The puzzle was solved three years later, on February 1, 2018.

“The picture is encoded with a string of binary code, the characters of which correspond to one of the lights along the edges of the canvas. The color and shape of each was determined by a piece of four symbols that complemented the code hidden in the ribbons in each of the corners. Then I used a handwritten Java program that translated the string of zeros and ones into the Bitcoin wallet code,” the programmer said.

Not everyone, especially developers who have entered the crypto industry recently or from classic game development, realize that by doing some off-chain mechanics they kill the interest of such an audience, while it is technically impossible to reach the audience of classic players if you are not a god of virtual games. Stepn is valuable as a case only in terms of virality. The project itself, like p2e or m2e, did not even correspond to the level of economies in other crypto games, and the unit economy does not converge over time if the old business model is used. Attraction is very expensive, and classic gamers have no desire to go here, because. some despise such games due to the lack of information and the unformed need to own digital property.

There is such a meta on the market now - let's invest in Web2 companies that will make a cool game and call it Play & Earn because Play is more important and all that. Yes, players will have more motivation to stay in the game. This is good. High-quality lore even in web3 keeps crypto players. Interesting gameplay and graphics - all this will certainly affect the attractiveness of the game as well, but there is a risk that the scales will tip in the wrong direction again and Earn will become superfluous there and there will be no all these on-chain mechanics.

It seems to me that we should look for a synergistic solution and take all the best from Web3 and Web2, you can hire people with a background in Web3 who have already been involved in the creation of crypto games and DeFi. Their insights, insights, experience and mistakes can be of great benefit to the following projects.

2. It is not so important tokenomics you have with 1 or 2 tokens. The main thing is how they are used and whether the parties have a conflict of interest.

You cannot just give away tokens that influence decision making in the ecosystem or act as shares, and at the same time sell these tokens to investors. Imagine the situation, if bots can farm governance tokens, then what will come of it? 

Maybe (I would even say most likely) there is no point in giving away inflation tokens at all. Players can farm game resources and craft NFTs from them and sell them already. Or you can reward only the best players for participating in skill-based tournaments, and they will receive a well-deserved reward. Then you will be able to control the emission by announcing monthly tournaments with N prize pool.

You should definitely have: 

• Token as a currency, possibly a stablecoin;
• A token similar to shares for investors, but again this is a question for future regulation;
• Resources for production, construction and other things;
• And a token of what all participants in the system want to get, which has social significance. deflationary asset. 
• If there is a DAO in the game, then it is worth considering a two-level voting system like in GP and LP ventures. now unqualified participants vote in those areas in which they lack competence, in addition, there are many uninvolved participants, which can lead to the fact that the vote does not gain a quorum.

3. There should be an Automated Market Maker (AMM) inside the game or even a body like the Central Bank, which regulates monetary policy based on market conditions and determines quotas for the number of free places for crypto players. If Uber doesn't have cars, then they can't hire new drivers, right? Sounds complicated, but it's a great challenge for the GM to make it fun. At the same time, it is important to understand that any player can at different times try on the role of both a free player and a crypto player with the functions of an employee in the game, and paying, especially after he has earned tokens in the game. Employees are often the most loyal customers of companies.

4. For the sustainability of the economy, you should experiment with stablecoinswhen it comes to sharing features. Once they talked about bitcoin as a form of money, but in the end it turned out to be not practical due to volatility and the market came to pay for services in stablecoins. A similar tool can be implemented at the level of crypto game economies, but perhaps not in all mechanics. Otherwise, you will have to look for meanings for the project token.

5. Integrate an on-chain identification and reputation system to deter bots. Bots and multiacckers are the #1 problem for open economy games. They accelerate net capital outflows and drive up inflation. It will be difficult for you to control the number of crypto players in the system if you cannot overcome the bots.

6. The developer needs additional monetization by attracting advertiser brands. Part of the funds could be used as foreign exchange intervention to support the economy and at the same time generate income. This will create an additional tool to those listed above to equalize deviations in crisis situations.

7. As an alternative, you can consider the optional sale of user data, if they agree to this, but always with profit-sharing in the spirit of web3, so that the player receives part of the income from the sale of their data. Player behavior data may be of interest to potential advertisers. This is how it works in the popular browser Brave $BAT.

8. The developer should think not only about the utility for users, but implement mechanics related to increasing the usefulness received from users. These can be activities or services outside the game interface, onboarding new players, or creating content.

9. A non-monetary incentive system should be introduced. For example, POAP. This may be a certificate for contribution to the development of the project, a diploma on the blockchain in the form of NFT, perhaps the player’s contribution is associated with useful changes in real life, or even a positive impact on the environment.

10. Crypto games may borrow some principles from ReFi (Regenerative Finance). Democratize jobs, promote environmental initiatives, promote learning in a gamified form. This may be useful to third parties who could contribute financially.

11. Try to create unique on-chain mechanicsso that the question does not arise, “why is there a blockchain in the game?”.

12. Cultivating the Thesis of True Asset Ownership without the risk of censorship could break the investment framework for whales and could attract new entrants to the gaming system. For example, funds investing in game assets directly, and not just in developers. If the whale checks end up in the 100k-500k amounts, then the true ownership of the asset raises the spending limit on the game because even $ 1 million spent on the asset is not wasted. The player gets the property. This will allow the whales to become even bigger whales and enter the digital space.

13. Leverage the power of the community and manage it effectively. As one of the parts of CAC in web3 wrote above, this is an allocation to user awards. And this part is much larger than in web2. Another feature of web3 communities is that the involvement in the life and development of the project is crazy. It's hard to call them subscribers. This is almost an outsourcing team or a support group (sometimes, on the contrary, a group of destroyers). Involve users in promoting and improving the product more actively. They themselves are interested in it if they feel their contribution. Community-building is not just words in web3. This is the foundation. If you are from web2, then just buy the NFT PFP of the top community and feel the difference in the Engagement Rate. It should be easy enough to understand: Profit-sharing is about getting users to promote the product, while helping the community to go in the right direction and do it effectively. If you do not use the power of the community and just give away part of the income instead of spending on marketing, then no matter how you look at it, the unit economy will not converge. This is why community-building is so important with the expectation of creating a network effect that will bring more value than traditional web2 tools. And it really does make sense.

14. Experiments with Cross-IP and Copyright. Help with targeting. For example, on wealthy BAYC owners and collections with cc0. Reference: Galaxy Fight Club. The attraction of OG collectors was very good for the sales of collections. On the subject of non-copyright and why it's beneficial for the creator Andrew Chen (A16Z) has a great article about this theme.

RTKFT has recently relinquished commercial rights for their Clone X avatars. Now every owner of the NFT Clone X. can use it for their own purposes. They opened NFT access to 3D files depending on what avatar you have on your wallet. The community has already started creating content and this has created a great network effect for the brand. This goes well with point 13.

One of the cases with PFP is just the promotion of one’s avatar (as a digital identity) on social networks, while a person can remain anonymous and even sell this digital identity or change to another when something goes wrong without consequences for the reputation of the individual. Or someone can help promote digital personalities such as a temporary owner and promoter for the purpose of reselling to other influencers.

However, the strategy of abandoning commercial rights must be approached consciously. So far, these are all experiments and it is not clear how this can affect the brand.