STACKS DEGENS ARE KICKING IT INTO HIGH GEAR

As I write this, the results are in for the final round of our Second Tournament. c043y.btc took first place while defending his title against sqerl.btc. First place is taking home 100 STX, and second place is bringing home 50 STX.

Additionally, they both are taking home Badges of Honor! They were both airdropped a badge, one silver and one gold, to reflect which place they came in. They will then have their badge displayed on the leaderboard. Congratulations to our winners!

However, the game is still in its initial stages and it is time we raise the stakes for the tournament. We are excited to announce the next steps we are taking to kick this into next gear. We are loving the buzz around the game so far, and if you enjoy our plans for the future, please spread the word so others may be able to enjoy our game as well and have a chance at some major rewards! A reminder that we are one of the first NFTs built on Bitcoin via Stacks with off-chain utility, but we are aiming to be much more than that.

TOURNAMENT REVAMP

This week, our developer and artist will be giving the game a facelift. They will be performing a game health update that will help us tremendously in scaling the game. In addition to the game health update, they will be updating textures, adding a speedometer (with the needle), and updating the menu buttons and options.

The game will still be up and available to play while these updates are going on. In fact, the third tournament is set to begin on January 11th (registration in our Discord). These updates will ensure we can effectively and efficiently make upgrades to the game, like we have planned for shortly after the update.

As far as the tournament revamp goes, we will be adding four new maps. You may practice on these maps individually outside the tournament whenever you would like. However, when it comes time for racing in the tournament, you will have to complete them all in sequence. If you restart, you restart on the first map. Upon completion of all four maps, your time will be recorded. Your best time will carry with you until the end of the tournament.

The four new maps will be:

• Big Apple

• Miami Beach

• Stacks Plaza

• Degen Raceway

Rather than having limited spots available, anyone with a Stacks Degen will be able to race in the tournament. The three Degens with the top three times will win first, second, and third place rewards. We may introduce a lottery winner as well, as in a random Degen who competed in the tournament could win rewards, but we may hold off on that feature until other developments take place first. We are set to launch this tournament revamp with new maps January 24th, granted no delays.

STACKSPUNKS INGAME INTEGRATION

We are going to begin expanding the character universe to welcome in other NFT communities in the Stacks ecosystem. We will be increasing our interoperability with other NFT communities by extending our in-game utility to their NFTs as well. To test-run this concept, we will be creating a framework for making StacksPunks raceable.

What does this mean for StacksPunks Holders? Similar to how the Miami Degens NFT is a skeleton in a Lambo with certain attributes, StacksPunk Holders will be able to claim a custom NFT of their StacksPunk and its unique attributes sitting in a car, and that StacksPunk will then be raceable in-game. This will be available for StacksPunk Holders sometime in early February, and they will be able to claim theirs for a price of 14.20 STX.

The team is putting out a survey in the next few days for StacksPunk holders to record their wallet address and the color car and color rims they would like with each of their StacksPunks. We will be putting out a poll in our Discord for what kind of car the StacksPunks should be driving. The winning result will be the vehicle that our artist designs the StacksPunks sitting in.

If everything goes well, we will repeat the process in collaboration and partnership with other NFT communities in the space that desire to bring their NFT collection to life in our racing universe. With this, NFT communities on Stacks will be able to compete head-on in our tournaments. This will become especially interesting when multiplayer is incorporated (on the to-do list for down the road) and you will be able to race your NFT collection in lobbies, with a set buy-in and different reward settings.

INGAME CURRENCY

We are officially planning the release of an ingame currency. The token will follow a PoX Lite mining mechanism, almost identical to CityCoins. If you are unfamiliar with PoX Lite, taking MiamiCoin as an example, STX is committed for competing to win blocks of MIA rewards. At the end of a Stacking Cycle, 70% of the STX committed to mining is distributed to MIA Stackers (those stacking their MIA to earn STX yield) and 30% of STX committed to mining is donated to the City of Miami.

In the instance of our ingame currency, 30% of mining proceeds for our token will go into our treasury for further game developments and providing liquidity. During the initial 3-month mining phase, we may try to find a way to somehow reward Stacks Degen holders and launch partners.

To allow for players to swap in and out of our token, we will have Liquidity Pools set up on protocols that are to be determined. We may also coordinate the establishment of Liquidity Pools with other NFT communities with their own coins and decided to partner with us to bring their NFTs into our gaming universe. A name for our ingame currency has been established and will be disclosed at a later date.

The token will be used for racing in tournaments and game lobbies, and will be used for rewarding racers as well. Racers will be able to input the token to record a time in the tournament. At the end of a tournament, a smart contract will trustlessly and automatically distribute rewards for the tournament, based on whatever the parameters were for that tournament. Additionally, a DAO is in play for Stacks Degens and this token would potentially serve as a form of governance and making proposals.

We hope you all have been enjoying the game and are excited about these updates! The team is working very hard to come up with ways to deliver value and become a major factor in the future in Gaming on Stacks, Built on Bitcoin. As always, you can stay up-to-date on our progress and developments on our Twitter and in our Discord.