Checking Back On My Old Projects
During the last bull run and the build up to it before, I was involved with a lot of different projects. Some of them, I cashed out of early enough, some others I expected to go higher, and some I just lost interest in over time. With a new bull run slowly building up in the distance, I thought it would a great time to look around the projects I had abandoned in the past to see if there's still anything interesting going on and if it might be worth my time to keep track or some of them or even get involved with them again.
So for this article, I'll go through a lot of the old projects I've been involved with, take a short look at how they are doing, and give my opinion on whether they might still be of interest or not. I won't go into detail on any of those but if I do find projects that spark my interest, I'll probably follow up with a more detailed report on what I plan to do in the future. So let's get started!
Doctor Who Worlds Apart
The pseudo blockchain game run by the BBC was one of the more interesting projects during the last bull run. They gave out free tokens like there's no tomorrow. $0.1 for logging in every day and huge rewards for bringing players to their project. I never spend a penny on the game but managed to collect a lot of packs that way. Fun enough, though, they never had a working off-ramp for card sales, so I didn't bother too much.
Looking at the project now, there still is no marketplace up and running, it just says coming soon when you hover over it. Now that's fun. It also seems like they removed all of the free money faucets, so at least they seem to understand that that was a bad idea for their project. Nevertheless, I got a lot of free cards sitting in my collection:
I have no idea how I managed to get to 1248 when I never bought or sold a card and there are 5 cards in a pack but what ever. I have zero interest in playing this game and this is never going to be an actually decentralized web 3 game. I own a lot of their first edition cards, though, so I'll monitor it and if there marketplace ever comes online and they do provide an actual money off-ramp, I'm totally going to dump all the cards I hold there on the market. There's nothing better than free money after all.
Verdict: Observe and liquidate
Gods Unchained
Back in the day, Gods Unchained was a clunky and very underwhelming Hearthstone clone with some web 3 tokenomics thrown on top of it. Looking around the game, it doesn't seem like this has changed much. The game has received massive funding, though, and it now even has a partnership with Amazon Prime going. I did liquidate my whole $GODS airdrop at the height of the last bull and used that as a means to take out some money. Looking at their token price now, this was a pretty good move.
I still have around 460 GODS tokens sitting in my Immutable X account, though, and I also hold some cards from their Genesis Edition (the Alpha Edition for GU). With an ATH of a bit over $7 and the massive funding they are still receiving, I'd say there's a real chance that this token could get interesting during the next bull again. I might even try to play a few games, who knows, maybe they did manage to improve the game in a meaningful way? This certainly is one of the projects I'll start to look at more closely again, even if it's only to make sure I take as much money off the table as possible.
Verdict: Dig deeper
Cub Finance and Polycub
The Leofinance DeFi platforms were my first and last interaction with DeFi. Back in the day I was heavily involved with Leo Finance and held a lot of their tokens. Because of that, I received rather big airdrops for both of their DeFi projects. At times, these amounted to quite a bit of value. I even made the mistake to buy some more Cub with the Ampleforth airdrop I got. Sadly, Leofinance never managed to really get things going and token prices plummeted real fast. By the time I was convinced that nothing is going to happen there, it was already too late to move out any meaningful amount of money, so I just stopped caring at the project.
Looking back today, I don't think that's going to change any time soon.
So that's $50 across both platforms, I'm not going to bother with that. I might look back at the height of the bull (if I remember) but most likely I'll just forget these platforms ever existed and move on.
Verdict: Ignore
Torum
Torum is a web 3 social media platform that emerged some time in 2020 if I remember correctly. I did use to hang out there quite a bit and actually did build quite the following back in the day:
As the bull run raged on I did lose interest eventually as there was no real money off-ramp and then forgot about the platform. I did check back one time to find that there now was integration with the BSC chain but that was after things had already cooled off so I didn't bother to find out how things worked exactly. Because of that, I've never withdrawn any of my earnings yet and I was delighted to find that my tokens are still there and are even worth something:
My first impulse was to just exchange that for something I would actually use, but then again the goal is to explore old projects, so I'm at least going to take a closer look around before making any decisions.
Verdict: Dig deeper
Alien Worlds
Alien Worlds was one of those games that I was lucky enough to get in just in the right time. It started out as a simple faucet with the promises of a lot of stuff to be added over time. Well, during the bull, nothing of that really got implemented, but they managed to score a Binance listing and that was obviously huge. I sold all my tokens and NFTs during that time and made a good amount of money that way. Afterwards, I never looked back because there wasn't really a game to enjoy back then.
Looking back today, the project does look a lot better and it seems like there are a lot more options available now compared to what we had in 2021. I only have a few abundant/common NFTs left so I doubt that I'll be able to make any meaningful returns with that, but I want to at least have a closer look at everything before moving on.
Verdict: Dig deeper
Well, this has been fun so far, but with 3 projects I want to take a closer look at already, I think I'm going to stop for today. There are quite a few more projects I need to revisit, so I'll probably do a second post like this eventually. For now, though, I have my work cut out for me and I'll go through the projects I want to dig deeper into one at a time and if I do find something interesting or decide to get involved again, I'll certainly let you know!
And that's all from me for today, thank you all for reading and see you next time!
Thanks for the recap! Great to get a glimpse of some of the web3 happenings from before my time.
Cheers! Found it pretty entertaining to go through these things again, was my first cycle after all :-)
Re: Doctor Who Worlds Apart
You got me into it. And up until May 2023, I was logging in and claiming daily. THe old version of the site allowed logins from Twitter, but since they have re-launched with a new version of the game, I haven't been able to login.
Prior to the new site, there was a marketplace with minimal liquidity. The marketplace functionality and UI was clunky - took me an hour to list 5 pages of cards and I only managed to get 2 sales.
Re: Alien Worlds
Another game you got me into and I did the same as you, I sold all my key NFTs during the 2021 NFT bull craze and funneled that money into other games. I haven't been back, but there daily/monthly users according to dappradar has always been high (top 10 games). Super keen to read if you do dig deeper.
Re: Cub Finance and Polycub
I still remember hearing about Cub Finance and my first purchase of Cub was at $1.81 and have been watching it ride all the way down. I just do monthly claims as I have some farms running but don't think it will ever revive itself as the InLeo (formerly leofinance) team is fully focused on inleo platform.
Awesome, thanks a lot for the great feedback!
I'll start looking into Gods Unchained first as I see the biggest potential there.
I'll move on to the rest after that and will absolutely let you know.
About Alien Worlds, and I don't mean to intrude that much, it's really to share a technical consideration.
I observed their population for some time and for the time I observed it (which stopped some time ago but it was still the exact same 200k and had the exact same activity at that moment, though I would need to verify it more closely it looks the same) it does not follow a normal curve and behavior and related market activity.
Making me think of mainly a "stable bot farm". But there is a new habit in wax projects handled by marketing - you know how they have some ponzi tendency and also use "pragmatic solutions" to keep $ on top - which is usually to set up their own bot farm for their own projects, so as to keep on top on charts and also gather up their own currency; they don't think trading against their players would be so bad once they can drive the value up by other means.
This may look surprising but it's only a technical note I wanted to share.
I observe this habit in several projects (well at least 2), and I know by vocal confirmation from an owner in one wax project owned by marketing, where they precisely set up their own private bots to farm their own currencies.
It's real, it happens, and it scales, and nothing can tell them it would be a "bad idea" because they only see the money and the currency control - with currency farmed that they could want to sell at top value, considering they can drive value with announcements or content, so they can use trading as well once they give value to things, and players would not guess it because of course it's done in secret with their own fake accounts.
Sorry for the mood but hopefully we can try to have other ethics. Setting up a project-owned bot farm to have a lot of stats on dappradar is easy, unfortunately. It gives the accounts and the activity. But people also unfortunately look less at these details these days, and start to think it's a normal culture too.
Ah this is fantastic insight @elindos
Hello @khazrakh and very happy Christmas to you!
We lost contact all of a sudden and I never knew how/why and I thought I did something wrong, blaming me 100 percent for it. Please don't feel you have to say anything about it, that's okay. I thought maybe there was a very tiny bit of slim chance that it was you optimizing your time on a lot of projects at once.
I was also worried for a time that something happened, and that part was worse, so I am glad to see you seem okay!
About EXODE, our science fiction HIVE game, maybe you should give me 1-2 more months to package a few things (maybe one) but I can still give you a summary. Well, an elindos summary, sorry about that.
I certainly forgot a lot of things there but you know how it is.
Events and simplifications :
We went to Berlin in June for a web3 live conference where we were exhibitors ; we spoke about blockchain ethics there!
At Berlin we met a lot of the superb hive people! Would have been great to meet there with you! Was thinking about you a lot, but then again maybe Berlin is not close to you. However Berlin organization did cut all their marketing effort, there were almost no visitor except all the exhibition staffs of people.
Tried to expand the dev team with interns and then one hired person. This did not stick because of a lot of events but this did provide a number of upgrades.
First it was about a new prototype called EXODE Missions (still available here: https://exode.io/game/2325_alpha/ ). Eventually I thought EXODE Missions was still too technical and complex for players. But there are a lot of things that we will reuse, such as the concept of player shops which is not showed in the demo.
We revised our exode.io website & presentation to switch it to beta content
Tried to simplify onboarding on website
Accepts ETH payments and logins
Accepts email logins (though it's done from checkout)
Made a new tutorial system and website faq and tutorials (keychain tutorial, and a nice new evacuation tutorial)
Added a new beta pack opening service and beta card presentation
Content :
So this was the 2023 events only and yes, we are still late.
It's not quite enough even if it's some content.
Q1 was about EXODE Missions and trying to expand the team,
Q2 was about the new website and content and possible audience and Berlin event,
Q3 was about work was on Colonization Console. I also wanted to work on some HIVE proposals but was so far a bit advised to be cautious here and not hope anything, but I plan in 2024 to go for it anyway, once EXODE is in full shape.
Q4 brought a lot new ideas such as Refit+ pack and expanded colonization console. But I also worked on a EXODE Factions prototype.
At the moment I am working on a major playable content, playable right after logging in which is called EXODE Factions. It will use our collection in direct playable content and is thought as something more fun and engaged than staking.
It uses inspiration from Star Trek Online "crew system", with missions which can succeed or fail, and gacha-addictive progression on characters.
Simply said, you unlock mission areas thanks to character traits and packs you have, and you can place cards and launch these missions! Some missions will be featured in campaigns meaning they have follow-up missions with consequences from the first steps. There is an addictive progression too to Factions characters.
EXODE Factions is envisioned because the new audience will like that: to have something they can directly play for more direct rewards.
We definitely need to enlarge the audience - the year 2023 was certainly difficult - and that's why I am also working at the moment on Stripe Integration, which is almost ready and receiving final touches. It's much better than Paypal, our paypal pipeline is becoming obsolete.
I am also plugging hive engine scripting to directly transfer / purchase currencies, but that part on hive engine is not ready yet. For now we show the hive engine currencies of players.
Colonization game loop is like a proof-of-concept which then needs to extend further, before we switch again to the graphical view of colonization. The console is more technical looking but I still am fond of that to be honest ;)
Unfortunately got sick earlier this week but almost recovered now!
I would love to see you back, but do as you want to be happy! in any case, thanks an immense stellar exoton for everything Khaz... you are an immensely great person. And wish you a super happy Christmas time!
Hey there Commander, awesome to hear from you.
First of all - don't blame yourself for decisions I did make. You are an awesome person and I always admired your passion for your project - it's what really makes you special and sets you apart from a lot of other projects out there.
I'm sorry for leaving so abruptly and I absolutely should have communicated that better and/or should have stayed in touch in some way.
Most of this doesn't belong on the chain but back in the day, I was way in over my head. So much happening in the crypto world at once, my stuff I had randomly acquired suddenly being worth obscene amounts of money... I did loose touch with reality there for a while and I had to cut a lot of that stuff to get down to earth again.
I have this part fixed now, but I'm still hesitant to dive back in fully because I don't want that to happen to me again.
That said, I do love what you accomplished in the meantime and I absolutely intend to take another look back at EXODE. So if you'll still have me, I'll rejoin the Discord early next year once I'm back home.
I am thrilled @khazrakh!
Thank you for your reply!
I can totally understand losing the relation to reality; I think cryptocurrencies sometimes hit on a part that escapes our "tightly held civilization system".
Everything has been made with limitations in the real world ; and cryptocurrency actually breaks some of these walls which leaves an odd feeling where everything is "still the same around us" - yet something should be changed. Like an invisible wall being broken. It creates a dichotomia between these worlds. So yes "touching ground" again is important.
Congratulations again for your successes!
They are extremely important!
I will be overjoyed to welcome you back, you can do that at any time at https://exode.io .
One of the new contents is coming out this month, so later in the month is ok too to experience some of it.
We are also starting to gather funding for the EXODE novel and the EXODE boardgame ; at least these two are closer to the physical world somehow ; this is "early news" as the announcement was made on our discord but will soon be made to our blog!
In all case:
Happy New Year again @khazrakh!
Best wishes of health and happiness.