Economy, crypto and NFTs

Goal

An economy made by the players, where the time and skill of those who play produce goods that other players want to buy. What matters is gameplay; what someone receives from the market is a small, variable extra, never a substitute for work and never sold as income. The game must be fun even for those who will never withdraw a cent.

What went wrong in "play to earn" games

Worth having on the table before designing, because it is the pattern this project must avoid:

• Axie Infinity (2021–2022): the reward currency (SLP) was issued to those who played and was only bought by those entering the game. When the inflow of new players slowed, the currency lost almost all its value and players' income vanished. In March 2022 the Ronin bridge was hacked for ~US$ 600 million.
• The common pattern: rewards paid with the money of those who arrive later. That is not an economy, it is a pyramid with graphics, and it collapses when growth stops.
• The design symptom: players who play only to earn turn the game into work, and boring work drives away those who play for fun, who are precisely the ones who bring new money.

Project rule: the money players earn must come from other players spending on something they want to use (an item, a house, a mount, a service) and from real game revenue, never from issuing new currency to pay rewards.

Proposed structure (two layers)

Layer 1 — in-game (no blockchain)

• Gold: common currency, earned by playing, spent on repairs, food, travel, fees, crafts. It never leaves the game and stays off the blockchain, so the normal inflation of an MMO does not contaminate real money.
• Almost the entire game happens here: common loot, consumables, quests.

Layer 2 — value assets (blockchain, optional for the player)

• NFTs are only cosmetics and ownership: cosmetics (clothes, weapon looks, lantern and armor looks), decoration, mount looks, titles and land and house deeds. No NFT grants combat power (see "Power rule" below).
• The game's own token (owner's decision) to buy and sell these NFTs between players on the token market and to buy cosmetics from the studio. Token rules further below.
• Those who don't care about crypto play the same game, in full: layer 2 is for those who trade cosmetics and land.
• An NFT is never lost through death, wear or world events. It only disappears by the owner's decision (voluntary burn).

Power rule (anti pay-to-win)

• Weapons, armor, combat mounts and any item with a stat are not NFTs. They are game items, traded in gold. What leaves the game for real money is visual and about ownership, not strength.
• Top crafted items bind on equip (they bind to the character when worn). Before use, they can be sold to another player, for gold, never for token.
• Power cap per item tier: each band has a maximum of stats. Past the cap, progression is horizontal (variety of styles, side affixes, specializations, looks, utility), no longer raw strength.
• Concessions and land: the concession delivers common materials in volume; rare materials only come from feats and hard places (20 §7). Land never grants combat power.
• Every rare material has a smaller alternative source (slower or more expensive), so that a clan that owns a concession does not monopolize the item (see 15 and 19).

Currency of each market

• Gold never converts to token by any path. The only bridge is a player selling a cosmetic NFT or deed for token.
• Raw materials bought from NPCs are bound to the account (cannot be resold), so they don't become a value bridge.
• Gold transfers between players have a daily cap per account and a fee.

Where the money players earn comes from

Sinks that hold the value

• Wear: items lose durability and need repair; the most used ones lose their bonuses until repaired (they never vanish or get lost), which keeps demand for those who craft.
• Market fees (5% per sale on the token market), property taxes, mount upkeep (feed, stable).
• Raw materials consumed in every craft.
• Without sinks, items pile up, prices fall and players' income disappears.

Anti-abuse rules

• Bots and account farms are the biggest enemy of an economy with real money: production limits per character, behavior detection, and only characters with a history can mint NFTs.
• One KYC = one account eligible for season rewards, airdrops and withdrawals. KYC is also required by law and against money laundering.
• Season reward weighted by verified play (distinct players traded with, variety of activity).
• Valuable resources respawn on a real-time timer, with a cap, not by in-game dawn.
• Craft minigames with varied inputs (anti-macro): the same sequence does not repeat.
• Sponsored gas with a per-account cap.
• No source of chance can be bought with money or with token.
• Nothing random is paid: loot boxes bought with money that give NFTs come close to gambling. A cosmetic sold by the studio is a direct choice, never drawn at random.
• The studio does not promise income or yield, does not talk about APY and does not advertise "how much you earn". That brings the token closer to a security (see 07) and turns the game into work.
• Withdrawal: each verified account has a declared monthly withdrawal cap (see 14).

Details

Numbers, distribution and sinks in 14-tokenomics.md; land in 15-terrenos.md.

Studio monetization (owner's decision)

Free to play. Studio revenue comes from:

• Cosmetics (clothes, weapon and lantern looks, house decoration, mount looks), some of them sold as resellable NFTs. Their net revenue funds, at 20%, the buyback that pays for the seasons. A cosmetic is purely visual: lantern and armor skins have light parameters (radius, brightness, useful color) identical to those of the base item, verified, with no camouflage or combat advantage, so that the free game does not become "pay to win".
• Market fee on sales between players: 5% on the token market (14 §4); in gold, 3% (shop) and 5% (auction), always burned (33 §4).
• Royalties on resales of NFTs minted by the studio (cosmetics).

Being free increases pressure from bots and fake accounts (creating an account costs nothing). That is why NFT minting and withdrawal require a verified account and a character with a history.

The game's own token (owner's decision)

What an own token needs so as not to repeat Axie:

• Fixed supply (1 billion) and a public release schedule, with no new issuance to pay rewards. There is no private round or public sale: no token is sold before the game exists.
• Real uses that take it out of circulation: buying cosmetics, market and property fees, minting NFTs. Part of what comes in is burned or returns to the treasury.
• Reward paid by buyback: the season fund is bought on the market with 20% of net cosmetics revenue plus the fee slice; a season distributes at most 80% of what the sinks burned in the previous one (see 14).
• Treasury managed by the studio, with a public monthly report and monthly unlock ≤ the month's burn; no player vote on the treasury.
• No language of appreciation, deflation, yield or APY in any project material.
• Before any sale, distribution or airdrop: legal opinion (CVM in Brazil, SEC in the US, MiCA in Europe), incorporated company and KYC rules.
• Layer 1 gold stays separate from the token and does not leave the game.
• Land can change owners by public rule (Harberger tax, auction for inactivity, war for a concession; see 15). This is told to the player clearly; what never happens is losing an NFT through death or a world event.

Network (analysis; final decision in Phase 2)

Owner's request: "the most robust one to support the MMORPG". The blockchain records only ownership and exchange of assets (see item 4 below), so the transaction volume is that of the market, not of every blow or step. Options in 2026:

Proposal: start on Immutable zkEVM (less infrastructure to maintain, gasless player with a per-account cap, Unreal SDK, non-custodial Passport wallet) and keep the contracts in the EVM standard in order to migrate to an own chain (Arbitrum Orbit or Avalanche L1) if volume or the need for control grows. Confirm with load tests in Phase 2. Lesson to carry: the biggest loss in the history of blockchain games was the Ronin bridge (~US$ 600 million in 2022). Bridges and treasury keys need auditing and multiple signatures.

Open decisions

1. Market fee percentage: proposal in 14 (5%: 2 burn, 2 treasury, 1 buyback); still to be confirmed with alpha data.
2. Early sale of land or NFTs: there is no sale before the legal opinion; no promise of appreciation.
3. Custody (decided): the studio never holds players' assets. Non-custodial built-in wallet (e.g., Immutable Passport), with the option to move assets to a personal wallet; conversion to cash (on/off-ramp) only through a licensed partner; the studio does not operate a cash withdrawal service.
4. How much of the game lives on the blockchain: only ownership and transfer of layer 2 assets. Combat, common loot, position and common inventory stay on the server, for speed, cost and security.

Implementation order

The real-money economy only comes in after the game proves it is fun without it (see 06). In the alpha, it runs on test currency and with no withdrawals.

Minors, distribution and compliance (decided)

• Under 18: wallet, token, market, NFTs and voice chat only for verified 18+ accounts. Those under 18 play the full game, without the real-economy features. Age rating planned.
• PC distribution: launch on own launcher + Epic Games Store. Steam is not planned: its current policy bars games with blockchain and NFTs (to be rechecked before launch).
• One KYC account = one eligible account (see above).