NEW YORK DEGENS MINT, GAME LAUNCH, and FIRST TOURNAMENT

Welcome to the first medium post for Stacks Degens! We appreciate everyone taking the time to update themselves on the project. What initially started with NFTs of skeletons riding Lambos is now transforming into the first Play-to-Earn racing game in the Stacks ecosystem. While we continue to collaborate with the community on what they would like to see out of the game moving forward, we believe it would be beneficial to create a Medium account that we can share with the community what we have planned.

Why are we making a Play-to-Earn racing game in the first place? Certainly, nobody asked for one. We believe that a major component of web3.0 will be gaming and social networking. The online gaming world is a massive network and global industry, but in it’s current web2.0 form, gamers need to pay large corporations for the privilege of playing their game, and some games require season passes to be able to play online with your friends. Rather than seeking profits, we believe web3.0 enables the capability for decentralized play-to-earn games, where players are financially rewarded for their time, activity, and attention. Web2.0 gaming companies will surely try to break into web3.0, but it will require them to shift their mindset from maximizing profits to rewarding players.

Thanks to Stacks, we are uniquely positioned to take web3.0 by storm with a monetization model that utilizes Proof of Transfer. A bulk of our proceeds from minting will end up being stacked (with some STX being converted to CityCoins and stacked as well) and the STX rewards will be used for player rewards and continuing to improve the gaming experience. Gamers are tired of being cash cows for the gaming companies. Additionally, the passion players have for the games they play in web2.0 does not translate into earning rewards. If a really good gamer wanted to make money off playing a game, it would require them to spend a lot of time streaming and seeking sponsors.

If we can create a game that players are passionate about and like playing, incorporate the opportunity to earn rewards for playing the game, and create a friendly environment for players to share the game with their friends, it means the community will continue to grow as new players come on board for an opportunity to earn rewards on a fun game. As the community grows, our game will experience its own network effect, and possibly enable early players to earn more rewards. We believe we can do this with Stacks Degens.

MIAMI DEGENS

The Miami Degens became available for minting months ago. There were 420 of them available for minting at a price of 69 STX each (for max degeneracy). Almost half of the collection was minted, and we closed minting on stxnft.com to focus on the future of the project. You may still purchase some on the secondary marketplace. The collection was inspired by MiamiCoin, the first CityCoin, and we believe CityCoins will revolutionize the way cities and their community engage together.

NEW YORK DEGENS

The New York Degens are our latest NFT collection, inspired by NYCCoin, the second CityCoin (you can see a trend here). They will be available for minting for whitelisters only, starting on December 23rd and going until December 24th. Rather than a skeleton riding a Lambo, the New York Degens feature an alien riding a Bentley. There will also be 420 of them available for minting for 69 STX each. After the 24th, the whitelist mint will be closed and whatever remains will not be available until public mint begins for the Miami Degens and the New York Degens after the New Year. They will be available on stxnft.com, and the link to do so will be emailed to those on the whitelist.

A bulk of the proceeds from the Miami Degens minted was dedicated to getting the game ready. The Stacks Team believes we came up with a fair way of handling the proceeds from the New York Degens minting. We outline it below:

• 30% of the STX will be immediately stacked to earn STX rewards

• 30% will be converted to CityCoins (15% MIA and 15% NYC) to earn STX rewards

• 15% will be reserved for player rewards

• 15% will be reserved for improving the game

• 10% will be reserved for Team members to access at their own personal discretion

• All STX rewards will be dedicated to player rewards and improving the game

This is all subject to change if the community believes this to be an unfair or not smart way of going about it. Proceeds from future collections may or may not follow the same outline, as circumstances may be different. We will be including what is left over from the Miami Degens minting to this as well.

GAME LAUNCH

On Christmas, the team has the pleasure to bring a racing game to Degen holders. Degen holders will be able to connect their wallet to our website at https://stacksdegens.com/ and race their own Degen in a single-player format. The game will require racers to dodge cars and get to the end of the finish line as fast as possible. Their time will be recorded in a database, and you will be able to see your own personal high score with your Degen, as well as the overall best score out of all the players. We will incorporate a leaderboard so that you may be able to see how you stack up against everyone else. During the early stages of the game, we may be experimenting with the algorithm to optimize the playing experience. This will be a community-driven effort, and will require feedback on what Degen holders would like to see out of the game in the future. You may engage with the team in our discord here: discord.gg/gMwqJmzFdM

If you are not yet a part of the whitelist for New York Degens, you may also fill out the Google Doc in the discord so you may be eligible to mint. We have plans in the future to create a multiplayer format racing game where you can join lobbies and race against other Degens in real time, but for now we will be doing our best to cover the basics and make sure we are consistently moving in the right direction.

TOURNAMENT

The first Degen tournament will begin on December 27th, and will run over the course of the next four days after (ending right before the New Year). Degen holders will be eligible to register for the tournament on a Google Spreadsheet after the game launches. It will feature the first opportunity for Degen holders to earn rewards playing the game. The format will be a bracket-style tournament where Degens are paired one-on-one for the day, and the Degen that records the best time that day moves on to the next day of racing until a Champion Degen is determined.

You will be able to play with a Miami Degen or a New York Degen, or you can register multiple for the tournament if you own multiple Degens. Once January begins, some of the tournaments will be for only Miami Degens and for only New York Degens. At the end of the month, we may take the best Degens from both leagues and have them compete head on to see who is the best breed of Degens, similar to how MLB has a American League and a National League.

PRIZES

After the first tournament ends, the month of January will see the continuation of multiple tournaments, enabling Degen holders the opportunity to keep racing and competing to earn more rewards. There will be weekly tournaments and a tournament that spans the entire month. While we may play with the exact amount in rewards Degens can earn, we believe the weekly tournament will consist of rewards 1st place 50 STX and 2nd place 25 STX. In the month-long tournament, Degen holders can compete for 1st place for 150 STX, 2nd place for 75 STX, and 3rd place for 50 STX. This is subject to change in the future, with rewards possibly increasing or decreasing, relative to the overall success of the game. Also worth mentioning — there will be a special prize for the Degen that spends the most time racing over a certain timeline. They will be considered the most degen of the Degens, since they spent the most time playing the game.

We will also be incorporating badges that tournament winners could earn, with those badges being displayed on your Degen when listed on the leaderboard. We are considering other rewards for racers as well, such as airdrops that consist of a Stacks Degen that a holder may race with. The Stack Degens may only be acquired through winning a tournament. However, to ensure fairness, they will not have any unique abilities that give them an unfair advantage over the other Degens. This is to ensure everyone has an equal opportunity to win the tournaments, and no one has an advantage of where they can continue winning all the tournaments simply because they have the superior racer. Perhaps in the future we will incorporate unique abilities for Degens, but we will never go so far as to include features that the community itself does not agree with.

FUTURE

There are a lot of interesting ways we can go about the project in the future. At the beginning, the team is going to require a lot of control over the game to make sure we can deliver an engaging and fun game that allows Degen holders to earn rewards. We would like to eventually get it to the point where the community begins getting more control over the direction of the game, and how that will look will be determined by community feedback. Community outreach is key, and we want to make sure Degen holders understand that we are listening. As more CityCoins are adopted, there will be more Degen collections. This allows the opportunity for those who do not own a Degen to be able to get one, and allow the ecosystem of the game to constantly grow. For now, there will be no sound in the game except for the Degen theme song, Meme Vibes, which was created by Stacks Team Advisor BowTiedFellow.btc when he was on deployment a few years ago. The song can be toggled with the ‘m’ button. Over time, we may include other sounds in the game, such as horns, car acceleration, and tire screeches.

In our Twitter Space this previous Monday, a lot of members of the Degen community turned out to share their ideas, which we appreciated tremendously. One idea is to figure out some sort of DAO framework that would give the community ultimate control over the direction of the game. We are absolutely open to initiatives such as that. The Stacks Team believes DAOs are an integral part of web3.0 and allow the opportunity for projects to be truly owned by the community. Other ideas included a marketplace, the ability to build your own unique Degen racers, and more. All ideas and suggestions are tremendously appreciated and is helping the team enormously as we try to brainstorm the roadmap.

IMPORTANT DATES

1. New York Degens mint will be Dec 23rd to Dec 24th for whitelisters (may join whitelist in the Stacks Degen discord)

2. The game launches for Degen holders to play on Christmas

3. The first tournament kicks off on Dec 27th and runs until Dec 30th

4. Public minting begins on the New Year for any Miami Degens or New York Degens that are left