TruPlay Genesis NFT Launch

Note: Any recommendations or information inside this post should not be considered financial advice.

On Sept 15th 2022, we successfully launched our first Genesis series of NFTs. This launch included 7 of our RhymVerse heroes; Maple, Oliver, Benjamin, Lucas, Ava, Ember and Isabella. Each NFT is unique as each character has different accessories, backgrounds and costumes. Some accessories led certain NFTs to be more rare than others, occurring less often. This is typical practice in the NFT world and is documented through the meta data behind each NFT. Imagine this as 'rare' trading cards for sports or comics. But taking on this new venture, a straying from our traditional platform, begs many questions. One of which has been asked numerous times and in many forms.

'Why, as a company building a platform for kids, would you launch NFTs?'

Our mission at TruPlay is bigger than most people know. We're aware of the uphill battle that we have to fight, in bringing high quality games to children, competing with content and market share of what's already out there and with the purpose of sharing the gospel and truth to kids who are already being taught a variety of unhealthy concepts at an early age. But the question still stands, why NFTs?

Many of the NFT launches that have been successful have centered around community building, utility or just plain hype and FOMO (fear of missing out). There's no question that buying an NFT can be seen as an early 'investment' in a project that you believe in. Most NFT projects that launch never even sell out, get off the ground or have any significant volume. If a project does sell-out, then they have the scrutiny and expectations of delivering on promised-utility and continuing to be a community that people want to be a part of. Gone are the days of a 'Picture for Profile' NFT. But most NFT buyers are fleeting, jumping from project to project given the slightest hiccup in any projects timeline. Broken promises, hyped projects that rug their minted users have left a sour and cautious taste in the mouth of most buyers.

Our TruPlay's NFT launch contained over 8,000 whitelisted wallet addresses for a 7,000 unit collection. We minted all of our NFTs within 10 minutes of the sales going public; after whitelisted users. Each whitelisted user was able to mint 1 NFT for free, only spending an average of $2.50 per mint on gas/transaction fees. Secondary sales in the first day peaked at over $250,000. To TruPlays benefit, we setup a 10% royalty on secondary sales that we can use to pump back into our NFT project.

Even though our free mint launch was successful, it was clear that some early users wanted to flip our NFTs to make an extra buck. Others expected us to spend more and more money pumping up the value of our NFTs to gain significant attention and become the next big project. But what became immediately clear to us is that the NFT community is hurting and looking for solid ground. Most are treating NFTs as a hot potato, hoping they aren't left with one as the price peaks and plummets based on fleeting hype. They want utility and hype and they want it yesterday, today and tomorrow. But there people that see what companies are building, gathering quality community members that see and appreciate the company's vision for long term building whether in Web2 or Web3. But those in this category, show restraint and patience.

Investors often trope Warren Buffet's quote,

"The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient."

And many believe the same for NFTs and 'blue chip' crypto currencies. There's clearly more 'risk' in this NFT space but taking a chance on a company that has a well documented work-force, funding and vision is better than a stick in the eye.

How many of us would have purchased and kept a bundle of the early Marvel Comic cards if we could have envisioned the release of the entire Avenger movie series? Thor, Captain America, Silver Surfer and more that launched in the 90s or even earlier, are found selling for hundreds if not thousands of dollars on eBay and other secondary marketplaces. That's not to say baseball cards don't sell for more. Most of these cards minted for pennies on the dollar. But who's willing to wait 30 years to make a couple hundred dollars or a 3000% return? Not many. Granted, buyers may need to find the diamonds in the rough...from the impatient to the patient.

What's the difference between the 90's and today? Digital tokens, where the secondary market is the entirety of the digitized world. Gone are the days where collectables are sold between your neighbors and the brick and mortar shop down the street. We've experienced community members and NFT holders from Africa to the Philippines, from Sweden to Singapore. And most, if not all of them, recognize our mission as vital. When looking at a limited edition NFT launch, targeting a world-wide Christian+ community, 7,000 NFTs is a drop in the ocean.

The question still stands, but why? We want to reward our early followers with the opportunity to own a piece of the TruPlay Genesis. We also want to build utility into a game and explore NFT utility into our platform. We believe the future will contain more and more blockchain integration as time goes on. We also know children grow, learn and progress to more complex mediums as they age. We want to be there to introduce them to the web 3 world when they are ready and give parents the opportunity to do the same in a safe manner. And it's become more and more apparent through this Genesis launch, that the NFT world is in need of quality uplifting projects that bring the light of Jesus to a hurting community.

We hope we can fulfill all of these over the coming months and years. And we pray you'll join us on this exploration and journey venturing into the unknown.

You can find our NFTs on one of the secondary markets here.

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