Will this be the platform to go beyond CryptoKitties?
CryptoPets is a newcomer to the growing trend of digital ownership of assets utilizing the blockchain and a gaming component. CryptoPets promises the excitement of cute pets, mobile games, third party development, and even positive social impacts. Currently the project is in it’s second phase of a five part plan in it’s development. You can sign up for whitelist pet adoption which is set to debut sometime January 2018. Let’s breakdown the white paper and excitement around the platform.
Getting to know the platform
The first thing that stands out to me are the prices for pets and adoption. For the purposes of this article I will use the 1 ETH to USD price of $899. This price will fluctuate, so please consider that as I present any figures. For the initial pet adoption they will allow whitelisted users to purchase an egg. This represents a random chance of receiving one out of the five rarity classifications for the pets. For version one each classification will only include one type of pet. The proposed egg cost will be 0.02 ETH or roughly $17.80. Given the probabilities below there is a 55% chance that will net in a negative investment given the initial value of the dog on the market.
Here is the proposed V1 breakdown:
Pet Population Size Price on Market (ETH) Adjusted for Current USD Probability from Egg
Dog 6,000 0.01 $8.90 55%
Galápagos Tortise 3,000 0.05 $44.49 33%
Giant Panda 2,000 0.15 $133.47 10%
T-Rex 200 1 $899.77 1.95%
Unicorn 100 2 $1,779.54 0.05%
As you can see from the (taken with a grain of salt) USD prices above, CryptoPets turns into a seriously pricey game quickly. I wonder if this is the pitfall from using a fluctuating cryptocurrency as a barrier to entry to a new platform. One thing that I haven’t seen in the white paper is the ability to be successful in the game without having to put down serious money. This is a stark change from most gaming platforms. There is the “hard way” which requires a lot of work and a ton of time, and the “easier way” which is unlocked if you are willing to pay up. CryptoPets and others seem to put a price tag on every element of the experience so far, and that doesn’t include the GAS you will need to spend since it is atop the Ethereum blockchain.
I wonder how the prevent this from turning into what I consider the downside of CryptoKitties, the gaming of the marketplace. From the subreddit to guides, much of the work put into the CryptoKitties from users is in the hopes of turning a profit on their investment. I feel like this is a huge limiting factor for longevity, as once the markets take a turn down the whole thing will fall apart for those users.
The Gaming Element
Something that promises to take CryptoPets beyond a CryptoKitties clone is their built in gaming elements. On their roadmap for Q2 2018 is their mobile platform for gaming with the CryptoPets you have raised. SplashDown is the title and promises to be a Person vs Person action game that pushes players to be the last one standing. They have a PlayerUnknown’s Battleground (PUBG) influenced mechanic where you use water cannons to fight. The level will shrink over time and you can fight solo or with a team. With the pains that PUBG have gone through in terms of scalability and quality this seems like quite the moonshot for the spring.
There are a few reward mechanisms built into the game. Prestige points create a feedback loop that allows more in-game rewards. They also use the term stripes for their badges for in-game rewards. A key thing to note here, it doesn’t appear that you can earn CryptoKibbles (CK) via game progression. This token, which we will discuss further below, is used to level up your pet. Again a gaming component that only seems to allow users to progress by putting up a financial investment rather than the “sweat equity” than many gaming platforms include.
The Coin: CryptoKibbles (CK)
As a token there isn’t a ton of information about CryptoKibbles, so we will be in heavy speculation mode below. My initial impression of CK is that it is awkward that it only has a two letter abbreviation. A quick glance at CryptoGecko, a crypto tracking site, shows that only 3 of the top 100 cryptocurrencies have a two letter abbreviation. Perhaps it is a way to stand out. If we look at the table of the prices to max out different levels of your CryptoPets we can start to estimate the prices of each CK.
Here is the proposed V1 breakdown:
Level (LV) CryptoKibbles (CK)
LV 0 – LV 10 50 CK
LV 10 – LV 20 100 CK
LV 20 – LV 30 200 CK
LV 30 – LV 40 300 CK
LV 40 – LV 50 400 CK
LV 50 – LV 60 600 CK
LV 60 – LV 70 Missing in Whitepaper
LV 70 – LV 80 750 CK
LV 80 – LV 90 900 CK
LV 90 – LV 100 1000 CK
Notes: 60 - 70 was missing in the white paper at the time of writing this article,
so these numbers will most likely be revised
If we consider the initial market price of the Unicorn is $1,779.54 or 2 ETH, let’s think of that as the single most expensive purchase. We can speculate that 1000 CK will be less than 2 ETH. In most game mechanics an updated lowest level character is not as good as the next step up base character. Let’s say that a LV 10 dog is less than a LV 0 Galápagos Tortoise. The Tortoise is 0.05 ETH. So 0.01 ETH for the dog plus the Level 10 upgrade of 50 CK is less than 0.05 ETH. Remembering that we are deep into the speculation zone let’s guess:
50 CK = 0.03 ETH
1 CK = 0.0006 ETH = $0.53 USD
LV 100 = 1,000 CK = 0.6 ETH = $533.86
LV 100 Unicorn = 2.6 ETH = $2,313.40
This seems somewhat reasonable as you wouldn’t want the cost to upgrade a Unicorn to be too close to the initial “pro” price of 2 ETH.
Beyond the blockchain: Additional features
One surprising and welcomed feature of the white paper is mention of social benefit through the platform. CryptoPets has committed to donating 20% of the pet sales to the World Wildlife Foundation. They do not accept any Crypto on their donation page, so it will be interesting to see the mechanism for the donations and the timing based on the ETH to USD value. Perhaps if CryptoPets takes off it will push them to take in crypto which would be a game changer. That way platforms could automate distribution of tokens via a function of a smart contract as a level of automation.
There are some additional features that I didn’t go in-depth about, like breeding and attributes. According to the paper and roadmap the issues that CryptoKitties have run into with scaling has put breeding on hold until they come up with a better option. They are committed to keeping the breeding operations on chain, but understandably don’t want them to clog up the network.
Overall this is a project I am very excited about
There will always be challenges in building a platform like this, and there is a long way to go until the full vision hits the markets, but the vision is solid and intriguing. Here is a link to the white list if you want to check it out. They are also looking for community managers. Feel free to comment if you think I am bonkers with my CK price speculation or if you feel like I am missing key features to the platform. I look forward to writing a follow up article once adoption is open and let you know if I landed a super rare Unicorn!