A quick overview of the Ultiverse project: AI+ chain games supported by top institutions

Introduction

Web3 games have always been a track that Mint Ventures pays close attention to. Although the Play 2 Earn concept brought about by the last bull market is no longer mentioned. At present, both Axie and StepN have collapsed as Pond's, but the million-level and extremely sticky products they had at their peak Daily activity data is the first time the Crypto industry has had such close contact with “Massive Adoption”. Compared with another social product category with the possibility of Massive Adoption, games naturally have a richer and more complex economic ecology, and the team also has more refined control space to collect taxes from multiple angles, superimposing the experience and based on the game itself. Exquisitely designed irrational consumption makes it more likely to maintain a relative ecological balance for a long time. In addition, web3 games can also more effectively utilize the convenient assetization methods that Crypto can bring, which makes investors generally optimistic about the prospects of web3 games.

Since Axie and StepN, web3 games have had the following favorable timing and location:

• The infrastructure has been further improved. Today in 2024, game projects have more choices in chain selection: whether it is directly based on the existing L1 (such as Solana) or L2 (such as Arbitrum), or using the one-click chain service provided by L1 or L2 (such as Avalanche subnet and OP Stack), or free combination according to the modular trend, game developers can have many high-performance and low-cost options. In terms of wallets, MPC and AA wallet solutions are both commercially viable, and the private key problem that causes headaches for ordinary users has been solved.
• The market situation is gradually improving. The recent adoption of BTC ETF has brought about a strong rebound in the overall crypto market, making Crypto as a whole begin to attract more attention from the general public. For games, it provides a greater opportunity potential user base.

Compared with traditional Web2 games, Web3 games still have very obvious advantages:

• The typical life of web3 games is "NFT sales-FT release-game online" During the cycle, there are many sources of income such as NFT royalties and FT transaction fees before the game is launched, helping the game team to obtain income from the first day of game development, which can offset the long research and development cycle and high research and development costs. At the same time, after the game is launched, the tax collection in all aspects of the game is far more flexible than that of web2 games. Earlier and more diverse commercialization options are key factors in attracting game teams to web3.
• Web3 games do not yet have a strong channel party, which also means that the high purchase cost of web2 games does not exist in web3 games. In other words, web3 games are not "volume", they are a wilderness waiting for a capable team to develop.

We have also noticed that many experienced game development teams have begun to get involved in the field of web3 games. They are creating a series of games with rich narratives, excellent experiences, and diverse gameplay. This phenomenon not only promotes the supply-side development of web3 games, but also injects new vitality into the development of web3 games.

Based on the above reasons, Mint Ventures has continued to pay attention to the game track. Ultiverse is a game project that Mint Ventures has been paying attention to since the previous bear market. They continued to build during the bear market, continuously enriched their product matrix, and actively expanded the narrative contained in the product. At the same time, they have an excellent investment background and have recently launched multiple projects. An airdrop campaign designed to attract new users is worth keeping an eye on.

Related interests: Mint Ventures participated in the Builder Round casting of Ultiverse ElectricSheepNFT and still holds ElectricSheep NFT

Ultiverse introduction

Ultiverse is a blockchain-based Metaverse world and deeply integrated with AI. Its architecture is divided into 4 layers:

Ultiverse uses the Bodhi Protocol as the basis for the entire ecosystem. According to official documents, Bodhi Protocol uses large language models and Stable Diffusion models to create diverse content in the game. AI technology is used to assist all parties within the ecosystem, such as assisting games in generating more intelligent NPC characters and creating rich background stories.

Infrastructure: Ultiverse abstracts a series of infrastructure required by the game into an SDK, which can be used by other developers later. These infrastructures include MPC wallets and AA wallets, built-in trading markets and DID systems, etc. In addition, its user-oriented live broadcast platform Ultiverse Live has gained the attention of 350,000 fans and nearly 40 million likes on Binance live, which can also bring considerable exposure to its partners; Ultiverse’s infrastructure also includes Misson Runner, a mission platform built by myself.

Core assets: Ultiverse’s core assets currently include Electric Sheep NFT, Meta GF NFT and World Fragment.

Electric Sheep NFT is the first asset of the Ultiverse ecosystem and is also its core asset. The number is 7,000. It was minted in July 2022 at a price of 0.5 ETH. The current floor price is around 2 ETH, which is a long-term investment. Some have brought in 4 times the revenue in ETH and 8 times in USD, which has also helped build a solid community. Electric Sheep can gain priority access to many projects in the Ultiverse ecosystem and reward accretion privileges, and can receive an airdrop of the Ultiverse governance token $ULTC.

Electric Sheep的历史地板价变化情况

Meta GF NFT will be released at the end of 2022. It is positioned as an AI companion, supports custom face pinching, and can accompany players to explore the Ultiverse world.

World Fragment NFT has not yet been released and will be airdropped to Electric Sheep holders in the future. According to the introduction in the official documents, players can synthesize world fragments into worlds. Holding different world NFTs can obtain different personalized experiences supported by AI in the game, including different storylines, characters, world goals and core conflicts. Etc., that is to say, holding different NFTs can lead to completely different gaming experiences.

Dapp: Dapp is also called "Micro worlds" in the Ultiverse ecosystem. Dapps in the Ultiverse ecosystem can be divided into two categories: one is the Dapp that has a cooperative relationship with Ultiverse, such as the previously launched leisure development The game Meta Merge, as well as the racing game BAC that will be launched on Blast, etc. The relationship between this type of ecological project and Ultiverse is not just a simple diversion cooperation, but an asset exchange relationship with a higher degree of trust. For example, Meta Merge once airdropped its token $MMM to Electric Sheep. Some people, and Meta Merge’s NFTs can also receive a portion of the upcoming $ULTC airdrop. The other category is Ultiverse’s self-developed Dapps, which mainly include Ulti-pilot, Terminus, Endless Loop, etc., which were just launched at the end of February.

Terminus has been launched in March. This is the core platform within the Ultiverse ecosystem. It is built using the UE5 engine and includes PC and VR versions. According to the official documentation, Terminus is a virtual world. Unlike traditional games, the NPCs in Terminus are driven by highly intelligent AI and can interact and dialogue with players through multi-path and strong feedback, and may ultimately affect the game. experience and results. At the same time, characters can also be driven by AI. Even if players are offline, their characters can continue to evolve, making Terminus an always-online game world.

Terminus截图

Ulti-pilot was launched in February. It is a portal for users to experience the Ultiverse world. Users can send their own characters to explore the Ultiverse world, and at the same time receive considerable Soul incentives (can be used for Subsequent redemption of governance token $ULTC)

Endless Loop is an MMORPG game from Ultiverse, also built by the UE5 engine. The game is not yet online yet.

It can be seen from the product architecture that Ultiverse is not just a game. Its goal is to become an AI-driven metaverse platform: on the one hand, it can connect with a large number of C-end users, and on the other hand, it can connect with various aspects of the web3 industry. Affiliated parties ultimately realize their Meta-Fi vision.

In terms of future roadmap, Ultiverse’s main task this year is to fully launch its products, including the PC and VR versions of Terminus, and introduce more game partners. They plan to launch Game Launchpad in the second half of 2024 and launch their own Rollup to better serve game partners and realize their Web3 game platform concept.

Investment background and partners

Ultiverse has completed three rounds of financing in total, with an excellent investment lineup:

On March 18, 2022, Ultiverse was valued at US$50 million Completed US$4.5 million in seed round financing. This round of financing was co-led by Binance Labs and Defiance Capital, with participation from Three Arrows Capital and SkyVision Capital.

On March 25, 2022, Binance Labs invested an additional US$5 million in Ultiverse, and the investment will be made in the form of equity acquisitions. Nicole Zhang, director of Binance Labs, said the investment is to ensure that Binance Labs retains some say in the future direction of the Ultiverse team.

On February 14, 2024, Ultiverse completed a strategic round of financing of US$4 million at a valuation of US$150 million, led by IDG Capital, Animoca Brands, Polygon Ventures, MorningStar Ventures, Taiko, ZetaChain, Manta Network, DWF Ventures and others participated in the investment. In addition, a series of KOLs in the NFT field also participated in the strategic round, including Dingaling, Grail.eth, Christian2022.eth, 0xSun, etc.

Ultiverse的投资方

Overall, Ultiverse has an excellent investment background, including industry leading VCs, market makers, exchanges, public chains and influential KOLs , can assist the development of Ultiverse.

Team founder Frank graduated from CMU and is a fan of games. There are currently more than 200 team members. Team members have previously worked at major game companies such as Gameloft, Blizzard, Ubisoft, and Tencent, and have participated in the development and design of well-known games such as Elden Ring, Assassin’s Creed, and Prince of Persia.

Because the goal is to become a platform that connects players and games, Ultiverse has many partners and cooperates extensively with various projects and communities in the game ecosystem.

For example, the Terminus finding your path partners event in March involves Ultiverse and public chains (Zetachain), other games (Ainchess), infrastructure service providers (Rpggo, Particle Network), game guilds (N9Club, GuildFi), Jointly launched by the NFT community (Weirdo Ghost Gang) and others.

来源：https://twitter.com/UltiverseDAO

In addition, Ultiverse has just announced that it has reached cooperative relationships with more than 300 web2 and web3 AI and game teams, basically covering all leading web3 games. Help realize the idea of ​​​​its gaming platform.

Token Economy

Ultiverse has unveiled the use cases and economic model for its governance token $ULTC:

In the Ultiverse ecosystem, $ULTC mainly has the following three functions:

• Governance
• If Dapp wants to enter the Ultiverse ecosystem, it needs to pay $ULTC, part of these ULTC It will be given to users
• $ULTC is the payment method for assets in the Ultiverse ecosystem

The total number of $ULTC is 10 billion, and its distribution is as shown in the figure below:

来源：https://docs.ultiverse.io/ultiverse-tokenomics/token-structure-overview

It is worth noting that 8% of the total token supply will be used for airdrops. The scope of airdrops includes holders of Electric Sheep NFT and MetaGF NFT, Soul holders, and holders of other assets within the ecosystem.

Electric Sheep NFT currently has a floor price of around 2 ETH and a total market value of 14,000 ETH, which is approximately US$47.6 million. If we calculate that Electric Sheep NFT can obtain 2% of $ULTC, then the full circulation market value of $ULTC is US$2.38 billion. This full circulation market value is relatively close to Binance’s last online Game Ai project Portal, and the valuation is reasonable. . Of course, in addition to obtaining $ULTC, Electric Sheep NFT has many other functions in the Ultiverse ecosystem, such as obtaining the World NFT we mentioned above.

Soul is the "point" within the current Ultiverse ecosystem, which can initially be obtained by staking Electric Sheep NFT as a reward for early holders. The team had previously announced that the exchange ratio between Soul and $ULTC was 100:1. After announcing the token economic model, Ultiverse started a number of activities to attract new users, hoping to use Soul to help Ultiverse's brand promotion further. Among them The Ulti-pilot event that started in late February will release 10 billion Soul (corresponding to 100 million $ULTC, accounting for 1% of the total), attracting many users to participate.

Summary

Ultiverse is a project worthy of attention. The main reasons are as follows:

• The web3 game track has the right time, place and people in this cycle. , is expected to usher in an explosion in the bull market cycle
• The Ultiverse team continued to build during the bear market, not only delivering products with good experience, but also building a community with good cohesion
• AI has been in the past year The rapid development of Ultiverse has attracted the attention of the world. Ultiverse has deeply integrated AI in every part of its architecture. In the future, when the concept of AI games gains market attention, it may perform better.
• Good investment background

The above is the detailed content of A quick overview of the Ultiverse project: AI+ chain games supported by top institutions. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!