-chain transactions and 94,502 swaps. With an average of 142 transfers per user, Malta posted the highest per-user transaction count of any event in the Nova Shots run.
BLAST Open Season 2 2025 (London)
BLAST Open is the global, arena-scale format in the BLAST circuit, with online groups feeding into a stacked live finale. The Fall 2025 edition started with 16 teams competing in two double-elimination groups of eight from August 27, before the top six advanced to the LAN Finals at London’s iconic OVO Arena from September 5–7.
With a $330,000 prize pool on the line, the tournament ended in one of the upsets of the year. G2’s revamped roster, led by MVP HeavyGod, knocked off the world #1 Team Vitality 3–2 in a five-map Grand Final thriller, snapping Vitality’s streak of seven straight Bo5 finals wins after they let a match point slip on Inferno.
London generated 29.6 million hours watched with a peak of 1.18 million viewers across 29 broadcast matches, with 9,105 fans packing OVO Arena Wembley for the LAN finals.
22,421 users claimed their BLAST tokens to play Nova Shots — nearly half of every user across our entire BLAST partnership run to date. Those players generated 1.32 million on-chain transactions and 304,490 swaps. Whatever clicked in London, it worked.
By the time the circuit reached London, the Nova Shots booth had levelled up. Bigger and more polished than its Austin debut, the London activation was positioned on the arena floor itself, putting the booth right in the heart of the action, with the main stage and the live crowd as its backdrop.
Attendees could learn about Nova Shots and battle it out in 1v1s for merch without ever leaving the atmosphere of the event, surrounded by the roar of the OVO Arena Wembley crowd. It was a fitting setting for what turned out to be the standout event of the entire campaign on the on-chain side.
Pulling off an arena-floor activation takes a real team effort – so a huge thank you to GiantX and to UK Counter-Strike pro and streamer Alex Byfield, who helped make the London booth one to remember.
BLAST Rivals Season 2 2025 (Hong Kong)
For the second BLAST Rivals event of 2025, the circuit headed east, bringing top-tier Counter-Strike to Hong Kong for the first time in six years. Held at the 12,500 capacity AsiaWorld-Arena in Chek Lap Kok from November 12–16, the tournament gathered 8 teams to compete for $350,000 in the final BLAST Premier event of the year, and the last LAN test before the StarLadder Budapest Major.
Two GSL-style grounds of four fed into a single-elimination playoff bracket, with a BO5 Grand Final to close out the season.
Hong Kong quietly delivered some of the strongest broadcast numbers of any non-Major event in the Nova Shots run — 51 million hours watched and a peak of 1.99 million viewers, the highest peak viewership of any BLAST Premier event in the Nova Shots run. The AsiaWorld-Arena drew 23,285 fans across the LAN portion.
On-chain, 9,508 users claimed their BLAST tokens, generating 287,477 transactions and 60,183 swaps during the tournament.
BLAST Bounty Season 1 2026 (Malta)
The first tier-1 event of the 2026 CS2 calendar — the BLAST Bounty brought its unique bounty-hunting format back for another run. 32 teams entered the online Closed Qualifier from January 13–18, with the top 8 proceeding to the LAN finals at the BLAST Arena Studios in Attard, Malta from January 22–25.
The event delivered one of the biggest upsets at a tier-1 tournament in quite a while, with underdogs PARIVISION — ranked outside the world’s top 15 going in — crowned victorious in a tournament which featured heavy favourites, such as Vitality, Spirit, and FURIA — even sweeping Team Falcons 3–0 in the grand final.
The first event of the 2026 calendar pulled in 18.5 million hours watched and a peak of 787,046 viewers across 33 broadcast matches, with the PARIVISION-Falcons Grand Final drawing the lion’s share of those eyeballs.
The bounty format’s chaos translated directly into on-chain activity: 9,308 users claimed their BLAST tokens to play Nova Shots, generating 606,454 on-chain transactions and 149,765 swaps — the second-highest transaction count of any event in the Nova Shots run despite a relatively modest user base.
BLAST Open Season 1 2026 (Rotterdam)
The 2026 BLAST Premier season kicked off with the BLAST Open, the first time the circuit had ever set foot in the Netherlands. 16 teams entered the event on March 18, with the group stage consisting of two double-elimination GSL groups of 8, all played in BO3s.
The top 6 proceeded to the LAN Finals at Rotterdam’s Ahoy Arena from March 27–29. With a $1.1M total prize pool and the season’s opening trophy on the line, the event set the tone for the season ahead.
Rotterdam pulled in 27.4 million hours watched and a peak of 821,221 viewers, with 16,709 fans filling Ahoy Arena for the LAN Finals weekend.
On-chain, 2,524 users claimed their BLAST tokens to play Nova Shots, and despite the smaller user base, they were among the most active per capita of any tournament in the run. Those players generated 181,592 transactions and 48,703 swaps across the tournament.
BLAST Rivals Season 1 2026 (Fort Worth)
Counter-Strike returned to Texas following the success of the BLAST Austin Major. Held at the Dickies Arena in Fort Worth from April 29 to May 3, the event brought 8 of the world’s top VRS-ranked teams together for a $1M prize pool. Two groups of four fed into a single-elimination playoff bracket with a BO5 Grand Final.
The compact six-day event delivered 10 million hours watched and a peak of 820,105 viewers across 13 broadcast matches, with 6,510 fans attending Dickies Arena for the playoffs in BLAST’s striking 360-degree central stage setup.
On-chain, 1,577 users claimed their BLAST tokens to play Nova Shots, generating 73,509 transactions and 20,655 swaps across the tournament.
More Than Just a Logo on a Broadcast
Eight tournaments. Four continents. Twelve months. The Nova Shots x BLAST partnership proved that with the right product, esports fans will engage in on-chain activity at a large scale. The 48,000 wallets created across the campaign are 48,000 new participants in the Polkadot ecosystem, all onboarded through a free-to-play prediction game tied to matches they are passionate about watching.
That thesis isn’t just ours anymore. Polymarket — one of the largest names in Web3 — joined BLAST as its Official Prediction Partner for 2026, confirming what the Nova Shots numbers have shown all year: competitive esports is one of the strongest on-ramps for Web3 adoption available today.
Why This Matters for Polkadot
Nova Shots is built as an onboarding funnel for crypto-curious gamers, lowering the barrier to entry through a familiar format — competitive predictions tied to live esports matches.
New users are onboarded directly into the Polkadot ecosystem via Nova Wallet. Account creation is streamlined into a simple sign-up flow, with the option to create a wallet using a Google or Apple login — no prior crypto knowledge required, and no passphrases to securely store.
Crucially, Nova Shots is entirely free-to-play, with subsidised transactions, meaning users can engage with on-chain activity without any financial risk or upfront cost. This removes one of the biggest psychological hurdles in blockchain adoption: the fear of losing money while learning. By the time a user has placed their first prediction, they’ve already interacted with a live dApp without thinking about the underlying technology.
Every one of those users now holds a Polkadot wallet — and through it, access to the wider ecosystem of dApps spanning DeFi, staking, governance, and beyond. The 48,000 users from the BLAST campaign aren’t just a one-time number. They are active accounts in the Polkadot ecosystem, available to be re-engaged by every other project building on the network.
About Novasama Technologies
Novasama builds user-focused applications for the Polkadot ecosystem.
Our products include:
- Nova Wallet — the leading mobile wallet for Polkadot & Kusama
- Nova Spektr — advanced multisig & asset management for teams and power users
- Polkadot Vault — the air-gapped security standard for Polkadot
- Nova Shots — an interactive esports onboarding experience
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¹ See Section 6 of the Nova Shots Terms & Conditions, accessible within the Nova Shots dApp.
