Illuvium, will it go mainstream?

Hi everyone,

In today's blog article, we will discuss a role-playing game that is expected to launch in 2022, Illuvium. The news about the game launch has already caused a pump for ILV considering the current market sentiment. However, the community is already pretty strong, even before the game launch. If they keep and increase the adoption, the game may go mainstream.

First, we will explain the game and its background. After that, we will analyze Illuvium's recent developments and token economics. Token economics refers to the token’s distribution, supply, incentive mechanisms, and token burn schedules. The token economic structure is crucial for the project because it will affect its success or failure by balancing supply and demand.We hope you enjoy it.

The news about the game launch has already caused a pump for ILV considering the current market sentiment. However, the community is already pretty strong, even before the game launch. If they keep and increase the adoption, the game may go mainstream.

Illuvium

Illuvium is an Open-World role-playing game that runs on Ethereum. The project's primary goal is to create a fully decentralized game that can run autonomously.

Link : https://illuvium.io/

The game allows players to explore the digital world of Illuvium and look for native creatures (Illuvials), in-game items, and other collectibles, which are in the form of NFTs. These in-game items can be used for participating in battles and quests.

You can check what the gameplay should look like here when it is fully launched. It is important to note that Illuvium is a AAA game that is highly anticipated within the crypto community. An ‘AAA game’ is a classification used within the video gaming industry to signify high-budget, high-profile games that are typically produced and distributed by large, well-known publishers.)

Background

Illuvium is being built by a worldwide team of more than 75 individuals with experience in various fields since 2020. Team members include the Warwick brothers, who founded the DeFi protocol Synthetix. Nate Wells, Illuvium's game producer, has worked on games like The Last of Us and Rise of the Tomb Raider. 

In March 2021, Illuvium raised $5M in a seed round by venture capital funds. One of them is Delphi Digital, which is a reputable research company in the crypto community.

Link: https://medium.com/illuvium/13-illuvium-closes-5m-seed-round-from-leading-venture-capital-firms-a6076ef45f62

In June, Illuvium executed a virtual land sale worth more than $72m. Lands generate fuel and elements that power the gameplay. $72m is a considerable amount of money considering the bear market in crypto.

Recent developments

The game was initially expected to launch in Q4. 2021, but it has yet to be released. Immutable X co-founder confirmed that the game will be available on PC and Mac by the end of the year.

The open-world part of the game is still in development. Only the first two games (Zero and Overworld) of Illuvium will be launched in 2022, and the third game will launch in the future with no clear deadline.

Illuvium recently released the auto-battler game mode in Private Beta 1, which has close to 7.000 players in total. Private Beta 2 has started on 28th of September.

You can check the gameplay here. Only auto battler mode is available for the beta test, and other functions still need to be open for testing.

Link: https://mirror.xyz/wolfehr.eth/1kxs3pHXyKYElrby6qzcx8-iVuwioI4BCjB20G1AOtc

The reviews of beta testers are mostly positive, which is a good sign for the project. Because auto-battler mode is just a part of the initial game, we can expect a lot from the initial game when it is launched.

The team also announced the Illuvitars sale recently. Illuvitars are configurable avatars used as profile pictures in the Illuvium game. Illuvitars will be purchasable with ETH and sILV2. The Illuvitar sale date has yet to be announced, but it is another step toward the initial launch. 

Token Economics

Illuvium is powered by two tokens, ILV, and sILV. The sILV token is a synthetic token pegged to the price of ILV and can only be used in-game.

Link: https://messari.io/asset/illuvium/profile/supply-schedule

According to Messari, a crypto research, data, and analytic tool, the public sale was only 10% and seed investors & team controlled 35% of the total supply. Most of the investor tokens were also locked. All in all, it could be better token economics. However, all the team and seed investor tokens started to unlock and will be completely unlocked in March 2023.

The locked investor tokens are always risky for crypto projects because seed investors mostly get the lowest price and earn a lot of profit when the vested coins are unlocked. They can sell the coins for high profits and create massive sell pressure on the token. 

The unlock has already started for ILV, but it will end in four months. So the venture capital selling risk will be off the table after all the locked coins are released for the early investors.

The ILV token has not so many use cases now. Holders can stake for interest but nothing more than it. Lack of utility is a big problem in cryptocurrency related projects which creates sell pressure on the token. 

With the game's launch, ILV will gain utility in the game that can generate buying pressure for the token. On the other hand, the game launch will also increase revenue overall, which will also increase the APY for ILV staker, resulting in increasing demand for ILV.

If the game creates hype and adoption, the demand for the token could be strong, causing a bullish movement on the price.

You can find the conclusion of our fundamental specialist and the technical analysis on the weekly, daily and 2-hour timeframe in the Trade Letter!

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