On Friday August 11th at 7 PM ET, the Second Era of Staking goes live. After months of development, we’re proud to finally be able to reveal it to you. We went above and beyond to address issues with the previous Era, while also building upon its strengths. This Era incorporates new layers of mechanical complexity, providing our collectors with a more engaging, strategic experience. There is nothing else quite like it in the space. If you are a Fvck_Crystal or Fvck_Avatar holder, join us as we build a planet together.
To hear to the team discuss Staking Era 2, you can listen to the recording of our recent Fvck_Monday.
Recap: The First Era
Those of you who are new to our ecosystem may have missed the First Era of Staking when it launched October 2022. Lvcidia collectors were able to stake their Fvck_Crystal or Fvck_Avatar NFTs within a single Staking Field (The Black Hole), earning Resources (ERC-1155) after each weekly cycle completed. Those Resources—such as obsidian, hydrogen, or helium—could be used to craft nameable Stars.
The ERC-721 Star NFTs had varying degrees of rarity. The rarest Stars possessed higher Lvminance values, a sought-after trait which we tracked on the Era 1 leaderboard. There was a race among our community members to craft the rarest Stars before it was too late, resulting in a high demand for Resources on the secondary market (81 ETH traded). After a certain collective Lvminance value was achieved, the Era came to an end.
2,368 Stars were crafted by our community.
Era 2: Objective
Where the objective of the First Era was to craft Stars and obtain the highest Lvminance value possible, the Second Era revolves around the crafting of a Community Planet within Lvcidia.
Collectors will burn Resources to contribute towards the creation of the Planet, and in exchange receive a dynamic Deed NFT at the end of the Era.
The Deed will update to reflect your current ownership percentage, depending on the type and quantity of Resources you contribute.
It will provide voting power over every decision that impacts the Community Planet in the future. We are also aiming to build a revenue system in which any earnings generated by the Planet are shared among Deed holders depending on their ownership percentage.
Collectors will not be able to contribute Resources to the creation of the Planet until 1 week after launch. After that, all Resources—including leftover Resources from the First Era—can be spent to increase your ownership. The Deeds are designed with trading in mind, giving collectors the ability to split their Deed or merge it with others. We believe that this mechanic will help sustain engagement for long past the Era’s completion.
Staking Fields
When staking your NFTs, you will have to choose a location. The possible locations are referred to as Staking Fields, and in Era 2 there are 14 total. This is a sharp contrast to the First Era, in which only a single staking field was made available (The Black Hole).
We favored simplicity in the First Era to help onboard collectors to the mechanics. Now that everyone has better understanding, we felt justified complexity would elevate the engagement.
The 14 Staking Fields have different qualities, affecting the resource generation of your Crystals or Avatars. As you work to uncover the earn rates, strategies can be employed to earn the greatest yield.
This Era also incorporates an exciting new mechanic: Time Locks. Era 1 only allowed you to stake your NFTs on a one-week time lock before the cycle completed for that staking field. However, this Second Era lets you choose between three time periods when staking your NFTs: 24 hours, 1 week, or 1 month. Shorter time periods earn greater rewards, as they require continuous engagement. Meanwhile, longer time periods that are more hands-off give lesser yields.
Improvements
When listening to feedback on the First Era, there were two issues we heard repeatedly that we felt needed to be addressed in Era 2.
While collectors had their Crystals and Avatars locked within our staking contract, they no longer had the ability to qualify for our Discord roles, or enter collector’s only giveaways. Even though they still owned the NFTs, it felt like they were temporarily losing them when staking.
Our solution to this problem is the creation of Soul Bound Tokens. With a new smart contract developed for the Second Era, collectors will stake their NFTs and receive a Soul Bound Token in exchange.
This “placeholder” NFT confers all the benefits of the actual Crystal or Avatar, while the real token is locked away in the staking contract. The Soul Bound Token of your NFT possesses the same artwork, with an overlay to indicate it is currently staked.
The other feedback we received on the First Era was that collectors wanted to be notified when they needed to restake. Many people would often forget to restake their NFTs after the week-long cycle had completed, causing them to miss out on Resources. To offer assistance with this, we developed a unique notification system which will inform collectors the status of their staked NFTs. You will be able to receive these updates over SMS (available for Canada and the US) or email.
The Future
With Era 2, Staking evolves to a new level. Yet there is still more to come, as Lvcidia grows closer to becoming the immersive 3D-native platform we’ve dreamed it could be. Our Unreal Engine 5 world continues to be in active development. Great progress is being made thanks to our new developers, and the results so far are stunning.
Eventually the process of staking will take place entirely within our Unreal platform, further elevating the experience. The Stars crafted in Era 1 will be visible within Lvcidia, to be displayed in a much more beautiful light. And the Staking Keys you received for participating in Era 1 of Staking will have their use, in time. We are still working out how to give them benefits that feel both balanced in rewarding.
Thank you for joining us on this journey—we hope you enjoy Era 2 of Staking.
Ryan is an LA-based writer and filmmaker. He began as a Lvcidia community member in early 2021, drawn to the cinematic beauty of Fvckrender’s virtual creations. His engagement with the community led to him becoming a moderator for the Discord, and in 2022 he was brought on officially to create Lvcidia’s newsletter. He now assists in writing articles for the Lvcidia journal, conducting interviews, and moderating the occasional live Q&A.
