#7 Monthly Newsletter, December “Looking forward”

Originally published on December 1st, 2022.

An update on the changes made in November, and a comprehensive breakdown of what’s to come in 2023.

We’ve had a pretty eventful month, and there’s been a lot of internal planning for the suite of new offerings we want to bring to light in 2023. Grab some popcorn, because it’s going to be a long read!

November Review

Staking

Nothing too much to share on this front. We’ve been doing mockups and user flows on the design side and also worked together to architect what the backend solidity will look like. We’re not comfortable providing a final timeframe for this yet as we haven’t been able to book an audit that’s within our budget, but we’ll deploy a working demo on a testnet for holders to play around with, within a couple of months. Here’s actually a glimpse at how we were scoping out the functionality required on the solidity side. We’ve tried to make it as easy to understand as possible:

Website Updates

These have been coming along, We pushed some additional updates last week. Expect additional the following changes for December as we shift focus towards staking and other deliverables.

• Portfolio section
• Preliminary dashboard
• Refresh other pages (eg, Docs)
• Refresh of roadmap
• Better loading and scroll animations and other UI updates

Advisors, Collabs & Partnership Onboarding

Advisors: A lot of focus has been on the technical side of advisors and we’ve been receiving support from them for a while now. In regards to publicly announcing them; that will come at a time when they feel more comfortable, which might be when we’ve executed more products, grown more as a protocol, or made more investments.

Collaborations & Partnerships: Our liaison team has been doing an amazing job on this; We have been constantly searching out new collaborations and reviewing them internally. Every day there is discussion and due diligence work being done and we are very pleased with how the contributor program has turned out. The contributors, led by SeaGolem & Animositas have also spearheaded a new initiative, Project Herpetarium, which we’ll talk about later.

Governance & DAO structure

Our concepts and ideas around this topic all revolve around one major trait; Nimble and unobstructed governance. Our plans in 2023 aim to build out a new DAO structure that takes the best of both worlds, giving more controlled power back to the community whilst still allowing the core team to quickly and efficiently make decisions. We’ll continue to iterate with advisors before releasing a detailed LIP in the coming months outlining our final proposal structure.

November Financials

Other than a $20,000 investment made this month, all other payments have been for salaries.

Planning for 2023

There’s been a lot of internal discussion on where we want to see Ethlizards go in the following year, and really clarifying our vision as a GameFi investment DAO. We will continue to maintain focus on the critical elements of the protocol: Financials (investments), products and the community. It is also fair to say that we feel quite constrained in the current market and should explore additional options to build, expand and increase revenue. This has led to 3 focal areas that we look to build upon as we move into 2023.

Wider networks and reach within crypto gaming and Web3.

• Ethlizards is unknowingly connected with a lot of other projects within the crypto space (eg, a lot of holders of Ethlizards are also holders of X), and we just haven’t tapped into them. We want to increase our reach organically in the next year.

Establish ourselves as a trusted and respected figure within the GameFi and DeFi space.

• In every industry, there are leaders that everyone knows and respects — we are aiming to become that. We will continue to pave our way towards the forefront of Web3 gaming.

Explore additional revenue sources and improve sustainability.

• Revenue should always be a major focus of any DAO, and a variety of products coming in the next year seek to bolster our treasury with additional profits.

Our goal for the next year summarised in a single sentence is Organic growth within Web3, paired with innovative new products and increased benefits for holders.

Our 2022 Q4 goals in building infrastructure and focusing on strengthening the inner community have been going well. We feel confident enough to expand our horizons in 2023. We will seek additional exposure and networking while continuing to build and develop the protocol.

Dynamic Roadmap

As we all know, crypto is an unpredictable and ever-evolving environment. We want to maintain a certain element of flexibility to adapt to this, hence the dynamic roadmap. While these products and updates are things that we aim to do, the order, timing and specific deliverables are subject to change as we may find opportunities that arise, or benefits to shift priorities

Roadmap Elaborated

Ethlizards Sponsored Content

In line with our goals to become established within the wider gaming community, we are exploring recurring content shows/pieces. In Q1, we plan to partner with Gaming on the Block to have a show that covers the wider crypto gaming news, coupled with exclusive founder interviews and Web3 topics. Currently, the team is lining up potential founders and influencers to interview, and whether to make the show live or scripted with higher production value.

Plushies

Here’s a sneak peek…

Project Herpetarium

Project Herpetarium is our approach to syndicating various investments with other communities, leading to wider exposure of the Ethlizards as well as an additional revenue source. We’ll soon release an official announcement on this in the future!

The Ethlizards Platform

Once Ethlizards becomes more established within the crypto gaming community, we’ll explore building our own content platform for the news platforms and integrating the “Ethlizards stamp of approval”. This product is still in the very early stages of development and we’ll share more details nearing Q2 2023.

A side note: All updates except content, governance & website updates are projected to bring in additional revenue to the Ethlizards DAO.

Additional Concepts

The items below are being explored, but only in the ideation and discussion phase. They are not promised as deliverables.

Crypto Gaming Event, hosted by Ethlizards

Imagine a 2-day event where participants can beta-test new releases, and Web2 and Web3 gaming professionals can connect with each other. Talks and panels with the best, all presented, facilitated and organised by Ethlizards.

Early Access Platforms

Offering early access/beta testing to holders.

Incubator & Academy flows

Expanding more into incubation and adding more input to companies in their early stages.

Esports Expansions

More to come.

2023 Financials

We plan to continue with the same strategy of maintaining a low overhead cost for the protocol. However, there will be some costs with upcoming developments. Staking audits for example will have a substantial cost ($15–50k is what we have been quoted by various firms; if you have a contact for a respected auditor, please reach out to us). We don’t expect the world’s macro situation to change much, so will likely continue to focus spending on mostly critical and high ROI items.

That wraps it up for the November update!

Regards,
Ethlizards