Apeiron: A Project Overview — Tri-Token and Economic Model

10 min readSep 21, 2022

Apeiron introduces a unique Tri-Token system and compelling economic model to avoid the same mistakes of most GameFi projects and deliver a healthy, sustainable ecosystem for everyone who participates in the Apeiron universe. This article will present an overview of their Tri-Token system, the economic model, the release schedule of Apeiros, and more.

For an analysis of the project, please refer to the Project Overview, which can be found here.

Introduction

Most NFT games adopt a two-token model, with a governance token which acts similarly to a traditional company share and a play-to-earn token created via daily gameplay. The Apeiron Team noticed that following the two-token model may not be ideal for their project as it can result in problematic price fluctuations. Growth would be primarily driven by new users staking their way into the game, causing a depreciation in the play-to-earn token over time. An eventuality that has been seen frequently across the play-to-earn sector.

Apeiron has tried to avoid the unsustainability generated by a two-token model and introduce a mechanic that rewards different player roles. To do this, they have introduced a third form of currency (Ringularity; we shall discuss this later) to promote high-level gameplay. This currency will only be earned by players committed to joining and playing in Alliances. Apeiron believes this will reward their core community and give the game longevity and relevance.

As players keep playing the game, they will discover that to gain the resources necessary to level up their Spirit Core; they will need more than one Planet. To get more Planets, players must purchase them on the NFT market or breed a new one. To create new Planets or any other NFT for that matter, the player will need both Anima and Apeiros — the names of the other two tokens which can be earned through gameplay. These tokens can also be bought on exchanges. This will encourage players to be active traders on the Apeiron NFT marketplace. The main goal is that the play-and-earn structure will keep the players invested in playing to get more tokens and then feed the tokens back into the game to obtain NFTs to continue to level up and reach the exclusive endgame.

1. Apeiron Economic Model

The Apeiron Team has developed a system where the main value drivers are the marketplace and the monetary reward. Apeiron wants to foster roles and relationships between players, enabling them to exchange contributions and efforts through their marketplace. In-game, this will be aided by their TriToken System, as already mentioned.

The main goal of the Apeiron economic model is to put the power in the hands of the players, mainly by giving players full ownership of what they produce on the NFT metaverse, and second, through their Play-and-earn token, Anima.

Marketplace Cycle Ecosystem. Source: Apeiron Whitepaper.

The thesis behind the Apeiron Tri-Token system came from an idea that the Team borrowed from traditional gaming cards, where you have deck-building cycles centred around seasonal tournaments and community competitions. Translating to the Apeiron ecosystem, Apeiros (APRS) and Anima (ANIMA) will be the tokens used to create and improve Decks. At the same time, Ringularity (RNGU) will be the token that will allow players to unlock new seasons and trigger a new wave of deckbuilding each year.

The Tri-Token System:

Apeiros (APRS): These tokens will be used as a governance token; the token holder will be able to participate in the voting process, allowing them to impact the future guidelines of the Apeiron game development. The total supply of Apeiros will be fixed, with the release of tokens coming in stages, first to early investors and developers and then to the public in a Token Generation Event (TGE). Then, when the game is fully released, a part will be designated as a reward to a player that took part in the competitive PvP tournaments and obtained the higher tier achievements, such as completing Galatic Events (such as defeating world bosses).

In-game, Apeiros will also be used to purchase Mini-Black Hole NFTs to perform ‘Celestial Conjunction’ allowing the user to ‘breed’ the Planet or to forge Relics like Avatar equipment, skill cards, Apostles, and Environment Objects. Apeiros will be listed in centralised and decentralised exchanges and traded freely among players.

Anima (ANIMA): Anima is Apeiron’s Play-and-Earn token. Unlike Apeiros, Anima will not have a fixed supply. Each token will be minted when a player accomplishes specific tasks inside the game (such as a reward for completing dungeons, missions, winning Player vs Player encounters, and notably, large amounts can be generated through Armageddon events — especially the malevolent one). But, only a certain number of Anima will be able to be generated weekly.

Furthermore, Anima will also be used to perform Celestial Conjunction (Breed Planets) and Chronomerging. The supply and demand of Anima will scale with the number of active users, and the Team plans to monitor game economics closely to keep Anima in a healthy equilibrium.

Anima also will be listed in centralised and decentralised exchanges and freely traded between players.

Ringularity (RNGU): This will be Apeiron’s premium token which will be distributed in large-scale events. Players will also earn Ringularity from a sustained commitment to Galactic Events, World Bosses, Alliance-level Guild vs Guild (GvG) and raid content.

The third token represents the Apeiron team’s belief that Alliances and Gaming Guilds — social gaming — will provide long-term support for Apeiron to continue and grow. Ringularity owners can access the most enticing venues, shops, and yield farming mechanisms. As per the other Apeiron tokens, this will also be tradable on the exchanges.

The main noticeable difference between Anima and Ringularity is that Anima will be earned mainly via single-player actions, while Ringularity will be acquired via team-players activities.

1.1. Player Incentives Mechanism

The Apeiron Tri-Token and NFT mechanisms were created to mirror a functioning economy, where players in different parts of the game have varying incentives to interact within their system. The chart below explains how some of these mechanisms will occur. But remember, it’s just a model; when the game goes live, the economy will follow the player’s lead and will be shaped based on the players’ interactions.

To summarise the Apeiron Team’s vision: At the top, they see Star Owners, Planet Breeders, and market enthusiasts; they believe that these players will be the ones that heavily invest in the game from the start and will become leaders of their Alliances. Below them will be where specialised players are found; these players will be the PvP (Player vs Player) experts who have honed their Team for battle in the arena. They will focus on making Apeiros (APRS) — the governance token. After them, there will be the Player Vs Environment experts (single-player gamers), who farm dungeons and develop planets to get the best high-end Relics and Speedrunners, who will focus on maximising short and speedy cycles to generate more Anima. Lastly, there will be Socialisers. These players will slowly proceed through the game and treat it more like a friendly community rather than anything competitive.

1.2 Explaining Apeiron Sustainability

As previously mentioned, the Apeiron game is modelled on traditional card games like Magic the Gathering, Pokemon, and Yu-Gi-Oh. Games which have been played for decades. The Apeiron advisor, Slin, noticed that these card games had some key factors behind their success:

New content and fade-out system: Each season, the card game Magic the Gathering issues around 300 new cards; some Magic tournaments will only allow recent cards from the last three seasons, while others (e.g. The classic tournaments) will allow players to use all season cards, even including certain banned cards.
E-sports and periodic large-scale events: All these traditional card games maintain a long-lasting community by hosting large events; some of these events are regional, with them going up to world championships.
Social Gameplay: This is a crucial factor for retention and a prolonged game life cycle because players enjoy camaraderie, and money spent on Alliances and fellow members has been a proven income model for various MMOs (Massively Multiplayer Online game). World of Warcraft is the best example of the success that can be found through this model.

Apeiron will introduce a similar Season concept to achieve sustainability and token utility.

This concept will proceed as follows:

Players will start building viable Planets (skill decks) via breeding, which will consume APRS and ANIMA. There are a few ways the Planets are customisable.
Crafting and editing of Equipment (the editable genes) of Planets will consume APRS.
The ageing mechanic of Planet (which will unlock more relic slots) and reducing the cooldown of the ageing mechanism will cost ANIMA.
The most viable Planets will require large amounts of ANIMA to age properly, to play in the Arenas for APRS or play in the Endless Dungeons for NFTs.
Planets that players don’t believe are viable for high-level Gameplay could also be used weekly to generate ANIMA or Relic NFTs until the Planet reaches an age where it can be used for high-level Gameplay. These Planets could also be consumed to age other stronger Planets.
Players can even rent out their weaker Planets to other players to use.
Cyclical guild-based events will trigger huge waves of Planet consumption for ageing and equipment editing, consuming large amounts of APRS and ANIMA. These guilds will be able to compete and earn RNGU; these guild-based events will also consume ANIMA, which will give temporary perks.
RNGU can be used to purchase unique items or Equipment and is used in the Guild-based game mode.
The completion of GvG events will unlock new season Planets (genes) and Equipment (editable genes); players and breeders will use RNGU to bid for these new cards;
Apeiron Team also plans to introduce different game modes and utilities for all three tokens in every new galaxy expansion.

It is worth noting that these mechanics may be subject to change upon full release of the game.

2. Apeiros (APRS)

As mentioned before, the total supply of Apeiros will be fixed and should not exceed 1,000,000,000 (1 billion) tokens issued. The Apeiros token distribution will be:

210,000,000 (21%) for the backers invested in Apeiron in Pre-seed, Seed, and Private Rounds.
40,000,000 (4%) for the community and public round under a Token Generation Event (TGE).
140,000,000 (14%) will be distributed through the Play-and-Earn model as players reach some levels in gameplay achievements, events, PvP tournaments, e-sports events, and ecosystem management.
60,000,000 (6%) will be distributed for community and marketing, incentives that will be used for the community building purpose and promotional rewards.
50,000,000 (5%) allocated to advisors (non-funding members who contributed to the growth of Apeiron).
200,000,000 (20%) for the development team that will be used to maintain game development and operations.
300,000,000 (30%) for Yield and Liquidity — staking rewards, listings, and liquidity pool resources.

2.1 Apeiros Token Release Schedule

Apeiros will present different cliffs and vesting schedules for different roles categorised in the same class in token allocation; the chart below shows these differences.

For a better overview, Apeiron Team also released a token release schedule; remember to consider as mark 0 the TGE data (planned for Q4).

2.2 Apeiron Treasury

Apeiron will also introduce a Treasury. The Treasury will receive a portion of the marketplace fees (in Wrapped Ethereum — WETH) and Celestial Conjunction income (Apeiros), some of the use cases that the Treasury will have:

E-sport event sponsorships.
Extra Anima (ANIMA) for seasonal PVP tournaments.
Galactic Event rewards for Alliance and Star owners.
Apeiros holders can vote on other Treasury usages.

To Conclude

With their unique Tri-Token system, allied with their complete economic model and combined with the knowledge taken from traditional card games, Apeiron wants to break the pattern of unsustainability that has plagued blockchain gaming.

The Team vesting shows that Developers are committed and have a long-lasting vision for their projects, as their tokens will only start to unlock one year after the TGE and take another 80 months to vest fully. It would be nice to see more tokens distributed to the public in the TGE, but this is the model adopted by the vast majority of projects in the blockchain ecosystem. As Apeiron is a GameFi project, this lack of a broader public distribution has a less overall impact when compared with infrastructure projects.

This article was written with educational intent and should not be used as financial advice; before investing, you should do your own research and understand the risks involved.

~ By Jordano M. Z. ~

This report was written by a Crypto Saving Expert Cryptocurrency Researcher and commissioned by Apeiron. This report is meant for informational purposes only, not to serve as investment advice, and you should always perform your own research before making any investment decision.