From top ten protocols repricing to literal zero, and to having some of the largest investment funds blowing up, if there’s ever something that could be argued, it’s that it’s been an extremely eventful first half of the year. Nonetheless, we would like to update the GuildFi community about the different aspects of our project, including updates on the GuildFi platform, gaming partnerships, financials, and the road ahead.
While it may be demoralising to participate in an industry where blue chip assets like BTC and ETH are both down over 70% from all time highs, not to mention the GF token which is also down over 90%, we would like to reiterate that the GuildFi team is as focused as it ever has been in creating the best product possible with an attractive product market fit in web3. As the saying goes, the best time to build is during a bear market.
Additionally, there will be several announcements going into Q3 and later in Q4 about the direction that GuildFi will be progressing toward as a project and the new features that will be implemented into the GuildFi platform.
For the time being, stay tuned and be excited!
1. Product Updates
Overview
At the heart of GuildFi are our users and community members. We are actively improving existing products while introducing new features to ensure a frictionless experience. That being said, we have made significant progress on our quests system, launched our own GXP dictated marketplace, integrated our research onto guildfi.com, added many gaming partners to our game discovery feature and developed a user inbox.
A key performance indicator we have been using to track our progress is the number of registered users. Currently, there are 280,000 users registered, which is a 400% increase from the start of 2022. Additionally, we have seen a significant increase in traffic to guildfi.com, with over 2 million total visits, and over 500k visits alone in July 2022.
Quest System
The quest system is engineered to keep users engaged and exposed to games and activities on the GuildFi platform. Initially, as most of our partners’ games were still developing, the quests focused on exposing our community members to our partners’ communities. However, as games continue to develop, we have been able to deploy game-specific quests, such as achieving a particular score in the Ascenders minigame or completing tasks in Ni no Kuni. As a result of completing these quests, users acquire GXP, GuildFi’s experience points, which can then be used in our marketplace.
Since the start of the year, users have been highly engaged in our quests. A total of 24 quests were issued, of which a total of 2.2 million quests were claimed and completed in the first half of 2022. We expect these numbers to grow significantly as our user base continues to grow, integrating more games as our partners also continue to develop. For more information regarding partnered games-related quests, please refer to the partnership update section.
Metadrop Launchpad & Marketplace
Metadrop
Metadrop, GuildFi’s very own launchpad, is used as a tool to distribute our partners’ NFTs to the GuildFi community. Metadrop is used in conjunction with our quest system to ensure that the NFT ends up in the hands of those that are most active within the GuildFi platform.
Thus far, we have had 4 different events on Metadrop, some solely on GuildFi, and others co-launching with other launchpads. In these 4 events, we have seen a total of 30,000 participants.
Although we aim to help our partners distribute more NFTs to our community members, due to the state of the market, we have not conducted more launches on Metadrop, but utilise our quest system and marketplace to distribute whitelists to partnered games instead.
Marketplace
GuildFi’s marketplace, which uses GXP as a currency, was introduced as a tool to release player tickets which can then easily onboard players to different games. At the moment, players were able to trade their GXP for CyBall, Axie Infinity, Summoners Arena, Pegaxy and Wonder Hero player tickets. Roughly 20,000 players have traded their GXP for a player ticket.
In addition to player tickets, the GuildFi Marketplace is also used to reward players who accumulate gxp, through different giveaways such as CyBall or Thetan Arena NFTs. We also provide rewards from traditional games. For example, Minecraft and Roblox gift cards.
Moving forward
With an aim of being a platform that provides a seamless experience for gamers, both crypto native and non-native, we believe that the GuildFi Marketplace will be vital.
Our marketplace will pivot in a way that captures and creates value throughout the entire gaming ecosystem. This will be done through integrating both NFT and non-NFT assets, which in turn makes Marketplace a bridge for non-crypto native gamers to have a subtle, practically ‘invisible’ web3 experience. Although this is true, crypto native gamers and assets will still be an indispensable part of the Marketplace.
In the future, Marketplace and Metadrop will merge. This means that Marketplace will not only be a feature where players are able to trade in-game assets, but also a feature where GuildFi’s gaming partners are able to distribute their assets to the GuildFi community.
Marketplace will be the first application in which players will be able to trade both NFT and Non-NFT assets, alongside physical items, all of which are done through the GuildFi platform.
NFT Lending & Analytic Feature
One of the pain points of web3 gaming is that they cannot increase users in the ecosystem as players need a lot of funds to own NFTs before playing the game. This is one of the main reasons as to why guilds enter into web3 gaming management. However there are limitations of gaming ecosystems including the scaling as NFTs lending management is difficult due to too much focus on earning and the lack of proper tools.
As a solution to this, we have implemented our Alpha NFT lending integration where users can borrow our gaming assets directly from our platform. The borrowed assets will be shown under player’s lending NFT inventory.
Through our lending dashboard and analytic tools, we are the first platform in which players can enjoy 100% of benefit with Axie Infinity as if the players are the owner of the NFTs. They have the right to do whatever they want with borrowed NFTs such as checking the earning performance, claiming SLP rewards directly from the platform and borrow/return Axies with GuildFi main inventory. Almost everything is now an automated process for players who would like to borrow Axies to play.
Although at the moment this is only readily available for Axie Infinity, this mechanism will be adapted, improved and implemented with other games as well.
Other Updates
Integration of Research Articles
To ensure that our community members are in line with the latest updates and research from the team, the GuildFi medium articles have been integrated into GuildFi.com.
Inbox Feature
We have also launched an inbox system, which can be used to notify users of campaign results and more.
2. Gaming Partnership Updates
As a gaming platform which aims to curate the best games for our users, partnerships are essential. Our business development team has been hard at work exploring the gaming industry, including both blockchain-based games and traditional games, with a goal to bring these games to the GuildFi platform and community. That being said, in the first half of the year, we have developed meaningful partnerships within the industry.
We strive to add as much value as possible to all games that we partner with, through various ways, such as helping develop an ideal GTM strategy, marketing efforts, and bootstrapping communities.
To date, through our quest system, we have been able to onboard roughly 80,000 users to our partner’s communities. In addition to this, we have also distributed NFT whitelists to over 27,000 GuildFi users. Lastly, over 15,000 of GuildFi’s users have played our partner’s games (of the ones that are playable).
GuildFi X Ni no Kuni Campaign
One of our most anticipated campaigns this year has been the Ni no Kuni campaign with our partners and friends at MarbleX and Netmarble. We have also developed a campaign page within guildfi.com in addition to utilising a specific discord bot created by our team. The campaign has seen over 8,000 submissions throughout the two week period. This resulted in over 350,000 website visitors during the period, with 12,000 new users attempting to complete the quest.
‘Apeiron Whitelist’ Campaign
Another successful campaign was the Apeiron Whitelist Campaign for the presale of the primeval planets. We had a total of 91 spots available, with 12 VIP whitelists and 79 standard whitelists. The campaign had a total of roughly 10,000 participants.
‘GuildFi X Ascenders’ Campaign
A really fun and enjoyable campaign that we ran was with Ascenders. With the campaign, we were able to expose GuildFi users to the Ascenders minigame survival mode, in which we built a leaderboard to showcase and reward the best performers.
3. Events & Activities
Money Expo 2022 at Impact Challenger Muang Thong Thani
At this year’s Money Expo, GuildFi had set up a booth to further expose our project to both crypto native and non-crypto natives. At our booth, people were able to test some of our partners’ games, in addition to redeeming GF tokens and getting t-shirts by registering to Guildfi.com.
BNB Chain’s Revelation Hackathon
GuildFi joined BNB Chain’s Revelation Hackathon as a track owner. The revelation that we were covering was dubbed “Fundraising for Your Game in the Web3 Space (ft. GuildFi)”. We owned the live sessions in which our co-founder, Jarindr Thitadilaka, attended and participated.
Blockchain Metaverse Industry in SCB 10X Metathon 2022
`We also had a large presence at SCB 10X’s Metathon, where our co-founder and project lead led a discussion titled ‘Blockchain Metaverse Industry.’
Other Interview / AMA / Panel Talk Session
- NFT and Gaming by ETHBKK
- Special Live AMA I Bitazza Invites: GUILDFI
- Alpha X GuildFi by Alpha Venture
- BTG : Blockchain Thailand Genesis 2021 Exclusive Interview
- Metaverse & Blockchain: The Real — Life Impact by Meta Thailand
- Bitkub Academy: GuildFi AMA Live Session Airdrop
- A peek into the metaverse : the road to mass adoption by Mega Tech Forum 2022
- Exclusive AMA with Co-founder GuildFi by HotHead Gamer
- INTERVIEW with GuildFi — The interconnected ecosystem of games, communities, and NFT assets.
- Investing in the Digital Asset Market and Earning from GameFi by Seminar
- Investing in the metaverse in Money Expo 2022
- Play to Earn with GuildFi | ContributionDao MeetUp
- Is blockchain gaming really a thing? By BIDC : Bangkok International Digital Content Festival
- How do game developers benefit from Blockchain by GameFi Asia
4. Financial Updates
This update is representative of Half 1 2022 where the investments are of reference to the Asset Under Management (AUM) as of 15/07/2022.
Overview
Despite some of the most adverse market conditions both in Crypto and in traditional markets more broadly, the GuildFi treasury remains strong at $111,464,148. This amount will be further elaborated upon in this update.
We would also like to disclose that we do not have any investments and have not lent money to any of the following:
Three Arrows Capital, BlockFi, Voyager, Celsius or any other Centralised Borrowing/Lending firm.
Having said that, to provide as much transparency to our community as possible, we did have exposure to a total of $10m of UST, which we mitigated, but resulted in a loss of $6m.
The GuildFi treasury includes all assets that GuildFi currently holds, be it investments in different tokens, NFTs, or cash reserves.
Reserves Balance : $85,428,490
The reserves section consists of highly liquid stablecoins, BTC and ETH that may or may not earn yield from low-risk lending and/or liquidity providing.
For instance, the most prominent position we have undertaken is ETH-USDC on Uniswap for a total of $27.8 million. While the current macroeconomic condition is highly volatile and uncertain, we believe in the long-term value proposition of Ethereum in particular. As the smart contract platform with by far the most network effect, we have high conviction that Ethereum will be the prominent layer one blockchain for not only decentralised finance, but for web3 in general. Additionally, the Ethereum network also generates the most fees when compared to other blockchains, not to mention most of which are distributed between Decentralised Finance protocols and NFT exchanges such as OpenSea. Furthermore, the position allows us to generate sizable fees from yield farming. We predict this position to significantly outperform a pure ETH HODL strategy in a longer time horizon of 3–5 years.
On the other hand, more than half of this fund will be used to ensure the success of future development and scaling of GuildFi products, while the rest will be used for investment opportunities in metaverse/game projects.
Tokens Balance : $14,861,140
The tokens section consists of high-performing or high-potential cryptocurrency tokens based on strong metaverse/game projects that add value to the GuildFi Treasury and Ecosystem.
Despite the downturn in the market, our tokens balance has had an increase from $12,336,163 in Q1 to $14,861,140. This is not due to an increase in previous positions as most token prices have dropped, but is due to further commitments that the team has made to early stage investments in Q2.
The investments being made are primarily done with a focus in getting high returns in conjunction with investing in games and protocols that will add value to the GuildFi platform in the future.
NFTs Balance : $11,174,518
The NFTs section consists of Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs) from leading games in the space in the form of land sales, digital avatars, and gaming elements from game partners for current or future use by the GuildFi community.
Similar to the token balance, despite the downturn in the market, the NFT balance has increased from Q1 to now, by roughly $1m. This is due to further investments being made into NFT assets with a primary goal of value creation in partners’ games and providing community members with an opportunity to play these games.
GuildFi’s Wallets
As usual, GuildFi’s wallets can be tracked here:
https://whitepaper.guildfi.com/treasury-zone/transparency
Financial Strategy
While we are constructive on Cryptocurrency prices on a longer term horizon from current prices, we have to say that we are also prepared for the worst case scenario of a long crypto winter.
In fact, even if we were to assume that all the ETH that we have purchased on the open market or the venture deals that we have made all converge to 0 (which isn’t our base case in the slightest), we still have enough runway for the foreseeable future just in the stablecoins that we hold alone. Therefore, GuildFi is ready to weather the storm in the short to mid term and position ourselves to reap the rewards of the following bull run all while expanding our team and product in the current adverse conditions.
5. The Road Ahead
To say that GuildFi’s Road Ahead is intriguing and exciting would be an understatement. As one of the few cryptocurrency projects to be continuously expanding our team, GuildFi has been hard at work to develop the best, most effective web3 gaming platform.
Some of the features that the GuildFi platform already provides are the following: Metadrop Launchpad (NFT launchpool) with partners and tools to aid certain players of certain games.
As seen, the GuildFi platform in its current form aims to aid the web3 gaming ecosystem mainly. This however is not the final vision that we have. GuildFi’s ultimate goal is to become the home for all gamers of the new era. To do this, we aim to provide interoperability between web2 and web3 gaming, and to ultimately bridge and onboard gamers from web2 games into the web3 ecosystem.
This includes making the web3 gaming experience significantly more ergonomic than it currently is. In fact, gamers can seamlessly enjoy different web2 games and potentially blockchain-based games while retaining the benefits of self-custody and the ethos of cryptocurrency.
While we do agree that perhaps pockets of the metaverse and web3 gaming space were in a bubble (and in some cases were ponzi-esque) in late 2021, we’d also like to believe that the pivotal foundation required for the success of both were also built. For example, even though the concept of play to earn is clearly unsustainable in hindsight, it introduced the value that web3 gaming and the concept of NFTs could bring to gaming.
We aim to utilise the foundation built in late 2021 along with innovation from the GuildFi team not only to provide the best user experience for the web3 users of our platform but to add value to all gamers alike, and to truly achieve the status of the world’s largest interoperable gaming community.
6. Additional Resources
We also consistently provide content outside of GuildFi’s medium and main Twitter account. The list below demonstrates some of the different articles and twitter threads that our analysts have shared.
The Road Ahead for Gaming Guilds
https://embernodes.substack.com/p/the-road-ahead-for-gaming-guilds
How Guilds can be a Value Add to Partner Games
https://twitter.com/chng_raymond/status/1547056066109665281?s=21&t=AyfV56jgt5uatXw-K4NxRw
How Guilds can be a Value Add to Players
https://twitter.com/chng_raymond/status/1544485043141193728?s=21&t=AyfV56jgt5uatXw-K4NxRw
