Over the past two decades, the gaming industry’s revenue has seen tremendous growth. However, due to its centralized nature, most of these revenues are reserved for game studios, professional gamers, and content creators. The current Play-2-Earn (P2E) trend aims to create equal opportunities for all to participate and benefit from the gaming industry revenue. Players can now earn income by playing the game.
The decentralized philosophy was introduced to the gaming industry by incorporating cryptocurrencies and Non-Fungible-Tokens (NFT) into the gameplay. Traditionally, all in-game assets such as characters, land, weapons, or vehicles strictly belonged to the gaming studio. By registering these digital assets as NFTs, players can now transfer ownership and trade their assets to other players while realizing a profit.
In order to participate and earn in a Play-2-Earn game, it is often required to possess one or more NFTs. Due to its immense popularity, the price of the NFTs skyrocketed. This has led to a situation where the entry costs for many players have become too high to participate. This can limit the adoption and growth of the Play-2-Earn sector as it excludes low-wage participants.
Merit Circle aims to lower the entry costs for gamers by offering them a scholarship. Gamers who are accepted into the program are called “Scholars”; scholars can borrow the required NFT to play these games. In return, Merit Circle asks for a 30% fee on the profits made by the gamer. The amount charged will be transferred into the treasury of the Merit Circle Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO).
The technology implemented in Merit Circle is best illustrated in the inner workings of the DAO. A DAO is an open and transparent member-owned organization that does not have a centralized decision-maker such as a board of directors. Membership is acknowledged to every holder of the Merit Circle Token. To create transparency and a smooth operation of the DAO, all rules and workings of the DAO are programmed into Smart Contracts.
Smart contracts are coded computer programs that follow an if…/then… logic. When the pre-programmed requirements are met, the execution will automatically take place. The openness of the blockchain allows anyone to see the inner workings of Merit Circle.
Members of the DAO can voice their opinions or ideas by making proposals to the DAO. When an idea creates enough traction within the community, it proceeds to a community voting round. All members of the DAO can vote on the proposal and once a certain percentage that is captured in the Smart Contract is met, the proposal goes into execution.
In order to lower the entry costs, Merit Circle offers P2E gamers the possibility to borrow the required NFTs against a fee on the generated returns. To optimize the revenue for the DAO, players are taught how to play, how to optimize their gaming strategies and returns. The fee that flows back into the DAO can be used for new NFTs, future investments, and future proposals.
One of Merit Circle’s first scholarship programs was with the P2E game Vulcan Forged, Vulcan Forged is an open-world massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG). Players can go on quests and battle in tournaments for NFTs while earning money by doing so.
As mentioned before, gamers need the in-game NFTs in order to play the game and earn money. Merit Circle has made an investment of 500K and acquired 100 VulcanVerse land plots & Vulcanite characters (NFTs). Scholars can loan the plots of land and characters to start playing the game or can increase their earnings by loaning a better NFT than they currently possess. The revenue generated by these players is subject to a fee that flows back into the Merit Circle treasury.
Merit Circle is active in the crypto-gaming industry and almost all its activities are bound to this sector. Most of its partners are therefore active in this scene as well. Merit Circle’s partners mostly consist of gaming studios, P2E games, and gaming guilds. In a short period of time, this ecosystem has grown to a vast network of partnerships that all add value to the crypto-gaming ecosystem and try to evolve the market as much as possible. Other notable partners consist of capital ventures such as the Digital Currency Group, the largest cryptocurrency investment firm.
Merit Circle has recently announced a partnership with Azuro. Azuro is a decentralized betting protocol that will bring betting to the developing play-2-earn industry. Merit Circle will aid Azuro in entering the play-2-earning arena; according to Merit Circle, the opportunities for collaboration are endless. Merit Circle has been experiencing a large influx of gamers and is closely involved in the development of many P2E games. The integration of betting in P2E games can provide another revenue stream for the industry, while also increasing its exposure.
The Merit Circle price chart is a different type of chart than we usually discuss. Since a large part of the MC token is reserved for community incentives such as staking rewards, the price is subject to higher inflation than others. Most of these inflationary effects can currently be alleviated by participating in the staking program to earn staking rewards. However, the influx of rewards will start having more impact in Q2 of 2022. From this quarter, the rewards will be unlocked, and it will give investors the opportunity to sell their rewards for profit. This will most likely result in a sharp decrease in price due to the inflationary effect.
The horizontal line suggests a strong price level that has, in the past, been a resistance level and since recently turned into a support one. This increases the likelihood of this level being a relevant one. This, in combination with the price moving above the moving average, indicated by the thin blue line, indicates upwards momentum for the time being.
Nevertheless, one should heed the effects of the rewards being unlocked in the near future if participation in staking and liquidity providing does not occur.
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