ENCTR x Polygon

ENCTR will officially released on the Polygon network. The team has given this a lot of thought, and with new developments in the blockchain space, we collectively see this as a crucial change needed for the lifespan of Encountr.

Part 1: Binance Scam Chain?

We made the decision to switch things up to Polygon based on the following:

1. Binance Smart Chain has low development growth in terms of a technological future.
2. Go where the developers go. Most are NOT going to BSC. It is not a true decentralized chain and is too closely tied to Binance, the company.
3. BSC is basically a fork of ETH that took on the Proof-Of-Authority consensus algorithm.
4. Like PoW and PoS, PoA also comes with its own set of limitations. Because the validators have to be identified, trusted, and selected by the network, the validating group is often relatively small. This offers the benefit of very high throughput, but it also means that PoA networks tend to be more heavily centralized.
5. Other blockchains will blow BSC out of the water in a few years, in terms of tech-development. In our eyes, BSC is not the future of blockchain.
6. Polygon is tied to the ETH ecosystem
7. Polygon has grown past BSC with more unique addresses.
8. Polygon has even lower fees than BSC and is faster.
9. Polygon’s technology growth is faster and greater than BSC.
10. More gaming projects are moving to Polygon and we want to go where the gaming community goes. This provides us more value as we integrate with blockchain games in the future.

Every project that comes out on BSC is just the same project but with a different name. Scams are prevalent and value is low. We don’t want to be associated with BSC as we do not see the future of dApps and crypto with BSC in general.

New Tokenomics & Structure

Let me begin by discussing the biggest issue with most tokens in the defi space:

Liquidity.

Ever see a project with a massive market cap but low liquidity pool? Most of them are like that. The problem with low liquidity pools is that this causes massive price fluctuations on every buy/sell. This also poses a problem with people wanting to cash out. If a project has a low liquidity pool, only a few people will even be able to sell their token if they wanted to. We have seen these issues and it’s always been there in the back of our heads. How can we make sure that ENCTR will have a large and sustainable liquidity pool on launch?

• Investors
• Launchpad

This is what we have been working on the past month and a half. Getting private investors and applying to launchpads. We wanted investors for two reasons — larger starting liquidity pool and higher perceived value/legitimacy. As for the launchpad, we wanted the exact same thing; a higher perceived value/legitimacy through the due diligence that launchpads go through, as well as a large starting liquidity pool through the presale. After really long submission delays and completely inexcusable communication gaps with these launchpads (not naming, but it should be quite obvious), we started to question that absolute need for them, and also questioning the inevitable longer launch delays. Factors that absolutely don’t have any guarantee on the success of ENCTR.

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So what if…

What if we didn’t need VC’s.

What if we said screw the launchpads.

VC’s cripple projects by having large token amounts that scare investors on the possibility of a dump. They push projects in directions for increased profits rather than what the core community usually wants.

Launchpads aren’t as bad but they still have the issue with being a pre-sale platform, thus given only KYC’d or specific users discounted prices and usually dump when the token launches publicly.

That is NOT, and has never been our vision for ENCTR. ENCTR is supposed to embody decentralized Esports (dEsports™), decentralized gaming. We want the community to push ENCTR to what they crave. This can only be done with a revised token structure.

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DAO-Like Gaming Organization

If you have kept up with our dev blog updates and our website you may have seen the new whitepaper and read our Roadmap. We want ENCTR to be able to sustain itself and become its own ecosystem. We can’t do that with VC’s, and we can’t do that with our current tokenomics.

We need to become a reserve currency. You may have come across projects that call themselves a DAO or Reserve Currency. If not, let me give you a little background and why we need to change to this structure.

Keep in mind what I discussed earlier, the issue with Liquidity. A project wants large liquidity pools. There are some ways in which projects can obtain these.

1. Buy/Sell Taxes
2. Large Presales with token vesting
3. Borrowing Liquidity via Yield Farming

Each example presents it’s own unique problems. Buy and sell taxes push away investors. No one wants to buy into a project and at the moment of investing, automatically lose X% of their investment. You are then starting at a loss. Very discouraging.

Large presales with token vesting. This one actually isn’t as bad. Vesting is always good as it locks away tokens for a set period. The issue with is that you still have the situation of a large dump (there is never any way of truly mitigating this — for any crypto out there).

Borrowing Liquidity via Yield Farming. As you all may know, Pancakeswap, and other AMMs/DEXs give users the ability to earn rewards by providing liquidity to token pools. Research has shown that most users leave and move their liquidity out of a pool within the first day trying to find the next pool that gives them a bigger reward. Pools shift dramatically and very fast.

What if ENCTR owned all of its own liquidity?

If ENCTR owned all of its liquidity, then we wouldn’t have to worry about large dumps, we could have lower price fluctuations, and a constant stream/sustainable pool of money.

But how would it work and is this sustainable? This is where it becomes important to shed some light on recent happenings in the defi space. You may have heard of these projects such as DAOs or reserve currencies. They are quite complicated but here’s a brief understanding of how they work, or at least their greatest value. They are able to own their own liquidity and build up a treasury of funds. A very high level of their design:

When you try and purchase a crypto token you first go to an exchange such as Pancakeswap and trade a token such as BNB for the token you want. When you do this, the BNB goes into a pool of money, called the Liquidity pool. Whenever you buy or sell tokens you are actually buying and selling from this pool rather than users themselves. The liquidity pool is always growing in a heavily fluctuating manner.

We believe there is a better way of purchasing tokens for projects. Bonds. What is a bond? Look at it this way. Instead of going to Pancakeswap to purchase ENCTR, what if instead you could go to our website to buy one of our “bonds”. If you have $100 of BUSD, we will take that BUSD and split it to 50% ENCTR and 50% BUSD and create a ENCTR-BUSD LP token, and put that into the liquidity pool. The project now owns that liquidity. So what is the incentive for a user purchasing this way? Well, if you buy a bond from us, it is a contract that states if you purchase 100 tokens of ENCTR from us we will give you 120 tokens of ENCTR (example) at a later date — let’s say 5 days for the sake of this example. So now, you have a guaranteed increase of tokens and after 5 days you can withdraw them.

Now you may be thinking, “Ok… so then I will just sell the tokens after 5 days and continuously do this.” Just seems like a way to sell over and over? What if there was another incentive? Sure, you can sell the tokens after 5 days, but what if I give you an option of staking those tokens you earn rather than selling, and the project will give you 50,000% APY on that token amount (APY in tokens and now USD)? That’s a great incentive to not sell.

Now there’s some layers of protection.

1. 5 Day lockout period on initial ENCTR bond purchase
2. High APY incentive if you stake your tokens.

This is how many of these DAO projects are sustaining themselves. The data is clear. This WORKS. Then again, copying a structure is not enough. We aren’t trying to be like another DAO, our goal is not to just provide APY incentives. Other projects do that well enough, there isn’t really a market need for a copycat.

The 3rd layer

People are holding onto the token and the project owns all the liquidity via bond purchases. Now that ENCTR owns all the liquidity, we earn 100% of the transaction fees on DEX’s. This money can fuel the Treasury. All the money earned there will go to the Treasury.

This brings us to the 3rd layer. The Treasury is the 3rd layer. We can use the Treasury to lend out money with interest on lending platforms, which will continue to grow the Treasury and back the token price/value. This isn’t novel. This is how reserve currencies work. What makes ENCTR different?

The 4th Layer.

Products. Battlescape. Project Arsenal. The In-Game Client. A versatile range of utility to the ENCTR brand. This is still very rare in defi developmental projects, especially in the gaming space.

Take into account the 4 layers:

1. 5 Day Lockout for Initial Bond purchase
2. High APY incentives
3. Treasury
4. Products

Once someone has earned a large APY on their tokens, why not sell then? Well, to use ENCTR and any of our products, we require that you stake a certain amount of tokens if you want to keep using them and participating within. As we increase our value, our products and platform, users will continue to lock a portion of their tokens to use these services. Our Treasury will continue to grow and will back the token, on top of providing a pool of money for tournament payouts and our Proof-Of-Achievement payouts. It will also pave the way to our long-term goal of additionally becoming a decentralized gaming organization [owned by our token holders].

With this above trajectory, we no longer need VC’s, and we no longer need a launchpad. This structure allows us to pay out real money, 100% backed by our treasury.

What does this mean for the launch?

We won’t be able to launch this month as expected. It’s unfortunate to say. We have put so much time, effort, and our own personal money into this project. We want to launch with the the best possible approach, for sustainability and longevity. This is how we do that. We simply can’t do it with our current structure. As always, we thank you all for your patience continued support. This is the final change we will be doing before launch, you have our word on that. As soon as the structure is complete, we will launch without a launchpad and without VC’s — the way crypto was meant to be.

We encourage everyone to ask openly about these changes in our Telegram if they wish.

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Module Two | Project_Arsenal

Hey guys, JP here. A.K.A CDO / Lead Designer of ENCTR.

A.K.A Kev

We’ve DOXXED by the way… Check us out here -> https://www.encountr.app/theteam

Let’s chat a bit about the upcoming module after Battlescape, currently titled “Project: Arsenal”, a seasonal, “BattlePass-esque” module that will completely change the way you view play-to-earn functionalities. What is Arsenal?

1. Arsenal is our take on the traditional Battle Pass model, siphoning all the great aspects about in-game progression, while leaving behind the micro-transaction cosmetic unlocks that ultimately, you don’t actually own.
2. Arsenal is a module that will allow you to connect your game accounts, such as your Riot Games login, and naturally progress through a trackable structure of achievements, unlocking free ENCTR tokens, NFT’s (made in-house), and other customization options that we think will be sought after for bragging rights in future modules (like Codename: Ghost, still unannounced).
3. Arsenal will launch later this year (can’t give a strict set of dates, clearly we’re bad with timelines ;), and start off with progressional seasons. These seasons will be themed, and achievements will be based throughout a variety of games. We understand that restricting the BattlePass to one game is a clear incorrect direction, as some players might not play that game.
4. Instead, we plan to support a multitude of games all at once, every season.

Conceptualization of Reward Schematics and Scheduling of Seasons

I’d also like to provide some theory and general explorations of this module idea, to provide some clarity and creative direction.

Project Arsenal will be the first ever multi-track, crypto Battle Pass system, branching together monetary rewards and in-game progression.

Earn crypto in-game with the first ever proof-of-achievement system. Connect your game logins, complete trackable achievements, and earn ENCTR rewards and other unlockable content.

Two-Track System:

• Free Rewards Track
• Elevated Rewards Track (More Unlocks and Crypto Rewards)

The FREE Arsenal Reward Track can be unlocked by anyone, and will provide small but meaningful monetary reward. We think this is the right approach, as many ENCTR users may not immediately have access to a large sum of tokens to stake, wager, etc.

The Elevated Arsenal Reward Track will likely be unlocked by providing a certain amount of ENCTR into the staking system, very similarly priced to traditional Battle Pass models (think anywhere from the ranges of $5-$15). This should feel familiar and fair, compared to micro-transaction systems you’d see in today’s popular multiplayer games. We’re also exploring the possibility of being able to earn enough ENCTR through that season’s reward track, to essentially unlock the next season’s for free.

Functionality Theory:

The way in which players collect the points needed to unlock the reward tiers should be provided by playing the core of the game.

Arsenal points are gained by participating, not necessarily by winning. Players can gain Arsenal points for making kills in a Battle Royale match or for causing damage in MOBA-style combat, or simply by doing any other core gameplay activity. The player is not required to actually win a match or reach a certain skill threshold. Only a small minority of players actually cross a skill floor worth mentioning, the rest are typically casual that pursue the fun and “escapism” aspects of games. Winning can still bring in a substantial bonus, but it is not a prerequisite. Catering such systems to the skilled minority will ultimately negate the casual player’s interest, and make them feel excluded.

There will be plenty of future modules that enhance strictly the “competitive player’s” experience, Arsenal is not one of them.

In this way, the Arsenal progression mechanics separate the player’s progress in the reward track from their progress in the core game. Players are rewarded with crypto and other related rewards, primarily for their engagement with the game and less so for their skill. This is what makes the system so attractive to us as a team. Players who are stuck on a particular skill check or consistently lose battle royal matches can still continue to advance along the reward tracks in Arsenal.

Key Takeaways:

• The Arsenal Elevated pass system can work as a retention mechanic. It is a good choice if other retention features are not present.
• Arsenal Elevated Pass can work as a great monetization feature.
• Players perceive Arsenal Premium Pass as a fair system.
• Players can decide to purchase the Arsenal Premium Pass with staked tokens at a time when they are certain that they will get their value for the money.
• The value proposition is self-balancing.
• The seasonality of the Arsenal Elevated Pass encourages repeated participation by the players.
• The Arsenal Elevated Pass is not suitable for any type of game. In order for it to work, the game needs to either have a strong social component to support vanity items or deep enough conventional metagame that can sink in the consumable items.

Potential Arsenal Track Rewards (Free & Premium)

• ENCTR Tokens
• NFT’s created in-house (By ENCTR Design Team)
• Player Titles & Badges for use in future module codenamed: Ghost.
• TBD…

We’re going to explore our Arsenal concept more and more each dev update, because the structure and creative direction will evolve over time. None of the mentioned concepts above are set in stone, these systems will take time to explore and implement. Please let me know your thoughts on this throughout the next few weeks. We’ll be paying attention to feedback very closely.

What Comes Next?

As you can see we’ve made a lot of internal changes and exploring new concepts. We think that depsite all the pushbacks and timeline changes, we are going to deliver a project that is truly innovative and used by lots of players and crypto enthusiasts. I think it’s worth sharing that it’s almost an entire year since we released the v1 ENCTR token, and the constant laughs and supportive nature of our Telegram and Discord groups is what keeps us going. We hope you all share that notion.

Given all that, we still have a bit of development progress until we can get the new v2 ENCTR token into your hands. We want to make sure we get this right. As we spend the next few weeks transitioning to the Polygon network, we’ll develop a clearer launch projection.

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See you guys in the next dev update, where we’ll cover Battlescape testing, Uniswap v3, and much more. See you then!

Encountr | JP & Luka

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