PlayerMint: Community PFP Battles

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

General PlayerMint Background

(*If you already know what the PlayerMint App is continue to the bolded section header entitled PlayerMint Community PFP Battles Feature Solution. If you are unfamiliar with the PlayerMint App continue reading.*)

It is important to understand what the PlayerMint protocol is in order to give a full understanding of what this unique feature on the PlayerMint app will be. PlayerMint is a protocol that rewards gameplay performance in existing games like Fortnite with a fungible token called PMX and other crypto assets.

The core thesis behind this protocol is to bring crypto to gamers by integrating with the video games they already play. Fortnite’s hundreds of millions of users make for a great potential user base to onboard into crypto. Fortnite users already understand how digital economies and commerce works through their voluntary activity in Fortnite itself. This is because Fortnite has its own in-game currency, V-Bucks (fungible), that can be used to purchase unique cosmetics (non-fungible). The jump from these centralized assets to decentralized ones is one that inherently makes sense in the trajectory of today's technological advancements in the gaming industry and one that will improve the overall experience of the everyday video game player.

The PlayerMint app intends to make this on-boarding process much easier by inegrating directly into the games people already love playing. We are simply enabling gamers to be rewarded for their actions that they are already completing. Every 5 days, or epoch, a user can claim from a fixed prize pool of PMX. The amount they can claim is based upon their aggregate performance, compared with every other gamer on the PlayerMint platform, in the form of XP points.

Once the gamer has claimed all their PMX they have a marketplace to explore full of NFTs which are trade-able for PMX. This creates a user experience similar to that of Fortnite with V-Bucks and cosmetics. The biggest difference is the gamer is buying from other gamers, and once they buy an NFT they have the capacity to sell it when they choose.

A simple way to phrase PlayerMint is as a Web 3.0 Arcade. Instead of going to an arcade and playing the games they have, you can stay at home and play triple-A titles. Instead of tickets you are earning fungible tokens with utility in and out of the arcade. Instead of a prize shop you are exploring a variety of NFTs and their associated communities.

PlayerMint Feature Sets

The PlayerMint App will have numerous feature sets including an easy-use onboarding process, a PlayerMint Profile, A PlayerMint Leaderboard, and an NFT Marketplace. These feature sets are built around delivering a quality user experience that is reminiscent of the things gamers are already doing. Below is the full set of our features and their corresponding user journeys.

Onboarding

This is where the user can get an intro to the world of crypto if they are new to it through support based documentation. Once they are comfortable they can set up their PlayerMint account and get ready to start earning and trading.

User heads to app.playermint.com
User clicks “How it Works” or “What’s a Wallet” if they need more information on crypto
User connects their CIP-30 compatible wallet
User authenticates their Epic Games account through Epic Online Services using OAUTH

Profile

Once the user has created their account they will have a profile setup. This is their dashboard to view their NFTs, list them for sale, and edit their profile's appearance.

User heads to Profile page
User checks their owned NFTs and lists one for sale
User edits their profile to display their lifetime PMX earnings and change their username

Leaderboard

The leaderboard is where the user can claim PMX, view their XP generated, and check out their rank for the epoch in comparison with other users involved.

User heads to Leaderboard page
User looks over dashboard and claims PMX through a smart contract that ensures user covers min UTxO
User looks over other competitors placement and associated XP generated

Marketplace

The marketplace is where the user can spend all the PMX they have earned on collections of NFTs

User heads to Marketplace page
User browses through NFTs and filters by search and price
User finds an NFT they like
User purchases NFT with PMX
PlayerMint will support the CIP-27 metadata royalty standard with PMX

Support

If the user has any issues in their journey through PlayerMint they will have a support button in the top menu bar. At a single click they will be taken to an extensive Gitbook that provides documentation and walkthroughs on each of the actions they can take. If the user needs help from another human they can turn to our Discord support channels or Discord Support Ticketing Service.

User encounters issue in journey through PlayerMint
User clicks “Support” and is taken to Gitbooks
User read and watches walkthrough guides on how to resolve their issue
If user needs assistance from a PlayerMint team member they can obtain it through the support channels in our Discord

We recommend that you watch this video in order to get a walkthrough of the entire PlayerMint feature set and what the user journey will be like for more information. Litepaper, Tokenomics, Distribution Model, and Other Associated Docs can also be found on our website.

PlayerMint Community PFP Battles Feature Solution

Background

Communities of NFT "hodlers" are some of the largest communities, not only in the Cardano ecosystem, but in the entirety of Web3. As of 2023, there are over 50,000 NFT collections with more than 360,000 people that own NFTs, in a market that is worth over $29 Billion. The problem here is that there are so many unique collections but there is very little use-case for these NFTs outside of their traditional purported use.

PlayerMint is building a NFT staking mechanism where NFT communities across the entire Web3 space can play and compete against one another in a DAO style format. Players within their respective NFT communities can select their favorite NFT as their in-app PlayerMint Profile Picture (PFP) and earn unique rewards by placing in a top PFP group. The NFT communities will also be able to see their results tracked on a live leaderboard and compare them with other group PFP teams/guilds.

How it works

Essentially, PlayerMint will be combining the already existing leaderboard and Profile features of the PlayerMint app. However, the profile pictures from their PlayerMint app profiles will now be tracked by their PFP NFT policy ID. These policy IDs will be tracked and tabulated every Cardano epoch (5-day-period) in a DAO style format. Participating players must use a verified policy ID NFT as that is how the number of NFT holders will be tracked.

The players will have 1 hour after the last epoch has ended to select a PFP for the upcoming Epoch. That PFP will then be locked into place using a screenshot mechanism of in-app profile picture policy ID data. This will deter players from switching last minute to another team if their team won't be earning rewards or to deter players from switching to a team that could be earning more rewards.

At the end of the epoch, the scores of each PFP team will be calculated. Scores will be determined by the amount of XP each team has earned from the current games tracked on the PlayerMint platform. The teams with the highest amount of XP earned will win epoch-unique rewards that will be distributed. The number of teams that win rewards may vary by epoch. The number of teams that are in contention to win rewards will be announced monthly. The rewards will be evenly distributed among all players of winning PFP teams that held their respective NFTs at the time of the screenshot. Rewards will be claimable on the PlayerMint App.

Interactive Live Leaderboard

The leaderboard will be showing live stats and ranks of which teams are in what place. We will display what the communities' ranks are and who is in contention to receive rewards. This will encourage players to compete more if their team isn't in a reward position. The leaderboards will also be showing what individuals are contributing the most for what team as there will also be an individual leaderboard. This will encourage people on the same PFP team to convince their guildmates/teammates to get some games in.

Cooldowns

To prevent NFT collections with large amounts of users from winning every epoch, there will be a "Collection Cooldown Period" where collections that have won more than twice in a row will have to wait 2 epochs to compete again. This will encourage people to represent other NFT collections to promote inclusiveness and diversity within the PFP battles.

PlayerMint Revenue Model

PlayerMint will charge the NFT communities a monthly or yearly subscription fee. The individuals will not be charged for subscriptions but rather the NFT communities as a whole. This will allow for all NFT collection holders to either pitch in a very small amount or for NFT projects themselves to purchase a subscription to benefit their current holders.

Secondary Issues Solved

A secondary issue that is solved from this particular staking mechanism is how the PlayerMint app was going to incorporate non-gamers into the fun. Anyone can now earn rewards from using the PlayerMint app who owns one of the verified NFT collections and selects an NFT as their PFP that finished in a reward-earning placement team.

Benefits to the Cardano Community

As long as they are on-boarded and verified, the PlayerMint Community PFP battles can bring value to every PFP community within the Cardano ecosystem!

Uniqueness

This PlayerMint feature is a completely unique product that does not currently exist in the Cardano ecosystem nor in any Web3 or even Web2 project.

[IMPACT] How does your proposed solution address the challenge and what benefits will this bring to the Cardano ecosystem?

Benefits to the Cardano Ecosystem

The PlayerMint Community PFP Battles serves as both a product and an integration. This PlayerMint feature is a completely unique product that does not currently exist in the Cardano ecosystem nor in any Web3 or even Web2 project. In that sense this serves as its own unique product that can improve the existing Cardano ecosystem. Secondly, this feature serves as an integration as well because it integrates Cardano NFT projects with our platform and creates more value for their projects and the individual NFT holders as well.

Benefits to already existing Cardano NFT "Hodlers"

As long as they are on-boarded, the PlayerMint Community PFP battles can bring value to every PFP community within the Cardano ecosystem!

On-Boarding New Users

The PlayerMint Community PFP Battles will assist in on-boarding non-Cardano NFT holders to a Cardano-based application. People who come from triple-A titles to earn on the PlayerMint Platform will be encouraged to get a Cardano-based NFT to earn more rewards by competing in the PFP battles.

[IMPACT] How do you intend to measure the success of your project?

The following metrics will be used to determine the projects development cadence and success:

Keep track of the number of weekly updates that express positive development
Track development timeline to ensure expected milestone timelines are being met
Total number of users (unique wallets connected on the PlayerMint App Leaderboard)
Monthly active users (unique wallets connected each month on the PlayerMint App Leaderboard)
Total number of NFT PFPers tracked based on NFT (PFP) Policy ID
Monthly, weekly and daily active NFT PFPers tracked based on NFT (PFP) Policy ID
Amount of USD value earned from community PFPer subscriptions
Social media metrics/interactions tracked and analyzed on Twitter and Discord
PlayerMint.com site landing page traffic tracked and analyzed
Total volume of NFT sales on PlayerMint Marketplace
Amount in USD value of PMX and other tokens paid out to PFP stakers
Amount in USD value of alternative rewards (Not tokens) paid out to PFP stakers
Number of CNFT projects messaged
Number of CNFT projects on-boarded and tracked on our application
Number of new PlayerMint signups from release of Community Battles
Number of gaming organizations/content creators worked with
Feedback given from rating and review forms w/ additional feedback (1-10)
Listening to and attending to customer issues through our Discord support bot
Listening to and attending to customer issues through Discord Support channels

[IMPACT] Please describe your plans to share the outputs and results of your project?

We plan to spread our project's output and progress by:

As the project progresses we will be sure to report the following metrics in our Project Catalyst monthly reports.
We will share our projects metrics at specific user milestones of the PlayerMint Platform on our social media outlets
We will share our projects metrics at specific user milestones of social media metrics as well

We continually use data metrics to improve our marketing and development process.

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] What is your capability to deliver your project with high levels of trust and accountability?

PlayerMint’s team of more than 10 has extensive experience in gaming, blockchain and tech industries. See the "[RESOURCES & VALUE FOR MONEY] Who is in the project team and what are their roles?" section for a more in depth look at some of the PlayerMint team's experience and their roles.

We were previously successful in Funds 4, 6 & 8 of Project Catalyst. We have contributed to the Gamers On-Chained challenge that has allocated over $750k to 2 different funds. We have been a respected project within the Cardano community for more than 3 years and have attended and spoken at Official Cardano Satellite events.

Most importantly, we released a beta version of our platform product on the Cardano Testnet that was tested by over 200 users.

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] What are the main goals for the project and how will you validate if your approach is feasible?

Goals for the Proposed Solution

(*These are more generalized goals. For more in-depth specifics on goals see next section*)

Goal #1

Create a fun and unique utility for all Cardano NFT communities

Goal #2

Create a quality product feature that improves the overall PlayerMint Platform experience.

Goal #3

Not only complete all milestones but be on target with expected milestone timelines (see next section).

Goal#4

On-board all medium and major sized verified/doxxed CNFT projects

Goal#5

Try to get as many as 30% of PlayerMint Platform users to participate in Community PFP Battles

These are all realistic goals assuming no major setbacks. Creating a quality product is most important and certainly reasonable given our team's experience (see [RESOURCES & VALUE FOR MONEY] Who is in the project team and what are their roles?) for team experience. Timeline is fairly reasonable given the development team is in-house and high quality. On-boarding all the major Cardano NFT projects may take some time which is why there is not a timeline set for that specific goal. Getting roughly 1/3 of PlayerMint Platform users will be a tough goal to achieve but not impossible. Encouraging platform users with substantial, enticing and exciting rewards will hopefully make this goal achievable.

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed breakdown of your project’s milestones and each of the main tasks or activities to reach the milestone plus the expected timeline for the delivery.

The following text provides insight into the timeline that this proposal will be completed in, along with the milestones and deliverables associated with it.

Phase 1 - Development

Deliverables and Milestones

Weekly updates on the status of development of the Community PFP Battles feature including the policy ID tracking and screenshot on platform from our in-house developers as well as the front and back end of the live inter-active leaderboard tracking.
Project tracking of specific features, any setbacks and timeline
Relay updates to our community in the PlayerMint Discord and on our Twitter
Completion of a beta product to be released onto testnet by 3 months

Timeline

The development phase is predicted to take 3 months

Phase 2 - Testing & On-Boarding

Deliverables and Milestones

Deployment of the Community PFP Battles feature including the Policy ID tracking, screenshotting and staking as well as the live leaderboard tracking.
Stress testing with high number of users equipping CNFT PFPs at same time
Stress testing reward claiming of the team rewards
Weekly updates on number of NFT projects on-boarded
Weekly updates on Testing and overall timeline
Relaying Testing updates to our community via Discord and Twitter

Timeline

The testing phase is predicted to take 1 month

Phase 3 - Continued On-Boarding & Further Testing

Deliverables and Milestones

Additional stress testing where needed
Fix all visible bugs before moving on to next Phase

Timeline

The testing phase should take about 1 month

This 5 month timeline is built upon padded estimates as we want to be prepared for potential bugs, issues found and ample time to on-board new projects.

[CAPABILITY/ FEASIBILITY] Please describe the deliverables, outputs and intended outcomes of each milestone.

See previous entry for description of deliverables, outputs and intended outcomes of each milestone.

We will measure our project's progress using our Jira board project management tool. All members of the team will be responsible for their part in packaging this product feature out to the public (development, project management, sales, marketing, etc.)

See [IMPACT] How do you intend to measure the success of your project? for further information on Success Metrics.

[RESOURCES & VALUE FOR MONEY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown of the proposed work and resources.

The proposed budget for this proposal is 160000 ADA. All of these funds would be utilized in order to develop and support the proposed "Solution":

Phase 1 - Development

This phase will take 3 months and a total of 100,000 ADA. This budget will go towards the cost of development of the Community PFP Battles feature on the PlayerMint app.

Phase 2 & 3 - Testing & On-boarding

These phases will take approximately 1 month each for a total of 2 months and will require a total of 60,000 ADA. This budget will go towards the deployment and testing of the entire functionality of the Community PFP battles feature.

[RESOURCES & VALUE FOR MONEY] Who is in the project team and what are their roles?

Grant Scholl - Founder/CEO - Has 3 years of experience in gaming and 7 years in blockchain. He works to build out the ultimate vision of PlayerMint and how it will evolve over time.

Aidan Rankin-Williams - Co-Founder/CXO - Has 3 years of experience in gaming and 6 years in blockchain. He works to form the user experience from first contact marketing to engagement across the product and customer support.

<https://www.linkedin.com/in/aidanrw/>

Nick Pavis - CTO - Has more than 25 years of development experience including over 11 years of gaming development experience at Lucas Arts

<https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-pavis/>

Joseph Kubiak - PlayerMint Development Lead - Focused specifically on the development of the PlayerMint product Joe brings more than 10 years of experience in development for tech startups, over 5 years in Blockchain development and more than 16 years in developing games.

<https://www.linkedin.com/in/joseph-kubiak-45428a3/>

Jack Rousseau - Co-Founder/Director of Operations - Over 2 years of experience in the gaming and blockchain industry. He oversees all day-to-day operations, administrative duties and fundraising for PlayerMint.

<https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-rousseau-213525213/>

Tyler Perry-Smith - CFO - MSA with over 11 years of experience as an accountant and 6 of them in a blockchain accounting capacity, he oversees the accounting and financials.

<https://www.linkedin.com/in/tyler-perry-smith-msa-22572939/>

Phillip Spehar - Creative Director - Over 14 years of experience in design with more than 12 years of design experience in the tech industry and more than 6 years of experience in design for the Google Play Store team.

<https://www.linkedin.com/in/philspehar/details/experience/>

Courtney Guthrie - Project Coordinator - Has over 1.5 years of experience in gaming and blockchain. She manages PlayerMint HR and works on administrative duties including planning and coordination of all PlayerMint projects

<https://www.linkedin.com/in/courtneyguthrie/>

Osvaldo Aquino - Director of Community Development - 14 months of experience in the blockchain and gaming industry. He builds and develops business partnerships with all NFT projects, works to increase PlayerMint community engagement and manages certain PlayerMint projects.

<https://www.linkedin.com/in/osvaldo-aquino-jr-8571a3219/>

Josh Shull - Marketing and Business Development Consultant - 23 months of experience in marketing and sales in the blockchain and gaming industry. He works to assist in marketing, business development and helps manage certain PlayerMint projects.

<https://www.linkedin.com/in/josh-shull-922470158/>

[RESOURCES & VALUE FOR MONEY] How does the cost of the project represent value for money for the Cardano ecosystem?

The development cost is justified by the amount required to fund the new feature development for the PlayerMint app. The feature development is fairly large in scope and scale. The cost comes from the cost of our in-house development team's experience.

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