Sit back, relax, grab some popcorn. You are in for a treat.
As many of you know, I’ve been fairly conservative in recent (2-3) months, esp. in light of a decently bullish market. Mostly, the only decent play (size-wise) I’ve taken on has been $UFO (which continues to perform very well).
One reason for this hesitancy was in my initial belief of a likely / possible macro lower high forming on $BTC by year end (which typically acts as a bellwether for healthy conditions in the alts market). This, undoubtedly, seems likely to be invalidated, and we now increasingly find ourselves on a path of something more closely resembling either an extended double top, or possibly (probably?) a bit higher by yr. end - Remains to be seen.
With this initial uncertainty in mind - I continued to stay true to my game plan :
(1.) I did not get into every alt pump, nor did I chase.
and
(2.) I resisted taking on too much (at the time, perceived) unnecessary risk when I myself, lacked conviction. I would recommend this to anyone.
Bottom line :
If you lack conviction in your positions & / or their sizes, you have no business initiating them in the first place. You must have well-guided & well-founded confidence.
As I continued to research the P2E (Play-to-Earn) space - I became addicted. I observed and researched the other main players extensively (Axie Infinity $AXS , Yield Guild Games $YGG , & Illuvium $ILV come to mind), as they too outperformed every other market segment, that especially intrigued me greatly. I picked the brain of the community, leaders behind each project, & followed any leads I could. *(p2e primer in footnotes)
Alas, I stumbled onto a new entrant, one yet to launch, AND with favorable token economics, structured around a community-first approach ( ! )
Ever since discovering $UFO (kudos to the key early folks in this community, I’m sure you know them, $UFO has one of the best), I have been patiently looking, researching & vetting for a similar play in the P2E / Metaverse space to pair with it ( ~at bottom ).
Enter Merit Circle ($MC)
Merit ticks all the boxes for me -
1.) Community - first approach :
The team is allowing anyone from the community to freely participate in a public round (Nov. 2nd - 4th via a fair launch) that wants a piece of $MC , all you have to do is seek it out & secure. No need to be a ‘ VC ‘ or private investor.
Additionally, team tokens are locked for a minimum of 12 months, at which time they will be vested (or slowly distributed) over a minimum of 4 years (the ‘cliff’ - or time period the tokens are locked / untradeable by the team, was recently increased by an additional 6 months, early investors / seed still has the original 6 month cliff + 36 months of vesting schedule). This model of distribution helps to foster an environment of community good faith, and ensures tokens are spread more fairly (hence ‘ fair launch ’) across various entities and stakeholders (vs in a typical centralized manner).
Projects & teams that elect to go this route typically champion the community, work hard to keep the protocol robust and less prone to toxic liquidity / intentional manipulation, and it also makes the likelihood of catastrophic events - such as hostile takeovers - that plague many modern projects less likely. These steps require a lot of forethought and leg work, and for that reason (and simple greed), many project leaders instead choose to allow their early investors the option of dumping large quantities of tokens acquired cheaply onto the public - aka Cash grab.
2.) Vision - :
Merit Circle’s mission statement is to “ Maximize value accrual across different games in the metaverse … via creating a platform at the intersection of capital (investors), expertise (platform and managers) and players (gamers). “
The team has expressed that they not only want to compete in P2E, they want to be a major player - as big of guild or even bigger than say $YGG - and they have the backing to prove it. This really could be the next big player in this arena - but it’s oh so much more (we’ll get into that too in a bit) ...
One cool thing about competitors in this space (P2E, Metaverse & specifically in Merit’s case), is that the more eyes / players / guilds / scholars / investors & attention that comes in, Merit, in theory, should be in a unique position to benefit (not compete) with other entrants. Think of $MC like a blanket that continues to spread out to accommodate an ever-wider pool that is the blockchain digital gaming / earning economy. Each new piece not only fits, but is like an additional cog in the wheel that makes participating in any number of specific Merit Circle subDAOs all that more appealing (& potentially profitable) for all parties involved.
3.) Tokenomics - :
Favorable token economics, like the aforementioned 12 months+ cliff & multiple years of vesting for the team mean their intentions aren’t for a quick cash grab - It’s immediately apparent from looking at their published tokenomics structure that this team is in it for the long haul; They want to be the next big P2E guild player (think multi-billion $ market cap), achieved via a long term vision of incentivizing continued guild participation, and disincentivizing dump & run behavior - and they’re willing to let the community get a piece of the action via the Fair Launch / LBP.
Relating this back with my experience with $UFO, It’s token structure meant that all tokens that could ever be minted were already in the ether - that means no inflation (a huge plus), & a large key to its great continued price performance, and a reason why I continue to remain so convicted on the project, even from an early stage. Simple evaluation of token structure continues to drive me to certain projects over others - you can tell a lot about a team’s motives, how they think, if they have long-term vision for the project, and as well, how greedy / not greedy they are.
4.) Timing & P2E / Metaverse Growth - :
Again, going back to my hesitancy to go ‘risk-on’ in any alt (outside of a decent sized play in $UFO), I think it is still very possible we could see an extended double top ( $BTC ) or similar scenario play out by EOY; in this scenario, I want to be sure I am holding a project (or projects) that have a high likelihood of holding value, and even growing during a risk-off or volatile macro market environment (directly or indirectly caused by $BTC or the current macro economic climate we find ourselves in).
For a further example of this, we can look back to Axie Infinity’s ($AXS) token historical performance.
Axie Infinity ( $AXS )
Of note specifically is during the period of June - July of earlier this year (2021), where $AXS performed very well, and even broke out vs market (somewhat out of nowhere). It is for this reason I believe it is possible $MC could see a similar market performance to $AXS or $ILV (Merit’s token structure model is very comparable to $ILV), but a bit faster out of gate due to now-more established comparatives in the P2E field.
On the subject of comparative market performance, growth trends of Illuvium ($ILV) as well as UFO Gaming ($UFO) also continue to impress, and look poised to continue their trends higher, along with the overall positive adoption trend of P2E / Metaverse as a sector.
Illuvium ( $ILV )
UFO Gaming ( $UFO )
Of course, it also helps that the team is A-tier, they ‘get it’ - they have the vision (every question or critique directed at them is fielded in a timely, clear & succinct manner, with importance placed on transparency, openness, and community). To experience this, just join the Merit telegram or take a scroll through all their published medium posts to-date (*links below in resources). I believe it’s no coincidence they are working in the same area that still has yet to see its massive untapped growth potential reached - that sort of market vision sometimes also goes hand in hand with vision to execute & deliver on goals. I believe the team behind Merit Circle here is no different.
5.) Staking - :
One of the keys to Axie’s (Axie Infinity) success has been the ability of the team to connect token price to ecosystem value via staking (passive value). Similarly, the Merit team plans on supporting a full-fledged in-house staking portal, complete with option to lock-up tokens for differing time periods, earning rewards unique to each subDAO or your choosing (to which there will be many, spread out amongst various supported games / scholars / etc).
The more rewards a subDAO earns (via its members, scholars, players etc), the more potential rewards stakers will enjoy, as they remain vested in the longer term success of each specific group.
6.) Unique Value Proposition - vs ‘ Competitors ‘ in P2E space :
We touched a bit on the unique differentiation between Merit and its competitors a bit earlier in this article, but let’s expand …
Unlike other crypto projects, Merit is not only -not- hurt from competition, but actually benefits from it (due to its somewhat unique positioning as a blanket DAO, with many subDAOs residing within / below it, each supporting slightly different rewards / games. Coincidently, this also makes the chances of the $MC token being non-differentiated by a competitor product offering a bit less likely / easy. The team has also emphasized the importance of innovating with the P2E space, by remaining adaptable & evolving with its growth over time.
meritcircle.io
The more games, guilds & scholars that onramp the P2E arena, the bigger the opportunity for Merit. Put another way : the more Play-to-Earn games that $MC builds out support for (think of the DAO like a layer that sits on top of each subDAO and game supported), the bigger the potential basket of opportunity for all of the stakeholders in the system - from the stakers, LP’s, scholars, everyone benefits.
To this end, Merit has recently announced two key partnerships with both UFO Gaming, as well as Vulcan Forged (PYR) - each prominent entities in the Play-to-Earn & Metaverse space, to assist in bringing traditional games to the P2E landscape. The partnerships include strategic purchases of discounted NFTs and land, as well as other special deals that could net huge returns for the DAO (at seed prices).
More partnerships with other innovative members in the play-to-earn / metaverse realm have also been announced on their official twitter. Many of these will also include seed-level exclusive deals, making the prospect of owning the native $MC token all-that more lucrative.
The more revenue and positive ROI the DAO realizes (via positive investments, scholars / gamers revenue, NFT, etc.), the more that value gets pumped back into value accrual for the native token (& thus, holders) via various mechanisms, with the key here being successful investments of the DAO treasury and an ever-growing & expanding player base.
At its core, Merit is basically an index : they are strategically investing into the most promising games / guilds via their seed rounds (outsized ROI potential), granting them access to discounted NFT deals (land, profitable & scarce items, etc) from these exclusive partners.
With all this said, I’ve been holding back my excitement on this project for some time as I continue to eagerly follow the progress they make. There are still some risks involved of note (perhaps most notably, smart contract risk), which indeed comes with the territory of being early to a new and innovative project, in an especially young and dynamic area of crypto; but with the direct market comparisons in its class - many of which have attained or are in near $billions of market cap - (& regardless of what the rest of the crypto market, global macro market does in near term), I do think picking up some $MC at this early of a stage is a no brainer, and can change your life.
♐ Current price (LBP) : ~TBD ($1-start)
♐ Target : $15+ (short term) / $20+ mid - long
♐ Strategy : Acquire during LBP (*link in resources) & stake Long term
ps. I plan on writing more project-based articles in the future.
Awesome Article. Can you please write similar articles on projects that excite you ? (Example UFO gaming) .
Awesome analysis, very helpful if you want to help on a P2E project contact me