December Surprise!
We have been hinting at this for a while… and today is the day we will finally reveal the December Surprise!
Removing Bottlenecks
But first, some context.
Most of us are very excited about Coin Hunt World. We spend hours of our day hunting, doing walking quests, or chatting with other players on Social Media. But not all people are like that, of course. If you’ve ever tried to share your enthusiasm for the game with a friend or family member, you might have seen them become immediately disinterested once you mentioned that cryptocurrency was involved.
The two most common reasons why it’s currently hard to sign new players up to play Coin Hunt World are:
- Interest in anything crypto-related is at an all-time low — mentioning crypto can often be a deterrent
- Exports are not yet available in the U.K., El Salvador, Philippines, and Malaysia (and New York in the U.S.).
With these major pain points in mind, we have been hard at work building the foundation for a new mechanic that we believe will address both issues: on-demand gift card purchases using your in-game earnings!
How exports currently happen
To recap: currently, players in the U.S. (except NY) and Canada can choose to have the crypto they earn in-game exported to Uphold (our partner exchange in the U.S. and Canada) every week.
However, we know this is not ideal. Sometimes, players want to get an export outside our weekly schedule or want to convert their various crypto balances into a single balance in their local currency. With the upcoming gift card export system, these players can finally rejoice!
Purchase gift cards with your game earnings!
Let’s take a closer look at how this system will work!
Imagine Anakura has collected $50 worth of BTC by playing Coin Hunt World and wants to use it to purchase a Starbucks gift card. Anakura would head over to the nearest in-game Coffee Shop structure, which a player has built on top of a real-life Starbucks Coffee Shop.
Upon interacting with the structure in-game, Anakura will see, among other actions, a button to purchase a gift card using his earned in-game crypto!
He selects the amount he would like for the gift card ($50), picks which in-game cryptocurrency he would like to use to fund the purchase (BTC), and confirms the purchase by paying a small key-denominated transaction fee to the Coffee Shop.
Part of this fee goes to the player who owns the coffee shop, with the remainder going to CHW and our partner brands who are making this system possible.
With that, the purchase is confirmed, and Anakura instantly receives a digital Starbucks gift card that he can use to get himself a delicious Caramel Macchiato with extra whipped cream, which will warm him up after his long hunt in the Maryland winter.
Where can I find these gift card structures?
Structures at which you can purchase gift cards will be located all over Coin Hunt World at player-owned and player-operated businesses. This includes things like Coffee Shops and Pizza Parlors, but also many other structures that we have not yet announced!
We are currently developing the tools for you to start building out these structures, and we are very excited to see which players will own the very first gift card structures in CHW!
Pick your favorite local business, claim the location in the Cubieverse, build the structure, and staff it with the right Cubie — once that’s done, your shiny new structure is open for all your local hunters to enjoy! And you, as a thriving business-cubie, will earn rewards when your local hunters stop by!
Of course, purchasing gift cards will not be the only reason to visit one of these structures. But for those beans, you’ll have to wait a bit longer. *wink*
When can we start building these?
We are hard at work developing the digital and real-world foundations of this system. We have an exciting number of retail partners already on board, with many more in the works. We hope to begin releasing this system to players in Q2 2023, with an initial launch in the US, Canada, and the UK. As we bring on more partners, we will expand the system to more countries and regions.
What brands can we expect?
We are currently negotiating with dozens of brands! Here’s a sneak peek at some of what you can expect to see:
- Starbucks
- Target
- Whole Foods
- AMC Theatres
- Door Dash
- Uber eats
- Tim Hortons
- Pizza Hut
- Currys PC World
- H&M
- Marks and Spencer
- Decathlon
- Jollibee
- Petco
- Macy’s
- Foot Locker
- Costa
- Gregg’s
- Mango
- Caffè Nero
- … and many more coming soon!
Does this mean the crypto export will go away?
No, not at all! Gift card exports will become available to players in addition to the weekly crypto export. Therefore, you can choose to export your in-game earnings to Uphold on a weekly basis, or go to a local gift card structure and purchase a gift card. It’s up to you.
We would like to emphasize that while we are pretty excited about this new gift card export mechanic, we have continued to make progress toward enabling weekly crypto exports to our partner exchanges in the U.K., El Salvador, Malaysia, and the Philippines. More about this at a later date.
What does this mean for the game?
The addition of gift card exports to CHW will allow us to cater to a much larger target audience! Not everybody is eager to get crypto, but earning gift cards to their favorite stores? That’s a much more attractive value proposition for the general public!
“Play this fun game, get some exercise, learn some cool facts, make new friends, explore the world and earn some gift cards while doing so? … HECK YEAH!”
As usual, once we get closer to the release date, we will announce more details about all this exciting new stuff! In the meantime, though…
Happy Hunting!
Illusionweaver & Anakura
