![](https://i.ibb.co/BHhwk35/Screen-Shot-2022-03-03-at-21-55-39.png)

Gavin Wood did a fantastic interview on The Defiant covering the basics of Polkadot. Most of what was said covers the basics of Polkadot, Substrate, and Kusama, and it serves as a good video to introduce individuals to the dotsama ecosystem.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-avBxG3u0ik

Here is a write up of the highlights for those who aren’t able to watch the 1.5 hr video.

----------------

# Gavin

Gavin is one of the original eight founders and CTO of Ethereum. He’s the founder of Polkadot, which is a Layer 0 blockchain, and the 6th largest POS chain. 

Gavin first heard of crypto in 2011, and in 2013, he was reminded about crypto through an article in the Guardian about cypherpunks. It was written in a romantic way, about how cypherpunks were taking on the giants of the world, and challenging the broken financial systems. Coupled with the recent financial collapse, the media around the silk road, and he was motivated to reach out to some of the people featured in the article.

After attending a meetup, he came to believe that blockchain would disrupt the world, so he wanted to learn more. He believes that to truly understand something, you have to build on it and implement ideas, so when Jonny Bitcoin—a friend to Vitalik—approached him with the ETH whitepaper, by Dec 2013 (just a few months after the meetup) his curiosity led him to start coding it days later. No one else understood it better at the time, so he became CTO of ETH. They set up a Swiss foundation from there, and the rest is history.

Despite the industry’s focus on finance, Gavin is most interested in Web 3.0. Web 3, to Gavin, is not crypto, but decentralization. The measure of Web 3.0’s success would be if a new developer is looking to build, and they choose web 3, rather than web 2, by default.

It was at the end of 2016 and beginning of 2017 that Gavin made the choice to leave ETH and found Parity. He had been considering a number of ideas around ETH, and he would have liked to stay on ETH, if such a thing were possible, but since it wasn’t, he decided to leave ETH and work on Polkadot.


# Polkadot


Polkadot was named this way because of the idea that there’s no center to a polkadot pattern. In most other images, there’s a definitive center to the icon. But polkadots are everywhere. 

Polkadot is also playful, and not a term that sounds like complicated math or SF concepts. He feels this is important to appealing to the mainstream.

Gavin believes that Web Assembly, a language that allows webpages to specify computer programs to work on any browser, fast, was an important tool to harness.

He believes that governance should be transparent and open and on chain, with clear rules, which was an issue with ETH (governance on ETH was wishy washy and opaque, fairly centralized since ETH foundation determines which hard fork is "correct", and done offline without clear rules). Governance used to be constrained to in-person, but with blockchain, new models can be discovered.

He believes that sharded chains (parachains) are not only the scaling solution, but each shard should be specialized. 

Right now, with most Layer 1s, the foundational smart contract layer is not best suited for every app. This means that developers and users aren’t getting the best experience for their apps because they have to fit the requirements of the smart contract layer rather than building for the best user experience.

With all this in mind, Gavin built Polkadot, a layer 0 relay chain that is focused on proving the security layer to the chains built on top of it. This way, each shard can have its own system that is best suited for what it is trying to achieve. Polkadot has an on-chain governance system that will allow for upgradability without hard forks, with clear rules that are transparent and followed.

The distinguishing elements of Polkadot are that it is a Web Assembly, Consensus Algo, State machine of Shards. This means that to attack any shard, the attacker needs to attack the security layer, or all of Polkadot, which is a big challenge. The shards can operate in parallel, and Polkadot focuses on passing simple messages.

On Polkadot, a shard can choose to have smart contracts or not, or specialize in NFTs only, or defi only. Some shards need high throughput, and others can be highly experimental with different smart contract models.

It is experimentation which makes blockchain great, and Polkadot can have a hundred different experiments, not tied to one smart contract design. Every parachain can makes its own design decisions.

 Substrate is a parachain framework (toolkit), that is highly modular, so that developers can quickly adopt and build on Polkadot.
 
 Kusama is a canary network. It is meant for ideas to be tried in a live environment before putting it on polkadot. Polkadot is high value network, and the risks should be minimized as much as possible as systems are complex and it is hard to predict every issue with certainty. Kusama allows for comparable complexity with a substantial economy behind it, ready for live testing. Additionally, Kusama has more validators on it, with generally lower-tier equipment because of its lower returns.
 
 Most new governance ideas are on Kusama, and there are several experiments to determine the best way to bring people together to participate. There are many areas to investigate, such as checks and balances, different speeds of governance execution, etc.


# Scaling

There is a limit to parachains, almost certainly, but they haven’t found it and it can be further optimized as necessary.

The more parachains that are added, the more the network effect, and therefore the more messages that need to be passed between chains. It is a snowball effect, which means that complexity is exponentially growing and message passing becomes more expensive.

That said, the original idea that 100 parachains was the limit is no longer true. Gavin believes 100-250 parachains is a realistic number. The limit is based on how expensive it becomes too pass messages on Polkadot.

It’s also possible that the scaling limit won’t be the message passing, but the validating and consensus limit. Since all validators need to speak to each other, there needs to be 10x the number of validators as the number of parachains, at least. This means that after some point, the equipment will become so specialized that it isn’t realistic for a normal actor to participate, and that would cause centralization.

He believes, however, that 1 million transactions per second is definitely feasible. With specialized shards and parallelization, tasks best suited to each shard can be done with higher efficiency than on a single layer 1. Additionally, adding on a layer 1.5, where chains can choose and create their own consensus layer, 100 million transactions per second is feasible with that model.



# User Experience and Adoption

Users don’t want to use ETH or the platform token. Users don’t care about the platform they are on. They care about the application they want to use. Right now, the standard is that you have to learn about the application AND the base layer that the application is on.

With Polkadot, people won’t be forced to use or understand the base layer. Gavin believes that it’s important not to get between the developers and the users. On Polkadot, applications can interact with the users directly.

It is Gavin’s opinion that major disruption by his definition still hasn’t happened. He believes that it needs to be tested in a way where it does not become prey to centralized interests, and shows itself as absolutely necessary. 

This means that it will either outperform existing systems by a large margin, or, it will be the solution to a crisis.



# Tokenomics
 
 DOT’s value is built into the structure of Polkadot, but it’s not something regular users need to know. The demand for DOT comes from the parachain leases. In order to have a parachain slot, each parachain needs to lock up a number of DOT through an auction. It is similar to land being leased. The difference is that the DOT token is locked up, and is not a payment. It is guaranteed to be returned at the end of the lease.
 
 In order to have enough DOT, each parachain can either provide the DOT themselves, or they can crowdloan it by providing incentives to their loaners. There’s no set form to do this. Some have chosen to give loaners tokens. Other models could be through giving NFTs, or giving special access to become a collator, or appeal to user’s future income, or give increased functionality or discounts to crowdloaners.
 
 This lockup, and the demand for Polkadot’s security and toolset, is what creates demand for the DOT token.
 
 
#  Other discussion points
 
 Vitalik has spoken about bridges being a major area of concern, and Gavin agrees. Broadly speaking, bridges have an inverse network effect. When they become important, with enough traffic, they will be attacked and break. To architect an ecosystem over bridges is asking for trouble. If you try to connect blockchains without a secure consensus layer, then sooner or later, something will break.
 
 It would not be far fetched to imagine that the future will only have a few layer 1s being used, and a couple layer 0s that secure the rest of the blockchain ecosystem.
 
 The winner will be the best platform for developers, and the most secure one. As far as Gavin knows, there aren’t really other chains that allow applications to market their services to their users without getting them to buy into the platform they are launching on.
 
 If the system is fair and transparent and does what it says, it is unlikely that there will be a need for another system. The security is part of the network effect, similar to messaging. The more messages that are passed, the more valuable the network. If, however, there is a weak point, then that weak point will be passed like a message down the line, similar to the 2008 financial crisis. If the initial design is broken, the rug is pulled from the wider industry.
 
 Critics of web 3 may not realize that web 3.0 is not crypto. It’s decentralization. It guarantees expectations are met without needing to trust anyone. Building trust into everything is laziness, and corruptible. If you give yourself the power of god, it’s easier, of course.

But when you have powerful people who are trying to kill free societies, and basic rights, then these tools protect our freedoms as a society.

If you appreciated this work, feel free to send KSM donations to: D8WrK1jsFy9zpFwFZStaDTmX32pMZVdwXTm5rt9LsRKBQrz

bafyreibhjhhnddav26ypesc3jgzpddnwawpjkknznr2kjanuzvthm5xjcm

A summary of Gavin Wood's Interview on the Defiant


For those who haven’t heard of Tricky NFTs, they are cutting edge, experimental NFTs that are designed to see what is possible in the NFT space, especially on the RMRK standard.

At the time of launch, there was very little information. In fact, there was no clear information. But as more clues have been dropped, digital sleuthing has inspired the community to move from “What are these posters that look like a 10 year old drew them” into, “I wonder what these will become.”

Tricky has always incentivized the curious with lower entry prices, and rewards for early adopters, and the [WANTED!!! GG! DEAD OR ALIVE collection](https://singular.rmrk.app/collections/9ecdab6f55355b191a-GAMMA/?ref=D8WrK1jsFy9zpFwFZStaDTmX32pMZVdwXTm5rt9LsRKBQrz) has risen to an impressive top 10 position in highest volume on Singular Marketplace, all based off of Tricky’s reputation, and his chaotic madman (or genius?) scribblings.

![](https://i.ibb.co/T4j1k0N/scribbles.jpg)

With RMRK 2.0 arriving, Some of Tricky’s collections are already launched on Singular 2.0, with a low-entry “learn how this RMRK 2.0 stuff works” collection that’ll cost a couple bucks for anyone to experience. It’s also easy to gift, so hit me up if you want a demo piece and you don’t want to pay the .03 KSM entry fee.

There is, however, an[ “OG” collection](https://singular.app/collections/388c3c690f11554553-RMRK2XP/?ref=D8WrK1jsFy9zpFwFZStaDTmX32pMZVdwXTm5rt9LsRKBQrz) in the above collection that is more of a collector’s item–demonstrating your early adoption of some of the first RMRK 2.0 compatible NFTs. There are also several mysterious collections he’s begun to release that promise missions, gameplay, and of course–riddles galore, all built around the nested NFTs of RMRK 2.0 which is detailed on his subsocial.

![](https://i.ibb.co/yhyqg5t/Screen-Shot-2022-03-05-at-22-58-22.png)

Anyway, along with beta birds, hideouts, bubble collections and gamma gangs–there are a lot of terms, puzzles, and mystery. In the NFT world, there are a number of projects that are trying to find the balance between authentic community engagement, and too many barriers to entry. I don’t know about you, but my time is severely limited, and if a project is asking for too much from me to “prove” my interest, well…I’m more likely to walk the other direction.

So, for all of y’all who felt like Tricky’s mysteries were just too much, this article is for you. We’re here recap the adventure and riddles (some still unsolved) around Tricky’s alignment to Kusama’s “Expect Chaos” approach. It’s an awe-inspiring unraveling, if I do say so myself.


**HUGE thanks to Eikas (Twitter: @eikas20) who, in full admission, solved almost all of these riddles and did all the real work behind this article.**


----------------


I first lightly covered Tricky NFTs in this article: 
https://app.subsocial.network/5892/some-total-degen-nft-finds-dead-or-alive-mao-snails-pi-ps-31039, but it turns out that I was still late to the party compared to Eikas.



He tracks down Tricky’s first tweet to here:

# November 27, 2021

A tweet appears. https://twitter.com/Tricky_NFTs/status/1464360652085121024 

![](https://i.ibb.co/nbtw6SB/1.png)

“A dive into Tricky NFT’s ksm address shows this extrinsic, a system remark written to the kusama blockchain. 

“The key part is this: ‘2.0.0 = as in, a RMRK 2 NFT - was minted.’

“This would be the first of its kind, excluding the original Kanaria birds. It was a collection of 42 (collection size was only visible on-chain at this time) called ‘THE_Beta_Birds’, alongside a collection called ‘The Bubbles’ that can be equipped onto the Beta Birds.

RMRK::CREATE::2.0.0::{"max":42,"issuer":"GAYBQX5f7NXS4dv5EnL7NRSGLnAQmoDqajx998nYLv8QoJT","symbol":"THE_Beta_Birds","id":"9ecdab6f55355b191a-THE_Beta_Birds","metadata":"ipfs://ipfs/bafybeiegqhzqtwcbkxcvfzssdc2idstwbtqx26xpkzct4ec55qdqp67m74/BetaBirdCollection.json"}



# November 28, 2021

Tricky NFT tweets this: https://twitter.com/Tricky_NFTs/status/1464754429845020675

![](https://i.ibb.co/4f4r2kC/2.png)


“The first equippable non-kanaria RMRK 2.0 NFT’s were minted. There were seven in total,  #00-06 Beta Birds were minted and distributed to the RMRK core team and #0 for Tricky.

# December 5, 2021

Tricky NFT tweets that all 42 Beta Birds have been minted and are ready to leave the nest. What could this mean? https://twitter.com/Tricky_NFTs/status/1467573278092967938

![](https://i.ibb.co/ns8ms4B/Screen-Shot-2022-03-06-at-16-44-30.png)

# December 6, 2021
A mysterious collection from Tricky NFT in Singular marketplace appears. It’s called [**‘Code Crumbles’** ](https://singular.rmrk.app/collections/9ecdab6f55355b191a-CODE%20CRUMBLES/?ref=D8WrK1jsFy9zpFwFZStaDTmX32pMZVdwXTm5rt9LsRKBQrz)

“There are a total of 41 identical NFT pieces, only available from numbers 9-41. Hindsight shows that this was rather obvious, but note that collection size was only visible on-chain at the time. 

“The collection started from #9, but Beta Birds had 7 distributed (if you guessed that tricky got 0, without on-chain snooping). So what happened to #8? 

“It seems this was later distributed to https://twitter.com/martin__jensen Could this be a Co-founder of Tricky NFT?

![](https://i.ibb.co/4VFKhz8/3.png)

“From the image, we can see that it has obvious crumbles of code in it. It’s rather hard to see visibly from the image. However it was possible to download the image and see that it was in .svg file format.

“Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is a web-friendly vector file format. As opposed to pixel-based raster files like JPEGs, vector files store images via mathematical formulas based on points and lines on a grid.”

“This image format can be opened in a simple text editor to find the code within that constructs the image. In this code a hint was found (same code is visualized in the image as a bird).

RMRK::MINT::2.0.0::%7B%22collection%22%3A%229ecdab6f55355b191a-THE_Beta_Birds%22%2C%22symbol%22%3A%22TheBIRD%22%2C%22transferable%22%3A1%2C%22sn%22%3A%2200000002%22%2C%22metadata%22%3A%22ipfs%3A%2F%2Fipfs%2Fbafybeiegqhzqtwcbkxcvfzssdc2idstwbtqx26xpkzct4ec55qdqp67m74%2FBetaBirdMeta.json%22%7D

**“Cleaned up, you can see this:**

RMRK::MINT::2.0.0::{"collection":"9ecdab6f55355b191a-THE_Beta_Birds","symbol":"TheBIRD","transferable":1,"sn":"00000002","metadata":"ipfs://ipfs/bafybeiegqhzqtwcbkxcvfzssdc2idstwbtqx26xpkzct4ec55qdqp67m74/BetaBirdMeta.json"}

“This is an extrinsic, a system remark that essentially says, ‘Mint RMRK2 NFT in the collection THE Beta Birds with ID #2 and here is the metadata in ipfs server (image, description etc.)”.

“This was a very clear hint alongside the collection size + same creator, that these Code Crumble NFT’s will represent actual Beta Birds. As in by buying one, you will be airdropped later the actual Beta Bird once it is released. It is kind of like an egg.

“The Code Crumbles collection was sold out in a matter of days, at the listed 5 KSM price. 

“Interestingly though, crumbles #24, #26, #27 and #32 were never listed for sale. Does this mean there are still four Beta birds still out there?”

Much of Eikas findings are straight up on-chain stalking. This is one of the beautiful things about blockchain, though.

![](https://i.ibb.co/9tKPH02/tricky-address-screen.png)
![](https://i.ibb.co/t8GPDWc/Tricky-public-address-2.png)
![](https://i.ibb.co/5FT8980/Tricky-public-address.png)


# December 11, 2021

“A new tweet appears. It seems to be a wanted poster for a bird. What could this mean?” https://twitter.com/Tricky_NFTs/status/1469788760040779777 


![](https://i.ibb.co/TcVk2GS/5.png)

# December 13, 2021

“A collection appears in Singular marketplace ‘WANTED!!! GG! DEAD OR ALIVE’ https://singular.rmrk.app/collections/9ecdab6f55355b191a-GAMMA

“At first, 100 NFT posters were minted with listed names as ‘Jolly [GG]’. The pricing for each ranged from 0.3 to 0.6 KSM. Many were bought in the coming days, but not all - especially the higher priced ones. Essentially, the sooner you purchased it, the cheaper you got it, as the posters were identical otherwise.

“In the coming days between December and January of 2022, a total of 10 posters were released every few weeks with the same pricing theme. The price increased as time went on for the new poster listing, the last one being 1.2 KSM at the cheapest. In February, all posters also went through price waves of the floor increasing; currently the cheapest ones run at 2 KSM.


**Tricky explains: **


"Why the strange pricing structure? The zero knowledge presale phase had a stepped price system. The entry price was low, allowing early adopters and believers, even if they had just a small bag of KSM, to get some NFTs. With the ongoing hidden parts of knowledge the pricing got higher. This article is the end of the zero knowledge presale phase."


**Eikas continues:**

“During the release of the posters in December and January, hints were dropped on tweets by Tricky, and the images themselves also included hints hidden within the .svg file format code, shown below. Each poster description also held a hint, that we have not figured out yet (far as we know it does contain info that is already out there).

Jolly = No hint (?)

DaVinci = “GAMMA GANG GAMMA GANG GAMMA GANG”

Bonnie = “RMRK2”

Chad = “1% AIRDROP CHANCE”

Mary = “EQUIPPABLE COLLECTION”

Hell = “Each bird unique”

Hook= 
☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠
☠10 character classes with shared as well as class-specific items☠
☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠

Coca = 
☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠
☠all the 10 characters can be used as CAPTAIN ☠
☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠

GG-1337 = “POSTER = BIRDPOSTER = BIRDPOSTER = BIRD”

Cpt. Tricky = “2022-02-02” and this ASCII art below hidden in the SVG.


“At the time, these hints would reveal that these birds in the posters were called ‘Gamma Gang’, built on a RMRK 2.0 equippable collection. Each bird is unique. 1% Airdrop chance? And each of these 10 Birds has a unique class, with unique class-specific equippable items. And, any of the 10 Birds can be used as Captain. Each poster represents one bird (airdropped later perhaps) and finally, there was a date in the future - the 2nd of February, 2022. 

![](https://i.ibb.co/YD4GWCW/6.png)

# December 15, 2022
On Tricky's tweets, he links to a Youtube video along with his poster drop with the song "In My Eyes" by Steve B.

![](https://i.ibb.co/KsyFHMF/Screen-Shot-2022-03-07-at-12-44-19.png)

![](https://i.ibb.co/M23nKCr/Screen-Shot-2022-03-07-at-12-44-26.png)

# February 2, 2022


“The first subsocial article appears from Tricky NFT with ‘Part 1, Introducing the Gamma Gang!’ 

“More articles appeared throughout February, detailing several mysteries about the Gamma Gang. This is where Part 1 ended, but with several hints left about being early, doing detective work, and early birds getting the worm.

GAMMA GANG GAMMA GANG GAMMA GANG 
https://app.subsocial.network/5799 


**“Here are the visualized hints:**

**DaVinci:** Hidden in the background of the SVG, and reversed, the text GAMMA GANG repeats.

![](https://i.ibb.co/qsgNbN4/7.png)


**Bonnie:**

Hidden in her eyes, the text RMRK2 appears, (color changed to red for visibility).

![](https://i.ibb.co/9YSc0Wk/8.png)



**Chad:**

Hidden in his eyes. 1% Airdrop chance.

![](https://i.ibb.co/8m5jpJF/9.png)


**Mary:**

Hidden in her eyes, highlighted red for visibility. Equippable collection

![](https://i.ibb.co/cF9rbKm/10.png)


**Hell:**

Hidden in its eyes. Each bird unique

![](https://i.ibb.co/NL9bg6y/11.png)


**Hook:**

Twitter hinted at .svg file format. When looking at the code, you can see the hint commented out.


**Coca:**

the hint was hidden in comments at the .svg code


**GG-1337:**

The hint was a half moon. Light and Dark. When looking at the poster in Singular, using dark mode, you can see the binary code behind the poster. Translated, it gives the hint of 02-02

![](https://i.ibb.co/QPK7Y13/12.png)



**CPT. TRICKY:**

The hint on twitter was hourglass emoji, or time. Waiting for 10 seconds to pass, the poster begins to animate. When the animation ends, a screen appears with binary code and roman numerals. Both combined bring up a date, 02-02-2022: the day the subsocial page was created. During the animation, the numbers 20 14 1 are also highlighted for some reason. 

![](https://i.ibb.co/xYr26R5/13.png)


-----------------

Since, Tricky has released his experimental collection, however, at the time, we thought it was another mystery to jump on. We decided to mint before Singular 2.0 was available.

What the below shows is Eikas walking through how to purchase the “freebie” NFTs he launched later, using polkadot.js.

![](https://i.ibb.co/HV8YgNb/Mint-from-js.png)
![](https://i.ibb.co/cLDG6p3/Screen-Shot-2022-02-28-at-10-58-03.png)
![](https://i.ibb.co/1sJ1b7v/Mint-from-js-2.png)
![](https://i.ibb.co/ngww5kd/Mint-from-js-3.png)

And then, how I was out-sniped by Plx5 7 minutes before I purchased.

![](https://i.ibb.co/rGrXYJ1/already-minted.png)

Whatever the case, even though it proved to not be an actual first to snipe situation, it was fun learning a new skill.


**Tricky’s latest image drop in his discord is this: **

![](https://i.ibb.co/vwTBXjz/Birdonomics.png)

He describes what this means here:
https://app.subsocial.network/5799/gamma-gang-part-x-birdonomics-31738


It’s nice to get some clarity!

His other recent subsocial post describes much of the gamification we can expect coming up through **missions**--and you'll see that the mysteries are far from over! In fact...some missions might already be out?

https://app.subsocial.network/5799/gamma-gang-part-ix-tricky-mission-system-31733


# Suprises Down the Dirt Roads

As with all research, it’s easy to find yourself down a dirt road–but sometimes, you find some interesting tidbits along the way. Such as–what’s this? A connection between Tricky and Skylab?

![](https://i.ibb.co/5cjQKzS/Skylab-1.png)
![](https://i.ibb.co/xqQv2B5/Skylab-2.png)

![](https://i.ibb.co/LZk1zgg/Theories.png)


# Actually Pointless Dirt Roads

The written descriptions truly puzzled us for the longest time. Each poster had a seemingly random set of characters. 

However, when putting all the descriptions together, and aligning them vertically next to one another, we found this:

![](https://i.ibb.co/MgcRxfG/IMG-1170.png)

![](https://i.ibb.co/hV9Byty/tricky.png)

**Eikas says:**

“Cpt. Tricky has description 20 14 1. This is the hint. In alphabetic numbers it is "TNA" or what we know as ‘Tricky NFT Art’.

“In Leet, 0010001 in binary is ‘!’

“All the previous ones are just set of characters, I believe. The first one is either 12 or 24 underscores. Then 5 dots, 5 x, 6 +, 6 circles. So it could be something like "XEEFFI!TNA" 

“The first two could be morse with _ . I do think the "hint" will actually make sense instead of XEEFFI. Tricky has said that we’ll know when we found a hint, so this is still not the right answer.

“Underscore_underscore_dot is GG actually!!

“GG//!TNA is my closest guess. x+0 graphs in math to / and | vertical bar is also used in math as divider /. Double // is often commenting in code. ! is used in code as "is not" GG is not TNA? Huh?”

**To which I replied:**

“If it's like the rest, it's probably !”

**Eikas:**

“Oh? ‘GG!!TNA’ makes more sense.There are lots of double !! in the wanted poster names, too. welp that’s the description mystery solved. Might be useful at some point, but I can’t figure out where to use it atm.

And of course, me flailing about as I imported every image and played with each layer, trying to unmask clues that were already visible in the metadata (duh)--and, coming up with things that were very unlikely. I was convinced that because the loops each had an empty spot in each image, that it must mean that if you overlaid it with a map, then it was a treasure map... I think I was stretching a bit.

I'm also theorizing that Mary, the only bird without a GG after her name, is significant?

We'll find out.

![](https://i.ibb.co/pw420Nk/Dirt-road.png)

![](https://i.ibb.co/N10bKwz/Dirt-road-2.png)

![](https://i.ibb.co/GWjvKxB/Screen-Shot-2022-02-13-at-15-42-54.png)

![](https://i.ibb.co/zbk93vy/Screen-Shot-2022-02-13-at-15-42-01.png)

I hope y’all enjoyed this adventure. You can find Tricky’s collection on Singular 1.0 (there’s still time)[ here.](https://singular.rmrk.app/collections/9ecdab6f55355b191a-GAMMA/?ref=D8WrK1jsFy9zpFwFZStaDTmX32pMZVdwXTm5rt9LsRKBQrz)

And, even if the art isn't your cup of tea, I will say the tech and the updates have been shipping faster than most NFT collections, and it's clear that Tricky's got this planned from top to bottom.

**Donations for this article are appreciated. KSM can be sent here: 
D8WrK1jsFy9zpFwFZStaDTmX32pMZVdwXTm5rt9LsRKBQrz**

**Or to Eikas here:
Hq7g2Xia3Aoyc21dXvz7Zkjzd2q8ZM6jqJs4Y7nP2YCHyca**



bafyreietahpeqx4ckhi6jphy77nqpmxf6dgxmh74eea46xaosju2ydtt4q

Tricky NFTs: A Follow Up to This Mysterious Collection

For those who haven’t heard of Tricky NFTs, they are cutting edge, experimental NFTs that are designed to see what is possible in the NFT space, especially on the RMRK standard.

At the time of launch, there was very little information. In fact, there was no clear information. But as more clues have been dropped, digital sleuthing has inspired the community to move from “What are these posters that look like a 10 year old drew them” into, “I wonder what these will become.”

Tricky has always incentivized the curious with lower entry prices, and rewards for early adopters, and the [WANTED!!! GG! DEAD OR ALIVE collection](https://singular.rmrk.app/collections/9ecdab6f55355b191a-GAMMA/?ref=D8WrK1jsFy9zpFwFZStaDTmX32pMZVdwXTm5rt9LsRKBQrz) has risen to an impressive top 10 position in highest volume on Singular Marketplace, all based off of Tricky’s reputation, and his chaotic madman (or genius?) scribblings.

![](https://i.ibb.co/T4j1k0N/scribbles.jpg)

With RMRK 2.0 arriving, Some of Tricky’s collections are already launched on Singular 2.0, with a low-entry “learn how this RMRK 2.0 stuff works” collection that’ll cost a couple bucks for anyone to experience. It’s also easy to gift, so hit me up if you want a demo piece and you don’t want to pay the .03 KSM entry fee.

There is, however, an[ “OG” collection](https://singular.app/collections/388c3c690f11554553-RMRK2XP/?ref=D8WrK1jsFy9zpFwFZStaDTmX32pMZVdwXTm5rt9LsRKBQrz) in the above collection that is more of a collector’s item–demonstrating your early adoption of some of the first RMRK 2.0 compatible NFTs. There are also several mysterious collections he’s begun to release that promise missions, gameplay, and of course–riddles galore, all built around the nested NFTs of RMRK 2.0 which is detailed on his subsocial.

![](https://i.ibb.co/yhyqg5t/Screen-Shot-2022-03-05-at-22-58-22.png)

Anyway, along with beta birds, hideouts, bubble collections and gamma gangs–there are a lot of terms, puzzles, and mystery. In the NFT world, there are a number of projects that are trying to find the balance between authentic community engagement, and too many barriers to entry. I don’t know about you, but my time is severely limited, and if a project is asking for too much from me to “prove” my interest, well…I’m more likely to walk the other direction.

So, for all of y’all who felt like Tricky’s mysteries were just too much, this article is for you. We’re here recap the adventure and riddles (some still unsolved) around Tricky’s alignment to Kusama’s “Expect Chaos” approach. It’s an awe-inspiring unraveling, if I do say so myself.


**HUGE thanks to Eikas (Twitter: @eikas20) who, in full admission, solved almost all of these riddles and did all the real work behind this article.**


----------------


I first lightly covered Tricky NFTs in this article: 
https://app.subsocial.network/5892/some-total-degen-nft-finds-dead-or-alive-mao-snails-pi-ps-31039, but it turns out that I was still late to the party compared to Eikas.



He tracks down Tricky’s first tweet to here:

# November 27, 2021

A tweet appears. https://twitter.com/Tricky_NFTs/status/1464360652085121024 

![](https://i.ibb.co/nbtw6SB/1.png)

“A dive into Tricky NFT’s ksm address shows this extrinsic, a system remark written to the kusama blockchain. 

“The key part is this: ‘2.0.0 = as in, a RMRK 2 NFT - was minted.’

“This would be the first of its kind, excluding the original Kanaria birds. It was a collection of 42 (collection size was only visible on-chain at this time) called ‘THE_Beta_Birds’, alongside a collection called ‘The Bubbles’ that can be equipped onto the Beta Birds.

RMRK::CREATE::2.0.0::{"max":42,"issuer":"GAYBQX5f7NXS4dv5EnL7NRSGLnAQmoDqajx998nYLv8QoJT","symbol":"THE_Beta_Birds","id":"9ecdab6f55355b191a-THE_Beta_Birds","metadata":"ipfs://ipfs/bafybeiegqhzqtwcbkxcvfzssdc2idstwbtqx26xpkzct4ec55qdqp67m74/BetaBirdCollection.json"}



# November 28, 2021

Tricky NFT tweets this: https://twitter.com/Tricky_NFTs/status/1464754429845020675

![](https://i.ibb.co/4f4r2kC/2.png)


“The first equippable non-kanaria RMRK 2.0 NFT’s were minted. There were seven in total,  #00-06 Beta Birds were minted and distributed to the RMRK core team and #0 for Tricky.

# December 5, 2021

Tricky NFT tweets that all 42 Beta Birds have been minted and are ready to leave the nest. What could this mean? https://twitter.com/Tricky_NFTs/status/1467573278092967938

![](https://i.ibb.co/ns8ms4B/Screen-Shot-2022-03-06-at-16-44-30.png)

# December 6, 2021
A mysterious collection from Tricky NFT in Singular marketplace appears. It’s called [**‘Code Crumbles’** ](https://singular.rmrk.app/collections/9ecdab6f55355b191a-CODE%20CRUMBLES/?ref=D8WrK1jsFy9zpFwFZStaDTmX32pMZVdwXTm5rt9LsRKBQrz)

“There are a total of 41 identical NFT pieces, only available from numbers 9-41. Hindsight shows that this was rather obvious, but note that collection size was only visible on-chain at the time. 

“The collection started from #9, but Beta Birds had 7 distributed (if you guessed that tricky got 0, without on-chain snooping). So what happened to #8? 

“It seems this was later distributed to https://twitter.com/martin__jensen Could this be a Co-founder of Tricky NFT?

![](https://i.ibb.co/4VFKhz8/3.png)

“From the image, we can see that it has obvious crumbles of code in it. It’s rather hard to see visibly from the image. However it was possible to download the image and see that it was in .svg file format.

“Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is a web-friendly vector file format. As opposed to pixel-based raster files like JPEGs, vector files store images via mathematical formulas based on points and lines on a grid.”

“This image format can be opened in a simple text editor to find the code within that constructs the image. In this code a hint was found (same code is visualized in the image as a bird).

RMRK::MINT::2.0.0::%7B%22collection%22%3A%229ecdab6f55355b191a-THE_Beta_Birds%22%2C%22symbol%22%3A%22TheBIRD%22%2C%22transferable%22%3A1%2C%22sn%22%3A%2200000002%22%2C%22metadata%22%3A%22ipfs%3A%2F%2Fipfs%2Fbafybeiegqhzqtwcbkxcvfzssdc2idstwbtqx26xpkzct4ec55qdqp67m74%2FBetaBirdMeta.json%22%7D

**“Cleaned up, you can see this:**

RMRK::MINT::2.0.0::{"collection":"9ecdab6f55355b191a-THE_Beta_Birds","symbol":"TheBIRD","transferable":1,"sn":"00000002","metadata":"ipfs://ipfs/bafybeiegqhzqtwcbkxcvfzssdc2idstwbtqx26xpkzct4ec55qdqp67m74/BetaBirdMeta.json"}

“This is an extrinsic, a system remark that essentially says, ‘Mint RMRK2 NFT in the collection THE Beta Birds with ID #2 and here is the metadata in ipfs server (image, description etc.)”.

“This was a very clear hint alongside the collection size + same creator, that these Code Crumble NFT’s will represent actual Beta Birds. As in by buying one, you will be airdropped later the actual Beta Bird once it is released. It is kind of like an egg.

“The Code Crumbles collection was sold out in a matter of days, at the listed 5 KSM price. 

“Interestingly though, crumbles #24, #26, #27 and #32 were never listed for sale. Does this mean there are still four Beta birds still out there?”

Much of Eikas findings are straight up on-chain stalking. This is one of the beautiful things about blockchain, though.

![](https://i.ibb.co/9tKPH02/tricky-address-screen.png)
![](https://i.ibb.co/t8GPDWc/Tricky-public-address-2.png)
![](https://i.ibb.co/5FT8980/Tricky-public-address.png)


# December 11, 2021

“A new tweet appears. It seems to be a wanted poster for a bird. What could this mean?” https://twitter.com/Tricky_NFTs/status/1469788760040779777 


![](https://i.ibb.co/TcVk2GS/5.png)

# December 13, 2021

“A collection appears in Singular marketplace ‘WANTED!!! GG! DEAD OR ALIVE’ https://singular.rmrk.app/collections/9ecdab6f55355b191a-GAMMA

“At first, 100 NFT posters were minted with listed names as ‘Jolly [GG]’. The pricing for each ranged from 0.3 to 0.6 KSM. Many were bought in the coming days, but not all - especially the higher priced ones. Essentially, the sooner you purchased it, the cheaper you got it, as the posters were identical otherwise.

“In the coming days between December and January of 2022, a total of 10 posters were released every few weeks with the same pricing theme. The price increased as time went on for the new poster listing, the last one being 1.2 KSM at the cheapest. In February, all posters also went through price waves of the floor increasing; currently the cheapest ones run at 2 KSM.


**Tricky explains: **


"Why the strange pricing structure? The zero knowledge presale phase had a stepped price system. The entry price was low, allowing early adopters and believers, even if they had just a small bag of KSM, to get some NFTs. With the ongoing hidden parts of knowledge the pricing got higher. This article is the end of the zero knowledge presale phase."


**Eikas continues:**

“During the release of the posters in December and January, hints were dropped on tweets by Tricky, and the images themselves also included hints hidden within the .svg file format code, shown below. Each poster description also held a hint, that we have not figured out yet (far as we know it does contain info that is already out there).

Jolly = No hint (?)

DaVinci = “GAMMA GANG GAMMA GANG GAMMA GANG”

Bonnie = “RMRK2”

Chad = “1% AIRDROP CHANCE”

Mary = “EQUIPPABLE COLLECTION”

Hell = “Each bird unique”

Hook= 
☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠
☠10 character classes with shared as well as class-specific items☠
☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠

Coca = 
☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠
☠all the 10 characters can be used as CAPTAIN ☠
☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠☠

GG-1337 = “POSTER = BIRDPOSTER = BIRDPOSTER = BIRD”

Cpt. Tricky = “2022-02-02” and this ASCII art below hidden in the SVG.


“At the time, these hints would reveal that these birds in the posters were called ‘Gamma Gang’, built on a RMRK 2.0 equippable collection. Each bird is unique. 1% Airdrop chance? And each of these 10 Birds has a unique class, with unique class-specific equippable items. And, any of the 10 Birds can be used as Captain. Each poster represents one bird (airdropped later perhaps) and finally, there was a date in the future - the 2nd of February, 2022. 

![](https://i.ibb.co/YD4GWCW/6.png)

# December 15, 2022
On Tricky's tweets, he links to a Youtube video along with his poster drop with the song "In My Eyes" by Steve B.

![](https://i.ibb.co/KsyFHMF/Screen-Shot-2022-03-07-at-12-44-19.png)

![](https://i.ibb.co/M23nKCr/Screen-Shot-2022-03-07-at-12-44-26.png)

# February 2, 2022


“The first subsocial article appears from Tricky NFT with ‘Part 1, Introducing the Gamma Gang!’ 

“More articles appeared throughout February, detailing several mysteries about the Gamma Gang. This is where Part 1 ended, but with several hints left about being early, doing detective work, and early birds getting the worm.

GAMMA GANG GAMMA GANG GAMMA GANG 
https://app.subsocial.network/5799 


**“Here are the visualized hints:**

**DaVinci:** Hidden in the background of the SVG, and reversed, the text GAMMA GANG repeats.

![](https://i.ibb.co/qsgNbN4/7.png)


**Bonnie:**

Hidden in her eyes, the text RMRK2 appears, (color changed to red for visibility).

![](https://i.ibb.co/9YSc0Wk/8.png)



**Chad:**

Hidden in his eyes. 1% Airdrop chance.

![](https://i.ibb.co/8m5jpJF/9.png)


**Mary:**

Hidden in her eyes, highlighted red for visibility. Equippable collection

![](https://i.ibb.co/cF9rbKm/10.png)


**Hell:**

Hidden in its eyes. Each bird unique

![](https://i.ibb.co/NL9bg6y/11.png)


**Hook:**

Twitter hinted at .svg file format. When looking at the code, you can see the hint commented out.


**Coca:**

the hint was hidden in comments at the .svg code


**GG-1337:**

The hint was a half moon. Light and Dark. When looking at the poster in Singular, using dark mode, you can see the binary code behind the poster. Translated, it gives the hint of 02-02

![](https://i.ibb.co/QPK7Y13/12.png)



**CPT. TRICKY:**

The hint on twitter was hourglass emoji, or time. Waiting for 10 seconds to pass, the poster begins to animate. When the animation ends, a screen appears with binary code and roman numerals. Both combined bring up a date, 02-02-2022: the day the subsocial page was created. During the animation, the numbers 20 14 1 are also highlighted for some reason. 

![](https://i.ibb.co/xYr26R5/13.png)


-----------------

Since, Tricky has released his experimental collection, however, at the time, we thought it was another mystery to jump on. We decided to mint before Singular 2.0 was available.

What the below shows is Eikas walking through how to purchase the “freebie” NFTs he launched later, using polkadot.js.

![](https://i.ibb.co/HV8YgNb/Mint-from-js.png)
![](https://i.ibb.co/cLDG6p3/Screen-Shot-2022-02-28-at-10-58-03.png)
![](https://i.ibb.co/1sJ1b7v/Mint-from-js-2.png)
![](https://i.ibb.co/ngww5kd/Mint-from-js-3.png)

And then, how I was out-sniped by Plx5 7 minutes before I purchased.

![](https://i.ibb.co/rGrXYJ1/already-minted.png)

Whatever the case, even though it proved to not be an actual first to snipe situation, it was fun learning a new skill.


**Tricky’s latest image drop in his discord is this: **

![](https://i.ibb.co/vwTBXjz/Birdonomics.png)

He describes what this means here:
https://app.subsocial.network/5799/gamma-gang-part-x-birdonomics-31738


It’s nice to get some clarity!

His other recent subsocial post describes much of the gamification we can expect coming up through **missions**--and you'll see that the mysteries are far from over! In fact...some missions might already be out?

https://app.subsocial.network/5799/gamma-gang-part-ix-tricky-mission-system-31733


# Suprises Down the Dirt Roads

As with all research, it’s easy to find yourself down a dirt road–but sometimes, you find some interesting tidbits along the way. Such as–what’s this? A connection between Tricky and Skylab?

![](https://i.ibb.co/5cjQKzS/Skylab-1.png)
![](https://i.ibb.co/xqQv2B5/Skylab-2.png)

![](https://i.ibb.co/LZk1zgg/Theories.png)


# Actually Pointless Dirt Roads

The written descriptions truly puzzled us for the longest time. Each poster had a seemingly random set of characters. 

However, when putting all the descriptions together, and aligning them vertically next to one another, we found this:

![](https://i.ibb.co/MgcRxfG/IMG-1170.png)

![](https://i.ibb.co/hV9Byty/tricky.png)

**Eikas says:**

“Cpt. Tricky has description 20 14 1. This is the hint. In alphabetic numbers it is "TNA" or what we know as ‘Tricky NFT Art’.

“In Leet, 0010001 in binary is ‘!’

“All the previous ones are just set of characters, I believe. The first one is either 12 or 24 underscores. Then 5 dots, 5 x, 6 +, 6 circles. So it could be something like "XEEFFI!TNA" 

“The first two could be morse with _ . I do think the "hint" will actually make sense instead of XEEFFI. Tricky has said that we’ll know when we found a hint, so this is still not the right answer.

“Underscore_underscore_dot is GG actually!!

“GG//!TNA is my closest guess. x+0 graphs in math to / and | vertical bar is also used in math as divider /. Double // is often commenting in code. ! is used in code as "is not" GG is not TNA? Huh?”

**To which I replied:**

“If it's like the rest, it's probably !”

**Eikas:**

“Oh? ‘GG!!TNA’ makes more sense.There are lots of double !! in the wanted poster names, too. welp that’s the description mystery solved. Might be useful at some point, but I can’t figure out where to use it atm.

And of course, me flailing about as I imported every image and played with each layer, trying to unmask clues that were already visible in the metadata (duh)--and, coming up with things that were very unlikely. I was convinced that because the loops each had an empty spot in each image, that it must mean that if you overlaid it with a map, then it was a treasure map... I think I was stretching a bit.

I'm also theorizing that Mary, the only bird without a GG after her name, is significant?

We'll find out.

![](https://i.ibb.co/pw420Nk/Dirt-road.png)

![](https://i.ibb.co/N10bKwz/Dirt-road-2.png)

![](https://i.ibb.co/GWjvKxB/Screen-Shot-2022-02-13-at-15-42-54.png)

![](https://i.ibb.co/zbk93vy/Screen-Shot-2022-02-13-at-15-42-01.png)

I hope y’all enjoyed this adventure. You can find Tricky’s collection on Singular 1.0 (there’s still time)[ here.](https://singular.rmrk.app/collections/9ecdab6f55355b191a-GAMMA/?ref=D8WrK1jsFy9zpFwFZStaDTmX32pMZVdwXTm5rt9LsRKBQrz)

And, even if the art isn't your cup of tea, I will say the tech and the updates have been shipping faster than most NFT collections, and it's clear that Tricky's got this planned from top to bottom.

Follow my spaces on Dotsama and NFTs here:
https://app.subsocial.network/5892


**Donations for this article are appreciated. KSM can be sent here: 
D8WrK1jsFy9zpFwFZStaDTmX32pMZVdwXTm5rt9LsRKBQrz**

**Or to Eikas here:
Hq7g2Xia3Aoyc21dXvz7Zkjzd2q8ZM6jqJs4Y7nP2YCHyca**

bafyreify5epveqwz6npxq573ujxref5gbamyk2ymri2glwbiwhwi6kfd6m

bafyreifgsfwbmh3lmfydfqpbnpoxog5zpnwckq7a3wqsezuherbyrxnk7u

A Guide for Artists Launching a New NFT Collection—Part 1: "Who Are Your Buyers?"

![](https://i.ibb.co/g43DsFw/Screen-Shot-2022-03-17-at-21-38-08.png)

Note: Investing in NFTs as an investment is inherently risky. Please DYOR, and do not take this article as an endorsement.

---

Archiverse is one of the newest collections on Singular. (Edit: Mar 18 due to a misunderstanding of the new curation system. While it appeared they'd won the vote by a large margin, due to the low number of unique voters, they didn't pass the necessary requirements to become curated. My apologies)

Archiverse has a unique value proposition that, while not totally foreign, has interesting potential when applied with Metaverses on Dotsama.

While many projects are focused on pfps, games, art, and items, Archiverse is focused on becoming an Architectural company within the Metaverse. After all, if we’re going to be spending significant time in the Metaverse, don’t we need cool and fabulous places to be in?

Archiverse hopes to design fully immersive 3D buildings that come ready out-of-the-box with popular Metaverses so users can have a simple "**plug and play**" experience.

Every model will be fully 3D modeled and textured and given full rights of use within the future metaverses. When they say "Metaverse ready", they mean that things such as the number of polygons will be set to match the rules, and files that will be exported in the best format such as .obj, .glb, .stl, or otherwise according to the best practice of the Metaverses.

Essentially, on the user side, the owner would be able to download their NFT into a 3D file and simply drop it into the Metaverse without any difficulty.

The team is composed of MXS, an architect that worked for a famous international architecture firm in the Netherlands, and his brother, DamienMK, who is described as a "self-made man passionate about blockchain" with background in physiotherapy, running a webmarketing company, and being a real estate investor; they plan on hiring more help in the future.

![](https://i.ibb.co/M8W3WNy/MXS-photo-Archiverse.jpg)

Their first collection of Archiverse is a collection of [Pyramids.](https://singular.app/collections/36bad3dc147db9792b-PYRAMIDS)

\*\*When asked why they chose a pyramid to begin with, the team explained, \*\*

> "The pyramid is an archetype that we are big fans of. It's such a piece in terms of Architecture and history.
>
> "We like the fact it also refers to an ancient civilization, some sort of pioneers and all the secrets which surrounds them. We wanted to make a big impact through the first volumes we presents and thought the pyramid was already a masterpiece of architecture.

> "We had several talks regarding which type of architecture would be the starting point of Archiverse. The pyramid feels like the right volume: its scale, its beauty, and its symbolism are all matching the ambition of Archiverse."

Now, the team is very focused on creating the best user-experience, which means that their collection design was built off of this goal.

**The reason the pyramids are not all 1/1s**, as NFTs are generally known to be, is because of the potential scaling issues as integration into Metaverses grows. If there are too many unique pieces, the labor to update, adjust art and technology for each unique piece could quickly spiral out of control. They feel confident that with the current number of models, they can handle the workload.

> "If we made each pyramid different, even with a few details, the problem is that it would be too difficult then to be able to make each of them metaverse-ready; the amount of work would be colossal. So we preferred this type of collection with non-unique copies, to be able to keep our promise afterwards. Though we are aware that if we had made each one unique, it would have simplified the process of selling and feeling of rarity among owners."

**So what is the model distribution like?**

Check out their charts here.

![](https://i.ibb.co/PG76Z8K/Capture-decran-2022-03-10-a-23-21-33.png) ![](https://i.ibb.co/VpcY19c/Capture-decran-2022-03-10-a-23-20-14.png)

In the future, the future collection sizes and distribution may change, but for now, this is what an investor should expect. In addition to the pyramid, the team promises that the first collectors will be thanked with rewards and exclusive airdrops among other things such as bonus NFTs.

For those of you wondering about if the building is just something to look at, or if you can actually go in—the team is excited to report that they feel like the interior is part of architecture…which is their polite way of saying, "Duhhh! Of course!"

> "When you design a building, you can split it within a few things like: overall volume (concept), facades, spaces (rooms), and flows (how you move within spaces and in-between)."

**And how interactive will the interiors be?**

Well, it depends.

> "How interactive will the next metaverses be? We can't answer that yet but ideas are already in the pipelines!
>
> "The building is being thought of as a living space, so the ambition is to be able to go inside and do things. We are thinking about creating an NFT gallery, hosting social events, venues, curated exhibitions, video game events, sport events, or private screenings. And--if you look carefully at the descriptions--there is an attribute named «secret rooms». The flexibility of this future secret room will be dictated according to the future metaverse rules, of course."

**And what about the landscape?**

> "Landscape is also important and sets up how you experience architecture, however, we believe that the landscape is better addressed in another way, later, to focus on giving the best building experiences.
>
> "In other words, a pyramid doesn't need a strong landscape design as it is a standing piece in itself. We want our collectors to be as free as possible when integrating their NFTs.
>
> "Nevertheless, there are projects which play with the landscape and its curves for instance (reference: "Piscina das marés" by Alvaro Siza). Archiverse will respect certain "in-situ" landscapes if there are some special custom-made demands on land."

Near term, the team is finishing the legendary editions and they have plans to show the pyramids in a FPS view.

As for future collections beyond the pyramid, they are planning on having castles, museums, towers, and much more. They will stay in touch with the community’s wishes, as their ambition is to explore the boundaries of what is possible in the Metaverse.

![](https://i.ibb.co/Sy4dR2z/Capture-decran-2022-03-18-a-10-51-56.png)

They are confident that they can build almost any custom request as well—so perhaps everything is up to the limits of your own imagination.

**And which Metaverses are they looking at?** Well, Bitcountry, Skybreach, Darwinia, seem to be their starting points.

I asked them about the possibility of utility aside from aesthetics--such as building in the option to lease spaces, and they seemed intrigued by the idea and took it to the idea of building a stadium and leasing the space to big companies who wanted it for football matches, hockey, concerts, etc.

So, perhaps anything and everything really is possible?

[Singular](https://singular.app/collections/36bad3dc147db9792b-PYRAMIDS)

Website: [https://www.archiverse.art/](https://www.archiverse.art/)

Twitter: [https://twitter.com/archiverse888](https://twitter.com/archiverse888)

Telegram: [https://t.me/archiverse888](https://t.me/archiverse888)

email : [archiverse888@gmail.com](mailto:archiverse888@gmail.com)

---

**If you appreciate this article, please send KSM donations to: D8WrK1jsFy9zpFwFZStaDTmX32pMZVdwXTm5rt9LsRKBQrz**

bafyreif4wj2kms5xd6dtalkdbrwmis5h3qp72x5jw6dhwopn5k2hxkobuy

Archiverse: How About Hosting Your Metaverse Party in a PYRAMID?

Listening to the RMRK roundtable was very exciting. They discussed developments in the metaverse, smart contracts in RMRK, lore-based DAO governance, land sales, RMRK token utility, and more. 


All this was extremely motivational for me, and I felt the need to recap the spaces.


In attendance was the host GBaci, and the founding team of RMRK, Bruno, Yuri P, and Yuri G. Here are the highlights, organized for easy understanding.

![](https://i.ibb.co/ZNvjXfz/Qmcou-Pez-LGp-Vw-HT2fz-Mv-YFF9-ZBn-FVLrkj-Uqe-MPi-Uo-V8-Pd-V.png)

---------------


# On Smart Contract Integration


 Smart contract implementation should be ready in "sometime in summer" (very soon).

What does this mean? 

Well, a number of things. First is that adding smart contract functionality will help protect against bugs.

Second is a large number of additional abilities to NFTs such as helping NFTs turn into DAOs more easily, having ERC20 fungibles inside NFTs (like sending a gift of tokens inside your gift basket NFT), the temporary sending of NFTs into other NFTs. This could be useful for things like community puzzles, collaborative music compositions (where people are submitting samples) etc.


---------------

# On Being On Other Chains

RMRK could be on Cosmos, yes, but only the EVM chains. Solidity contracts are Solidity contracts, after all, so any EVM chain should be compatible. 

The only issue is that unlike Kusama, Cosmos doesn’t automatically connect to all interoperable chains (yet). They are not planning on deploying on ETH, but ETH "will need to implement the RMRK standard eventually as NFTs evolve."

The RMRK standard is a standard, and can be re-written into any language and become compatible with anything, really.

There is indeed a bridge in progress for RMRK to Polkadot.


---------------

# On RMRK for GameFi


RMRK is already useful for games because most all games need some equipping, so composability is already there. "Just add some fun transitions and you’re there." 

However, Yuri would love to see some real time strategy versions of gamefi where, let’s say, you have a vault and your actions in the vault change the appearance of the item in the game, or you combine several items and can withdraw another item.

-----------------

# On Token Utility 


In terms of RMRK token utility, as the standard is used more and more across all EVM, including ETH, it’ll increase the brand recognition of RMRK. 

On Singular, RMRK will be added as a currency, and RMRK will be needed for the curation registry. 

There will also be a Degen Rarity Score plan.

NFTs currently have a rarity, but there can be another rarity with composability. This standard rarity will be the "old school way" but the new rarity will be a registry based rarity. For instance, the more assets that support equipping of an item, the more rare your item is (because you have it, but everyone has a slot available for it on their NFT because it is desirable).

RMRK will also be part of plagiarism reports, DAO functions, and Anti-spam mechanics.



--------------

# On Banner Utility

![](https://i.ibb.co/DkRgqs9/Screen-Shot-2022-03-22-at-01-30-56.png)

No, there is no utility planned for banners, that has been made very clear.

That said they are listening to the community.

That said, "There might be something coming soon."


----------------


# Where Did The Idea Of Skybreach Come From? 

Bruno said "I want to make a game." But that became a question of the most complicated way to integrate the RMRK standard—which would be a fully decentralized gaming world—decentralized enough not to be censorable. And then that’s when the Phala team came in. 

Bruno believes that people should be in ownership of their experiences.



----------------

# When land sales?


Two of their devs are stuck in Ukraine, so they are not rushing things. The condition for sales and pricing will be in April. Land can be purchased with RMRK. NFT holders from other chains will have some land purchase opportunities reserved for them as they want to bring in communities.

When someone addressed concern about dumping tokens from the land sales, they responded, "We are very thirsty for our own token as the bird sale went better than expected."

"Oh shit, our token is gone!"

Suffice to say they will not be dumping their tokens.

------------------

# On Upcoming Announcements

There are three major posts coming soon. 

One will be on lore and how to build experiences in their metaverse. 

The other will be about community governance in the metaverse.

And the last will be on the Land Sales

The lore is incredibly important for this reason. Lore can only be integrated when voted in.

Essentially, short stories will build out the world and must be voted in. This is a story-based metaverse, and you could consider it to be "bootstrapping the world with story".


----------------

# Skybreach in General

Yes, you will be able to interact with skybreach on mobile.

Skybreach is not supposed to just be a social hub. They want real gaming mechanics there. 

It’s hard. It’s not just a social hub. Want real gaming mechanics in there.

---------------

# Other NFT Projects on Skybreach

![](https://i.ibb.co/tC7p7HQ/WMCXvhV.jpg)

NFT projects potentially can get into skybreach, however, everything must be voted in with the world governance council. The lore must be congruent.

There will be parallel universes through portals (breaches), but everything must still come back to the base lore.

Lots of projects are asking to be part of the metaverse, but it must be done carefully, and beyond the lore, the standards must be met (for instance, 2d vs 3d vs 1st person). With new collections popping up everywhere, it’s hard to fit everyone. Skybreach is a pixel style top down game.

Taking Bored Apes as an example: 

Bored Apes could move to Moonriver, upgrade them to RMRK. Make their accessories interchangeable, and then they would need assets that fit with skybreach’s standards. if someone proposes Bored Apes, the governance would recognize that they don’t have the extra resource to be compatible. Within the rules of the game as per the lore article. If you respect these conditions, then there’s no problem voting your avatars in.

They already have four apes onboarding Bruno’s call out.

That said, in the situation where there’s no change in functionality required, then there’s nothing to stop people from building whatever they want. They can do it with just the raw materials.

What does he mean by functionality?

For instance, Kanarias can move from one skyland to another because they can fly. Chunkies won’t have flight, so they need airships. If there’s a new avatar species that needs to fly, that needs to be voted in through a governance vote.


---------------

# Governance


The world’s governance is based on Kanaria bird holders. They can augment their voting with RMRK.

Bruno imagines that the world governance will be something around 100 well versed people who are experts at game development and game design (over time). 

This can evolve into the most epic game ever, or, into garbage, if the community destroys it.


-----------------

# On The Future


They are focused on easy onboarding and creating videos that are easy to understand. If there’s anything confusing about RMRK, the team encourages you to send those in.

A lot of people see RMRK as only advanced jpgs, but it can be built for any use case anyone wants. They want to educate people on this.

There will be more AMAs on the RMRK roundtable about every week, though not always with the founders.

Usually the team is very focused on UX first, but right now, they are feature freezing and focusing on contracts and pallets for stronger underlying logic.

They must think very carefully about what to include.

--------------

# On Moonglade 

[Moonglade was just announced](https://app.subsocial.network/@rmrkapp/introducing-moonglade-reforestation-nf-ts-32016). It’s another project by RMRK and is a collection of NFTs that demonstrates the multi-resource nature of RMRK, but, with a real world element. They are selling NFTs as seeds, for real trees that are being planted in Portugal in an area that was burnt out. The NFT art will be funky and randomly composed, but it will also evolve with the real trees. It will take advantage of its secondary resource, so people will be able to see what their tree is actually doing (its lifecycle).

They would like people to consider this a good gift, for a good cause, and it will be priced very cheap. It is launching this week, and will have batches released until october. [Check out the latest video from the Alpha Airdrop team.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32GXYmItmWs)


---------------

# Other Answers to Questions

Singular is the tool to build your own RMRK NFTs.

Bases for common formats are being built. Most popular bases are already available, but they will be adding even more audio/video/etc.

Conditional rendering is still going to be some time, but they are aiming for it. Conditional rendering has a reserved logic for it.


**If you appreciated this write-up, please send KSM donations to: D8WrK1jsFy9zpFwFZStaDTmX32pMZVdwXTm5rt9LsRKBQrz**


bafyreig3swpkc3u4754yeirmzxjsa7lxq44p7clj56cwkoemkuemjadeim

RMRK Roundtable Mar 21 Recap  

Listening to the RMRK roundtable was very exciting. They discussed developments in the metaverse, smart contracts in RMRK, lore-based DAO governance, land sales, RMRK token utility, and more. 


All this was extremely motivational for me, and I felt the need to recap the spaces (and buy a Kanaria).


In attendance was the host GBaci, and the founding team of RMRK, Bruno, Yuri P, and Yuri G. Here are the highlights, organized for easy understanding.

![](https://i.ibb.co/ZNvjXfz/Qmcou-Pez-LGp-Vw-HT2fz-Mv-YFF9-ZBn-FVLrkj-Uqe-MPi-Uo-V8-Pd-V.png)

---------------


# On Smart Contract Integration


 Smart contract implementation should be ready in "sometime in summer" (very soon).

What does this mean? 

Well, a number of things. First is that adding smart contract functionality will help protect against bugs.

Second is a large number of additional abilities to NFTs such as helping NFTs turn into DAOs more easily, having ERC20 fungibles inside NFTs (like sending a gift of tokens inside your gift basket NFT), the temporary sending of NFTs into other NFTs. This could be useful for things like community puzzles, collaborative music compositions (where people are submitting samples) etc.


---------------

# On Being On Other Chains

RMRK could be on Cosmos, yes, but only the EVM chains. Solidity contracts are Solidity contracts, after all, so any EVM chain should be compatible. The only issue is that unlike Kusama, Cosmos doesn’t automatically connect to all interoperable chains (yet). They are not planning on deploying on ETH, but ETH "will need to implement the RMRK standard eventually as NFTs evolve."

The RMRK standard is a standard, and can be re-written into any language and become compatible with anything, really.

There is indeed a bridge in progress for RMRK to Polkadot.


---------------

# On RMRK for GameFi


RMRK is already useful for games because most all games need some equipping, so composability is already there. "Just add some fun transitions and you’re there." 

However, Yuri would love to see some real time strategy versions of gamefi where, let’s say, you have a vault and your actions in the vault change the appearance of the item in the game, or you combine several items and can withdraw another item.

-----------------

# On Token Utility 


In terms of RMRK token utility, as the standard is used more and more across all EVM, including ETH, it’ll increase the brand recognition of RMRK. 

On Singular, RMRK will be added as a currency, and RMRK will be needed for the curation registry. 

There will also be a Degen Rarity Score plan.

NFTs currently have a rarity, but there can be another rarity with composability. This standard rarity will be the "old school way" but the new rarity will be a registry based rarity. For instance, the more assets that support equipping of an item, the more rare your item is (because you have it, but everyone has a slot available for it on their NFT because it is desirable).

RMRK will also be part of plagiarism reports, DAO functions, and Anti-spam mechanics.



--------------

# On Banner Utility

![](https://i.ibb.co/DkRgqs9/Screen-Shot-2022-03-22-at-01-30-56.png)

No, there is no utility planned for banners, that has been made very clear.

That said they are listening to the community.

That said, "There might be something coming soon."


----------------


# Where Did The Idea Of Skybreach Come From? 

Bruno said "I want to make a game." But that became a question of the most complicated way to integrate the RMRK standard—which would be a fully decentralized gaming world—decentralized enough not to be censorable. And then that’s when the Phala team came in. 

Bruno believes that people should be in ownership of their experiences.



----------------

# When land sales?


Two of their devs are stuck in Ukraine, so they are not rushing things. The condition for sales and pricing will be in April. Land can be purchased with RMRK. NFT holders from other chains will have some land purchase opportunities reserved for them as they want to bring in communities.

When someone addressed concern about dumping tokens from the land sales, they responded, "We are very thirsty for our own token as the bird sale went better than expected."

"Oh shit, our token is gone!"

------------------

# On Upcoming Announcements

There are three major posts coming soon. One will be on lore and how to build experiences in their metaverse. 

The other will be about community governance in the metaverse.

And the last will be on the Land Sales

The lore is incredibly important for this reason. Lore can only be integrated when voted in.

Essentially, short stories will build out the world and must be voted in. This is a story-based metaverse, and you could consider it to be "bootstrapping the world with story".


----------------

# Skybreach in General

Yes, you will be able to interact with skybreach on mobile.

Skybreach is not supposed to just be a social hub. They want real gaming mechanics there. 

It’s hard. It’s not just a social hub. Want real gaming mechanics in there.

---------------

# Other NFT Projects on Skybreach

![](https://i.ibb.co/tC7p7HQ/WMCXvhV.jpg)

NFT projects potentially can get into skybreach, however, everything must be voted in with the world governance council. The lore must be congruent.

There will be parallel universes through portals (breaches), but everything must still come back to the base lore.

Lots of projects are asking to be part of the metaverse, but it must be done carefully, and beyond the lore, the standards must be met (for instance, 2d vs 3d vs 1st person). With new collections popping up everywhere, it’s hard to fit everyone. Skybreach is a pixel style top down game.

Taking bored apes as an example: 

Bored ape could move to Moonriver, upgrade them to RMRK. Make their accessories interchangeable, and then they would need assets that fit with skybreach’s standards. if someone proposes Bored Apes, the governance would recognize that they don’t have the extra resource to be compatible. Within the rules of the game as per the lore article. If you respect these conditions, then there’s no problem voting your avatars in.

They already have four apes onboarding Bruno’s call out.

That said, in the situation where there’s no change in functionality required, then there’s nothing to stop people from building whatever they want. They can do it with just the raw materials.

What does he mean by functionality?

For instance, Kanarias can move from one skyland to another because they can fly. Chunkies won’t have flight, so they need airships. If there’s a new avatar species that needs to fly, that needs to be voted in through a governance vote.


---------------

# Governance


The world’s governance is based on Kanaria bird holders. They can augment their voting with RMRK.

Bruno imagines that the world governance will be something around 100 well versed people who are experts at game development and game design (over time). 

This can evolve into the most epic game ever, or, into garbage, if the community destroys it.


-----------------

# On The Future


They are focused on easy onboarding and creating videos that are easy to understand. If there’s anything confusing about RMRK, the team encourages you to send those in.

A lot of people see RMRK as only advanced jpgs, but it can be built for any use case anyone wants. They want to educate people on this.

There will be more AMAs on the RMRK roundtable about every week, though not always with the founders.

Usually the team is very focused on UX first, but right now, they are feature freezing and focusing on contracts and pallets for stronger underlying logic.

They must think very carefully about what to include.

--------------

# On Moonglade 

[Moonglade was just announced](https://app.subsocial.network/@rmrkapp/introducing-moonglade-reforestation-nf-ts-32016). It’s another project by RMRK and is a collection of NFTs that demonstrates the multi-resource nature of RMRK, but, with a real world element. They are selling NFTs as seeds, for real trees that are being planted in Portugal in an area that was burnt out. The NFT art will be funky and randomly composed, but it will also evolve with the real trees. It will take advantage of its secondary resource, so people will be able to see what their tree is actually doing (its lifecycle).

They would like people to consider this a good gift, for a good cause, and it will be priced very cheap. It is launching this week, and will have batches released until october. [Check out the latest video from the Alpha Airdrop team.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32GXYmItmWs)


---------------

# Other Answers to Questions

Singular is the tool to build your own RMRK NFTs.

Bases for common formats are being built. Most popular bases are already available, but they will be adding even more audio/video/etc.

Conditional rendering is still going to be some time, but they are aiming for it. Conditional rendering has a reserved logic for it.


**If you appreciated this write-up, please send KSM donations to: D8WrK1jsFy9zpFwFZStaDTmX32pMZVdwXTm5rt9LsRKBQrz**


bafyreicxjzf23sa5lm4mdfugmzcr75aqjvgzdhmu46dxlwb5pv7rv56zle

RMRK Roundtable Mar 21 Recap

# Introduction

Hog Lordz is an already-launched NFT project that I consider to be an "underhog" play in Dotsama. They’ve a vision to be an incubator, to be a DAO, and to create a tabletop style game from their NFT collection which is built on Moonriver.

With such broad ambitions, I thought I’d talk to their team and see just how realistic their goals were.

As with all reporting, this is not an endorsement, but I did find their answers sincere and I’m certainly curious to see where they will end up.

-------------

# The Vision

Kuro, one of the team members, tells me that he recently attended a Board Gaming Convention only two weeks ago in Reno, called [GAMA](https://www.gama.org/page/gama-expo)

According to him, at least three companies were trying out blockchain tech for board games.

He has been seeing the signs of board gamers adopting NFTs everywhere, and as a self-described "fanboy" of Dotsama, he believes that it’s only a matter of time before the communities begin merging.

The team describes their ambitions around Hog Lordz to be about building a grassroots network that doesn’t exclude people. In other words, they don’t want to be a network for "cool kids", but rather to dig deep and help their members launch their dream projects. Essentially, Hog Lordz would like to form a guild in which creatives can come together and achieve common goals. 

When I asked if maybe the team was being too ambitious, as their vision is quite broad (usually a bad sign), Kuro replied that he didn’t think this was the case at all with Hog Lordz. 

In the case of RMRK, with the tech of RMRK, the proof of concept through Kanaria, and Singular’s markeplace—you might think the same of their team (that the team was biting off more than they could chew)—except all that was indeed achieved with just a few developers to begin with.

While Hog Lordz is not saying they are RMRK, they are inspired by them. They believe in the power to accomplish with a few passionate people, especially as the DAO continues to form and passionate community members become more involved.

The Hog Lordz would like to form an elected council in which the DAO will be run and eventually, JJ and Kuro will be able to focus entirely on creating and mentoring other creators.

----------

# The Team

JJ Kirby is their lead artist who has created their highly diverse PFP collection. Unlike most artists in generative NFT projects, however, he did not join the project because he was hired in, but rather, he has been involved in the concept of Hog Lordz, the lore, and all asset creations for the project since the beginning.

But who is JJ Kirby?

[JJ has been a professional comic artist for over 20 years.](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/J.J._Kirby) He’s been creating, writing, and editing for some of the largest publishers in the world. 

KuroCrypto has worked in the gaming and collectibles industry for several years, and he has worked on projects with world-recognizable IP. Kuro and JJ met through working on a popular Marvel board game and have been close, since.

Their game developer is already on board and designing, but will be announced later.

With a team heavily involved in comics and game creation, they feel they have accumulated a vast and diverse network of professionals across several industries, and that they can execute on their ambitious visions.

---------
![](https://app.subsocial.network/ipfs/ipfs/QmUFDXzv3esFL6DJMaYtGQZv9NnWxKp9eTw6czruxQEboP?type=.png)

Swords, Wands, and Biker Gangs

# How are things going so far?

Kuro states:

> "Our first 2 whitelist mints were really successful. JJ was a little nervous about doing a generative project. Most characters he works with have very specific character designs. The generative process came out great. The PFP NFTs are emotive, fun, iconic, and relatable. I think we did a really great job."

----------

# What is the game going to be like?

A game is a difficult task. Even with hundreds of millions of dollars, and thousands of developers, game development often can fail even in the traditional marketplace. Thus, for NFT collections to aim at creating a game, I’m immediately skeptical. With the RMRK 2.0 standard, the teams have a new toy, however, and there are innovative options everywhere, which is why I thought to ask the team…why game? A DAO incubator is enough, right? What makes them think they can accomplish such a challenging task?

Kuro responds that he agrees that most all blockchain games to date have been sub-par. To him, this is certainly an obstacle. Every project seems to want to be an RPG with fully equippable interactions and AAA graphics. He’s worked for a AAA in the past, and he is well aware that this kind of undertaking takes an army.

This is why RMRK 2.0 and boardgames are a perfect match.

> "I envision people playing this game over video conferencing across the world at community events on twitch and discord. Also people playing this in groups of friends with everyone having an IPAD or tablet out with their RMRK player board up. It will play a little like D&D 5th edition but with important thematic changes for the fun world we are creating where anything goes."

This is why the focus of Hog Lordz is on gameplay, RMRK 2.0 integration, mechanics, art, and lore.

Kuro presents the case that D&D is more popular than ever thanks to Twitch (news to me), and D&D themed shows like Critical Role.

In large part, this may have been related to the pandemic, because prior, gaming conventions like Essen in Germany were drawing crowds above 100k attendees.

The point is that in D&D, these memories of tavern fights and dungeon looting were all formed by the mind’s eye, and remain unforgettable. They don’t require graphics cards, but only great story and imagination.

Kuro believes that the combination of NFTs and board gaming is already coming. The communities will merge, and as mentioned earlier, other major blockchain companies are trying to figure it out already. To Kuro, this is one of the most exciting aspects. They are taking established RPG game design and creating interactive custom lore that can be built into blockchain thanks to RMRK 2.0.

All that said, they have two important unique elements in their RPG play to earn model.

![](https://app.subsocial.network/ipfs/ipfs/QmSGkdiM3em8ujeJvd3etR4b5mM3FWwehT7Jh5pZAvg2zc?type=.jpg)

First are Adventure Loot boxes. These boxes are themed around lore events and special scenarios released for their RPG. These loot boxes will provide a scenario walkthrough, along with the Loot, all of which will be playable and sellable in the secondary market.

Second is that they will be creating a player board.

What’s a player board?

> "So in D&D the player board is interacting with by the player. It is a dashboard for buffs and items that both the player and the DM can view in video conference play on platforms such as Discord or Twitch. Our focus will be to have cool boards to present your Loot that fits your personal style. We will airdrop all Hog Lord holders a Player Board. Other boards, like for example a Forest Board or a Lava Board, will be either sold or rewarded to community members."

As the player board is an RMRK 2.0 NFT can be equipped with the Loot found in adventure or in Loot boxes, the player boards will become a status symbol as seasoned RPG players are able to show off their equipment to the community.

Essentially, they are building the RPG in a way that participation with NFT player boards is a big part of the gameplay and social dynamics.

They will send royalties from secondary market sales of player boards and loots to the DAO.

Kuro believes that as long as they continue to create content that the community loves, the model can be sustainable. This game, therefore, is a proof of ability for the DAO, and the first of many products that the DAO hopes to create.

![](https://app.subsocial.network/ipfs/ipfs/QmS6rsLqoXPiY6Lh2wGfjRTaWdwdjE8pdRCPn5cUFdoELk?type=.png)

			Loot will come in different rarities 

----------


# The community

I’ve a pattern where I stalk a community quietly until I feel like it’s "worth my time" to engage. This is to observe for any red flags, or to see how the team conducts itself, and from there I determine if it’s something I want to casually participate in, or get involved in.

The community development with Hogs has been consistent, the leadership engaged, but at the same time I’ve seen little chatter across other channels about Hogs. Thus, I wanted to know why, and how the team felt about this impression.

Kuro says that he is comfortable being "the underhog", and they are hard workers and professionals—and while they don’t have influencers, they believe their ideas will foster great creators and innovators. He believes in ideas above hype, and organic growth, building products, which will let the community sing the praises and generate attention. 

Kuro would also like to give a special shout-out to the Spanish speaking community, "You guys are truly Hog Wild."

---------


# On the Promised Airdrops

So, the thing about Airdrops is that economically, unless there is real attention coming in, it simply dilutes the value and pulls liquidity from already existing community members. Airdrops sound nice, but frequently if you step back, you’ll see that even with the airdrop, the value of your investments has only remained the same (or sometimes lost value), unless it truly generates utility and value to drive further adoption.

The team states that they have clearly mapped out their collections in a way to maintain value across each collection. With limited quantities, the value dilution would be minimal. They also will be giving rewards with ecosystem coins: **MOVR, RMRK, KSM**, etc, which will incentivize participation and intertwine their project with a broader ecosystem.

---------

# Why would people choose to incubate with Hog Lordz?

Kuro remains somewhat mysterious in his answer to this question.

>  "Once you see how we incubate this RPG, you will know why."

--------

# Lore

How often I’ve seen the promise of "lore", and upon reading, it looks like a side-thought, an extra—and it doesn’t really affect the gameplay or macroeconomics at all.

To the team, they believe that lore is critical, and they have always felt this from the very beginning. The world they are crafting is inspired by classic marvel comic book storytelling, as well as Final Fantasy and D&D RPG tropes.

There will be no scarcity of available lore.

Kuro hints about the Hogs in Prison gear that have been seen on some Hogs, and, "The Sons of Swine".

The story behind these characters, as well as the previously announced PIGS (Police Investing Greed Squad) is an introduction to the immersive world that is planned.

![](https://app.subsocial.network/ipfs/ipfs/QmVQKBA5gtLxRW2BicrmsZZ8kpL1Z32qHeWj3jpqqNghiM?type=.png)

				Hog Zu - Member of the Sons of Swine


Additionally, **Alpha Alert**, players can eventually play as one of many races (8 are planned), humans included.

The Hog Lordz token holders will merely be the OG DAO members.

The Hog Intro story unveils the game to the world, but by the end of the first campaign, the lore will open up to the other races.

--------

# Final Notes (and a special promotion)

Kuro says, 

> "We are so grateful to be able to share our vision with you and your readers. In honor of this, we are opening up the Whitelist for 24 Hours from the time this is published. Join the discord to get on the Whitelist. We also would like to share with you the first look at the Map of Sow Terra, the mysterious world where our RPG will begin."


![](https://i.ibb.co/bvzPrj3/Screen-Shot-2022-03-29-at-20-22-17.png)

				The Tales of Sow Terra stretch back Eons


> "We are having a private mint for the Hog Lordz DAO if you are reading this article before April 2nd, you are invited. 
> 
> "Join us on our discord get involved and get on the whitelist today. [discord.gg/xUhC3Fpj5j ](discord.gg/xUhC3Fpj5j)
> 
> 
> "You can also check out our website at: [Http://www.hoglordz.com](Http://www.hoglordz.com) for minting and roadmap information."

------------

I’m thinking of creating a rating system, to help people make informed decisions and to measure my own confidence. Please feel free to give me feedback on if it's helpful to you, and how you feel about this new rating system. Categories may change in time.

# **Pnin’s Ratings:**

**Sincerity: 7.5/10** (1 = "It’s a scam, run for the hills") (10 = Convincingly not a scam)

Explanation: The team has doxxed themselves to me, and I’m convinced of their authentic background and involvement in the culture of Tabletop gaming and comics—however, that doesn’t by itself mean that this isn’t a scam. There are always ways to mislead. That said, after speaking to the team and observing their discord, I only got good vibes and I didn’t see any red flags that would make me think this is a money grab rug.


**Art: 7.5/10** (1 = Low effort/skill trash) (10 = Worth investing in if only for only the art)

Explanation: The art is clearly professional, to the point that I questioned if the artist was actually involved. In NFT world, it’s not uncommon to hire a famous artist to launch an NFT project, and then possibly rug. The artist gets a lot of crap when this happens, even though they were merely hired for a gig. Seeing that the artist is heavily involved was great, as the style will remain consistent this way, however…I’m honestly not much a fan of pigs? Personal opinion of course.

**Ambition: 8/10** (1 = Nothing of note planned) (10 = Might actually be impossible to achieve)

Explanation: Any industry disrupting technology is highly ambitious. I love that the team is targeting a niche market in which the use-case is very clear, but as in all established traditional markets, creating something different can be met with a lot of resistance.

I believe their goals are great, but "I’ll believe it when I see it". 

Additionally, a DAO is the most functional and immediate type of value an NFT collection can realistically offer, but in order to become an incubator as well as DAO, the team must prove itself to such an extent that they become a place artists truly covet to be part of. The reputation of Hog Lordz needs to become more than significant. I, personally, am also someone who wants to support artists and new projects (especially of the grassroots variation), so their stated vision is close to my heart.

**Team: 7/10** (1 = Totally unqualified, if even real) (10 = The dream team)

Explanation: Honestly, I was impressed with the team members mostly because it was clear that they knew their own industry, and they were heavily involved. It’s easy to say from the outside that your team is going to x/y/z, however, those outside the industry rarely know the obstacles that are involved. This team seems to know well the challenges of penetrating the tabletop gaming community. However, I also have no information on the developer’s skills, experience, or ability to execute. It’s also quite a small team which may suit the vision, but as this is blockchain, it’s incredibly important that the developer be competent and familiar with blockchain’s limitations and toolsets. Until I know more, I can’t be entirely positive on the team.

**Community: 4/10** (1 = It’s dead, and for good reason) (10 = Not only is it active, but the community is real and authentically invested)

Explanation: This is a grassroots project, which means that in time (in theory), the community will grow and improve. The team is active and engaged and positive, however I would be amiss not to mention that there are a lot of passersby who aren’t fully engaged. This can be worrisome, but I am withholding judgement as the style of organic marketing and the long-term vision can offset early slower growth.

**Risk: 8/10** (1 = Pretty much a sure bet) (10 = Chances are akin to winning the lottery)

Explanation: The cost of entry is rather moderate as far as NFT collections go. Each mint has cost 1 MOVR, which at the time of minting, was between 50-80 USD per mint. It bodes well that it’s not a greedy play, despite being a hog/greed theme, however the risk comes with the lofty ambitions. I still hold a lot of doubts on if this team can accomplish their vision, though I can see just how great this would be for the Dotsama ecosystem, and how Hog Lordz could bring in another wave of artists and participants from an untapped (and large) community of board game geeks.

**Significance: 8.5/10** (1 = Doesn’t offer anything new or valuable) (10 = Could change the very fabric of reality)

Explanation: Sometimes, it’s important to support something just because it’s a good cause. This is where I consider this play to be strongest. I WANT this project to succeed because I want more Dotsama, more artists, more community, more NFT utility and integration. I think this is a niche market that isn’t being paid attention to, and with the right support, it could be a great move by the Dotsama ecosystem. If I had my way, the RMRK team would come in as advisors, and perhaps Dotsama itself could provide some support to building infrastructure into tabletop gaming communities.

Disclosures:

I hold several Hog Lordz (which often is NOT a sign of endorsement, but of curiosity) but I was not paid or asked to write this article.

**If you enjoyed this article, donations can be sent to: D8WrK1jsFy9zpFwFZStaDTmX32pMZVdwXTm5rt9LsRKBQrz**

![](https://app.subsocial.network/ipfs/ipfs/QmccXLyNVGA7DxahcypyU9Fj85Spsh1L2AEtTJs581W5Ar?type=.png)

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Hog Lordz: The "Underhog" of Tabletop Gaming on Dotsama

Though it may not always appear so on Singular, Luigi’s collections have amassed significant volume through auctions, bids, and raffles, as well as secondary sales.

Why hasn’t all of it been reported on Singular?

![](https://app.subsocial.network/ipfs/ipfs/QmcgFchEsyyyGx7DHx9sNJaPpr3uRX4gKfSk39DaxEWfVM?type=.png)

Well, it's because when people learned that Luigi was the artist behind the hyped Exosama project, bots were set up when he listed and they were grabbed before normal humans could get a chance to acquire Luigi’s art. 

Luigi has since partnered closely with the Chaoz-sama NFT community, using their NFT launchpad to provide opportunities to a wider range of collectors that aren't machine-based (though cyberpunks are welcome).

Opportunities through Chaoz-sama's Discord comes in the form of raffles based on most recent floor prices, various types of auctions on Twitter, and even sniping competitions in the Chaoz-sama discord channel.

The most recent auction is this one: https://twitter.com/vampsyfear/status/1511503486848012295?s=20&t=Pb74UhVQj9iqs5jw7BpmyA

Which is ongoing even as I write this Apr 5, ending Friday April 8th 5pm CET. In this auction, the highest bidders are NOT guaranteed to win, and the 4th lowest bid is the price that winners pay.

To me, this is an example of how Luigi values exposing his collection to all types of collectors.

Anyway, as most transactions were done p2p between him and the buyer after these bidding events, and Luigi’s collections had (and still have) some issues with Singular rankings even with his high volume–it's led Luigi’s work to be something of a known, yet underground, cult collection on Dotsama.

With an impressive floor as high as 15 KSM, and now settling around the 7.5-10 KSM range, with a high sale of 47.5 KSM, the data has shown clearly a consistent growth in terms of USD value for Luigi’s Rubble Punkz collection:

![](https://app.subsocial.network/ipfs/ipfs/QmemH3far7PasgjLPYiyD5gCQgWmfSwrdq8Kxht1m3i2BD?type=.png)![](https://app.subsocial.network/ipfs/ipfs/QmRaU2CLZYHp95MQgaDgJpDUMoK7avmC6PnQaqYDZnwXHt?type=.png)![](https://app.subsocial.network/ipfs/ipfs/QmU2DzKY4LqgbtgHSc48QZeh61CZVpTi1aNarghhgRopxk?type=.png)![](https://app.subsocial.network/ipfs/ipfs/QmYiCYwrzu83VateGroxBSA3JXkTuR7Lj5ornvGFtmSZKc?type=.png)

This is some data to gawk at, provided by Vampsy, head auction dude at Chaoz-sama’s discord and game theory expert extraordinaire.

Having seen all this, I thought I’d talk to Luigi about his background as well as his experience in creating on Singular.

----------

Luigi has been in the gaming and toy industry as a character designer since 2005. He’s worked on both large and small scale projects, some of the most iconic being Disney and Hasbro. That said, he says his favorite project is working with Oddbot Animation, on a show called “Action Pack” which is currently available on Netflix. He led the character design and he really enjoys being able to see his 2D designs be animated in 3D.

![](https://app.subsocial.network/ipfs/ipfs/QmVhaPSDEB85S6BP7P4TL9bMyx9P3BscPPmwvRVERkKK19?type=.png)

But how did he get into NFTs?

His curiosity about NFTs led him to try Foundation, but the gas fees were prohibitive for him. It was Tako from Shiba Tales that introduced Luigi to Singular and the Dotsama space, and it was the welcoming community that encouraged him to start.

Luigi considers participating in Singular to be one of the best decisions he’s made in quite some time, and he feels very fortunate to be creating for this community.

-------------

![](https://app.subsocial.network/ipfs/ipfs/QmNgb9LiBhscfBWSj4T4pmWpVEvtxY4quTF9uSRYo884Lj?type=.png)

Exosama, however, is where many people came to recognize him. It was Luigi that actually reached out to Donnie, first. He asked Donnie to work on a collection, which led to a conversation about Bar Girls, which led to sketches, which led to a confident woman with a gun and a cyberpunk theme that has since become one of the most exciting upcoming launches on Dotsama.

![](https://app.subsocial.network/ipfs/ipfs/QmS2KVTbPHhAL3eZq56V4rmWR9MGUfRRxes3tgf6DYonYE?type=.png)

What about the [Rubble Punkz collection](https://singular.app/collections/924cf81bb52a1b5c57-RP%F0%9F%92%80/?ref=D8WrK1jsFy9zpFwFZStaDTmX32pMZVdwXTm5rt9LsRKBQrz), though?

The idea originated from an idea to create an action figure collection. Luigi dreams of creating a ⅙ scale toy line someday, and he wanted to create characters that exist in this cyberpunk world. The lore is that the Punkz are all clones (which fits well for NFTs and explains through lore, why, besides exterior traits, the base design of each character looks the same).

With his normal work, Luigi says he plays with shape and silhouette to create very different designs, but with NFTs, he’s had fun with the challenge of making each character feel unique through a variety of outfit items, hairstyles, and other traits.

![](https://app.subsocial.network/ipfs/ipfs/QmTFdKmxFxj3ghicfwtP5gKvbAhpy7sMRo9vzbe7eUAjv2?type=.png)

In terms of future plans and utility, Luigi has resisted saying too much to my questions, though he has said,

>  “My main focus is on Rubble Punkz and Exosama for sure, but I still want to do more with Pastel Beach Mall and my Art Gallery collection. The functionality of what NFTS will be capable of in the future is very exciting and I have some pretty ambitious dreams for my projects which I hope to share more on that if all goes according to plan.”



Luigi adds some personal words:
> 
> “I think the Dotsama community is the best community I have ever come across. Everyone is often supporting each other in multiple ways and the community comes from all walks of life. It's incredible to me how little toxicity there is...communities based on even the most wholesome things often have some of the strangest toxicity around, so it's refreshing to be a part of a community that for the most part avoids all of that and simply hypes each other up.
> 
> “I've only had a few bad experiences but it's nothing compared to all the good experiences that have led me to get involved in amazing projects and meet wonderful people. I'm just thankful to be a part of this incredible community.
> 
> “I want my collectors to know how thankful I am for all the kindness and support. It's been a blessing to work on these projects and I cannot stress enough how grateful I am to be a part of this community of wonderful people who enjoy my work. I am going to continue doing my best and I hope you'll all join me on current and future adventures!”


**If you enjoyed this article, please consider donating KSM to: 
D8WrK1jsFy9zpFwFZStaDTmX32pMZVdwXTm5rt9LsRKBQrz**

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A Conversation with Luigi, artist of Exosama, creator of Rubble Punkz and Pastel Beach Mall.

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RMRK Royalties and Game Theory: Featuring Vampsy

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Evrloot conducted an AMA with the community on discord, answering questions largely around the upcoming Soul Mints, playable characters in their upcoming game.

3 infographics were dropped, detailing some of the more frequently asked questions.


------------------

# **Mint:**

Mint is Sunday the 29th.

There's no WL or guaranteed mint. Purchases will be done on Singular, with no limits, and anyone can purchase.

The souls are capped at 1k total, with batches released over time, with the first being a batch of 300. With each batch release, the prices will rise 10%.

Each drop will have roughly 153 Lost, 86 Warrior, and 33 Fabled Souls.

Total supply is as seen in the infographic.

![](https://app.subsocial.network/ipfs/ipfs/QmTBKRAfwPnoMz86MAHKNBe4dNw93mEsvFepNRVDYFDFk6?type=.png)

The price increase is based on rising probability of having items for your souls. The stats and aesthetics, however, are completely random no matter what the rarity is. 

![](https://app.subsocial.network/ipfs/ipfs/QmZuGXPvqUefddKwuPs8weqL4W5YYvsNMxsPa41x32na5c?type=.jpg)

There are some perks such as legendary backgrounds, being able to have specific visuals for your soul, and OG status for purchasing higher rarity tiers.

![](https://app.subsocial.network/ipfs/ipfs/QmVrPCruCZbBmeUV1B41oA7CT2ZgbH1kPuCMKdF9gUaJUX?type=.png)

Lost souls have a 25% chance of item in each slot, and warrior soul, 60% (plus rare background), and fabled soul, 100% in each slot (plus legendary origin trait and OG background).

This means that there's no guarantee to get items with warrior/lost souls, because technically, there's a small chance of 0 items on your characters if the roll doesn't go your way.

![](https://app.subsocial.network/ipfs/ipfs/QmV9Mp87Vqy26t7MsdVD5yqNy87PT8A8PQKThFydYFny6k?type=.png)

Some Souls are being saved for the team (1.5%) and for other purposes like marketing.


You can have multiple souls on one wallet and play them as you will.

-----------------

![](https://app.subsocial.network/ipfs/ipfs/Qmc2vcyjuC128XUnXLZ3Ud5D3PLtAXUYPNVMKFHxcavnQB?type=.png)


There will be a snapshot of owners with:

1. A complete book--will receive a Warrior Soul Airdropped for free.
2. Incomplete books--Will receieve a Lost Soul airdropped for free.

Pages only owners will have in-game perks

----------------


Amulets do not take up a slot. They will reflect purchase size aesthetically. Red Hands will have an upgraded aesthetic. Enlisted will have upgraded aesthetic that also comes with a stat boost.

**Edit:**
*"Amulets will take up a slot, but there will be no items for these slots given out as part of the mint. Said in another way; there are 8 item slots total (head, body, left hand, right hand, feet, neck, left ring finger, and right ring finger), but you will only have a chance of minting items for the first 5 slots during the reveal event. Amulets and rings will be introduced later, and the first people to have access to them will be the Enlisted and the Red Hand .

"Amulets and Rings will give some cool bonuses btw so making it so you can only wear a limited number based on your open slots will make for some difficult decisions."*

![](https://app.subsocial.network/ipfs/ipfs/QmdUpCe5waV4qXDdQibjSyKyuxG4voYzMbrEgvZuGqpLs2?type=.png)

Stats affect general success in missions, and even failure or critical failures. Soul stats are strength, dexterity, intelligence, wisdom, luck, fortitude. 


Luck is a unique stat in that rarity is harder to get as it is directly related to getting loot, like "magicfind". 


-------------


# **Alpha:**

One of the key aspects of the game is story missions. A subset of story missions is "impact missions."

The Kraken mission was MVP of an impact mission where the entire playerbase has a choice to interact with the mission during a period of time. The choice the group makes will have direct impact on the direction of the story and world.

This is similar to DnD where the story develops as you go, and is only limited to the dungeon master's creativity (or the team, in this case).

![](https://app.subsocial.network/ipfs/ipfs/QmfWi47DmhgKpZT3GUcQ6qP1AGRrdGqnZPE8Su48EVMkkt?type=.jpg)

There will be individual progressions. Fishing, fighting etc, and your souls are "soulbound" in which the events and missions you take will collect like a character history or character memories that change the value of your character and, if you choose to leave the game, someone else can pick up where you left.

Completing storyline missions will unlock next missions specific to that first mission, and there will be several mission lines.

There will be many complex interactions, and they are working with Tricky NFT consultants. They believe realism is important, and thus, they would like to move towards a full metaverse.

For example, giving people the option to interact with places that their soul exists in, such as if their soul is in a tavern, a discord channel unlocks through a collabland integration that they can only see when they are in the tavern. This can expand quite a lot.

---------------

# **Future:**

Rmrk as a standard is the future, and composability is a big part of that.

Evrloot NFTs can continue on forever, and anyone can build games around the same NFTs.

If someone wanted to build an action rpg from the same characters and resources, they can. It's open source development.

The roadmap is already released, though subject to change as team grows and time goes on. There will be an updated roadmap in the next weeks.

Guides are being built as well.

![](https://app.subsocial.network/ipfs/ipfs/QmWuiUE9CYEzTcWkqHkiLUeFaToiDjj8Yzc89iK1AHNfTK?type=.jpg)

The souls (tarot cards) will release Sunday, and after a couple weeks (2-4), there will be a reveal which is done on the website UI (don't try to do it yourself). Then there will be a few weeks of equipping, trading, etc, and after that adventurers will arrive on Trakan, and some low key first missions will be available.

Over time, they want the adventure to be more and more community driven.

RMRK 3.0 is a golden goose in the distance that will bring a new wave of innovation. They are still somewhat limited right now, but really pushing the limits of the tech right now, but they are moving towards smart contracts.

Eventually will be marketplace.


--------------
![](https://app.subsocial.network/ipfs/ipfs/QmVCJhNuJn6d5RCg4RNd8jtsC4vJhByaGxNYm5nEZFsxKx?type=.jpg)

# **Misc:**

While they aren't ready to release any game mechanics today, they do want to create a realistic feel, while knowing that it's a game. There will be a health system, but it won't feel "cheap".

Yes, they will cater to diff play styles. Long vs short missions, for instance.

No, you cannot upgrade skills between missions because going on a mission, you are sending your character to the mission's wallet.

Yes,  permadeath functions will come later. Right now, it won't exist. They are focused on a smooth and fun experience, first. They've proven they can deliver, and deliver fast, but everything is still step by step.

Yes, they are always trying to bring in more communities. They are starting with Moonriver folks, as RMRK is an important asset that really distinguishes Dotsama in the crypto world. They want to continue partnering with projects that are pushing towards the bleeding edge, and they are thankful for the support they've received from prominent individuals that really want them to succeed.

Bringing people from outside of crypto in, is always a hard task. For instance, DnD players are generally very harsh towards NFTs as they have been burned by money-grab loot boxes that burned them in the past. It's not easy to get these people in.  

The team is watching DnD projects closely and seeing how others are approaching the issues. It's more expensive than traditional players realize, and while more expensive at first, on the other hand, players own their assets. If a player is clever, not only will they enjoy the game, but they can grow the value of their characters and assets.

It is a shame that so much of crypto is so run by manpower, and they do believe that with 50% of the population as women, they ideally would represent this in their project as well. They encourage it, and are trying to form partnerships to be more inclusive of diverse voices. That said, they don't do paid advertising, and the community is at the core of spreading the word and creating the future of EVRLoot, so much can be done on the community side as well.


------------


# **General statements:**

The team believes what they are building will be so big that it will saturate into the outside world in time. The vision is big. They need and want to be the portal for people outside Dotsama and maybe outside crypto.

While the story is about Trakan, the team loves the story of building in this decentralized ecosystem, including all the friendships, partnerships, and fun that comes with it. They appreciate everyone sticking with them, even in the bear market.

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Evrloot AMA Recap may 24

Original interview by the Big Technology Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5l9wjA6N_c

-------------

# Background

Gavin was motivated to participate in blockchain because he began to notice how social contracts to society were not being honored by authorities such as government and other central entities. He feels that it's unfortunate we live in a society that we have on the face ethics, statutes, and freedoms, but behind the curtain it's not as it seems.

Over the last 10 years, where Gavin once began in a "trust neutral stance" where he accepted that he needed to trust certain entities, and that they would honor contracts, he's moved into a place where he wants to focus on building tools where trust is not needed.

He is a technologist, and not a politician, and he even believes that politics may not be the right approach to real change as, no matter what, even if there are good and honest people, you can't trust everyone and someone will betray trust.

![](https://app.subsocial.network/ipfs/ipfs/QmYGNRQpVECDkEqd95RhtmP2sNSigtNZ6tL5AAb1B8zdy9?type=.png)


Instead, it's better to create systems where trust is not needed, and unfortunately, technology as it is now especially with the internet and web2 has facilitated certain problems to exist.

Most communication technology encourages the consolidation of power, on a scale never seen before (ie Google and Facebook). Decentralization is ultimately the reduction of power any one party has over the entire system. It's not necessarily the absense of any centralization.

Most systems are heirarchical, top down structures, and decentralization removes the need for this.

Gavin is at Davos, a place where many might disagree with models of decentralization, because he believes that Web 3 is important, and there are open minded people there where, with the right education, its value can be made clear even if they ultimately disagree.

ETH is a place where you can program on the blockchain. Where many people don't understand its utility, it would be comparing home computers in the 80s to where they are now, with better power, connectivity, and accessibility.

![](https://app.subsocial.network/ipfs/ipfs/QmY3aVFAWCQtuMkQ6KbyYeyquoMrA1bWm2e86GLYxnyffZ?type=.png)

That said, there's still a gap in terms of higher level elements such as software, services and integrations.

Gavin believes that there's an education problem as much as a technological problem. Similar to when people didn't know what the internet was, people couldn't see the advantages of the internet at that stage.

The advantages of Web 3 is that blockchain applies encryption and game theory to contracts. It's trust free computing. Blockchain as a whole is a transparent system. 

In the old days, we didn't have encryption by default on the internet. Now it's expected to some extent, as the issues arise. Web 3 is asking the question of just how far we can take encryption.

In terms of Bitcoiners and web 3, and the divide between them, Gavin can only attribute the divide to tribalism as many of the ethos is the same.

![](https://app.subsocial.network/ipfs/ipfs/Qma3QaGpjErRKquyxHWrnuXg63ZdP4sPWgi5GsAmUbz2qz?type=.png)


Gavin believes that if you don't have choice, then you don't have power. If you only must trust an entity, then you have no power. That's the point of his technology.

People should be given responsibility for their own choices.

We should be able to make our own decisinos based on current and relevant information. With the services being offered now, because of the lack of transparency and protection, and the need for trust, we can't inform ourselves and therefore make our own decisions well.


# On Social Media

Social media suffers from many of the above problems. Most social media survives off of the network effect, and centralized control which has largely been demonstrated as incompetent.

The current problem is the same problem with all communication architecture. We as decision making individuals can be manipulated.

![](https://app.subsocial.network/ipfs/ipfs/QmdSgdvUrZFzA2h54dxt9SSw7zCY3KHcGQpuqDyucgZZM8?type=.png)

He's working in partnership with a framework looking to create a social graph, a stack of technologies, a general social networking protocol with Polkadot as the underlying framework.

It's a little abstract in concept, but the problem with social media competitors is that you have to onboard people already stuck in the network effect that gives the platform power.

Instead, by creating a social graph of data where any social network could plug into and use, that would allow people to onboard seamlessly. 

In this situation, the user would have all their information on this social graph, and it would be kept private on their side (The need for private data on blockchain, unfortunately, often centralizes the information stream as a result, so having the user control their data, and encrypt it first on their end before sharing, would prevent this from becoming an issue).

Only encrypted permissions exists on the blockchain that the user would be in total control of distributing to social media platforms.

In other words, the user could decide which information is shared with which parties, knowing that 3rd parties would not be able to access that information without their permission.

The blockchain would be the permissioning infrastructure, but the data is mostly offchain. 

A Graph is just nodes and connections. Each social platform could choose and create algorithms that they like. Not all will use underlying data the same way, but the connections are there. 

In the current environment, essentially the same basic data needs to be entered in each application a user uses, and they don't know what that data will be used for or where it will go. This would solve all those issues.

If people can trust that entering data isn't by default giving to a 3rd party to inspect it, then they are in a much better position and Gavin believes that people would be more willing to give complete informatian.

This is not perfect privacy, Gavin wanted to clarify. Someone could always take a picture of something on a screen, for instance, and breach privacy that way. But it can give credible expectations of privacy.

We can't trust the other services right now. How many people would say they trust Mark Zukerberg?

In this system, no single individual can gain unauthorized access and see the information. The algorithms can be agreed on by the masses as a collective decision based on the use-case of the platform.

The only reason people haven't left the current systems is that they are held by the network effect, and not because the tech is so amazing. A service is being used because people think they can't live without it, like nicotine.

It's ultimately democracy destroying to have only 3-4 places forum is happening.

As for transaction fees, on Polkadot, through division of labor and scalable, decentralized, security architecture (which has taken 4 years of heavy labor of large teams to engineer), there will be orders of magnitude better scaling available on Polkadot.

In the future, programs will still be programs, but the APIs will be different, and the things you are building will be different. Peer to Peer will mean something different. 

Acedemia hasn't caught on yet. This will change. Systems that are secure, and p2p, will be important.

Unfortunately, at present, even on Ethereum, 98% of it is still built around centralized entities, with a point of failure like Infura, still being fallen back on.

Hopefully this will be solved through light clients, and Polkadot is aiming at true decentralization.

And with the bear market, there are definitely silver linings. Things are being built. There's less nonsense, and it's easier to recruit talent who are interested in building real things.

![](https://app.subsocial.network/ipfs/ipfs/QmXgjkDA7TysK4DsWGc75bsu97YDgkSWdhv7r9U6gK23Uu?type=.png)

**KSM Tips can be sent to: D8WrK1jsFy9zpFwFZStaDTmX32pMZVdwXTm5rt9LsRKBQrz**

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A summary of Gavin Wood's interview in Davos 2022

I had the opportunity to interview Ramz on the upcoming Astar Troopers project. It came onto my radar through invite-only, word-of-mouth, private chats. I was one of the first 50, perhaps, but in no time, the top communities of Dotsama all were gathered in one place—a small group of 100 familiar and friendly faces…But what was this about?

---

**1\. You’ve stated that the goal of Astar Troopers is to be something of a community-initiated ambassador program. Could you tell me more about how the idea started, and why you initiated it? Also, how will this be differentiated from Astar Degens?**

> Astar Troopers originated from the minds of Astar Network's dedicated community members with the premise to form a fun and engaging group where the immediate community could bond whilst aiding in Astar brand's growth.
>
> This is still our goal, but we quickly realized that scaling this initiative and involving other communities could serve a greater purpose - to strengthen other Dotsama communities big and small alike. Seeing how many of us dabble and contribute in different groups, and on different chains, there was no need to make this a gated or siloed community. On the contrary, and similar to the layer 0 we live on, we want to do our part and facilitate connections between various communities.
>
> There is power in diversity and numbers, and we're setting out to showcase what is possible when communities come together.

![](https://app.subsocial.network/ipfs/ipfs/QmbLEd1JNwuUmQgzMUL3WREvPEB67J1NvR2fUHaJq8LBs3)

> The difference between Astar Degens and Astar Troopers lies within its stated purpose. The AD DAO is a community-governed fund which invests primarily within the Astar ecosystem.
>
> On many occasions, it has reached out and collaborated with outside communities in regard to NFT giveaways, AMAs, and the sort. But its primary focus continues to be the Astar Degen NFT holders and the financial benefits they can attain from being a holder.
>
> On the other hand, the Troopers are not beginning with an economic mindset but instead a collaborative one. What comes next will be a product of the creativity of our growing team and the sparks that fly from communities intermingling.

**2\. I believe that NFTs are going to be part of this community as well. Would love to hear some ideas you have around how NFTs will be used.**

> NFTs are a great way to identify yourself with something you vibe with. Whether it's focused on art, utility or simply to support a cause - it can create a unique opportunity to bring a group of people together - and that is what we set out to do.
>
> The initial invites to the Trooper discord were given through word-of-mouth until we eventually reached the first hundred members in this manner. We plan to airdrop a "1st Hundo Trooper NFT '' to each of these “founders”.
>
> These NFTs will be customized to signal their support of Astar and the other communities they represent. In a similar fashion to how one would stick stickers on their laptop, we’ll stick “patches” on these troops. To celebrate this “1st hundo”, we plan to hold a special event with these holders.

![](https://app.subsocial.network/ipfs/ipfs/QmXaqrR2RNYm54pxSnaVem2LpoRtAZjKyAvLQK1Z8sVdEN)

> We want to stress another factor that is important to us: accessibility and quality. We want to create a collection that is aesthetically appealing and is **also accessible to the public**.
>
> When it comes to NFTs we don’t want to make any promises, but we do want it to grow in utility over time if the community is there.
>
> A bit of alpha; this first (and second) batch of NFTs we plan to create will come with a special “skin” in a collaborative agreement we are working on. More news to come.

**3\. What are the biggest needs that Astar Troopers is going to fulfill, and how do you plan on achieving them?**

> Bridging different communities together is a need we want to fulfill. Be it groups focused on dApps or NFTs, devs, leaders, or noobs - we want to connect them all.
>
> It's an undertaking, for sure, but one we happily try to accomplish.
>
> Our aim is to create a safe place where a user can be free to roam and participate in anything that interests them. We also want to show how Astar Network acts as a hub for innovation, a sandbox to play and build upon. With this in mind we can begin to see it as a community hub too.
>
> The user will come to learn about different projects within Dotsama from the very users involved in them. I intentionally mentioned noobs before because there is also an opportunity to offer a light, fun, and engaging environment to new users, devs, and artists.
>
> We expect some of them will be making the leap from Web2.0 over to Web3.0. I think it's easy to forget how intimidating it can be when first starting. Hopefully we can collectively educate and at the same time provide a welcoming space to the next wave of Dotsama users.![](https://app.subsocial.network/ipfs/ipfs/QmY4iaJTKeXopWRYKKzh9FSiE5v3tMDUByqJj77mXRMaBE)

**4\. Partnerships and networks are everything with these initiatives. Clearly, you have plenty, but are you going to seek official partnerships and funding of any sort?**

> We hope the networking effect that we are striving for will be a catalyst for future partnerships/collabs to form between everyone involved.
>
> As per funding, we never planned on it as this is mostly for enjoyment and connecting. Though, I must mention that we are brainstorming ideas on how to create a small fund to support projects and future events. We want to include as much community input as possible as well.
>
> Astar Network is in a way an incubator and partner of this project. It’s not too common where a parachain team of Astar's caliber is seeking to support a community focused initiative like this. It's very telling of what Astar values. They are also funding the initial NFTs that will be distributed.
>
> Another point on partnerships, Josh Kesslar from Acala recently tweeted something that really resonated with me:

![](https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/E8Un5ltjrIGONj99qXkhpy5OtWdQ87PEQgd0Ph_8uZRrd89ejGtrB_oyRUTqazBedl6Rym31sBhZMam6II-vdzJvQwL77q89sKiFPEsO8tvS68LBdFG19XRgHmTPqc_FaEOE4KbaWvCkeViLT6J4l1w)

```
“Polkadot’s success boils down to cross-chain activity. If we build together, we’ll thrive together.”
```

[https://twitter.com/joshkessler\_/status/1552122205819002881?s=20&t=d6CogLg85nzlGxXfp4Yj3Q](https://twitter.com/joshkessler_/status/1552122205819002881?s=20&t=d6CogLg85nzlGxXfp4Yj3Q%EF%BF%BC)

> We want to expend real effort to do this and lead by example. Building, interacting, collaborating with a variety of projects will help us accomplish Polkadots main goal. We hope to encourage other teams to engage in a similar manner.

**5\. What is most exciting about Astar Troopers?**

> The most exciting thing about the Astar Troopers is seeing all the projects represented and all the "squad patches'' (roles) people choose to wear.
>
> It speaks volumes of how interconnected we already are. I hope teams become curious and join in on the fun. It’s also exciting to leverage all our collective knowledge to create novel ways to collaborate and have fun.
>
> We have some amazing trooper minds in there.

Join the Astar Troopers discord here:  
[https://discord.gg/2RRWMrAv](https://discord.gg/2RRWMrAv)

---

# **Pnin’s Ratings:**

**Sincerity: 9/10** (1 = "It’s a scam, run for the hills") (10 = Convincingly not a scam)

Explanation: This is obviously a project built on passion. Every participant has a long reputation of contribution to the Astar and Dotsama ecosystem, and the reason most are not named individually is because it’s such a significant community that listing them all would cause more exclusion than inclusion. I think there’s little to no possibility this is a scam, but even so, it’s always wise to keep your eyes open.

**Art: 9/10** (1 = Low effort/skill trash) (10 = Worth investing in if only for only the art)

Explanation: So, I have to admit, I’m a huge fan of [Bullet,](https://twitter.com/Bulletforhire) the artist. His work is perfectly balanced to me, and I lean towards the high contrast, strong lines, style. So, for me, if only for the art, this is well worth my involvement. Maybe I’m superficial for thinking this. That said, mint price will be 3-5 dollars for public sale, which wasn’t covered in the interview but I’m dropping here. I think between the low price, and the altruistic nature of Astar Troopers, there’s no question that it’s worth it if only for the art.

**Ambition: 8/10** (1 = Nothing of note planned) (10 = Might actually be impossible to achieve)

Explanation: So, the challenge here is that there’s a lot of vagueness. It’s a nice idea, to be a hub for communities, but this is a fundamental NFT play in that community is everything. Every project wants to be the hub, and the only difference here is that Astar Troopers is specifically looking to be a community contributor rather than to focus on returning value to NFT holders. People are motivated by greed, often, so an altruistic project that is requesting people’s time and efforts with little promise of return can be a hard ask. That said, community is everything, and they are starting with very strong.

**Team: 8.5/10** (1 = Totally unqualified, if even real) (10 = The dream team)

Explanation: Everyone involved is an OG community member. For what the mission is, everyone is more than perfect. However, these members are so involved in so many things that one could wonder if they’ll be able to contribute the time and effort that is necessary for such a mission as this is definitely not the only project any team member is involved in.

**Community: 8/10** (1 = It’s dead, and for good reason) (10 = Not only is it active, but the community is real and authentically invested)

Explanation: Every name especially in the first 100 are known contributors. But the activity thus far has been basic, and there may be a lack of clear awareness of what the mission is, and where things are going, and what needs to be done. This can change rapidly, as this is a very new community, so I’m leaving this score rather high due to the participants.

**Risk: 2/10** (1 = Pretty much a sure bet) (10 = Chances are akin to winning the lottery)

Explanation: What’s the risk here? 3-5 USD? Time and effort? Thankfully, with their mission statement, failure won’t have much economic consequence to participants. The upside, however, could be significant both for the collectors and the participants. Keep in mind that the final supply has not been determined yet, and if you’re here for the financial returns, you may not find it on this project. (Then again, you never know.)

**Significance: 7/10** (1 = Doesn’t offer anything new or valuable) (10 = Could change the very fabric of reality)

Explanation: I find the significance of this project parallel to other projects I’ve seen. It’s a great mission, it’s needed, and it’s valuable. Every onboarding tool is good, and all should be supported, but adoption will be key. I will be curious to see how Astar Troopers executes the vision, because this could be significant, but like a crypto wallet that wants to be the best crypto wallet for all crypto, there’s a lot of competition for attention out there and even if it could change the landscape of all crypto (highly significant), it also could dissolve as a mere good idea.

*Disclosures: I was not paid for this article, nor am I associated beyond being one of the first 100 members.*

**If you enjoyed this article, donations can be sent to: D8WrK1jsFy9zpFwFZStaDTmX32pMZVdwXTm5rt9LsRKBQrz**

bafyreicx4lxopva3o652vh4z2jjyviuy7ghqar5tg5bcwk67w5szztmmb4

An Interview with Astar Troopers

*I ran across Terra Incognita’s work while partnering with him on the Neon Crisis Multiresource drop, in which he created the landscape immersion pieces for the lore that I and my co-author, Silas Crane, had worked on.*

*I was terribly impressed by his soundscape, and I wanted to learn more about who Terra was and how he became involved in blockchain. I hope you enjoy the interview.*

---

![](https://app.subsocial.network/ipfs/ipfs/QmYLVwUmej2S7cQbKMCQ6wNKEAfcxmMRXAgc4TwYUnQHNX)

* **How do you feel Music NFTs will change the music industry?**

> I feel as if music NFTs and NFTs in general are quite misunderstood. Big price tags and horror stories are what are generally passed around, but it isn’t until you get inside the tent, so to speak, that you start to understand the potential and the game at play.
> 
> Yes, questionable artworks have changed hands for silly money, but it is not where I see potential within this space. What I see is the potential for artists and collectors to build and contribute to art communities. In my case, I am interested in music as an artist.
> 
> I feel that there can be a connection between artists and collectors that goes beyond just paying money and receiving an MP3 with a Jpeg attached to it.
> 
> Buying an NFT can be an investment in an artist and their community. There is the obvious correlation between the idea of collecting vinyl and collecting NFTs of artists you like.
> 
> I like that analogy, but I also like to go beyond it.
> 
> The idea that a music artist could potentially fund an album by selling the NFTs, then in turn, the collectors holding these NFTs can benefit in many ways—even receiving a cut of future resale revenue, is exciting.
> 
> The benefits could range from tickets to a show, a live stream, a community hangout, to bonus material not available anywhere else. So much of this can be airdropped now, connected online.  
>  

* **What about RMRK’s tech specifically is interesting to you as an artist?**

> I think RMRK’s tech is very clever in that things that maybe look like singles before can be built into albums within a collector's own wallet.
> 
> If they buy an NFT, it can constantly be topped up with extra assets in real time. Artworks, bonus tracks, remixes, whatever. It essentially means an album can be built over a period of time, and the NFT collectors see it coming together in their wallet.
> 
> We are only scratching the surface of this, too.
> 
> There are a lot of novel ideas floating around about collaboration and composable NFTs, but the thing that stands out most for me is the smart contract idea.
> 
> I can work on something with someone like Leif, we can release it in the future, and we get our split on the tracks directly into our wallet. If someone remixes it, they get the their cut, too.
> 
> If collectors have invested in the project, they can also be written in to gain future revenue on resale royalty, or hopefully in the future of streaming royalties.

* **Could you tell me about your background, especially in regards to the traditional markets?**

![](https://app.subsocial.network/ipfs/ipfs/QmTjPmbimeFYoPViqR5yrKyEbcuiCrBgooPPpZkdJFCFie)

> I have been involved in music most of my life. Around 1997, I received my first set of turntables and started DJing, mostly making mixtapes for my friends as I was around 13 years old then.
> 
> By the age of 16, I picked up the guitar and started songwriting, becoming the singer in a band. I continued to write and perform right through into my 20s.
> 
> Over that period of time, I started to drift back towards electronic music through my interest in acts like the Prodigy and everything else that was crossing indie music with electronica at the time. This inspired me to start learning more about electronic music production.
> 
> After being made redundant from my day job at 26 years old, I decided to enroll in a Sound Production course at college full time, the one I actually teach now.
> 
> During this period, I found myself drawn back into club and rave culture in quite a big way. This totally developed my knowledge of electronic music and also involved me in DJing again.
> 
> I found myself leaving the band elements behind altogether and becoming an electronic music producer.
> 
> Over the years, I have worked under many different aliases producing and releasing Techno, House, and Ambient music. I have released some smaller labels without any massive successes. I have also self-released a lot of music and ran a label with some friends. Now I am now self-releasing under my own Terra Inc imprint.

* **How you became a creator in Singular?**

> I started the Terra Incognita project at the beginning of 2020 when I found myself really inspired by the deeper elements of hypnotic rhythmical techno. I have loved the focus on rhythm and texture, creating atmospheres and worlds of sound.
> 
> The focus since then has been to keep on developing that sound and myself as an artist. Recently, I have taken some time away from releasing fresh material with a view to pushing my sound in a different direction.
> 
> I have grown tired of the loop based hypnotic techno and feel inspired from further afield. The newer material I am making is a shift away from the original Terra sound.
> 
> I fell into this space by accident. My good friend[ Leif Wyn](https://twitter.com/leifwyn) and I were approached about doing the music for the[ sub0](https://twitter.com/substrate%5Fio) conference last year. That music was received extremely well at the event.
> 
> Off the back of it, we learned a little about the potential of NFTs and we minted the mixes and[ dropped them](https://singular.rmrk.app/collections/5e18f2acddf1f3951e-50CGI) on Singular. The rest is history, really.
> 
> Around the same time, we immersed ourselves in the Dotsama and NFT community on Twitter and started to interact with many like-minded individuals. That is how we found the rest of the folks within the collective. The potential of building a new audience where there could actually be a financial reward for our art was a main driving factor on making me want to stay once I had dipped my toes in Web 3’s water.
> 
> Only once you are waist deep do you realize the vastness of this whole thing and the potential it has.
> 
> It will be everyday life soon enough, which brings its own set of challenges.
> 
> We can all obsess about making the best of being here early, we scatter ourselves, spread ourselves too thin, and struggle to keep up. I have suffered from this myself.
> 
> I feel like the right approach is to surround yourself with the right people, invest your time and efforts into projects, and do the work you feel right about. Experiment, be nice, and see what happens. I am trying my best, anyway.

Terra Incognita Flowpage for all social links - <https://flow.page/terraincognita>

---

**If you enjoyed this interview, KSM donations or NFTs can be sent to D8WrK1jsFy9zpFwFZStaDTmX32pMZVdwXTm5rt9LsRKBQrz**

bafyreidpl7dpf2vn5kryuf7naaq4tl3wz646hwha2uptcppo2a4zkhhoea

An Interview with Terra Incognita

bafyreibh3aazygy5f5gw5wheeb4qc3bay6o6es3kzdqpvqe52w3szr4euu

Veil of Time Play Test and Analysis

bafyreifogln5evj7izm2ybsn6vshnp7pyyptm6udlfrlw7szktqc27a4um

NFT Guild 1.5 Month Update Mar 15, 2023

# Intro

This article proposes a solution for increasing voter participation. It does not discuss issues around voter value, proposal value, and governance reputation. Instead, it is a proposed solution, simplified as much as possible, to generate consistent engagement from token holders in governance which is a difficult problem found in all democratic systems.

---
  
  
Having seen a large number of governance tokens in crypto be implemented, as if to represent value and “utility” of a token, there is a distinct disassociation with utility of the governance token and true value of the network.

The value proposition of a governance token is that it acts as a social layer of network security. In general[ proof of stake,](https://ethereum.org/en/developers/docs/consensus-mechanisms/pos/) the manipulation of an ecosystem’s current state (ie, attacking consensus) is prevented by the number of staked tokens across a large number of validators.

In a governance token’s case, the governance token protects against attacks on *changes* to the ecosystem both social and infrastructural.

However, the culture of investors purchasing governance tokens is that investors purchase a token as if it is a representation of the value of the network rather than being a token of security. This has led to astronomical valuations in the billions for governance tokens.

Simply said, fear of SEC regulation aside, *investors are treating the governance utility token as if it were a share of a stock–except in crypto’s case, as a share of the network.*

This is entirely false, though. A token to protect the network is not a direct 1:1 value of the network itself.

This is further evidenced by the general low participation across the board in governance initiatives. If the token’s value is to be able to vote, and people bought it because they were convinced it was amazing to be able to vote, then wouldn’t people be scrambling to vote any chance they could?

Subjectively, I’ve seen voter turnout in blockchain amounting to 0-7% as “normal”, and voting turnout of 15% of circulating tokens would be a phenomenal feat for a large network. Here’s some data shared by Rich from Decent partners around Decred managing an astonishingly high voter turnout.

![](https://ipfs.subsocial.network/ipfs/QmZmKbQFSoNeBJJR29YLMmwYmb2Q83YtTkUUJ3j9nB1pQA)

This [article](https://bitcoinist.com/governance-voter-decred-tezos-cosmos/) highlights the reason for high voter turnout:

> Firstly, it is important to note that all three of these protocols actively ‘identify’ as self-governing blockchains. It could be that this element of the projects is one of the key draws which appealed to many of the token-holders.
> 
> Additionally, and perhaps a greater factor, is that Decred, Cosmos, and Tezos, all provide voters with direct incentives to participate via Proof-of-Stake. So the assumption that token holders will participate in on-chain governance votes purely through their passive ownership seems flawed.

In Kusama governance we see a high of a[round 9%](https://www.kusamagovernance.com/), and a norm of about half as much.

![](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/9lJkUQCP9v8fQ3pvxebeeBz9w5RGYsXT_scFN-xz3lXSjT6FnzYDo2XQfgh8pA-wNYdE1SVEFh6LdyP0j3tiJfbiDByWWjSPdNLp82zDYU9i3pXaonbsDgA5m8E9fVSPQTAZ5u89xp603aNVb9_-WCE)

Regardless, in most all crypto governance, a[ small ](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/08/contentious-uniswap-vote-highlights-the-opaqueness-of-decentralized-governance/)number of voters who are essentially the whales of the ecosystem, often just the top 10, and almost always the top 100, can determine everything.

Polkadot and Kusama are arguably no different in terms of whale influence.

In simple terms, this means that 10-100 individuals can decide the fate of all participants numbering tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of individuals who simply are not incentivized to participate in governance. According to [Chainanalysis](https://cryptopotato.com/1-of-dao-members-controlling-90-voting-power-chainalysis/) for major DAOs, 1% of token holders hold 90% of voting power.

**TLDR; unless governance tokens are *used* to secure the future of the network, the governance token has no value.**

In my opinion:

*governance tokens != network value*

*And*

*Voter turnout = governance token value*

---

It is a common thing in crypto to have airdrops of [governance tokens](https://cryptopotato.com/1-of-dao-members-controlling-90-voting-power-chainalysis/). This is so that the voter pool is wide, and there is, in theory, better security with more decentralization.

However, as mentioned, because of low voter turnout, decentralization becomes a myth. This is why there is the emergence of delegation models where those with more knowledge and motive are given the right to vote on the behalf of individuals who trust them.

This is effective in many ways, but the core problem remains that there is still more centralization than decentralization over time, and too much centralization results in social security risks to the entire ecosystem whereby these delegated groups or individuals always vote in their own best interest, very similar to flawed democratic models today.

Worse yet is when the democracy isn’t executed on-chain, still controlled by a single party which is more than not, the actual situation. Even in a multi-sig situation, governance may not be executed except by a small group of individuals.

A recent event highlights this issue, in the highly regarded [Arbitrum Airdrop](https://twitter.com/cringe/status/1642500640218939393?s=46) where despite a failing vote, the team issued a statement saying that it was a formality, and not a true vote.

Since, there has been a [response](https://twitter.com/OlimpioCrypto/status/1642535263552393217?s=20) to the accusations, but the point remains that a decentralized token in itself does not, even with voter participation, result in decentralization.

Thankfully, we’ve begun exploring Open Gov on Kusama, and eventually Polkadot, where governance decisions are executed on chain automatically.

# The simple solution

It’s my opinion that network value needs to approach governance token value for governance token models to be valid.

Though impossible, we should seek to move towards:

*Network value = Governance token value*

This means that instead of distributing all of a governance token to token holders, the tokens reserved for governance should be given to those that govern.

Before you react and point out the obvious flaw, hear me out.

The problem with paying people to vote are numerous, but perhaps chief amongst them on the grounds of tokenomics is that you are encouraging manipulation and further centralization, and you are inflating the supply.

## On the problem of manipulation

Manipulation can be seen in all incentive models, even in Proof of Chaos’ [governance NFTs](https://www.proofofchaos.app/) run on Kusama in 2022\. The NFTs inherently had no value, but collectors decided to create a market for them and value them accordingly, even so.

Manipulation to earn NFT rewards became common, but at the same time you cannot deny the effectiveness in increasing engagement.

Many lessons were learned through the trial of governance NFTs.

What’s already clear is that not everyone cares about NFTs.

But, it can be self-evident that network participants *do* care about token incentives, though.

We can prove this by looking at pure staking incentives where active stakers amount to [47%](https://www.stakingrewards.com/earn/polkadot/metrics/) of the network tokens, often approaching 70% in many (even large) networks.

This is because in general staking, there is an alignment of motives where individual greed, altruism, and network security all achieve the same goal. (And of course, it’s generally simpler, and a single action taken which improves participation over time).

Our solution, then, is to do the same for Governance.

The evidence of the efficacy of aligned incentives as seen in Decred, Cosmos, and Tezos models is clear.

While I have only casually fleshed this idea out, I believe that its fundamentals could be the solution.

## On the problem of inflating the supply

When rewarding participants who are incentivized not only to vote, but to manipulate, the architecture of the incentives must be carefully considered.

While this is only lightly considered at this stage, here are some thoughts I have. To start, a few premises that are known, but should be established:

1. Inflating supply is always a concern for token holders. Too high inflation results in a supply-demand cycle that leads to lower price which affects token holder confidence and overall participation. Thus, inflation rate *cannot* be increased further, and ideally, should decrease the total supply over time while incentivizing participants.
2. Consolidation of tokens to larger holders must be carefully considered whereby those with the most tokens are already incentivized to participate, and those with less tokens are naturally less incentivized.
3. Voting alone is not valuable in itself. Referendums in itself do not necessarily offer improvements to the ecosystem. There must be some method to reward only valuable changes to the ecosystem and incentives should align with this.
4. Reporting and accountability must align with incentives, especially for ongoing projects, and there must always be a reasonable fail safe that protects token holders from being locked into prior decisions.
5. Even without inflation, “personal inflation” or rather an individual’s wallet receiving “free tokens” will result in selling pressure. Incentivizing people to continue participating in governance must recognize the danger of this in human nature.

## Initial Ideas with all the above in consideration

**Allocate a portion of treasury for rewards**

A significant portion of the treasury, including a portion of future inflation, should be set aside to reward voters in general proportion to the number of tokens held. For every vote that is passed (to help ensure that only valuable proposals are rewarded), token holders will receive a small % of their token back in return as rewards.

![](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/wfqHHNAkKhfqndiCUnA4toGhW3d1A0IWHkoEDPxQBsLVkxYoUD4QH5aluvLry399jTs3Ulv8kA2tP_8vtweVm5drC2CIIZpUKoFSj8pGe53raaevm6WscjWcRJA8HsAg-kL-cVJ3sgFL7bKNX2gU0OU)

Also “total stacked?” “Staked”, you mean?

This % will decrease based on the number of tokens held, because as mentioned, those with large token holdings already are incentivized to participate. However, importantly, the % decrease should not be so significant as to encourage wallet splitting manipulation. It is meant to be a light measure to encourage smaller holder participation but “not be worth the effort” of managing multiple wallets (or bots).

**Build a Flywheel Model of Governance**

As mentioned, individuals who receive “free tokens” are likely to dump. In what can only be seen as one of the strongest flywheel models in crypto thus far, [GMX](https://gmxio.gitbook.io/gmx/rewards) is a perpetuals exchange that has achieved incredible volume and TVL to support their perpetuals, while being one of the only protocol DeFi tokens to 10x during the bear market because of its flywheel model and clear utility.

![](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/D2KuGhVPYZeKeWoFr4aGjNT9e4FdPUTcEfIH7hA44_hy8U5wkGwwxf9UL8QO1svG-wkl-NUhN43FOQvqEGuOzvVt5F1kpHUPJM1yK60pUN0wiJetVK9PHYwMR6-5vPIVi-Ax1rd9jUshur0icYipjtc)

Countless DeFi models have emerged directly emulating GMX’s flywheel model.

For those unfamiliar with flywheel models, it’s the idea that there should be incentives to return tokens to a locked state so that protocol rewards don’t dilute the supply, and cause downward price action, protecting investors.

We’ve seen failed models with poor flywheels in most all DeFi protocols aside from models like GMX where tokens are given fully unlocked to participants, and yet they are unable to gain TVL without these incentives.

We thankfully have freedom in governance to circumvent issue because participants already hold tokens and are already invested in the protocol.

However, we still cannot neglect the need for an ideal flywheel design.

On the other hand, some governance models have attempted to make flywheels too restrictive, resulting in individuals not participating because token restrictions are so aggressive that there seems to be no point in participating at all.

Using GMX as inspiration and combining it with existing conviction models already available, I would propose a model in *parallel* to the current conviction weighting system.

Those who are willing to add their rewards as a *separate* parallel “conviction” model can lock up their rewards and multiply the value of their tokens during governance rather than collecting their reward immediately.

This means that those who participate the most, over time, will end up with more tokens to add to their “conviction” and thus, reward weight. They can choose to withdraw their tokens at any time, but there will be an immediate modification of the “conviction” they’ve accumulated to reflect how much they’ve withdrawn in rewards.

In the situation that an individual adds more tokens to their voting power, this will also naturally reduce their parallel conviction reward multiplier because it must correlate to how many tokens they are voting with.

**Delegation Reward Reduction**

As mentioned, delegation to known experts results in higher centralization and often self-serving manipulation. I would first suggest that those voting with delegated tokens would split the voting rewards between delegators and themselves, and have a reduction of overall rewards by 20% between the two parties.

**Return Delegation**

Additionally, I would suggest a “return delegation” model where those who hold a high amount of delegated tokens are naturally given a lesser % reward (again, without being too aggressive as to reduce participation).

To prevent this reward from depreciating too much, however, there is another incentive.

They can “return delegate”, or allocate their voting power to different individuals/parties who may be better informed than they are.

This will be categorical, in which they can choose types of spends, categories of spends, or topics, and have these certain parties or individuals vote on their behalf with the total tokens that have been delegated to them.

It could work in tandem with agile delegation which allows delegation to specific experts, but it could go even further in that more delegations to further sub or sub-sub-topics could be better rewarded.

This of course has other manipulation risks (as in simply delegating to different self-owned wallets), but if return delegations are only available to those with an x month history and on-chain identity, it could help prevent such manipulation.

By decreasing rewards to those who do not return delegate, it leads to a distribution of responsibility in a way that furthers decentralization, while preserving the value proposition of original delegation.

**Token Burning**

Perhaps the most controversial aspect to this ideation is the consideration of token burning. Right now, we are utilizing more of a treasury that has been ultimately under-utilized on DOT, and recently over-utilizing the treasury in KSM. Asking to increase the circulating supply no matter what, even with a strong flywheel design, will lead to additional selling pressure.

I would propose the possibility that for every successful proposal passed that achieves a voter threshold (such as 15%), that an equivalent portion of tokens requested by the passed proposal is burned from the treasury.

The reasons are this:

1. It would encourage overall careful spending of the treasury.
2. It would help counter the general long-term consequences of an increasing circulating supply.
3. It would counter-intuitively protect from the additional spending when voter turnout, being incentivized, becomes so large that rewards are extremely high.
4. It answers the question of “who pays for the burn?” Token holders won’t be okay with countering an inflating supply with their own tokens, nor will validators agree to decreasing supply. So, who else could take on the burden of this spend but the treasury itself, and increasing circulating supply is a major issue, always.

This is merely the first draft of this document, spun up train-of-thought, but I hope it provides some ideas to consider as we are facing challenging issues around Open Gov.

The federal government spent an estimated $340 million in voter education and outreach in 2020, but including state education, 1.2 billion was spent to achieve around 50% participation in election voting.

Thus, I believe that with this model, the active participation and the encouragement of frugality would pay for itself in the long-term. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Pnin

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Aligning Incentives in Governance

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Did you hear about that Game? Witch One? Unstoppable Games on Polkadot

As part of research for a Kusamarian Episode, I interviewed Co-Founder Mr. Tin both in video and written formats prior to presentation, the full version which can be found here:  
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhmUvxmdDMw>

As additional material, I’m publishing the full interview with permission on Polkaverse.

---

***Could you give me a summary of what your open gov*** [***proposal is***](https://polkadot.polkassembly.io/referenda/388)***, and what it enables, and why it should be funded as a public good through treasury?***

The open gov proposal published by the Great Escape is called “Promoting the adoption of Polkadot through gaming.

As the name indicates, we intend to ask for retro funding for building a concrete application of the XCM tech to GameFi with our game (the Great Escape), thus effectively promoting the adoption of Polkadot for gaming purposes.

This proposal aims to retroactively fund:

* The creation of an accessible Polkadot-based game
* The design and improvement of a smooth gaming experience
* The creation of a fun game with a stable and secure infrastructure
* Showcasing the unique possibilities offered by the Polkadot technical stack with the creation of an original cross-chain deposit/rewards system
* Driving the adoption of the Polkadot tech stack with an open-source toolkit to help other builders adopt and adapt our cross-chain funding/withdraw solution
* Creating a fun hub for Parachains to join forces and raise awareness about their own tech

The idea is that the Great Escape was able to leverage on the unique possibilities offered by the Polkadot/Moonbeam stack to build a game that solves the main issues faced by players and builders alike when it comes to Web3 gaming: the high entry barriers.

We’ve interviewed dozens of players to understand the main barriers for web3 players:

* The fragmentation of the games offer around more than a dozen of active chains
* The research required to discover a new ecosystem (where to get the token, what wallet to use, what is the cost of the gas etc…)
* The upfront investment required to join a new game ( to acquire/rent an avatar + gas)
* The lack of trust in an unfamiliar ecosystem.

And buit the Great Escape to be a hyper-casual platformer game leveraging the Polkadot and Moonbeam tech stack, creating a new generation of Web 3 game with a new model:

* Free-to-play
* Gas-less
* Wallet-less (players can join without a wallet, they create one when they off-ramp)
* Chain-agnostic (players can join the game from any chain)
* Offers rewards in any token (players can claim rewards in their preferred token).

We believe that it should be funded by the Treasury as we not only show a great example of what can be achieved in terms of gaming solutions thanks to the Polkadot tech’ but also because we are actively promoting the XCM use and created a Jungle EVM/XCM Toolkit that can easily be used by other builders to deploy their games and even DeFi dApps on Polkadot.

As such, we consider that our work benefits the whole ecosystem as it makes Polkadot more attractive for builders while also making it super easy for dApp users to interact with Polkadot-based Dapps without even having to realize it.

***It seems like you've had a lot of growth in activity towards your game, at least based on Twitter. Where do you feel like that has come from, mostly? I've seen a number of campaigns and partnerships appear, and I know you've always incentivized playing, but I'm curious what your perspective is--and do you have analytics on these? Do you feel like you'd have enough of a player base to continue playing and growing even without incentives?***

Yes, our player base grew out a lot over the past 6 months. We went from 500-ish players on the closed beta in June 2023 to over 1075 now (mid-December) - and more than 1800 players have tried our game at least once.

This big increase in number can be linked to two major shifts in strategy that we adopted around May/June 2023.

First, we gradually transitioned away from a token-gated game, requiring a NFT + the game token to play to a free-to-play game model. Players can now join without any upfront investment in seconds thanks to our fast on-boarding process relying on homemade player’s account custodial solution.

Second, we started to work on a new player’s acquisition strategy that aimed at on-boarding hundreds of players at once through the organization of large open tournaments with attractive prize pools.

We organized 3 tournaments on our own, targeting mainly countries with a great Web3 player base like the Philippines and Vietnam or emerging countries with an interesting profile when it comes to casual gaming like Turkey.

These open tournaments relied on local influencers to bring new players in and managed to attract over 1000 players in total, most of them having never heard of Polkadot nor Moonbeam.

We also established some partnerships with the AGG guild that has an arabic-speaking crowd and managed to attract dozens of new regular players through that partnership.

We now boast about 150 to 220 players on a weekly basis, making the Great Escape the TOP 1 non-DeFi Dapp on Moonbeam in terms of EOA.

![](https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/hTB4-bHiqFiD0r5wegL_DS8gLlCCr4VG3wrin9QGcBxgfrSvuQYfkeKnh8V6HxgVR7JnUn-zT6XIHnAo8qMI-UQJ-M6Mq2bnquw0CPBJyEur7EZE27Ir3BcL97njqKtuGRoP6_5zcHPRv0IG22nq3xM)

\* Please take note that only the players on the V2 contract (listed 7 or 8 months ago) are accounted for in the Alltime section of the analytics leaderboard (hence the discrepancy in numbers -> 771 vs actually over 1800 players)

Source: [Moonbeam Analytix](https://analytix.web3go.xyz/layout/dashboardDetail/c99f7e10-de9c-4d9f-992b-279b6e0ae2e2?date%5Ffilter=past90days&dapp%5Fis%5Fnot=XEN%20Crypto)

This active base of players keeps on growing steadily and boasts about 1000 daily game sessions, a number that has been growing steadily since last May.

![](https://lh7-us.googleusercontent.com/P4GvJ7oktCgJBofcIPHjwHeRps39vV89z5wXqPUfqF5whKPURddEk9kdJmMX74xQ1aOuybcB2qfBNwuEGOj1a-ZcOdtfsLy0NhL4fDFy68tSiNHdcfn-ZeWw4zo-abyuJz1P9tTeZkzhbeNvTcPaBHQ)

The other factor of growth has come from the organization of branded tournaments for BiFrost and Apillon in Q3 2023 to respectively promote the launch of LST and of Apillon’s services.

These tournaments both had turnouts of over 280 players, who enjoyed playing the game with a specially designed character on a fun Bifrost/Apillon themed-map.

We’re proud to have managed to double our player base in just 6 months in the middle of the bear market, and are really looking forward to keep on growing our player base.

One of the great strengths of a hyper-casual game like the Great Escape is that it can quickly become self-sustainable once a certain threshold of players is reached.

We currently boast above 40.6% of player’s retention after 30 days, where on average traditional (Web 2) top-tier hyper casual games barely reach 1.75% to 2% of retention in the same period of time.

As Ads revenues account for between 80% and 90% of hyper-casual games incomes, this exceptionally high retention rate is great news in terms of the game profitability over the long run.

That’s why, we are confident in the sustainability of our economic model, given also that we managed to generate revenues even during the bear and with a game in closed beta through NFT upgrades, consumables sales and the sale of our game as a community-building and brand awareness service solution (to Apillon and BiFrost).

***Basically, everything needs to be easy for players to want to participate. I assume most of your upcoming changes in regards to UI/UX are around that, as well as chain agnostic and wallet-less gaming. Could you give me some specifics around the plans you have here, as well as helping convey how you perceive going chain agnostic? As you probably know, a number of projects have "left" the ecosystem, as more participation often (sadly) can be found elsewhere, but this leaves ecosystem supporters feeling a bit betrayed. Would love your optics here.***

When it comes to our perception of going chain-agnostic, we believe that it’s great news for Polkadot.

We managed to greatly lower the entry barrier for potential GameFi players, and that in itself is excellent news. But to go even further, the cross-chain/deposit system that we built for our game could NOT be built anywhere else than on Polkadot.

We basically see our cross-chain deposit/rewards mechanism as a net converter of new Polkadot-based dApps users. Indeed, thanks to that solution, you can imagine having a bitcoin maxi or a ETH lover joining, playing and enjoying our game without even realizing that it’s all powered thanks to Polkadot and Moonbeam. We basically help bring in new users.

Players can do everything directly from the chains they are familiar with, thus focusing on the gaming part of the experience rather than on the technical part.

Imagine if people had to have a deep understanding of Internet protocols just in order to access Google or X/Twitter. That would just not work!

If we want Polkadot to become successful over the long run, we need to first showcase how great it is to create simple dApps that can be used by the many without any specific knowledge about the blockchain.

We see the Great Escape as good way to convey the following message:

The future is definitely multi-chain and Polkadot has a great deal to offer when it comes to that.

***I'm sure there's stuff I'm unaware of, but since we have done a feature on GLMR apes in the past, I'd love to see if I can sneak in some alpha. Is there anything you'd be willing to share?***

The GLMR APES (GLMA) were integrated into the Great Escape game on September 21st, 2023 and can now enjoy the game along the Gibbons and GLMR Jungle NFTs.

The GLMA are now the strongest in-game avatar, possessing great speed, HP and jump abilities. They compete for both the classic and for a GLMA-only section of the weekly prize pool in GLMB (the game test token).

These NFTs can now be rented/leased using both GLMR and GLMB on [Double Protocol](https://double.lease/collection/glmr%5Fapes) (one of the OG landing platforms).

When it comes to the alpha news, the GLMR APES are about to open some very serious discussions over the coming weeks concerning the reward system and the tokenomics of the game token that will be implemented once the game goes public (ETA - end of Q2 2024).

The most important decisions concerning the Great Escape game mechanics, new items, rewards systems and tokenomics are taken by GLMR APES DAO. The Jungle Council, the DAO’s governance body formed of 3 permanent core team members and 4 elected members of the community, is in charge of writing weekly proposals on which GLMR APES holders vote on.

Based on the votes results, changes are made to the game accordingly. Given the importance of the new tokenomics, we expect the discussions to be quite intense and definitely exciting for the GLMR APES over the next 4-6 weeks.

DOT Donations can be made here: 14dninjaCh6YAn8qomDY67ZomeVp8sbzytbvd7jghQ7ek6xJ

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An Interview with The Great Escape

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NFT Content Creator Guild

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RMRK.app

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DOT Ecosystem: Thoughts, NFTs, News

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PNin

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Swader

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhmUvxmdDMw

As additional material, I’m publishing the full interview with permission...

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I'm  kabugu
Web3 developer building decentralized future. Creating stunning & user-friendly dApps. Join my journey exploring blockchain possibilities.

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