Case study · Sports, fan communities & collectibles
CyberCars: chat and messaging for a collectible cars and metaverse community
CyberCars brought the automotive community together around racing events, digital collectibles and memorabilia. Ethora provided the chat and messaging layer and a cross-platform iOS and Android social app, with fan rooms, social sign-on and collectible tokens built in.
By the numbers
What the build delivered
2 platforms
one social app shipped to iOS and Android from a single codebase
4 sign-in options
Facebook, Google, Apple and MetaMask, with no password to remember
Fan rooms
racing teams and drivers running their own spaces, live events and giveaways
3D collectibles
rich tokens carrying 3D models, textures and metaverse-ready bundles
Overview
About CyberCars
CyberCars Social set out to unite the automotive community around the things fans already care about: racing events, the teams and drivers behind them, and the collectibles and memorabilia that carry the memory of a season. The audience was global, mobile-first, and used to following motorsport across several screens at once.
The challenge. A fan community is only as good as the conversation inside it. CyberCars needed real-time chat that worked identically on iOS and Android, a sign-in flow casual fans would not abandon, and a way to put genuinely collectible digital items into fans’ hands without asking them to learn a new toolchain first. Building that stack from scratch would have consumed the entire budget before a single fan room opened.
The solution. The early Ethora engine supplied the whole communication layer as a product: chat rooms, user profiles, social sign-on, push notifications and a cross-platform mobile client, with the collectible mechanics exposed through chat bots rather than a separate app. CyberCars could focus on the community and the content instead of the plumbing.
The solution
What Ethora delivered
A complete social and messaging layer, shipped as a branded cross-platform app, with collectibles handled inside the conversation.
Chat and messaging layer
Real-time messaging, rooms and profiles powering every conversation in the community, from general fan chat to team-run spaces.
Cross-platform mobile client
A single social app published to both iOS and Android, so the community was never split by platform or held back by a second build cycle.
Social sign-on
Fans signed in with Facebook, Google, Apple or MetaMask. No new password, no onboarding drop-off, and a wallet already attached for anyone who wanted one.
Fan rooms and second-screen events
A racing team or a well-known driver could open a room for their fans: exclusive content, quizzes and entertainment, a second screen during a live race, and collectibles handed out to the people watching.
Collectibles minted and traded through chat bots
Minting, transferring and trading collectible tokens ran through the engine’s chat bot framework, so a collectible changed hands in a conversation rather than on a separate marketplace.
Built-in transactions
Native token support in the engine meant coins and unique collectibles could move directly between fans, without bolting on a payments or trading integration.
Inside the collectibles
Collectibles that carry more than a picture
In 2021 most digital collectibles were flat images. CyberCars wanted something a fan could actually use: a car you could look at from every angle, take into a 3D space, modify, and race. That meant the token had to carry real payload, not just a link to a JPEG.
The collectibles built on Ethora carried one or more of the following:
- 3D models and textures, or a ready bundle compatible with common 3D and virtual-world engines.
- Both full-detail and lightweight models, plus video, sound, AR and VR assets, and even a file suitable for 3D printing at home.
- Changeable parameters that reflected how the object had been used: for a digital car, things like mileage or remaining fuel.
- Composable structure, combining interchangeable and unique parts in one collectible. A limited edition car (1 of 1,000), a one-off paint job by a named artist (1 of 1), and a consumable fuel token could all live in the same object.
Recognition
From a chat room to a museum wall
CyberCrack, one of the collectibles produced in the project, was exhibited by the Hermitage State Museum in November and December 2021 as part of a show on digital art and ownership. The same object that fans could receive in a chat room was shown in a 3D exhibition space alongside the museum’s programme.
The outcome
A fan community with the conversation at the centre
CyberCars shipped a single cross-platform app where fans signed in without friction, teams and drivers ran their own rooms, and collectibles moved between people inside the conversation rather than on a separate platform. The pattern it proved, chat as the place where a community gathers and value changes hands, is the same one Ethora powers for customers today.
Build your own community app on Ethora
Fan communities, marketplaces, sports and events: Ethora ships the chat, the mobile client and the AI on top, so you can launch a branded community app in weeks.
