We’re All Still So Early
Out of everything that I cover in this article, the most important thing to understand is just how early we are. The Sandbox still hasn’t fully launched yet, high-end auction houses are still using basic flat-screen monitors to display NFTs worth millions of dollars, and Facebook just relaunched itself as ‘Meta’
Whether you’re already in this space or sitting on the sidelines, there really has never been a better time to dive headfirst and learn about how limitless the Metaverse could become.
The Shift to the Metaverse
By now you’ve probably heard about the NFT industry and how people are making thousands of dollars on “JPEG” images of dogs, cats, toads, rocks, scribbles, and even something called a Pumpa.
What’s easy to overlook in the sea of NFTs with hundreds of new projects launching daily is that there is an underlying shift towards the Metaverse. This shift is likely to accelerate even faster now after Facebook relaunched itself as ‘Meta’.
Many projects nowadays boast on their roadmap a plan to airdrop metaverse ready avatars or voxels to their holders which they can use in The Sandbox, Decentraland, or even their own custom-built “Metaverse”.
For the most part, this news is always well received, floor prices are boosted, and holders are filled with hopium. The problem is that it’s way easier to say that you’re going to build for the Metaverse versus actually building something sustainable in the Metaverse.
Of course, there will always be NFTs that you won’t “play” with in the Metaverse that can hold significant value such as CryptoPunks or blue-chip crypto art. However, for many of the NFTs that launched in 2021, especially 10k PFP (profile picture) projects, this shift to the Metaverse is just the natural evolution of the space.
You can also argue that for many of these projects, they will need to be fun and interesting in the Metaverse in order to survive long term.
It’s obvious that people not only want to use their NFT as their social media profile picture but there is a real demand to be their NFT in a virtual world where they can interact with others, own the items they collect and play, and earn in a virtual economy.
The Big Problem - How to Choose the Right Project
At this moment in time, we’re all super early and it’s a literal land grab in the Metaverse. Those who can choose the right projects and accumulate have an incredible opportunity to create generational wealth.
Here’s where the problem lies, though.
With so many projects to choose from, how the heck do you choose the right project?
Obviously, if you have a truckload of ETH to play around with, you can just invest in any project with a slight glimmer of hope. However, for most of us with smaller wallets, you have to be much more careful with how you allocate your funds.
Let’s first go over a framework I’ve learned to use to evaluate projects and then we’ll dive into why I think the CyberKongz is one of the most undervalued Metaverse plays you can make right now.
Project Evaluation Framework
At a high level, here is the framework that I’ve learned to use after observing much more experienced traders in the Wall Street Kongz (WSK) Discord channel. I’ve adjusted it slightly as we’re looking at a metaverse-specific play, versus a more standard 10k PFP project.
Of course, this framework is not the end all be all, but I do think working through it will give you a much better understanding of whether or not a project has the potential to succeed in the Metaverse.
If you’re not familiar with Wall Street Kongz (WSK), it’s the private alpha channel that is only available to 2D CyberKongz (Genesis and Baby Kongz).
- Metaverse Platform: which Metaverse platform is the project planning to use? Some popular choices right now include The Sandbox, Decentraland, CryptoVoxels, and Somnium Space. Think about if you think the platform as a whole could succeed.
- Community: how strong is the project community? When you go to the project Discord, do you only see people talking about the floor price, or are people genuinely interested in the project?
- History: is the project brand new or has it proven that it can weather multiple storms when the market takes a downturn.
- Utility Token Ecosystem: does the project have a sustainable utility token ecosystem? In other words, is a token created just for the project to have a token, or will there be utility that people actually want to use tokens for?
- Will it be Fun: does the gameplay footage in the Metaverse platform actually look fun? If you don’t think it looks fun, there will probably be others who think the same too.
Why CyberKongz
The CyberKongz project launched in March of this year and organically built itself as one of the top thought leaders in the space.
If you’re not familiar with CyberKongz, they are a family of 20,000 CyberKongz split into 3 distinct types of CyberKongz which is shown in the below illustration. Since the topic of this article is on the Metaverse, the main focus will be on CyberKongz VX, however, each different type of CyberKongz has its place in the ecosystem.
What’s important to understand about CyberKongz is that even though they look like a PFP project on the surface, once you start digging you’ll see that they have built one of the most complex ecosystems to date.
In this ecosystem, you’ll find a successful utility token system that is actually utilized, an extremely strong and dedicated community, constant innovation, and big plans for The Sandbox Metaverse with their CyberKongz VX.
Using the Project Evaluation Framework from above, let’s dive into 2 of the most important aspects of CyberKongz that give them a huge advantage as we take the next step into the Metaverse; their The Sandbox investments and the innovative CyberKongz utility token ecosystem.
CyberKongz Metaverse Platform - The Sandbox
When it comes to the CyberKongz investment into The Sandbox, there are really two parts at play here that are worth covering.
First, why The Sandbox Metaverse has a great chance for success, and second, how the CyberKongz plan to build their lands in The Sandbox.
Both parts are equally important and without one, you don’t get the full story behind why CyberKongz is a good all-around Metaverse play
Why The Sandbox
Even though there are many different Metaverses you can choose to hang out in, I think the #1 key to understanding if a given Metaverse will be popular is does it look fun?
At the most basic level, the Metaverse is inherently a game. So if you can’t keep the players entertained, give them a bountiful selection of things to do, and keep them engaged through well-designed compulsion loops, it’s likely they will go elsewhere.
What’s most promising is that The Sandbox is an entirely user-generated ecosystem with all assets being owned by the player. Users have access to a Voxel Editor that allows them to create unique assets, a Marketplace to buy and sell assets, and a Gamemaker to create their own distinct worlds.
Since the content is user generated, the different types of adventures, lands, quests, and missions that a player can take part in are pretty much unlimited.
To get an idea of what’s possible, just take a look at some of the diverse range of user-created worlds and you’ll quickly see what I mean. If you have a Windows computer, you can even download The Sandbox Gamemaker and try out some of the games yourself.
Of course, there are pros and cons of having the entire Sandbox universe being user-created as it will lead to a wide range in quality between different lands.
However, it also means a given project can clearly distinguish itself from the competition and other lands if they invest wisely and create a world and gameplay mechanic where people want to invest their time in.
This is where CyberKongz come into play.
Note: for some reason, I wasn’t able to embed YouTube videos in this article, but if you go to The Sandbox’s YouTube channel, there is a large selection of gameplay videos too.
The CyberKongz Epic Sandbox Plans
Any project can buy land in The Sandbox, that’s the easy part.
What’s much more difficult and important is how a given project plans to utilize the land, build on it, and invest in it for the community. If a project just casually builds on their land without much thought, it might be fun for a couple of days, but it won’t be sustainable long term given the tough competition from other Metaverse projects; not to mention traditional gaming too.
For CyberKongz, all you have to do is take one look into how they have invested in The Sandbox, the size of their lands, how they plan to build on their lands, and you’ll quickly understand how serious the CyberKongz are about out their Sandbox universe.
These are the lands the CyberKongz own so far and what they’re planning to build:
- Kongz Island: a 24 x 24 sprawling estate with dangerous jungles and ancient ruins that spans different biomes.
- Neo Kongz City: a 12 x 12 futuristic urban landscape where the city Kongz like to hang.
- Shrine of Kongz: a 3 x 3 estate featuring our 1 of 1 Shrine of Kongz build which is the spiritual home of CyberKongz and a beacon of hope for all lost souls.
There has not been much news about Kongz Island and Neo Kongz City. However, we do have a lot of information about the Shrine of Kongz so let’s use that as an example of just how massive the CyberKongz Metaverse will be.
The Shrine of Kongz is a 1 of 1 legendary build by Sand Rush and Light Trail Adventures that was won by the CyberKongz in an auction in July of this year.
In total, it took 8 different artists 2 months of work to complete the monument and features incredibly detailed artwork and craftsmanship. The coolest part about this build is that there is a built-in-ready-to-play parkour-based gamed that ends with a mysterious treasure chest on top of the Shrine of Kongz.
Now, using this example, just imagine what CyberKongz VX will be able to do in the CyberKongz Sandbox Metaverse. This is all speculation but maybe we’ll see:
- A race to the top of the Shrine of Kongz for exclusive treasures?
- A Kongz Colosseum where our CyberKongz battle it out for prizes?
- What about a Kongz Casino where degen Kongz can go hang out?
Just imagine how fun that would be! What’s even more exciting is the potential for creation in The Sandbox is limitless 🤯
The Utility of $BANANA
Disclaimer: Banana is not an investment vehicle and it carries no value, 1 banana = 1 banana
Even though the utility of $BANANA isn’t directly related to the build of CyberKongz lands, it’s a key differentiator of the CyberKongz and is ingrained in their ecosystem. Because of this, I think it’s worth covering in some detail.
The $BANANA token is a utility token that is used for everything in the CyberKongz universe. There are obvious utility use cases such as breeding Baby Kongz and changing the name of your CyberKongz (2D and VX), which have been there since their respective launches.
However, what is worth pointing out is that the Council of Kongz is always trying to innovate on new use cases for $BANANA.
With The Sandbox launching in hopefully Q1 of 2022, the $BANANA token will shift to the be used in Banana Shop to purchase items to use in The Sandbox. These items could include weapons, wearables, and even mobility items. What’s more exciting is that since the items will be for The Sandbox, there is an wide variety of different items that could be created.
On top of the Banana Shop use cases, the CyberKongz have already introduced $BANANA to have weighting in their CyberKongz OOH Community Governance voting and have spurred innovation to use $BANANA outside the CyberKongz ecosystem through their Kongz Tank initiative.
As you can see, there are many ingeniously pioneered ideas that have been developed for the $BANANA token with more to come in the future too.
I think one of the reasons for the $BANANA token’s success is its well-balanced supply and demand dynamics. Here is how it works at a high level:
$BANANA Supply
In the entire ecosystem, only Genesis Kongz yields $BANANA. Each Genesis Kong yields 10 $BANANA per day and there are 1,000 Genesis Kongz.
So:
Daily new supply = 10 x 1,000 = 10,000 new $BANANA per day.
$BANANA Demand
Currently, the biggest use case for $BANANA is to breed Baby Kongz. It takes 2 Genesis Kongz and 600 $BANANAs burned to breed a Baby Kong.
What’s amazing to see is that when looking at historical data, almost all $BANANA that has been claimed has been burned to breed Baby Kongz. To give you an idea, just take a look at this 3 month chart created by @sancrypt, who is a Genesis Kong.
Here you will see that over the last 3 months:
- Avg Daily Banana Claimed: 9,998 nanas
- Avg Daily Banana Burnt: 9,886 nanas
- Avg Daily Baby Bred: 16 babies
- Baby Left to be Born: 828
- Total Baby Kong supply: 4,000 max
This means that in this time period, close to 99% of the $BANANA that were claimed were burned to breed Baby Kongz at an average daily rate of 16 babies per day.
This also means that all Baby Kongz will be born between middle of December 2021 and January 2022.
Of course, once all the Baby Kongz are born, the demand for the $BANANA token has to come from other utilities whether that means burning $BANANA or not, which the CyberKongz team has continued to innovate on.
Overall, here is a more concise summary of the current and future use cases for the $BANANA token, with much more likely to come:
- Kongz Tank (Upcoming): Support/invest in up to 5 projects with the best ideas to integrate CyberKongz NFTs and/or $BANANAs into their ecosystem.
- Banana Shop for The Sandbox Items (Upcoming): Players will be able to buy custom CyberKongz VX equipment and wearables when the Banana Shop opens to use in The Sandbox.
- IRL Merch at Uniqly (Upcoming): will be accepted at the Uniqly store for merch and other drops.
- Breed Baby Kongz: 2 Genesis Kongz can breed a Baby Kong by burning 600 $BANANA
- Name Changes: Use 10 $BANANA to change the name of Genesis / Baby Kong and 2 $BANANA to change the name of CyberKongz VX.
- CyberKongz OOH Community Governance Voting: $BANANA doesn’t get burned in this use case. However, the $BANANA you own is used in the calculation to determine how many votes you have.
The reason why I wanted to dive deeper into the Bananaomics of the CyberKongz ecosystem is to show you the thought and care that has gone into creating the economy.
Any project can launch a token very easily. However, what’s difficult, is to create a token that people want to use while keeping the supply and demand in balance.
Conclusion
After Facebook relaunched itself as ‘Meta’ it’s clear the Metaverse is the next frontier. The time you have to accumulate assets, property, land in the Metaverse before the big players come is running short.
So, if you want to position your portfolio for Metaverse exposure, the time to choose winning projects is now.
I hope after reading this article, you have a better understanding of why I think CyberKongz and more specifically CyberKongz VX is an undervalued Metaverse play right now. Not only are the CyberKongz one of the strongest communities, but they have also proven themselves over time as builders, creators, and innovators in the space.
CyberKongz VX are currently sitting at a floor of ~1.15 ETH.
Yes, it isn’t cheap.
However, when you consider a CyberKongz VX is exposing you to the CyberKongz community, the CyberKongz Sandbox Metaverse, and Sandbox’s future growth, it starts to make more sense.
DISCLAIMER: Please note all opinions above belong to the author alone. Nothing here constitutes professional investment advice. Please do your own thorough research before making any investment decision.
This article is part of The Gaming Metaverse Writing Contest hosted by HackerNoon in partnership with The Sandbox.
Submit your #gaming-metaverse story today for your chance to win up to $2000.