Enter DeFi's New Kingdom
Happy Sunday! Today, I’m very excited to share DeFi Kingdoms — the premier Play-to-earn project on the Harmony Network.
The Profile Basics
Startup Name:
DeFi Kingdoms
Industry:
Web3 - Consumer (Play-to-Earn)
Network:
Harmony One
Market Cap:
$400MM+
Break It Down for Me
The Problem:
A gamified platform to teach a user the foundational mechanics of activities within the Decentralized Finance (DeFi) ecosystem, as well as incentivizing continued engagement
The Solution:
On the Harmony network, the DeFi Kingdoms universe is a fantasy game which incorporates the fundamentals of Web3 economics: a Decentralized Exchange (DEX), use of NFT heroes for gameplay, and opportunities to provide liquidity for the Kingdom’s economy to flourish
Core Users:
Users similar to
Axie Infinity
- Gamers, Play-to-earn consumers, investors, and more
Walk Me Through It:
Gameplay in DeFi Kingdoms is a whole new world. Upon entering the game, the best place to start is with a visit to the “Trader” which is the game’s built-in exchange. Here we can acquire a few JEWEL tokens needed to play.
Heroes are the centerpiece, and the “Tavern” is the next best place to visit after gaining a few JEWEL tokens from the Trader. Let’s break down the Heroes available at the Tavern and the types of activities available in the game:
Heroes (NFTs):
Three options to get started with a hero:
1) Head to the Tavern to either rent a hero for quests OR
2) Buy a hero from the Tavern marketplace OR
3) Summon a hero from a really neat portal that creates a new hero NFT with unique abilities and stats. There are a few different ways to do this, but at the core you need to already own a hero for yourself.
Each hero has unique abilities and stats which can help or hurt your gameplay
Bank:
JEWELs are the native currency for DeFi Kingdoms, and at the bank you can deposit (staking) them in return for rewards
Gardens:
Diving deeper into the mechanics of DeFi, the gardens are where you can “liquidity stake”. In other words, deposit the appropriate tokens into each garden in exchange for a portion of the fees from the transactions in DeFi Kingdoms’s marketplace or DEX. Note that fees are unlocked over a period of time, so the longer you wait, the more fees you get too.
Quests:
These adventures only need one hero to get started. Now, what kind of quests are available?
1) Profession quests: non-combat adventures to learn useful skills within the kingdom, like mining JEWELs, gardening and harvesting JEWEL rewards, and foraging for useful items in the woods
2) Adventure quests: teaming up with other heroes to fight evil and earn rewards for victory
Kingdoms:
Built with the limited supply of land plots available for purchase at the real estate office at the capital
The Kingdoms make up the World, and within each Kingdom, players can add buildings for extra bonuses and rewards which boost the heroes
Battle System:
Coming soon, heroes will be able to compete together in tournaments (
roadmap
!)
Show Me the Money
Currently:
DeFi Kingdom’s native token is JEWEL which facilitates the in-game economy to purchase hero NFTs, kingdoms, equipment, miscellaneous items, and more.
The project is a gamified version of the DeFi ecosystem, so beyond the appreciation of the JEWEL token, users have a few options to generate income.
Bank deposits for rewards
Earning fees in the garden - This means providing liquidity in the gardens and getting some cut of the fees generated (Liquidity just means that a user might provide a pair of tokens like JEWEl and USD* so other users can swap at the Trader using those same tokens)
Reaping the rewards of quests or tasks for the world
Be Wary
Where to be wary for DeFi Kingdoms:
Though DeFi Kingdom has experienced incredible growth in its short lifespan, the project is still in its infancy and there are a few considerations to keep in mind. Most other Play-to-earn games are created on other networks (e.g. Ethereum) while DeFi Kingdoms is on the relatively lesser known Harmony network. The deterrent here is the accessibility to Harmony’s ONE token since centralized exchanges offer a simpler on-ramp to other networks. Shifting to Harmony for gameplay would be the largest consideration.
Ultimately though, the speed and low cost of the Harmony network makes the onboarding experience actually simpler with a lower barrier to entry once you’ve acquired some ONE tokens. As it stands, there’s less of a need for scholarship programs -- making DeFi Kingdoms a more accessible project to the everyday person.
One final note: because the project is still in the early stages, the functionality is still nascent and the gameplay is actively being built out throughout the rest of the year and early 2022.
Now Get Excited
Now time for my favorite section.
My love for DeFi Kingdoms is encapsulated in the symbiotic relationship between the different pieces of the DeFi ecosystem, NFT utility, and Metaverse-like gameplay.
From an educational and onboarding standpoint, this project serves as a huge on-ramp for people without the financial knowledge or experience to maneuver the technical jargon needed to participate in the latest protocols offering financial incentives. Instead, the appealing backstory with heroes and the pixel world’s lucrative in-game rewards teach the basics of the broader Web3 ecosystem while generating monetary value for its users.
Compared to the previous piece on Axie, this can be seen as the “reverse Axie model” for the go-to-market strategy. Instead of building the gaming aspect first, DeFi Kingdom focused on the operational functionality of their in-game economy by creating the DEX and then adding the different aspects of gameplay to finalize the play-to-earn model.
Even more so, I’m excited about DeFi Kingdom’s potential for expansion by:
The product - Leveraging Harmony’s extensive list of
bridges
for cross-network token swaps within the game; Leverage other games’ NFTs for collection or stat boosts to the heroes; user-created or proposed quests for new liquidity opportunities; and expand social capabilities like P2P communication
The target user market - Expand beyond traders leveraging the built-in DeFi ecosystem by further emphasizing the storyline and providing quest incentive grants
Revenue generation - Explore the potential of an in-game, decentralized reserve currency (another DeFi tool similar to how a Central Bank would manage supply, started by
Olympus Pro
)
And that’s a wrap. As always, I welcome all replies - I love to hear what you enjoyed and didn’t.
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