Splinterlands & NFTs invented or prophesied in 1999?!

Over the summer holidays I've been reading Neal Stephenson's classic cypherpunk tome Cryptonomicon.

Its a great book, first published in May 1999, which both explains, in riveting fictionalised form but with a great deal of real history, the development of cryptography, especially in WWII and foreshadows the development of cryptocurrency.

It is well known for this and expresses concepts regarding digital money which were circulating in computer science and cryptography circles at the time. I remember reading of the possibility of cryptographically secured digital currency in the early 1990s when I was finishing my computer science degree and reading about things like Phil Zimmerman's PGP.

But I found a hidden gem of an idea on pages 806-807 that seems to either be the genesis or a prophesy of Hive's favourite Web 3 game: Hive account@splinterlands.

Scene: One of the main protagonists, Randy Waterhouse is visiting an old friend at a fantasy card based roleplaying meetup in Seattle.

I have quoted below the key paragraphs with my emphasis.

"I note that you have made the transition to card-based RPGs," Randy says.

"Oh, yeah! It is so much better than the old pencil-and-paper way. Or even computer-mediated RPGs, with all due respect to the fine work that you and Avi did. What are you working on now?"

"Something that might actually be relevant to this," Randy says. "I was just realizing that if you have a set of cryptographic protocols suitable for issuing an electronic currency that cannot be counterfeited - which oddly enough we do - your could adapt those same protocols to card games. Because each one of these cards is like a bank-note. Some are more valuable than others."

This is a precise description of Splinterlands and more generally a description of what we now call NFTs (non-fungible tokens).

Even the characters involved fit the book. Avi, a Jewish American technology entrepreneur & programmer is Hive account@yabapmatt (Matthew Rosen), while Randy a white American computer gaming crypto nerd, is Hive account@aggroed (Dr Jesse Reich). See: https://docs.splinterlands.com/company/founders

I have been an avid follower & player of Splinterlands since I met Hive account@aggroed at HiveFest Krakow. I don't recall any mention of Cryptonomicon being the inspiration for Splinterlands.

So I have a question for Hive account@yabapmatt & Hive account@aggroed: Was Splinterlands inspired by Cryptonomicon or was it an independent prophecy?

Is this the case of life knowingly imitating art or of art prophesying future life?