It has been a little over three weeks now since Lepricon opened their token, L3P, to the market on Uniswap, and it has been a bumpy ride out in the markets.
“It was much easier before the token went live on the market,” says Founder and CEO Joshua Galloway. When pressed to explain, Galloway, a 20 year veteran of the video games industry, points to the inherent conflict between the impatience of the crypto community, which expects tokens to “moon” after listing, and the realities for a company that is building games and the platform upon which they will run.
“So many of the token offerings have been around some element of decentralized finance, or perhaps prediction market aggregation,” explains Galloway. “Companies like us are building products that take months, sometimes years to build. The market is so used to quick gains that a steady token price is seen as a negative. It is not easy to balance perception and reality.”
The price of L3P has stayed at around 7 to 8 cents, between three and seven times the price pre-sale contributors paid. Galloway is pleased with this given that their first applications are in development, with the as yet un-named lucky dip and native staking due to launch later this month, followed by a card-guessing game, KQJ.
“We have a full road map ahead of us, so I am confident this will all turn out well. We also spend as much time as we can on our community boards. We try to be as transparent as possible about everything that is going on.”
Predicting Lepricon’s Next Moves
Lepricon’s to-do list for the next few weeks does pack a lot in.
Their first game, KQJ, is in beta and nearly ready to go “gold” – a video industry term that means the game is ready for distribution. Galloway explains, “the actual game is working, but there were some issues with its administrative module. This game lets people accumulate discounted bitcoin, so we can’t afford any mistakes with the mechanics.”
Lepricon announced last week that they are working with BePro, the technical team behind PolkaMarkets, to build another game promised in their original whitepaper, FansPredict. FansPredict is a prediction pool game that will allow players to take a stand on all kinds of real-world events. Galloway notes, “This is probably the most important game out of the three that we originally announced, as it is not limited to any theme or subject. FansPredict will likely become a platform itself for more niched prediction games aimed at specific markets.”
Staking and Lucky Dip
When Lepricon launched, they partnered with MANTRA DAO to offer a staking pool that guaranteed a minimum of 77% yield. As Galloway elaborates, “It was important to offer utility from day one, given that we were a live token before we had a minimum viable product.” Galloway is pleased that they attracted almost 50% of circulating tokens into staking. “This has helped protect and stabilize the price in the first few weeks we have been live,” he adds.
This has also given Lepricon time to complete their native staking dApp, which has the current working name of Stakes & Ladders. Galloway exclaims, “we’re gamers – we gamify everything!” Lepricon hopes to activate native staking in the third week of April, incorporating NFTs that affect yield outcomes. “We conducted our first NFT sale at the time we were listing on Uniswap. All NFTs offer APY boosters for those staking L3P.”
Lepricon is also set to release its Instant Lucky Dip at the same time as the staking pools. The video game heritage of Lepricon shows through here as prizes include Loot Crates, something gamers will be familiar with, and other mercurially named items such as the Legendary Bag of Crap. We ask Galloway whether physical prizes might be a problem, given that this means players will have to reveal personal information to receive them.
“The prize will be an NFT that represents the item, ” he answers. “We intend to gamify the NFTs, encouraging people to think about selling them on the open market. Redemption is optional. Someone will get the loot crate eventually, but you have other options when you claim the NFT.”
Lepricon Rebrand
Lepricon is undergoing a complete rebrand with new logos and a new website. Galloway is impatient for this process to be completed. “Our current website is perfect for a company looking to raise financing through the pre-sale of tokens ahead of a listing on Uniswap. But now, we are a gaming and entertainment company that uses blockchain to solve certain problems better than has been done before. Our website needs to reflect our audience.”
Galloway concludes, “If March was the month we went from no cap to hard cap and a tradeable token, April is the month we get our first product to market and show the world the new brand. I thought March was the most important month for us. It turns out it might be April after all.”