NFT

Jun 24 2019

Playing the Long Game

Since *everyone* is jumping on the “IT’S A BULL MARKET” bandwagon of late, we thought we’d take a step back for a half-second.

Sure, the trappings of a bull market are there: the quick runs northward, the new entrants, the “OMG HODL” chants. And the $11,000 mark sure is nice.

SO – SHAMELESS PLUG – AND CLEARLY MARKED AFFILIATE LINK: get some crypto over at Coinbase, will ya?

But the real purpose of this here post is…playing the long game. Which means doing a couple things — beyond the HODL moments everyone will tell you about, or the “put 1% of your overall net worth into crypto” that the experts will hit you upside the head with — that might not payoff for months or even years. That’s okay. Time to play the long game with us.

**Let’s be as blatant as possible with this warning: do your own research. Your experience will vary. Not a substitute for investment advice or legal advice. You are on your own — we are just sharing information.**

Long Game Idea 1: Megacryptopolis

I shared my predictions with my buddy Von Likenstien from VRUoT. I was most curious about my timeline, as I said that Megacryptopolis (NOTE: THAT’S AN AFFILIATE LINK) was going to be huge BUT it’s going to take a year.

Did he agree? And how does Megacryptopolis compare with Decentraland — that other interesting land-grab style virtual world game that became rather large a couple years back?

“The big difference,” he told me, “is that, instead of depending on novice programmers to build the system, MCP3D is a complete, robust system. Plus, its economy is closer to that of the Sims.” Taxation is another element that is well thought out in MCP3D, according to Von.

From my perch: I am really new to the virtual world thing, and I never really played the Sims. Nor did I get on board with whatever that virtual world was several years back (must have been huge, right? I forget the name). But there’s something intuitive about the virtual world of Megacryptopolis. And the idea of millions of Chinese users having access to the game on their mobile phones this fall is extremely compelling.

Time Horizon: Probably a Year.

Long Game Idea 2: NFT Artwork and Collectibles

This idea isn’t just one site to visit, it’s an entire concept: Non-Fungible Token (NFT) Artwork and Collectibles.

This particular subject came up when Von and I were trading notes about CryptoSkulls — likely because he sent me a message and said “get on this, bro.” So I did, and ended up with my very own CryptoSkull.

When I asked Von about my CryptoSkull, here was his response:

OpenSea is where a lot of these things get traded, and the fact that it’s a non-fungible token means that it’s really tough to counterfeit.

As always, with these types of things, you’ll use a tool like Metamask and your ETH will be safe (provided you keep track of your seed phrase and guard everything rather diligently).

Beyond CryptoSkulls, there are CryptoKitties and even the pets that come as part of your Citizen packs on Megacryptopolis.

Time Horizon: Immediate (ish) to Two Years*

*the reason we said “ish” up there is that, if you want to trade these things and try to make a buck or two, you most certainly can. OpenSea is one place to do trading — but it’s sorta thinly traded right now.

Long Game Idea 3: ENS

Ethereum Name Service is more than just a new top-level domain for the web. In fact, the TLD component is coming later — a year and a half away, according to Von — because the real reason behind ENS is to allow people to send crypto (Ethereum and ERC-20 and ERC-721 tokens) to each other without having to type out a really long address.

Here’s a long address from one of my accounts:

0xD0f4c9280D87ae84c2590164FA089487615Fb1c8

And here’s an ENS “shortener” for it:

jaimedimon.eth

(Yes, I know that Jamie Dimon spells his name “Jamie,” this misspelling was done for a variety of reasons, mostly for humor.)

Some of the domains are already trading, and it’s highly possible that big banks will want their own ENS, for defensive reasons and also to get into the crypto game easily.

Time Horizon: Immediate (flipping/trading) to Two Years

Long Game Idea 4: Urbit

When Von told me about this one, he said “it might blow your mind.” Honestly, it kinda did.

The primer on the Urbit site will tell you more — and it is quite clever — but it’s likely you may not totally understand exactly what they are doing here. (I sure didn’t at first glance. Or at second glance. I’m getting there, though…)

TL;DR from the site: it’s a completely different network of computers, of the internet, of the web. It has the potential to change the world of the web as you know it.

Galaxies are the big hubs — there are a small number of them — then stars, then planets (the addresses on which you build what appears to be your own personal server and bot machine thing). (Again, I’m not a programmer — so I’m trying to translate this from technical into not-so-technical.)

(If you believe the naysayers: this whole idea has taken forever and hasn’t gone anywhere in a dozen-plus years, so why bother.)

Me? I figured (again thanks to Von) that the thing I should do is at least get one of these limited-edition planet things and see what happens. Because there won’t be a ton of them; and each one not only has its own unique name (ours is ~larwyn-tadlen) but its own SYMBOL.

One of those green things could control your toaster someday.

In any event, this one won’t take off for some time — but, in case it does, we’ve at least been part of one of the early land grabs. The network effect here might mean that we’re A FEW YEARS from these things taking hold and being used by the masses. Still, for what was an inexpensive investment for now (less than a cup of coffee), it’s possible that you could see one of those symbols on the cover of a magazine at an airport with the caption of “you could have bought this for two dollars in 2019, now it’s worth a million.” (That year could be 2049, though.)

Time Horizon: Five years, at least.

So there you have it: ideas for you to play the long game with. Some may seem out there, tougher to grasp than the “buy gold” or “have you heard about pork bellies?” ideas of yesteryear. A chance for you to start playing the long game.

Apr 07 2019

How to Get Started with MegaCryptoPolis…

…AND will it be the next big thing in virtual worlds and non-fungible tokens?

I’ve been playing around more than a little with a site called MegaCryptoPolis, and, so far, I like what I see. The creators have taken the Sims, ratcheted up the look and feel, built virtual cities, thrown in economic incentives like scarcity and supply and demand, and…well, we’re thinking this one could take off. BTW, that up there is AN AFFILIATE LINK – so if you do sign up and buy stuff, we’ll get free stuff for referring you.

And it hasn’t really even launched yet: presale mode means you can still be one of the early adopters.

It will be interesting to see how this site answers a couple questions:

Can it take hold – like Decentraland once did – and will it bring scores of Chinese game players with it?
Will it explain to the world what people mean when they say “#NFT” in a way that doesn’t make people look at them funny?
Is the timing close to perfect – in that people are getting back into crypto after last year’s…uh…questionable performance of pretty much every coin?

So we’re going to come at this with a simple two-step plan – this will help you get started and dive in if you’re so inclined. Later – watch this space for more – we’re going to be a little more analytical: what parts of the game might take hold? Where should you be focusing your time? Does anyone with an “Astronaut” want to show their face just yet?

Let’s Take a Closer Look…

First up, though, ANOTHER AFFILIATE LINK: if you HAVEN’T gotten your free crypto from Coinbase, what are you waiting for? And, if you have already gotten it, maybe you’ll want to learn about Stellar Lumens and get more free crypto?

Okay, back to #MCP3D. It’s a game that has been around for a year or so, and appeared to be in build mode during last year’s Crypto Winter. Now that the world has warmed up to the concept of real projects and has thumbed its collective noses at scams and s**tcoins, projects like MegaCryptoPolis have a real chance of getting it right – and leveraging things like Chinese users (!!!) and virtual worlds (Fortnite without the fighting) to create real economies.

You buy real estate and, when the game launches, you get your Citizens to manage that real estate. Our sense, a couple weeks in to our experiment, is that both are pretty important. But you can’t even get started in the game without Citizens, so let’s begin there.

Step One: Get Started in MCP3D with a Citizen Pack

MCP3D Packs — Four packs from #MCP3D – you need Citizens to play the game

You’re going to get at least three things in a pack – one is a Citizen, and that’s someone with scores in the big six properties (Strength, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, and Luck) on which citizens are graded. If you luck out, as I did in my first pack, you’ll end up with a Professional.

You’ll also get a couple other things in your pack. The basic 3-pack includes a citizen and a couple random items, but if you buy the higher-priced packs, the guarantees make it more worthwhile; my last purchase was a Mayor pack, and here’s what it guaranteed me.

And here’s my pet:

Anyway, the key here is that without citizens, you’re not in the game. Once you have citizens, you can get real estate. [EDITOR’S NOTE (APRIL 29): We’ve been told on the Discord Channel that you DO NOT NEED Citizens to buy real estate.] The other big thing: these are “Generation A Citizens,” so they are rarer. “Generation A Citizens have maximum stamina,” per the website. So there you go – if you’re going to get Citizens to make your time in MegaCryptopolis worthwhile, you’re probably going to want to get them now.

Pro Tip: Use Airdrops That You Forgot About to Get ETH.

I spent about a week, off and on, going to various sites like Poloniex, COSS, Binance, and ForkDelta to find some of the really random coins that were sitting there unused. It paid off: I’m not out of pocket more than a few bucks from my actual wallet.

In other words, I can build a house with house money. Which brings us to Step Two.

Step Two: Buy Real Estate

Time to become a Real Estate Equity Baron!

Let’s look at a house in one of the Districts in the game: this one is District 43 and it’s a high-tax District – so properties here pay more into the tax revenues; those revenues then pay more into owners’ pockets.

The owner of this particular lot – it’s not me, by the way – has a pretty good location, near a lot of green space and what looks like a public reflector pool or some such.

Here are the particulars on this property:

Here’s a smart game player, we think: he acquired this property for less than 0.02 ETH (around a latte in the States) and he’s looking to sell it to make a profit. So there could be a little “pump and dump” here – or he could be looking to move the proceeds into another district of strategic importance.

Where Should You Acquire Property?

Great question: we don’t know yet. District 43 looks smart for the tax-friendly reasons we talked about above. Other districts may have better location, some of them could make sense if they’re cheaper but you can acquire more property. We don’t know.

We do know that property seems to be acquired rather regularly in a District called “Bounty Island.” And if you enter the Bounty Campaign, you could end up with some of that property for free – or you could take it off the hands of a willing seller.

And…WHAT NEXT?

We’d invite you to study the White Paper – there’s much more to come from this game. But the big things are these, from our vantage point.

The game itself hasn’t really launched. So acquiring assets NOW gives you a potential strategic advantage for when it does.
The 3D game, on mobile phones, being used by millions of Chinese players, could make it REALLY interesting.

Watch This Space for More

We’ve had some fun interacting with others who are early adopters in this game – and it is, for now, just that: a game.

But the potential is rather large. So MegaCryptoPolis might just take off.

NFT