The Metaverse Podcast - Gamifying DeFi, with Jesse Johnson of PixelCraft Studios

Primer: Jesse is one of the co-founders of the Aavegotchi project. Aavegotchis are cute pixelated ghost NFTs that also double up as on-chain piggy banks. In this episode of The Metaverse Podcast, Jesse shares about what they have achieved thus far as well as interesting developments on their roadmap.

Jesse's Background

• Jesse and Dan, his co-founder, participated in Hack Money Hackathon

• They built a simple DApp called Yield Hero where the interest/yield generated from Aave could be redirected to a developer in the space

• They got to know the Aave team through the Hackathon

• Previously, he was involved in a DAO called DigixDAO that's focused on gold-backed tokens

• He wanted to merge NFTs and gold. The result was Bullionix, where users can interact with a 3D gold coin NFT that is physically backed by gold

• Subsequently founded Aavegotchi together with Dan

Aavegotchi

• Aavegotchi is a really cute pixelated ghost that is also an on-chain piggy bank

• Trait values are randomly generated using Chainlink VRF

• When someone opens a portal and summons an Aavegotchi, they get to choose their favourite Aavegotchi from 10 randomly generated Aavegotchis

• Upon selecting an Aavegotchi from the portal, you can give it a name. Names are unique; nobody can take the name of your Aavegotchi

• Gamers can pet their Aavegotchi every 12 hours to improve their Aavegotchi's kinship score. A metadata field keeps track of how often gamers are logging in and petting their Aavegotchi

• The higher the Aavegotchi's kinship score, the more rewards gamers will get in the future

• Rarity farming is a major competition where people compete on the leaderboards to win GHST tokens

• Currently, Aavegotchi is a crypto pet. When the metaverse launches, people can start exploring the world with their Aavegotchis

• Always in communication with Aave. Aave has been very supportive all the way

Their Starting Point

• To take on-chain value that exists elsewhere and encapsulate it in a NFT

• Inspired by NFT42 that everything should be on-chain

• Most NFTs would not be around 10 years from now as they are not on-chain

• Made the design decision early on for a lightweight, pixelated design that could actually be held on-chain

High Level Statistics On Aavegotchi

• Has been well-received since their launch in March on Polygon

• Initially planned to launch on Ethereum back in January. Gas price was spiking at that time and the community decided to postpone the launch on Polygon instead

• Selected Polygon as they had the best positioning and interoperability for a project like theirs

• 10,000 portals launched in March in a first-come, first-serve basis. Sold out within 60 seconds

• They implemented an ape tax where buyers who bought more than their fair share of aavegotchis in a single transaction would pay increasingly more per aavegotchi

• Even with the ape tax, a large portion of their community was unable to obtain an aavegotchi at the ground floor

• Their secondary market, the Baazaar, is the most popular secondary market on Polygon for NFTs

"And so that [Aavegotchi secondary marketplace] has become kind of the social hub, and it lives up to its name, the Baazaar, it really is like walking through the streets of a night market and finding all sorts of fun, fun items. So we love the engagement we get there." - Jesse Johnson

Pixelcraft Team

• Grown to over 20 full-time staff now

• Mostly developers

• Shipping every week

AavegotchiDAO

• One of the most active DAOs on Polygon

"We don't want just like a DAO just to say we have a DAO, we want something where they're actually going to like, make a vote, debate issues, maybe even get a little angry at each other, and then come away with results that are tangible." - Jesse Johnson

Innovation In Aavegotchi

• Community member shared with Jesse that one of her favourite things about Aavegotchi is their FRENS points, which has not been implemented in any other projects elsewhere

• FRENS are obtained by staking GHST on aavegotchi.com. The idea is to reward users for being a part of the community

• FRENS are not tokens; they are a balance on the smart contract

• FRENS can be cashed in to win other NFTs on their platform

Extension Of The Aavegotchi Franchise/IP

• Have an awesome and talented community

• Pixelcraft studios will be building the core game and deliver the mechanics that are on the Whitepaper

• Aarchitects, their community developers, surprised them by building mini-games and statistical analyses websites

"What we have is a really awesome community that is extremely talented, and oftentimes surprises us and are, you know, going beyond even our wildest imaginations." - Jesse Johnson

• All of the data, including the visuals, are stored in the smart contract on-chain on Polygon. This means that Aavegotchis will be accessible to any developers that wants those files and metadata

• Will be launching side views and back views of the Aavegotchis soon

• Will be holding a hackathon/game jam early next month to attract even more talent

Bid2Earn Auction

• Will start their first auction NFT drop tomorrow

• Community has been testing it out on Kovan testnet

• The auction format was created by a team called GBM. A project called Cryptographs has used the GBM auction format before

• In a GBM auction, people bid on items as per normal. Once they have been outbidded, they end up earning a little bit of the percentage of the difference between themselves and the next bidder

"The slogan is everyone wins with GBM [auction format], because either you get the NFT in the end, or you didn't, but you get some consolation prize in terms of the token." - Jesse Johnson

• 2 months ago, they collaborated with Lil Pump, a celebrity, on some Lil Pump wearables. It was the 1st time that the Aavegotchi team was outsmarted. A bot managed to swoop up all the wearables even before they appeared on the front page of their UI

• Did some soul-searching and realized that there were issues with a first-come, first-serve model. Hence, they decided to reach out to the team behind the GBM auction format

• If the GBM auction NFT drop goes well, they will be using it for their Haunt 2 drop as well

• Haunt 2 will introduce new collaterals for Aavegotchi (WBTC Aavegotchis, MATIC Aavegotchis)

• Aavegotchis are becoming more expensive and it is getting harder for people to come in and participate in the ecosystem

• The Pixelcraft team is obsessed with ways to onboard more people and grow. Hence, the introduction of another 15,000 Aavegotchis with the Haunt 2 Portal drop

• Do not want to be a scarcity meme NFT project

Metaverse

• Presale will be in August

• Topdown Legend of Zelda mid-1990s-style game with Vaporwave

• Want it to be accessible to those without an Aavegotchi as well

• Introduced a secondary character called the Lickquidator, who is the arch nemesis of Aavegotchis, that is a free-to-play NFT

• People can redeem and play as a Lickquidator if they get hold of a referral ticket

• REALM parcels are pre-baked with 4 different in-game resources called Alchemica

• These alchemica have to be farmed out of the parcel

• Lickquidators can steal alchemica from REALM parcels

All information presented above is for educational purposes only and should not be taken as investment advice. Summaries are prepared by The Reading Ape. While reasonable efforts are made to provide accurate content, any errors in interpreting and summarizing the source material are ours alone. We disclaim any liability associated with the use of our content.