Some Long-Term Speculations I'm Excited About: AcademyToken, CryptoHunt, and RavenCoin (Part 2)
This is a continuation of part 1 here.
This is not financial advice! I'm just doing this for entertainment purposes and telling my personal story on my blog. Please don't make financial decisions based on what you hear from me!
Crypto Hunt
This is another ICO I got whitelisted for and contributed to early.
From the Whitepaper Summary:
CryptoHunt is an augmented reality game which uses game theory, economics, and pure old- fashioned fun to entice users into playing. The company’s business model rests on the massive adoption of the game, bringing along lucrative sponsorship deals and partnerships with retailers, bars, fast food locations and other points of interest.
Players will explore real world locations in search for virtual chests, items, and creatures, investigating a layer of a mystical world placed on top of our own. They’ll compete and race to complete challenges, work together and against each other, and earn money while doing it.
I've posted about Pokémon Go directly and indirectly here, here, here, and here. I enjoy playing with my son and while getting some exercise.
Since the very first day I started playing, I thought to myself, "Why has no one created a version of this using cryptocurrency?"
That's why I'm excited about CryptoHunt and hope more people will support it. This is a way to get every day people involved in cryptocurrency which, to me, is the future path to increased freedom for humanity. Crypto Hunt even mentions the possibility of a CH Debit Card!
A debit card is planned for the future which would allow players to spend their tokens directly or withdraw from ATMs.
That said, I'll take this with a grain of salt because there have been many projects which come and go claiming to integrate with the existing banking system and many don't end up pulling it off (side note: that's why I like how SmartCash is building an entirely new system which doesn't use the existing legacy network).
So on to some more details about the ICO:
The total supply will be 500,000,000 coins. The soft cap will be set at $10,000,000 or 200,000,000 tokens, while the hard cap will be $15,000,000 at 300,000,000 tokens.
That all sounds good, but so far the Crowdsale seems a bit slow:
I thought it would sell out quickly so I got in on the pre-sale which limited the amount of ETH you could contribute. Seems that wasn't really needed after all.
Additionally, once the ICO is over, the tokens given to the contributors will be locked for 30 days after the ICO, and will be gradually freed up at a rate of 12.5% per week after that, to be 100% released on launch day (June 1st). This mechanic is in place to prevent a massive sell-off immediately after the ICO, thus dropping the token value dramatically.
I really like this appraoch as many markets go crazy when ICO tokens are released all at once. But... if they never reach the soft cap, when happens then? It seems the ETH will be refunded and the tokens will be sold directly on exchanges to fund development and keep the project going.
Unlike many ICOs, this one actually has a working demo which shows they are serious about the project.
You can download it now from the google play store here:
I saw in telegram chat the demo already has 3,000 downloads, and it looks like it even has some good reviews (though the whitepaper makes it clear this is just a demo and not a reference to the high quality the final product will have). I'm super excited about trying the demo, but unfortuantely I have an iPhone and there have been delays with the Apple Store in terms of getting it approved and released. The current line is "any day now" for when the IOS version will be live.
There are some more details here you should be aware of (read the whitepaper!) such as how your tokens in-game will start to go away if you don't play regularly (tokens in your ETH wallet will be fine) and there will be a minimum amount needed for a withdrawal from the game.
There's also some benefits (up to 10%!) for those who play the demo and participate in the ICO.
Speaking of ICO benefits, if you're interested in this one, please use my referral link.
Did you catch that?
I have a referral link.
Just wanted to make sure you got that. :)
I love cryptocurrency projects which have a real-world appeal and have a good chance of disrupting an existing successful model. I play these games already, so I'd love to earn cryptocurrency while doing it, just like I blog already and get to earn cryptocurrency if I blog on the STEEM blockchain.
If you have questions, check the FAQ here. To see if they will support your city, click the "Locations" menu item on their website.
Remember, this is a speculative long-shot and may end up failing completely. Don't take this as financial advice, it's just me talking about stuff I'm interested in. Let me know what you think in the comments and stay tuned for part 3 where I'll dive into RavenCoin a bit.
Update: Looks like there's now a way to beta test the IOS app according to this tweet.
Edit: part 3 talking about Raven Coin is live!
Unfortunately, this looks like a completely failed project at this point. Tomorrow I'll try the contract to get my refund and update this comment with how it turns out. Related posts:
I was really hoping this one would turn out to be a huge success. Instead, we got a dumpster fire. :(
Edit: I did the refund claim and got my ETH back as expected.
I used your referral link and got started (hooray for Android). From my office, there's not much to interact with yet. I did run into the debug or developer mode by drawing a circle around my in-game avatar which opens up a bunch of JSON displays.
I'll see if my normal Pokestop-rich environments have anything to do. Looks like a really interesting concept, having Tasks to do for in- and out-of-game rewards.
It's kind of like Steemit versus normal blogging. I might blog anyway, why not get rewarded? I'm going to move around the world playing an augmented reality game, why not get rewarded?
Hi, you just have the old version, updating to V12 will remove the developer version that has been uploaded in V10 by accident (that is not a bug) :)
I may not want to upgrade. That stuff looks fun to play with!
Nice! Thanks for the update, Omni. Cool that you got it installed and are playing with it. I'm really looking forward to the IOS app, even though it's just a beta. If you find bugs, I think they have a bug bounty thing as well.
I think I live too far from Dallas (which it says it supports) for there to be much to interact with. I did see a treasure chest off in the distance while my wife was driving us around, but I couldn't interact with it. Probably operator error.
That is a brilliant idea.
A game involving crypto, isn't that going to be great. Your going to get a bit of exercise as well playing this, not bad for a lazy ass like me
If this reached even close to the same popularity as pokemon go did, I would be hyped up!
After a little research of the coin, I can say that it actually has the potential to be huge. But it's definitely a long-shot, and tbh I think it's really unlikely that this crypto is going to succeed..
PS. Great article, I really enjoyed reading this one :)!
Yeah, I kind of agree with you as far as how difficult it is to launch a successful new coin these days, but I also want to reward projects like this because, eventually, I see this as the path to the future and I want to support that path with my resources to incentivize more people to build more things like this.
Thanks for putting this together. I've never heard of it before. However, this is another one of those ones I don't get.
Coin decay? Buying coin burn protection?
"The player is encouraged to play regularly, but in moderation." I don't see where the moderation part comes in. Why did they even put that in there?
"why not use an existing token? It’s not an invalid question" Maybe that doesn't translate well, but I don't like the way that's phrased. I don't feel too good about the answers either.
"This means people
can play and profit off of us for three full years before we even have to start thinking
about earnings. "
"The token cannot be a victim of pump & dump schemes. In order to get it, one has to
find it in large amounts on exchanges, which they won’t - we’ll be buying them back at
first, and the tokens will only appear on exchanges seldom, when people start feeling
they can get more from others for them than from us." So, pump only...until they run out of money?
"The company’s business model rests on the massive adoption...." What does this mean and how are they going to quantify this?
They're also picking up the tab for Ethereum gas, so they're going to try to minimize that by being the bank.
Payout at once per 100 is odd. What assumptions does that make about the price of the token? My thought is it will never get above $1 or really even close to that given the vastly different economic climates of the selected cities for the rollout.
I know I'm not being very thorough or open in my thinking, but I'm not even sure how to think about this. It just seems to me that all of these "companies" have put in little to no thought about creating a sustainable organization. I know startup culture is 'build it and they will come', but I don't see how the parts fit together in a way that makes realistic sense.
Thanks for asking questions!
Coin decay changes the economic model which encourages people to stick with the game or not bother with it. When Pokemon Go first launched, the demand was huge but then a bunch of people ignored it. That means the planning for bandwidth and server resource needs was probably nutty. I think this approach makes sense in that if someone is willing to let their coins start disappearing, they probably aren't too serious about playing it and that might help with allocating resources effectively. It also helps investors as lower coin supply often translates into higher value per coin.
Encouraging people play without moderation wouldn't be polite. heheh. It's like the beer ads that say "Please drink responsibly." It's expected. I genuinely think they want people as engaged as possible within reasonable limits. No one wants to support unhealthy addictions. At least with this game, people are getting outside, walking around, and meeting new people (if the PokemonGo model is to be used as an example).
I think the question translates fine to me, but I hear you about not liking the answer. To me, a new token makes sense so they have the control to fund it and build it as they want.
Not sure what about the buy back plan bothers you? To me it shows a commitment to providing value to the token which could drive user adoption. I think of it as them paying for advertising like most companies do but instead it's through word of mouth with people saying, "I made $5 playing a game on my phone!" Word of mouth advertising is powerful (and to me, preferred).
Mass adoption means millions and millions of people will adopt the game and use it regularly. If that doesn't happen, it sounds like the business model may run into trouble. That's certainly something to consider as far as the future success of what they are trying to accomplish. It also could be read as them being fully committed to a very serious project.
$1 would be amazing returns if they are selling for $0.05. I'd be quite happy with $1.
I'm surprised you found this so negative. To suggest "little or no thought" without a deeper understanding of what they've actually done seems like you're talking from a place of ignorance and just lumping projects together. A simple question you might ask is, "Have I talked to an advisors of this project?" If the answer is no, there may be a lot of information you're not aware of regarding your concerns.
That said, thank you for asking questions! These are the types of questions we should all be asking as we evaluate various projects in the space.
I am totally talking from a 'place of ignorance.' I stated as much. I have no expertise in anything and base my opinions on the same lack of depth your average(or below average) person does.
For the most part I was inviting more education because I was using the white paper only as the basis for my questions(I did quickly go to the site to try and figure out where this world domination was supposed to spawn from).
I picked on the moderation remark because that seemed like a pc sort of thing they stuck in there for the sake of pc. Maybe I shouldn't expect arbitrary political correctness to not be present in a white paper.
I haven't played any sort of videogame in many years, so I find things like coin burn insurance to be tedious and odd. As an investor I think a mechanism that effectively caps the value of an investment to be equally as odd.
The white paper, in my opinion, reads extremely heavy on the youthful optimism. Maybe I'm just old and haven't read enough white papers yet.
Ignorance is wisdom compared to those who think they already know everything. The fact that you're actually reading the white paper puts you ahead of your average person. :)
The world domination remark is standard marketing hopefulness. These ICO whitepapers are often just a form of marketing, so I've gotten used to it. Most people wouldn't consider investing in a project that didn't at least claim to want to be largely successful. But yeah, details in terms of marketing promotions and such would be helpful, but it's still quite early on in the process (which is why I consider this a long-term speculation). Once the first full version of game is running, then I imagine things will ramp up in terms of partnerships with businesses and such.
Youthful optimism often changes the world so don't knock it too hard.
Again, thank you for comments. I enjoyed them.
This is literally a dream come true for gamers and game freaks (like me 😋) as well as crypto enthusiasts (still like me😋).
Crypto in gaming can sweep all other games of their feet just like what steemit is doing to other social networks.
I think this will be officially the first mobile crypto gaming platform if I'm not wrong, excluding online gland on web gaming platforms. I just hope the numbers of addicted gamers doesn't go on a spike😂.
Imagine getting paid to play a game. I even do it for hours without any payment😂....
Do you have any idea when the iPhone demo version will be released @lukestokes?
No idea, unfortunately. If it happens within the next 7 days, I'll update this post about it. Maybe I'll tweet it as well.
Alright, will be checking out for it.
A game involving crypto. That's two of the best things in the world right now lol. I could never play Pokemon go .I waited for it so long and then I couldn't play because it wasn't supported here. I hope to play cryptohunt. The demo is available in the playstore
Its like shooting 3 birds with one bullet. Player will earn money while enjoying and exercising... this is great until the time people creat a bot to walk like them. Like what happen with pokemon go before.
Power to the people Luke.
Check out the white paper's "Proof of Cheat" section where they want to reward people to find cheats in the game so they can continually improve it.
Game giving up crypto....man with each day passing i can see that money earning is becoming so easy....where was crypto all my life ....looks like i have wasted my life going to schools....
Just remember... what goes up can also go down. I remember when BTC when from $1,200 to $250 in 2014.
That said, yeah, school is kind of silly. :)
Real world use case and a demo version give some weight to this project. However, heavy dependence on external agencies can be a make or break zone for this nascent project. I wish them luck!
Which agencies do you mean? The KYC stuff or the maps integration or Apple/Google or something else?
I meant this part. External factors, if you will.