Editor's Note: This article comes fromDappReview（ID：dappreview）Editor's Note: This article comes from
, Author: Andrew Steinwold, Translator & Editor: DappReview Editorial Department, reprinted by Odaily with authorization.
Guide: Cryptovoxels is an interesting and hard-core NFT concept blockchain game. Before that, DappReview always wanted to spend some pen and ink to dig into the gameplay of the game. This time we translated this 6,000-word article by Andrew Steinwold. Andrew has been milking this game since June last year, and set an example by investing in a lot of land. Now the price has increased by 30 times, and he has gained a lot of merit and fame. In this article, Andrew reviews and analyzes the success factors, future prospects and investment logic of Cryptovoxels from multiple dimensions.
Note 1: This article does not constitute investment advice, it is only the personal opinion of Andrew Steinwold.
Note 2: The content of this article is relatively long. In order to ensure the readability of the translation, many paragraphs are free translations. If you want to read the original English content of the author, please refer to the link to the original text at the end of the article.
In June 2019, I wrote a blog post about why I like Cryptovoxels. In a short section, I specifically analyzed whether Cryptovoxels is a potential investment opportunity. At that time, I already compared the land in Cryptovoxel with Binance’s BNB token, and as you know, BNB has risen by 30,000%. So, now I can say without fear of slap in the face, I have long been bullish on the land in Cryptovoxel, and I am still bullish now! Next, I would like to have a deeper chat with you about some of my thoughts on Cryptovoxels.
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Cryptovoxels (hereinafter referred to as CV) hopes to build a blockchain-based virtual world. To put it simply, it is a completely open free sandbox game. Players do not have any goals and tasks, and can do whatever they want in the game. For more game information, please visit: https://dapp.review/dapp/750/Cryptovoxels
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at the beginning
The founder of Cryptovoxels is Ben Nolan. He does have two skills in running the project. You know, it is not easy to build a virtual open world on Ethereum. Before CV was launched, Decentraland (DCL) was the only homogenous project on the market. In fact, it is not an exaggeration to say that CV was born out of DCL. Because Ben Nolan worked in DCL for a period of time, I thought, he must have personally learned the advantages and disadvantages of DCL, and applied all these lessons to the development of CV.
Ben didn't quit his job until the CV was launched, and he has been using his spare time to develop the project. He is very clear that this is a brand-new and challenging project that does not require a large expenditure of funds, and he only needs to travel lightly. Many patrons waved money at him, but he rejected them all. In order to be able to create freely, he refused to be corrupted by money. The advantage of this grassroots entrepreneurial approach is that he can maintain control of the entire project and make all key decisions by himself. With no huge team expenses or office rent to pay, Ben cranked out Cryptovoxels in his garage (dubbed the Cryptovoxels Garage) when he was not working. His fundraising model is quite smart, and the amount of funds raised grows with the development of the platform.
In CV there is a cap on the number of plots (3026 total in the original city), and he sells some of them every few weeks. It sold slowly at first, and the price was very cheap. Newly released lands often fail to sell, and as more and more players join the game, each time a new land is put on the market, it always sells out. The number of users has increased, and the demand for land has also continued to increase. Ben raised the price of the land in a timely manner, which also made his wallet more and more bulging. Knock on the blackboard, because Ben only increases the price based on the increase in users, thus avoiding the ridiculously high land price and keeping users out of the market. Judging from the current sales situation, it is enough to keep the project running for more than two years.
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status quo
status quo
Below, let’s dive into a few factors that make Cryptovexels successful:
product-market fit
social space
ease of use
ease of use
Ease of construction
Monetization method
Product-market fit
Product-market Fit is defined as having a product that satisfies a specific and substantial need in the market. With the rapid development of the encryption/NFT market, more and more users are beginning to hold NFTs, and they urgently need a platform to show their NFTs. Cryptovoxels has developed products that meet the needs of the market and users. The desire to collect is inscribed in human DNA, and people have come up with the following reasons for it:
Practicality
Practicality
invest
invest
Players displaying the collected NFTs in the virtual world has both face and tickets. Doesn’t it just fit the above reasons? think about it:
If you want to show yourself, you can use the boundless CV land to envy others;
If you are an NFT collector, you can show your town house treasure NFT in the CV;
If you're a pragmatist, you can build anything highly creative on your own land with whatever you find handy;
If you're here just for investment, it's also great to just put up an order and let someone else buy your little things home.
On this basis, one CV platform can serve the entire NFT ecosystem.
Stage for NFT Artists
In fact, in the NFT community, the encrypted art community is the one that embraces CV most enthusiastically. Every crypto artist wants to have the best opportunity to showcase his work. The buildings in CV are very intuitive. Users can build a simple pavilion within an hour and place their own NFT artwork in it. It is also a simple art exchange, and other users can directly buy your s work. The network effect of encrypted art is imminent. As more and more artists enter CV, more and more buyers will be brought in, and new liquidity will continue to be generated. These crypto artists are like viral machines, they can always create beautiful pavilions in the game and post them on social media. Once fans see it, they will also come to join CV. As more users join, social connections will occur, and a series of new dynamics will be born.
The CV is also a social space: a 3D version of Facebook, if you will. Here, what everyone owns is no longer a personal homepage, but a piece of land, and you can put anything on it. People can also meet in this online world. For example, the Gangam Art Clut formed by user Conlan is a gathering where people who love encrypted art all over the world can participate. Meetups are an amazing use case that scales across many verticals. There has been a lot of discussion about the online exhibition. As users continue to increase, I can foresee that users of various NFT projects will gather together to discuss their collections: Axie users can meet in the Axie community, Cryptokitty players can meet in the Cryptokitty community... Believe me, CV as a As a social tool, users will always find new ways to play on it.
ease of use
ease of use
Cryptovoxels is cross-platform. In the past, video games were limited to a single platform. When I was a kid, I couldn't play Call of Duty with my friends because his console was a PS3 and mine was an Xbox 360. Only in the last few years have these games been released on as many platforms as possible: PC, Xbox, PlayStation, smartphones, etc. The cross-platform nature allows game users to explode. Those games with hundreds of millions of users, such as "Fortress Night", "My World", "Rocket Alliance", etc., also rely on cross-platform support to achieve success. CVs can be logged in via web pages, VR devices, or even smartphones. Cross-platform login can be of great benefit to projects that are just getting started. The web and smartphones alone have opened the door to the vast majority of the world. Users only need to open the webpage, click "Enter the World" with the mouse, and they will be there.
It's very easy to build things online. In December 2017, the monthly active users of "Minecraft" reached 74 million. This is due to many factors, but multi-platform availability and simplicity of building things are the main ones. Like Minecraft, CV is also open to everyone. It takes great skill to create incredible creations like the one below, however, most users can quickly build simple structures.
(Devil,Artist/Virtual World Architect)
(Alotta Money,image description
Artist/Virtual World Architect)
It is a huge advantage for novice users to quickly get started building items. Some platforms have an astonishingly high construction threshold, and they can only take a detour if they don’t know 3D modeling or programming skills.
The stickiest platforms/games tend to allow users to make money in some form. Minecraft allows users to own their own servers, and as server owners, they can sell digital products or memberships. Roblox goes a step further by allowing anyone to build complete games on their platform and monetize them however they want. Fortunately, because Cryptovoxels is designed to be very open and connected to Ethereum's global financial infrastructure, it allows users to monetize their in-game assets. I have already said that crypto artists can directly sell their NFT works online, but there are other ways to make money. The first consistently profitable model created by the CV team is character skins.
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(Cryptovoxels user MJ Moonbow)
It is still too early to be profitable on the Cryptovoxels platform, but we will continue to see different profitable experiments as it develops. One of the interesting methods is the built-in games on the CV platform.
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coming soon
game in game
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future
future
What does the future of Cryptovoxels look like? As the saying goes, "software is eating the world," and that includes our physical world. It seems like every day more people are living, working and playing in a completely virtual environment. Many people can get work done from the comfort of their home with just a computer. Get everyday entertainment like streaming shows, listening to podcasts or playing games using just your connected devices. These broader macro trends, such as the rise of remote work and social acceptance of gaming, are perfectly positioning platforms such as CV to capture significant value in the years to come. In my opinion, these platforms represent the initial iterations of virtual worlds.
I believe the missing ingredient for a true virtual world is blockchain. Blockchains such as Ethereum can enable digital scarcity and true ownership of digital assets. True ownership of assets gives people the confidence to invest more time, money and energy into their interactions with virtual economies and environments. Most importantly, it also allows developers and users immediate access to Ethereum's pre-built global financial system. Because of these benefits, users and developers will invest more time and money in creating larger, more robust virtual economies. This is the dawn of version 1.0 of true virtual worlds. I disagree with the idea that a real virtual world can exist based on non-blockchain assets, but that's another story. Now that I've carefully explained all the reasons why I'm bullish on Cryptovoxels, I'll further explain my reasons for buying specific Cryptovoxels lots.
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Personal investment positions
Clearly, I am long-term bullish on Cryptovoxels. Over the past year, I've slowly gained ground on the Cryptovoxels map. I have never sold a piece of land, and I value the long-term value of NFT and the virtual world more than the small profits in front of me. And Cryptovoxels appears to be leading in both markets.
Thinking back to the first time I invested in CV, I firmly believed that the height is an important parameter of the game land. To this end, I bought some adjacent land near Frankfurt (the area in the game), because that is the neighborhood with the highest height limit in the game. At that time, no one would be stupid enough to pay more than one ETH from Ben (head developer) to buy a piece of land, except for me. At that time, I spent a lot of money to bid for the land, which caused a little commotion at the time, but I always believed in my point of view. Now looking back at the entry price of 1ETH is really good! You must know that the land price in the Frankfurt area has risen to between 30ETH and 200ETH (data from January/February 2020).
Land at 10 and 8 of Elite Throughway both sold for 30 ETH
The land on Cash Road 2 is part of a Playa bundle worth 500 ETH, but it costs 200 ETH separately
This land bag should be the most valuable in Cryptovoxels at present, why do you say that? First, it contains the largest number of adjacent plots, and second, it is also the plot with the highest average height. Among the 12 adjacent plots, 9 have a height exceeding 18! Although there are higher lands in other land packs, they are not adjacent and are owned by different players.
I also found out that since all new players enter the game from the center of the world (The Center, underlined in red in the picture below), the land around the "center" must be very valuable.
It is not easy to buy the land around the center of the world. Since most of them have been sold to other players, I have to seek opportunities in the secondary market. At that time, I found four adjacent lands, and three of them happened to be on the only way for new players to be born. I have no doubt that the popularity of these areas will rise. I spent 1-2.5ETH on these 4 lands. The good news is that the price of land around the world center has reached the level of 29.5ETH to 35ETH recently.
Buffer Crossing lands 2 and 4 were recently sold for 29.5 ETH
Score Fork 1 land recently sold for 35 ETH
After several months of acquiring these "really fragrant" lands, I decided to do a comparative analysis of land valuations. It turned out that my intuition was undeniably correct. The land with a higher upper limit mentioned above, as well as the land around the center of the world, have the highest value.
In order to realize the great vision of the virtual world (Metaverse), I decided to start a new business and experience on the land. My goal is to successfully generate income in the virtual world for the next three years. To clarify, when I say virtual world, it can be any blockchain-based virtual world, including CV, Decentraland, Sandbox, Somnium Space, etc. The ultimate goal is a virtual world, so it doesn't matter what platform we use to achieve that. I have a strong feeling that these platforms will eventually converge, just as the early internal networks slowly joined together to form the Internet that connects the world today. I would also like to say that when I say "revenue generating" business in the virtual world, I mean any kind of game or activity that brings in money in a sustainable way. If a business can make a solid $100 a month, I think that's a huge win, because it means a native stable business model can work well in a fully virtual economy.
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As of the publication of this article (February 2020), the market has exploded as the transaction volume has increased. The monthly trading volume in early 2020 has reached a staggering USD 378k.
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(Cryptovoxels monthly sales history, recorded at nonfungible.com on February 14, 2020)
There are many high-volume land transactions. At the start of the year, some notable deals include:
29.5ETH (worth USD 5,500 at the time of transaction)
29.5ETH (worth USD 5,500 at the time of transaction)
30ETH (worth USD 6,400 at the time of transaction)
30ETH (worth USD 6,400 at the time of transaction)
35ETH (worth USD 7,500 at the time of transaction)
50ETH (worth USD 10,000 at the time of transaction)
52ETH (worth USD 8,500 at the time of transaction)
500ETH (worth USD 110,000 at the time of transaction)
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What else needs to be done?
There are so many things that need to be in order for the future to materialize. The CV team also needs to grow and develop continuously with the NFT market. The number of users needs to be greatly improved from the current 460. I hope that new users will not be scared away by the land price, and more original cities can be developed unexpectedly. CV needs to continue to be a gathering place for NFT collectors and players. Different games, users with different collectibles need space to meet, bond and display their assets. It would be amazing to host Gods Unchained tournaments in CV, or to be able to pair up with Axies users and play against each other in real time. CV especially needs to maintain the leading position of NFT artwork. NFT artwork will obviously grow into a huge industry, so that it can even rival the traditional art market in the future, so it is necessary to continue to encourage artists to create in CV. If any of these things are going to happen, there is a good chance that CV will be a thriving part of the virtual world in the future, though we should keep in mind that we are not even among the first NFT players in the virtual world. Decentraland already has 3,500 users, but only 460 CVs. We're still in the very early days, and there's still a lot to do, but right now seems to be the right time, both technically and in terms of timing, for a true virtual world.
DappReview translator presses:
In order to create a blockchain version of "Second Life", "Minecraft", or the grand virtual world shown in "Ready Player One", many blockchain + game practitioners are searching up and down, Decentraland, Cryptovoxels, etc. The project has gone on and on in the past two years, and I believe that more teams will join the ranks in the future. The ideal is beautiful, but the reality is very skinny. According to the current completion and development progress of most products, it is still far from a game with a complete experience and rich playability, let alone those grand and distant stories. Practitioners need to think carefully about how to bridge the gap between reality and ideals. The author of this article, Andrew, is undoubtedly an optimist. Of course, the ass may determine the head. Wouldn’t something that makes you earn 30 times better?From the perspective of DappReview, judging from the current situation of the development team and community of Cryptovoxels, the game may eventually stay in a hardcore and niche state. After all, for most players who do not know how to create buildings, they can What I do is to enter the game and visit all kinds of artworks and buildings (if you are too lazy to see it yourself, you can let the article in the Orange Book "The city where the housing price is 3 yuan/square meter, people here call it the capital of charm
Some readers who have finished reading this article may not be able to resist the desire to buy some land and earn 30 times like the author, please be sure to control your own hands. Open the game website first, go in and take a look around, go to the Discord community to watch, and then it is not too late to make your investment decision. If you really like it, you can buy anything. If you're just trying to make money, know what you're buying and take responsibility for your decisions.
Original link:https://andrewsteinwold.substack.com/
