Ever wish you could own a plot of land out in the universe? While you were born too early to explore the cosmos, a new metaverse is providing gamers with an opportunity to purchase “land” on virtual worlds.

With the news of Facebook changing its focus to the metaverse and its name to Meta, there was an explosion of interest and criticism.

Meanwhile, the UFO ecosystem has managed to evade a lot of recent coverage. Nonetheless, it has big shoes to fill if it wants to gain the notorieties of Axie Infinity, DecentraLand, or Sandbox.

What differentiates UFO and are the fundamentals there for a good investment?

 

 

The Dark Metaverse

UFO is developing a decentralized gaming platform integrated with Polygon that features what they call a “Dark Metaverse”. In this Dark Metaverse, there are different games and genres hosted on different planets. These games will be play-to-earn featuring the hallmarks of this space: virtual land and both in-game and tradable NFTs.

The ecosystem runs on three different types of cryptocurrencies:

  1. UFO
    The $UFO token powers everything in this ecosystem; it is an ERC-20 token created on the Polygon Layer-2 blockchain.
  2. Plasma Points
    Plasma Points can be used to mint rare NFTs and are only obtained through staking UFO in DeFi exchanges.
  3. UAP
    UAP will be obtained within the game and will be required for breeding your NFTs.

 

The Problem:
UFO Hasn’t Clearly Defined the Problem

One of the most important steps when researching new cryptocurrencies is looking at their internal documentation and their website. Often, these will contain a brief discussion of a problem in the space that the token is on the verge of solving.

UFO’s mission involves bridging the gap between gaming and blockchain to allow players to earn while playing, which is a decent enough mission however what specific problem is this project solving?

If you read UFO’s Approach, Mission and Principles, there doesn’t appear to be an obvious value proposition or a clear competitive advantage that would set this gaming metaverse apart from others.

 

The Solution:
Decentralized Layer 2 Gaming

UFO leverages Polygon’s Layer 2 solution to develop games through the Ethereum network. This allows them to create a rich ecosystem of games, breedable in-game NFTs, and tokens for players to explore. UFO leverages the strength, reputation and security of the Ethereum ecosystem while providing opportunities for players to earn money by participating in the ecosystem.

Importance of Multichain Operability

Polygon is currently working to develop multichain operability, meaning that these games could be integrated into a wider ecosystem. Any games created on another Layer 2 blockchain that sits atop Ethereum could use the NFT assets generated in the UFO metaverse. In addition, NFTs from Layer 1 Ethereum can also be moved to the Polygon chain, opening the door wide to cross-game and cross-project collaborations.

Super Galactic

The first UFO game Super Galactic will allow you to interact with the ecosystem to receive a playable character.

NFTs that are required to play the first game in the ecosystem called Super Galactic. Finally, the UAP tokens can be obtained by playing through daily quests and missions on Super Galactic; this allows you to fuse or breed your NFTs within the game.

 

How Does UFO Work?

The flagship token, UFO, has a total supply of 25,757,575,757,575 tokens. UFO tokens are required for entering the Dark Metaverse. Plasma Points can then be earned by staking UFO or UFO-ETH pair. These can later be redeemed for “Origin UFOep”

NFTs

Virtual land will be sold as ERC-721 tokens with a small supply available for minting and the rest available through auction via UFO tokens. The people who own the most land will receive governance voting rights, determining the direction of the metaverse and receiving profit from the games within. Additionally, there is a plan to introduce skins and a collectable marketplace.

 

A Brief History

Aside from a few press releases, there isn’t much known publicly regarding UFO Gaming.

The company launched in July 2021 but doesn’t list any of the co-founders or developers publicly on their site The company reached a $1 billion market cap after hosting an Apex Legends tournament with a $10k cash pool.  Note: this declined significantly along with almost every other crypto in Q4.

According to their press release, they are touted as “the next Axie Infinity” However, this assertion seems rather optimistic coming solely from press releases.

The UFO whitepaper reads more like promotional material than technical documentation. At one point, it mentions that UFO Gaming is the founder’s second attempt at making a decentralized token with community governance. It isn’t clear what the first attempt was and whether that token is still active.

Partnerships

The company has secured partnerships with Kadena and the gaming company Merit Circle.

Initial Token Launch

During the initial $UFO token launch, half the supply was burned and the other half was given to the community, without distributing any tokens to developers or founders. It’s unclear where the funding for the project came from.

Note that burning tokens so early in the life of a cryptocurrency has no impact on its price or tokenomics. However, many meme coins use this mechanism to claim their token is deflationary and draw in more potential investors. However, since such a claim isn’t made in UFO’s whitepaper, it is unclear why these tokens were burnt and indicate inexperience with the development team.

The Highs and Lows of UFO

UFO Gaming hit a high of around $0.000054 per token at the end of November but like many projects has been trending downward as 2021 comes to a close. The market cap sits at 630 million tokens. There are currently more than 50,000 holders of the token, with no one holding more than 25 of the total supply.

Is Super Galactic Fun?

It is hard to find any videos of the gameplay or breakdowns of how much money in USD you can earn by playing. It doesn’t help that the name “UFO Gaming” makes it hard to find reviews on Google as it leads to a smattering of content and articles about, well, UFOs.

 

Buy and Store UFO

If you do wish to purchase UFO, you can only do so on decentralized exchanges or aggregators like UniSwap or 1Inch.

If you access these exchanges through the Polygon network, you can save $40 to $60 in Ethereum gas fees.

You can also trade ETH for it using MetaMask.

Store UFO tokens on any ERC-20 compliant wallet such as MetaMask. With Exodus you can also connect a Trezor cold wallet if you want the extra security of storing your tokens offline.

Hot Wallets Cold Wallets
Wallet Metamask Ledger, Trezor
Platforms Windows, Android,  MacOS, iOS, Ledger and Trezor Windows, Android,  MacOS, iOS
Setup Easy / Moderate Moderate
Non-Custodial Yes Yes

The Case for Investing

Pros

UFO is likely to be volatile as a number of different projects complete for a place in the future of gaming in the metaverse, but this could offer an opportunity to get in early or as it dips suddenly.

Their whitepaper mentions that the smart contracts have been audited and deemed secure by a third-party security company, Hacken – listed under the client’s name “The Truth”.

The crypto gaming space exploded after Axie Infinity gained traction and the metaverse is becoming more and more widely known, albeit due to Meta. Following in the footsteps of games like Axie Infinity and worlds like Sandbox and Decentraland, UFO Gaming has a chance to make a splash if their games are successful.

Cons

There are a few red flags for investing in this project. Although it has achieved an enormous market cap, it does not have a well-documented whitepaper, an extensive roadmap, or partnerships with major game developers like Sandbox and Decentraland have. To summarize:

  • Burning crypto at the start is pointless; indicates inexperience or a move simply done to draw in more investors
  • The whitepaper link to the audit doesn’t even go to the right place and it’s unclear whether the audit for “The Truth” refers to UFO-gaming
  • The roadmap is very barebones with little-to-no detail
  • There is no public information about the team. They explain that this is their second attempt to make a gaming project in crypto though they don’t link the first. This is a major red flag.
  • There are no extensive gameplay videos or details on exactly how much money you can earn. Another major red flag, indicates a lack of community, traction, or quality product.
  • Their press releases say that they have been called the next Axie Infinity but it never specifies or cites that source.

It is an important lesson in examining the whitepaper and claims from a new cryptocurrency by reading through the site and its whitepaper.

For example, one passage in the whitepaper reads:

“UFO Gaming is a pioneering gaming company founded by a team of gaming and crypto enthusiasts with years of experience in these fields; passionate about taking the gaming industry to the next level by unleashing the tremendous potential of blockchain upon it.

What sets UFO Gaming apart? Our richly designed games are set in galaxies and dimensions far from our own, with unique in-game assets our players can actually own. The decentralized Dark Metaverse empowers players and entitles them to in-game revenue.

Alongside our talented team of in-house designers, developers, and specialists, UFO Gaming is partnering with some of the world’s best gaming studios to execute a truly state-of-the-art yet accessible experience for gamers around the world.”

Breaking this down piece by piece, there are quite a few things left to be desired:

  1. It does not tell us how many years of experience the founding members have, who they are (even if the identity is pseudonymous), how many members are even on the team, nor does it provide us with a social handle to find them on Twitter
  2. Replace UFO Gaming with any other fun-sounding crypto name and it doesn’t really change the content; they don’t address the underlying need for a blockchain here. A good project explains the choice of technology.
  3. What is this “tremendous” potential for the blockchain? When coins use these types of adjectives, they rarely back them up or explain their reasoning.
  4. UFO Gaming isn’t the first place that uses different worlds on the blockchain to set up a P2E earning system so that doesn’t actually make it unique.
  5. Who are these gaming companies and what are these partnerships? Why isn’t this detailed in the whitepaper and roadmap? It’s kind of like in middle school when kids would say I have a girlfriend but she goes to another school.

Should you Invest?

In our opinion

“Decentralized gaming projects that succeed will be ones that can create incredible new games and experiences, build loyal communities and form strong partnerships. I’m not so sure that UFO has this potential despite what they claim. Of course, if everything works out the upside would be large but right now the risk is very real. 

I’m not sure there’s much good I can say about the project; it doesn’t differentiate itself enough from other gamified metaversal worlds and does not appear to be solving any specific DeFi gaming problem.”

– Simon

 

“It’s definitely more of a gamble at this early stage, but there could be considerable upside if things work out. Don’t invest anything in UFO that you aren’t prepared to lose or HODL for a few years.”

– Mark

Takeaways

UFO Gaming looks to piggyback off Axie Infinity’s fame to develop an entire ecosystem that includes games, breedable NFTs, a marketplace and various in-game currencies.

It isn’t clear who the founders or developers are since their track record, and source of funding are unclear. Not a good indication.

UFO is likely to be volatile as a number of different projects complete for a place in the future of gaming in the metaverse, but this could offer an opportunity to get in early or as it dips suddenly.

 

@TheUFOtoken on Twitter