This proposal is the second of several I’m submitting as part of an Aavegotchi Revitalization Plan (“ARP”). See my first proposal on community airdrops: Community Airdrops
Problem : Going into Season 1, we’re losing interest from what I’ll call “low buy-in” or more casual players who are unable to commit a sufficient amount of capital input to acquire expensive wearables or buy tons of raffle tickets for a chance of getting a wearable. These players were further dispirited by the recent Maal sale. Simply put, with no minigames out yet, folks who bought lower BRS gotchis are feeling like there’s not a place for them in the current meta, and this is being reflected in the decreasing gotchi prices. To many, the game is increasingly overwhelmingly “pay to play.” So far, the DAO has tried a few different wearable release methods, each with pros and cons:
- Raffles : These have been somewhat successful. Allowing people to stake GHST for FRENS is an integral part of GHST tokenomics and provides significant ROI for GHST investors. This system is fair in that all game users can participate regardless of computer speed, familiar with coding, etc. In the most recent raffle, someone won a godlike with a single godlike ticket! The huge downside of raffles, however, is that if users don’t win anything, they lose their investment, and may feel rekt and dissuaded from participating in the game further. Let’s say you’re a new user and your friend convinces you to buy $100 of rare tickets. If you don’t win an item, you’re out your $100 — not a great start to your gotchi experience. Even at a higher level, people can feel rekt by the VRF if they end up acquiring an item for much more than they could have bought it in the Maal (e.g., they bought 10k GHST-worth of mythical raffle tickets and only got 1 mythical item).
- Maal : the H1 maal launch worked ok; the recent Lil Pump maal launch was a disaster. In theory, the maal sounds great: everyone gets online at the same time, and has an equal chance to purchase an item. In practice, however, the maal rewards those with faster connections, and turns into a complete gas war. And if the secret purchase function name leaks (as it did at the recent Lil Pump drop), there is no stopping scripters from buying out the entire maal before normal users even see the items appear.
ARP Goal : Without significant changes to the game’s current structure, how do we make people feel like they’re a part of the game even if they can’t afford expensive wearables? How do we increase the inherent value to gotchis and incentivize people to hold their gotchis? And how do we make people feel like they have an equal chance of buying new wearables at shop value, without potentially losing significant money?
Proposal : This proposal suggests that future wearable drops are distributed in three waves (which could all take place at once). I propose the following three-wave system:
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Raffles : One third of all new wearables are raffled off through the normal existing method. Nothing groundbreaking here—people continue staking GHST for FRENS, and buying/selling raffle tickets. This gives anyone a shot at getting a Godlike if they want, without spending 10k GHST, and isn’t susceptible to bots. Of course, we still have the issue of people losing money if they don’t get selected and feeling rekt, which leads us to the second and third waves…
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“Riskless” Raffle (aka GHST staking) (two waves) : The remaining two thirds of new wearables are distributed through what I’m thinking of as a “riskless raffle”. Under the current raffle system, users send their raffle tickets to the contract that they’re interested in entering into. If they win, they get an item; if they lose, they lose their raffle ticket. I’m proposing that for the second and third waves, users stake GHST directly towards the item they want to acquire. So if you want a chance to get a new godlike, a new mythical, and a new legendary, you stake 12,300 GHST (10k+2k+300) towards those items’ contracts. Unlike the current raffle system, there’s no risk to the user. If you are selected, you get the item; if not, the contract returns your GHST and no one gets rekt. Essentially, you’re purchasing a non-burnable raffle ticket that will be automatically returned for your GHST if you don’t win. In practice, this would look similar to the current Maal — you are shown a page with all of the items available and costs, and select how many of each item you want. When you check out, the corresponding GHST are allocated towards the staking contract, along with the information regarding your preferences.
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I’m suggesting that the riskless raffle proceed in two waves. First , half of the wearables that are allocated for the riskless raffle(or one third of the total wearables) are randomly distributed to wallets that own gotchis. This is a way to reward people for already playing the game, and will increase the inherent value of an aavegotchi (as the aavegotchi becomes a non-burnable raffle ticket, regardless of BRS). For each item being raffled, the contract uses VRF to randomly select wallets that hold gotchis and have staked GHST towards that item, and awards them the item (and sends the GHST to the DAO). Wallets are weighted based on the number of aavegotchis they own, as determined by a snapshot shortly in advance of the raffle. So a wallet with 100 Aavegotchis would have a 100x greater chance of winning an item than a wallet with 1 aavegotchi (note: while a 1 chance per person system may be more equitable, this 1 chance per gotchi system is necessary given the nature of the blockchain; a user with 100 gotchis can just split the gotchis among 100 wallets, and to the contract he looks like 100 different people). In this wave, wallets are limited to being awarded one item per gotchi they own (so the 100 Aavegotchi wallet could, in theory, win 100 items in this wave, while the 1 Aavegotchi wallet could win 1 item in this wave). This gives every Aavegotchi-holding wallet a decent chance of getting an item, since there are a finite amount of Aavegotchis.
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Second , the remaining one-third of wearables will be randomly distributed among all users who have staked GHST towards the item contracts. Again, the contract will use VRF to randomly select a wallet that staked GHST towards that item. Obviously, those who stake more GHST will have a better chance of being awarded items here (again, this is essential because users can split their GHST amount many wallets, thus bypassing any attempt to even the odds among users). I’m concerned about whales staking millions of dollars of GHST to ensure that they get all the best items, so I’m proposing that users be charged a 1% fee on all GHST they stake. This will be negligible for people trying to get a rare or legendary item (just a few GHST), but will disincentivize people from staking vast amounts of GHST.
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This system should be very easy to implement by modifying the contracts already in place for the Maal and the raffle. Basically we’re just letting users select their preferences, and then taking a snapshot of their selections and Aavegotchis in advance of the raffle.
Long-term, I think having an auction system for more expensive items is the way to go. This seems to be the prevailing sentiment on Discord. However, this will likely involve significant R&D from the dev team, and I think we can all agree that prioritizing mini-games and the metaverse should be priority #1. Overall, I think my proposal is a very easy to implement solution that would equitably distribute new wearables, increase user participation and retention, retain existing tokenomic benefits, and increase the inherent value of all Aavegotchis.
Would love to hear feedback!