Hey future EPICX players! Here is our final Grant report before the EPICX platform’s launch. We would like to thank the ICON Foundation for supporting our project and every single team and person in the community that has assisted us with the development, given us feedback or brainstormed with us on different features and functionalities. Without the ICON community’s help this project would have never seen the light of day! All you guys rock!
Before we go into our final report’s details, we would like to direct everyone’s attention to a podcast that we have recently done with Iconographer (Rhizome) and Fez (ICONPLUS). If you have missed it for some reason and you are interested in further details about EPICX, definitely check it out – we have gone into some pretty juicy details about the platform in it, so its definitely worth your time.
This project was quite a ride for us – in the last few months we had to go through a lot of difficulties: had to change developers in the middle of the production process, had delays because of team members getting sick (COVID), technical problems… we had it all. At the end of the day though we have not been discouraged and have used any temporary hurdle and downtime as an opportunity to reimagine and rework parts of the platform and gradually improve it. As a result, EPICX is a much grander and more complex project than what was originally planned and is one that we will proudly present to the community.
EPICX as FutureICX 2.0
Our original plan when we have applied for our Grant ([Grant Application] FutureICX 2.0 Gamified Trading Platform) was to expand the existing FutureICX game in several separate directions/goals in mind:
- adding BTC and ETH trading pair options
- add support for custom Price prediction games
- add a 1v1 game (Crypto duels)
- add a price prediction game where you can pick price price targets that the community could agree/disagree on (Trenders)
- implement community-oriented challenge options
- prepare for BTP and potential expansion to other crypto networks
- improve social and onboarding procedures
What we have been able to achieve is a much more thought-out, more professional product, one that we would be happy to play on ourselves. Compared with our original plan, we have really went out of our way to ensure that the final project is of highest possible quality. As a simple comparison, here is what we were actually able to achieve with this project:
- full design and UI overhaul for both PC and mobile
- 4 standalone Dapps (games), each with its own separate SCORE, unified on the same platform
- separate custom reward systems and structure for each Dapp
- platform-wide statistics / numerous internal connections within the platform
- dividend structure, giving out rewards as a percentage from the whole platform’s activity via a tradable and transferable ICON-based token
- 30+ crypto trading pairs implemented on launch
- Full customization and custom game support across each Dapp within the platform
- Easy to use and set up custom community challenges with their own custom rules, reward structures with options to add sponsored reward pools, set invite-only instances etc
- Free-to-play weekly price prediction tournament with varying rewards
- A 1v1 Bag building Dapp (Crypto duels), including a division-based leaderboard ladder
- A custom-rule trading tournament Dapp (King of the Hill), similar in structure to poker SitNgo tournaments
- A global trading tournament with single-use powerups
- A custom prediction Dapp (Against the odds) with an odds exchange orderbook system
- Improved stats/achievement social media sharing process
- Video tutorials
- Fee 2.0 (all system fees in the platform are covered by us) implemented
- BTP ready structure (for expansion to new crypto trustless payment options)
PRICE PREDICTIONS
The Price Predictions game that was set on the initial version of our platform (FutureICX) in the beginning of last year has received a complete overhaul. We have redesigned the whole game to make it more intuitive, fluid, and user-friendly and the visuals have been upgraded and the mobile version of the app has been improved to reflect better the needs of our mobile users.
As with the original version, in the game you will be able to set a prediction for the price movement of a specific crypto pair and back that prediction up with a custom wager amount. All player predictions for the respective instance are pooled up together and the players receive rewards depending on how close they were to the predicted outcome. The rewards are distributed on a tiered reward basis, rewarding with higher rewards the players whose predictions were more accurate.
Full customization
The aesthetics were not the only thing that we have worked on. The bonus structure of the game has been completely redesigned as well and in order to fulfill our players’ needs more accurately, we have added the option for custom games, set by the players themselves. Now every player can set his own game, according to their own rules, no matter how extreme (2 mins or 3 months long, its entirely up to you), choose from more than 30 crypto pairs to set the game on, they can even set their own reward structure. You will have the options to play with friends or settle wagers by taking advantage of the invite-only option or open the game to the public, dominate a larger pool of players and respectively win higher rewards on your terms.
We have also set up a weekly free-to-play game that will be funded by the Price predictions’ reward pool and will be accessible by all players. That gives the players an extra opportunity to build up their bankroll while they still gaining momentum.
CRYPTO DUELS
This is actually a concept that we were playing around for a while and we are finally able to realize with EPICX. Crypto duels is a 1v1 trading game where you are matched against a random opponent in a bag building challenge. The game is progressing in four setup phases and one resolution phase.
During the setup phases each player will have the opportunity to select, match and ban different crypto pairs for himself and his opponent, aiming to outplay the opposing player and to have the better performing crypto pair selections on his side. During the resolution phase all picked pairs’ movements are compared and the player whose bag contains the ones that performed higher is the winner.
The seasons will be three months long and all player scores and standings will be reset at the end of it. Each season starts with a qualification period (two weeks), where the players will have the opportunity to gain a better starting division, if they manage to maintain a good amount of played games and win-loss ratio throughout the qualifications. Winning a good results and respectively a good starting division position, although a strong advantage is still something that needs to be maintained for the rest of the season as the players will be actively fighting to keep and improve their division and overall standing so they could receive a higher share of the season rewards (and of course the bragging rights that go with that).
King of the hill
What we were aiming to achieve with our third Dapp (King of the hill) was to have an environment similar in structure to the poker SitNgo one, where players could compete against each other in a variety of closed trading tournaments, each with their own specific twist on the basic tournament rules.
In KOTH the players will participate in such tournaments in groups of 9 (more options incoming in the future). All players within the tournament will start with an equal limited amount of resources called credits (each credit = 1 USD). The aim of the game is that throughout the 12 game rounds you maximize your credit amount by initiating crypto trades (buying and selling different crypto currencies) and finish up with a larger net worth than your opponents.
Upon entering a tournament each player will also have the opportunity to select one ‘public’ and one ‘wildcard’ crypto pair. When the tournament launches, all players will be able to trade all selected ‘public’ pairs and as a bonus - to trade the pair that they have selected as their personal ‘wildcard’ pair, meaning that no matter how many times you play, in each tournament there will be varying crypto pair options to trade and adapt to.
KOTH Nexus
The Nexus tournament is an addition to the King of the hill tournaments that we have implemented to make the gameplay even more interesting. The Nexus is a free standalone global tournament that everyone is automatically registered to and each Nexus tournament has a running length of 6 months, has rounds 1 day long and has no entry fee. Instead, the King of the hill tournaments that you register to also generate Nexus credits for you – credits that you can use to buy and sell crypto currencies on the Nexus and further increase your stack.
The Nexus tournament also introduces the use of ‘power-ups’ – single-use boosts that if used right could help you to increase the efficiency of your deals, could give you a passive income or even reverse a bad choice that you have made in a previous round. The power ups are won in a specific type of King of the hill tournaments, are a quite limited resource and need to be used wisely.
Against the odds
When thinking of Against the odds, in my mind I wanted to create a prediction market, similar to Augur in example (a popular application on the ETH chain), but I wanted to take full advantage of the blockchain capabilities and to make it a more customizable and more interactive experience.
I have also been a fan of the odds exchanges for quite some time already and Im not quite sure why they are not more common. The concept of being able to trade buy and sell options on different odds (in example buying or selling a 30:1 chance that something will happen) in real time is something that I have always found quite fun and remarkably close to the actual crypto currency movement dynamic that we all share love for.
That is why for the final Dapp on our platform we have decided to go with an amalgamation of those two concepts. Against the odds is entirely based on custom instances (markets), created by the players themselves. Each player is able to create their own market by setting a custom statement and launch it to the public. The statements would usually be something like: ‘BTC will reach $80k by the end of the month’, ‘on 01.04.2021 ICX will cost more than $80’ or even something like ‘Andrew will reach 300 Crypto duel wins before NorskiKiwi’ but they could be set as more complex ones as well.
Each player will have the opportunity to ‘agree’ or ‘disagree’ with the market’s statement and place a wager not only on being for or against it, but also on the exact odds (in example 10:1) that this could/count not happen. The respective wager (order) that the player has placed will stay active until cancelled or until another player matches the opposing side of it so it could be completed (similar to how the ‘buy’ and ‘sell’ options happen on the exchanges – if you place a ‘sell’ order at a certain price, someone has to ‘buy’ that order so it could be processed)
As this game/Dapp has quite different structure from the others in the sense that its entirely driven by custom statements, the bonus system in it is directed towards the market creators, meaning that the market creator will receive 2.5% commission from all matched orders in it, giving him a strong stimulus to create valid markets that a lot of players will be interested in and to try bring it to the players’ attention
Dividend structure and dividend distribution token (EPX)
While we were developing EPICX, we have taken a hard long look on the current (now former) dividend structure and have decided that although it fills it purpose, there is much room for improvement. That is why on launch we will include an improved dividend structure, including an ICON-based token, responsible for the distribution and allocation of dividend rewards.
EPX will be tied into several fixed and varying components:
- Total supply of EPX (always a static amount)
- Circulating supply of EPX (variable amount depending on the coins that were distributed and owned at the present moment)
- Amount of ICX stored in the platform’s Dividend pool (5% of all winnings on the platform are distributed towards the Dividend pool)
- Amount of EPX owned by the player (Each 1 ICX that you spend on the platform generates 1 EPX for you. Each 1 ICX spent by one of the players that joined the platform via your affiliate link generates 0.1 EPX for you)
At the end of each week, the percentage of the circulating supply (out of the total supply) is calculated. That percentage signifies what part of the currently accumulated Dividend pool will be distributed at the end of the week (in example if the circulating supply is currently at 25% of the total supply, then 25% of the current Dividend pool will be sent to the players as dividends).
The amount of EPX that you own and respectively the percentage that this amount represents out of the amount of EPX that all players own (in example if you own 20k EPX and the circulating supply is at 200k EPX, that means that you own 10% of the circulating supply) signifies how much of the total amount of weekly dividends you will get
Lets go through an example of the whole thing:
- Current Dividend pool: 100k ICX
- Total EPX supply: 100 mil EPX;
- Circulating EPX supply: 10 mil EPX;
- Amount of EPX that you own: 500k EPX;
Amount that will be distributed to all EPX holders at the end of the week = (circ supply/total supply)xDiv pool = (10 mil/100mil)x100k ICX= 10%x100k ICX = 10k ICX
Amount that you will receive = (Amt that you own/Circ supply)xAmt distributed to all holders = (500k/10mil)x10k ICX = 5%x10kICX = 500 ICX
All players will also have the option to return (sell) their tokens directly on the platform at any time and receive a direct cut of the Dividend pool, instead of long-term dividends from it. By initiating the token ‘sell’ option, they will have the opportunity to sell some or all their tokens and receive a percentage of the Dividend pool, equal to the amount of EPX that they own compared to the total that all players own (div pool percentage = owned tokes/circulating supply). The sold tokens will be removed from the circulating supply.
In order to stimulate the Dividend pool’s growth and to avoid situations where players might not get rewarded for playing on the platform, the token ‘sell’ option will be disabled below 10% circulating supply and will be automatically initiated for all token owners for 10% of the EPX that they own if the circulating supply gets higher than 95% of the total supply.
Future plans
It has been a long journey, but the finish line is already visible in front of us. We are aiming to release the platform as an invite-only Closed Beta in the first half of March – we take our platform’s stability very seriously and although we are doing extensive tests and simulations on the in-game functionalities, without opening the platform to the players we cannot be absolutely sure that it is ready to work as intended. If everything goes as planned, the Beta will be active for only one week and after that the platform will be fully launched.
Although the project is more than 90% complete, as the platform is not launched yet, we would also like to recommend to the ICON Foundation team that the final payment is not released before the platform is fully launched. We fully appreciate the Foundation’s trust in us and believe that the right way to go with the project is that they see the actual product before their final payment is processed.
The platform launch will be just the beginning for EPICX – we already have a lot of plans for the future and as long as players are interested in using our platform, we will do our best to improve it even further. All our Dapps (games) are designed to be scalable and have immense growth options in numerous directions. The KOTH tournaments could progress into a full scale standalone trading tournament platform, Against the odds could feed and add markets from pretty much any event happening on the blockchain that the players could be interested in placing wagers on, with the introduction of BTP we will also be able to use any feeds or events happening on the other chains as well. In time we will be able to add more crypto pairs, more options, more games etc.
We already have a lot of upgrades in mind and cannot wait for the platform to launch successfully to start working on them. As soon as BTP is available, we will also be ready to set connections to other crypto networks and show them what the ICON chain is capable of. Join us and lets trade and win together!