Dear Sunday Investors:
Welcome to this week’s edition of the Sunday Investor! To our new members, the format of this weekly newsletter will be a deep-dive into one investment-topic. This week, we will focus into the concept of play-to-earn gaming. We will discuss what play-to-earn gaming is, why its seen an exponential rise in popularity this year, and go into an example of how everyone can play and earn money with a P2E game called Defi Kingdoms.
Read, enjoy and share with any friends. Let’s build wealth together.
Weekly Market Recap
Let’s dig into some of the most important events that happened in the markets in the last week:
Although Bitcoin struggles to get past $50,000, the community celebrated the milestone of 90 per cent of Bitcoin’s total supply being mined this week. It has taken just 12 years to mine the first 90 per cent while the remaining 10 per cent will be mined slowly over the next 120 years making a favorable demand-supply case for Bitcoin in the future.
Iconic sportswear manufacturer Nike has acquired a virtual sneaker brand RTFKT this week that confirms its entry into the metaverse. RTFKT will help Nike deliver next-generation collectibles that combine culture and gaming.
The stock market was whipsawed in the past week, with the Nasdaq down about 2.9% since Monday and lagging the other major averages on a weekly basis. CNBC
Dogecoin gained 25 percent on Tuesday as Elon Musk announced Tesla’s plans for accepting DOGE as payments for merchandise, the only crypto that Tesla will support.
What is Play-To-Earn Gaming?
Play-to-earn gaming has taken the crypto world by a storm this last year, and its easy to see why. In this form of gaming, players can make actual money based on how much time and effort they put into a game.
Giving gamers ownership over in-game assets and allowing them to increase their value by actively playing the game are key components of the play-to-earn business model. By participating in the in-game economy, players are creating value for other players and the developers. In turn they are rewarded with in-game assets. These digital assets can be anything ranging from cryptocurrencies to in-game resources that are tokenized on the blockchain. That’s why the play-to-earn business model goes very well together with blockchain games.
Why has Play-To-Earn Gaming Risen In Popularity?
The play-to-earn gaming space has been led by the emergence of a game called Axie Infinity, which still leads the charts in all user metrics. Axie Infinity is made by a Vietnam-based company named Sky Mavis. The company, which was founded in 2018, is now valued at $3 billion making it the most valuable play-to-earn game by a landslide.
What kind of game is Axie Infinity, exactly? In short, it’s like Pokémon on the blockchain. (It’s not available in app stores; you either download Axie onto your desktop or sideload it onto your Android phone.) The game offers turn-based combat between teams of three cartoon monsters, which are known as Axies; each Axie has powers originating from their type (bug, bird, plant, etc.) and their various body parts. More on Axie Infinity our source The Verge here.
DeFi Kingdom (DFK) now ranks second behind Axie Infinity in volume in the last day, week, and 30-day period, according to Dapp Radar. Defi Kingdoms has seen exponential growth 467% compared to Axie Infinity which has been a constant leader in the space this year
This overall shift of gamers into the play-to-earn realm has created opportunities for other games with similar visions on their mind, to reward their users with actual money. We will dig deeper into the top competitor to Axie at the time, a P2E game called Defi Kingdoms.
How to Play Defi Kingdoms
DeFi Kingdoms (DFK) is a game, a decentralized exchange (DEX), a liquidity pool (LP) opportunity, and a market of rare utility-driven NFTs, that all plays out seamlessly in the incredibly nostalgic form of fantasy pixel art as shown in the picture above.
DeFi Kingdoms is using the Harmony Protocol blockchain with its native coin ONE. ONE can be purchased on most major exchanges, including Crypto.com Binance, Kucoin, and others.
How To Start Playing Defi Kingdoms
To start playing Defi Kingdoms, you will need Harmony’s $ONE coin, and a Metamask wallet. Other than that, you go to defikingdoms.com to start playing.
For information on how to setup your MetaMask wallet, please refer to the tutorial here or Harmony's documentation here.
What does it cost to get started and play?
The game itself is free, however there is a transaction cost (gas) every time you interact with the blockchain such as when you make a profile entering the game. Thanks to ONE’s very low fees, these are a fraction of a cent.
Once you're in the game, you can spend as much or as little as you'd like by investing in the Marketplace and staking LP Tokens in the Gardens or JEWEL in the Bank.
You can also spend the Defi Kingdoms token called $JEWEL to purchase Hero NFTs in the Tavern. Hero NFT’s have actual utility as they are used to collect resources through their Professions, and can be paired with other Heroes to create new Heroes from another part of the map called “the Inner Grove”.
The cheapest NFT Hero is 38 $JEWEL or around $450 currently
What is JEWEL coin and how to I buy it?
The Defi Kingdoms ecosystem is run by the $JEWEL token which along with the game, has seen great returns since the game launched this summer.
By going to the bank in the game, you are greeted with this screen below, where you can “swap” your $ONE tokens in your Metamask wallet for $JEWEL.
You can also deposit your $JEWEL in the bank and get rewarded on 1/3 of all generated trading fees from the game. As the game continues to increase on popularity, the rewards for you will increase as well.
As you can probably guess, as Defi Kingdoms has thrived, so has $JEWEL which is needed for all marketplace transactions in the game. Since $JEWEL started trading on September at .21 cents, it has just eclipsed an all-time-high of $12.00/$JEWEL today. More on the $JEWEL token’s historical price here.
If you want an easy way to invest in Defi Kingdoms without playing, buy $JEWEL and stake in in the bank for additional returns through 1/3 of trading revenue.
Defi Kingdoms Use of NFTs
Next, let’s go into the NFT’s utility within the game, as each NFT is unique and can be leveled up for completing different quests aligning to their professions. You are also able to buy, sell or lend your heroes at any point throughout the game to other users in the in-game marketplace.
Above is what the gameplay looks like for completing quests for heroes in the game. Every hero is assigned a profession, and they receive higher rewards if you follow their assigned profession (Ex. using a fisherman for the fisher quest). You are also still able to use a fisherman for gardening, foraging, or mining, but the rewards may be lower than if you used them for fishing where their skills are already aligned.
By completing quests with your NFT Hero, you get rewarded with different in-game items which are valued in “gold” based on their rarity and which can be used for in-game purchases. Your Hero has a limited amount of stamina, so you can only complete quests every so often when your stamina is regenerated as well. The only other thing to note is that completing quests provide additional skills for your hero which you can breed with other heroes to create new NFTs in the game.
Every hero has a limited amount of “summons”, ( the amount of times you can breed other other heroes to create new NFTs") except for the Generation 0 Hero’s. Because of the seemingly unlimited potential to consistently summon more heroes, the Generation 0 Hero’s are worth substantially more $JEWEL than any other hero.
This game will continue to grow in popularity as well as the entire concept of play-to-earn gaming becoming mainstream as we round out 2021.
There is so much more we can go into with Defi Kingdoms and P2E gaming as a whole, and if this interests anyone further than what was mentioned in the article today or if anyone has any questions on getting started feel free to message me or comment below:
Our Next Newsletter
This will be the last newsletter for 2021 as we will be taking a few weeks of break for the holidays!
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Not financial or tax advice. The content in this newsletter is for informational purposes only. Every investment and trading move involves risk. Do your own research when making a decision.