AMA Recap: TheCryptoBlade X ToniqLabs
Host Hello @s12srotm welcome to the crypto blade community.
Stephen Andrews: Thanks for having me
Host: Great to you, I’m Finn
Let’s start the AMA session. Chat is now muted.
Please introduce yourself to our community and how long you’ve been in this field?
Say “Done” when you complete your answer thanks.
Stephen Andrews: My name is Stephen Andrews, I am the CEO/CTO of ToniqLabs. I’ve been a software developer for 13 years now — 6 years focused on traditional web, 2 years mobile app development, and the last 5 years has been in the crypto space.
Host: Please provide detailed information about ToniqLabs and the team behind the great projects developed by ToniqLabs?
Stephen Andrews: ToniqLabs started in April, just myself and a good friend Mac. Mac and I have worked together for the last 7+ years. We had started working on a blockchain game intended for the Tezos blockchain about 2 years ago — this was Rise of the Magni.
We decided this year to continue the project but find a better NFT platform for it — this led to me coming across DFINITY’s Internet Computer. We made the decision to commit to the IC and have never looked back. Rise of the Magni is now completely run on-chain, we can incorporate online gambling without needing an oracle because everything is verified within the canister.
From here we just focused on designing and developing, utilizing all of our past experiences to push out product.
Host: Thanks for your time @s12srotm. Our community would love to know more about your projects.
Briefly enrich our audience about the main concept behind “Cronics” How long you’ve been building this?
Stephen Andrews: We started building out of Token Standard in May, and by July we got it to a state where it was ready to be tested. We decided to run an experiment where we would allow users the ability to buy one of our experimental Cronics in exchange for a small tip — 0.2ICP (which at the time was worth about $6).
We sold out within 48 hours, and from there the project has just grown. We are constantly building our platform, adding new features and taking feedback from the community. We want to build an entire ecosystem with multiple minigames, governance based on NFT ownership, breeding and more
Host: Can you please give us more details about Cronics supply and its sales. What are the benefits of holding “Cronics”?
Stephen Andrews: 5000 Cronics we given away during our initial donation period, 1000 were minted for the team and we have another 5000 going up for sale in October. This will be a dutch auction
The price will open high, and drop every minute until someone purchases it.
We plan to launch our Play to earn economy next month as well. Users can play various minigames using their Cronics to earn CRN. CRN can then be used to buy wearables and other items from our in-game store, or used for breeding. Bred Cronics can be sold on the marketplace to allow new players to enter the ecosystem. We will continue to add minigames and make fine adjustments to the Croncis economy and ecosystem.
We will monitor breeding to ensure supply is kept under control
We have an interesting breeding mechanism too which favours Gen0 (OG) Cronics.
All other generations will become sterile (can’t breed), but the Gen0’s will be eternal breeders.
Host: So what will be the minimum investment to start a game? Can you please share more information about CRN.
Stephen Andrews: We believe later Gen low quality Cronics (those that are sterile/can’t breed and have low stats) will be relatively cheap. Some minigames will only require 1 Cronic to play, and we’re hoping this would be about $20. This will allow almost anyone to enter the ecosystem and play.
High quality, Gen0 “breeding” Cronics will be extremely valuable as they never go sterile.
One of the games we have planned only requires a single Cronic, and you can earn CRN by playing this game. CRN can then be used to breed, pay for breeding fees, used to purchase in game items, or sold for ICP to breeders
Host: Our community would love to learn about the Play-to-earn NFT games, What are the key features that Cronics Play-to-earn NFT game is offering to its users.
Stephen Andrews: We believe there will be 3 types of users within our ecosystem (note a single player can conform to more than one type). These are:
Players — people who just want to collect Cronics, wearables and play games. They’re not too focused on P2E, but they do like the idea that in future they can sell their hard earned NFTs, or lease them out for and make money. Players just want to have fun! 🎉
Earners — people who want to earn real money extremely efficiently. These players will purchase Cronics and items that best acheive this goal, and will implement different strategies based on what they believe will generate the most revenue for them. Generated CRN can be sold to breeders, or used to purchase Cronics which can be sold on the marketplace. Earners want to maximize earning potential without having to invest a lot up front. 🤑
Breeders — people who want to earn by breeding new stock. CRN is a requirement to breed, so breeders will need to acquire CRN from Earners or Players, or by playing themselves. Offspring are more valuable than the CRN required to breed them. Breeders want to generate passive income by running breeding farms and selling Cronics — it requires an upfront investment, but has the highest return. 💕
The mixture of these 3 types of users will continue to fuel our ecosystem and allow us to grow.
Segment 2: Questions from Twitter announcement.
6: I would like to learn about Cronic #NFT Collection types and how we can buy these NFT arts. Are these NFTs minted already or we can mint and sell in your marketplace?
Question by -bitcoin_gk
Stephen Andrews: We have minted 6000 Cronics so far, and 5000 more will be minted and sold via dutch auction in October. You can check it out on Entrepot.app if you want to buy one of the Gen0 Cronics now! You can find more about our auctions here: https://toniqlabs.medium.com/sale-det
We also sell other NFTs and artwork as well — we are currently the only NFT marketplace on the IC right now
7: The world is changing to the gaming world and many people are interested in NFT games. How was the idea of Rise of the Magni born? Can you indicate some unique gameplay features or incentive mechanisms that can attract more players to your platform? How do you see yourself in a 1-year period and beyond?
Question by -John66g
Stephen Andrews: I love strategy games, and often play Settlers of Catan (table top game). This led to me drafting up an idea for a turn based game, which turned into Rise of the Magni.
My dream is seeing ROTM being used in professional competitions and tournaments, and would love to see blockchain and esports coming together. We want to add the ability to upgrade your Magni NFT, allowing players to customzie the Magni to match their play style and/or strategies.
We want to do this by having different items that provide different benefits, which you fuse with your Magni. You could then have a situation where two teams have the same core Magni, but they are fused in different ways making their actual battle stats different and the overall strategy of each player different.
Host: Thanks!
As you mentioned earlier about mini games. How many games you have developed already and what is your plan for future for new games?
Stephen Andrews: We are working on a few games — we have a simple 6v6 game planned for Cronics — Cronic Battle. This is like an auto-chess type game where you select your team and then battle other users.
We have a second battle game that we haven’t announced yet, but I would like to take the time to announce it right here. This game is called Cronic Crusade — it’s a deck building rougelike game, where you play with 1 Cronic and you try and complete the never ending Crusade! Here’s a sneak peak!
And of course we are building Rise of the Magni. We want to establish a dedicated game studio to continue to build and develop new and cool games all running on the Internet Computer!
Segment 3: Community Round.
1: Shockingly, Toniq Labs’ team is composed only of two individuals as seen on your website. Is it true that only two person had developed Toniq Labs? Are there other individuals participate on Toniq’s development?
Stephen Andrews: Initially it was just Mac and myself — the team has increased since then. We now have a Chief Marketing Officer, Chief Product Officer and a Chief Operations Officer. We are also working with a number of additional devs and designers on a contract basis, and will look to grow the team very fast in the near future (once we complete our funding round)
2: Do you have any Coin Burn / BuyBack systems or any Token Burn plans to increase the value of Token & attract Investors to invest?
Stephen Andrews: We have a very interest breeding mechanic — one aspect is the ability to burn Cronics to reduce the breeding cooldown. This means that users could sacrifice really low quality Cronics to speed up the breeding process and breed more valuable Cronics. This burn mechanism is just one way we plan to control supply
3: Revenue is a very important, aspect for all projects, to survive and maintain the project / company.
-What is the way to generate profit / revenue of token?,”
-What is the income model,???”
Stephen Andrews: We have an allocation of Team Cronics — we plan to utilize these to run a breeding farm as well, and we may in future sell these to help other users setup farms. We also generate income from collecting CRN by selling Wearables and in-store items.
4: What are your plans to increase global adoption of your project and attract non crypto investors ? Do you have any plan for ambassador programes for different countries where english is not spoken in many countries?
Stephen Andrews: Yes! We have run a successful pilot in the Vietnam region, and have a really great ambassador working for us there. We have setup another for the Chinese community, and want to branch out into other territories too!
5: Community is a key element for any project if you want to be successful, how can you ensure that the community is shared in governance? Do we need to place bets to get votes or do we need to run nodes?
Stephen Andrews: We plan to run a governance system based on your ownership of Cronic NFTs. We want to run it like a parliament, 1 vote per Cronic (as if they are citizens). This governance system will vote on new minigames to be added to the ecosystem, and any changes we want to implement to the governing rules of the ecosystem (breeding restrictions etc). This will be a really cool thing to see and play with once it goes live
6: Does your project support staking program? if yes. how is your stake system work, what is the requirement for user if they want to stake in your platform??
Stephen Andrews: We do plan to implement a sort of “staking” mechanism. This will provide bonuses within the ecosystem (additional in game earnings, breeding cool down reduction) but would require you to stake an NFT to get this bonus. The rarer the NFT, the larger the bonus!
7: How safe is your platform to use? Have you done a smart contract audit?? And what security measures are adopted from bugs and smart contract hacks? And what are our advantages as holders? And what is your strategy for dealing with supply deflection?
Stephen Andrews :We believe our platform is safe — we are very security conscious. We will look to have auditing performed on our canisters soon. Currently there are no companies equipped to do this yet
Host: Thank you so much @s12srotm for the very detailed answers!
