Built on the Zilliqa blockchain, the content monetization project XCAD announced, as part of a broader network update, an optional extension to its economic model which will introduce a higher level of gamification and ability of users to earn more quickly from a larger base of YouTubers.
The XCAD team reports that it’s been working on an “extended economic model” which promises to fold in deeper levels of gamification of the platform, introducing NFTs and a model similar to a move2earn platform. This optional extension aims to enable users to earn from a larger number of YouTubers in a much shorter amount of time, which should show users the benefits of using the platform and enlarge the user base faster.
An XCAD Network Update — 14th Of August 2022
We are excited to announce that an extension of our current model will be launching very soon. Similar to the successful STEPN #Move2Earn platform, our extension will feature a gamified model involving NFTs, allowing us to open up to an even wider user base and accelerate #Watch2Earn adoption.
We understand some community members are not happy with the progressive rollout approach. I would just like to highlight some of the reasons why we have taken it.
- To gather data on the product, improvements and feedback.
- To find bugs, although we have done a lot of testing with our QA team, real users find complications or small bugs, and we have found and ironed them out.
- To adjust tokenomics modelling for creator tokens, ensuring long-term sustainability and maximum benefit to the XCAD Token
Millie T’s token roll-out has taken slightly longer than expected due to varying factors and working with all the movable parts involved. Once we release Millie we’ll be following it up with many other Creators immediately after. Therefore everything needs to be ironed out as we’ll be scaling CLOs & Fan Token launches very quickly. We want to be in a 100% comfortable position to continue the rollout at a fast pace. We have had issues with Transak and our fiat gateway, these need resolving before we can roll this out. Furthermore, there are a lot of aspects we want to be absolutely certain about, from the content the Creator is creating for the first promotion to the promotional part itself, legal, user experience, support and economics. We are also rolling out an extension to the current model for those that may not be interested in fan tokens immediately, widening the initial potential user base of the product.
We have at least a dozen creators practically ready to go with utility and promotional content. You should start to see CLOs for these shortly. We also have attracted offers from VCs to fill the CLOs.
We have distributed hundreds of access codes so far, some to exchanges, partners, creators, stakers and community members. We plan to rapidly increase the rate these are going out. Access codes will remain in place even when the creators start to do videos, although the scale of them will increase massively. Why? Well, it’s to help control and monitor the economics, for example, STEPN ($GMT) still has access codes to this day for that reason. It’s also a great marketing tool if used in the right way (Expect codes in the thousands).
Chrome Updates & Functionality
Almost all functionality is enabled in the Plug-in. We are currently experiencing delays with the Chrome Store approval process. Our latest update, which includes re-enabling trading after the DEX update, has been pending approval for over a week now. Google suggests the update could take up to two weeks, although we have not experienced this long a delay before. As soon as this is approved, we will publish an update to enable claiming which will mean people can get their tokens on-chain.
Our plan is to continuously roll out features and updates, so after some time even with these delays, new versions should arrive at similar intervals.
Increased Gamification and Extended Economic Model
The team has been working the past weeks on an extended economic model which brings in further gamification of the platform. This model works on top of the current fan token model (an optional extension) and introduces NFTs and a similar model to STEPN. This extension of the current model will appeal to even users that are not interested in specific fan tokens. It’s like a game. You will need to be using the original model and maxed out in order to enrol in the extended economic model. GMT made $122m in fees in Q2 alone, and 3 Million active monthly users from a similar model which you can read about here
One big advantage of this model is that users will be able to earn from a much higher pool of YouTubers immediately — not just Creators who have fan tokens launched. This helps to open up the potential user base right away.
More information on this model will be announced very soon. We are aiming for this extended model to be implemented between the end of August and the first week of September as it’s not really a huge amount of extra development on top of the current product. There will be a new ‘Play’ tab added to the Plug-in which is where you will find the high-yield game.
Please note this does not change the core mode and is not a pivot, it’s just an extension to appeal to even more users and generate more revenue which will be used to further support the creator ecosystem
NFT Moments / NFT Marketplace
As you may have known from our previous updates the NFT moments and marketplace was not up to standard to launch. We have since made the changes we wanted and are about ready to roll it out. It’s a key part of the ecosystem as it links nicely with the economics of the creator tokens.
We will also be building in extra support for the NFTs discussed briefly in the above post (Users will be able to mint these gamified NFTs).
Kucoin ZRC-2 Withdrawals
As you may have seen, ZRC-2 withdrawals for the XCAD token are regularly disabled or in maintenance on Kucoin. This creates an issue for retail users as it’s really the only way for them to buy XCAD without jumping through crypto hoops, which is a tedious process. We have been working on a solution with KuCoin to make the withdrawals more reliable, we are also implementing a backup strategy for when or if it has issues in the future.
USA and India Gateway Issues.
We are aware that the fiat payment Gateway does not currently work within the US, or in India. We are working on enabling fiat payments from the US although this may take a while.
We are working on a solution for this as we do not want to delay the fan token rollout until fiat payments in the US are enabled. (Keep in mind STEPN did not even have a fiat gateway yet still had a large majority of retail users). We are building a portal that automatically suggests the most straightforward steps to get XCAD based on the user’s location, leveraging all our available tutorials to simplify the experience.
Purchasing Times
We are aware of the occasional delays some users have been facing after purchasing XCAD via the gateway. I.e — Gateway states 4–5 mins and it takes hours. This is a serious issue for a retail user and we are investigating it with Transak.
Yellow Paper
Last month we released our creator economic overview which explained the economics of the creator ecosystem. We are now ready to release a full academic yellow paper if those wish to deep dive into economics, and it’ll be released next week.
dXCAD DEX
The dXCAD & XCAD team have upgraded the DEX for V2 and also fan tokens. This involved migrating to new smart contracts which include a sell-on fee for fan tokens which form part of the creator economics.
New Website
Our New Website is ready to be deployed. This will likely be pushed out around the launch of the fan tokens.
Access Code Rollout
We understand some of you are frustrated at the access code rollout. However, we’re confident in our strategy and don’t think there’s any other way of doing it. As mentioned at the start of the article, the access code strategy is to:
- Allows us to progressively roll features out one by one, and speak to users about their experience.
- Allows us to gather data on features, usage and economics.
- B used as a marketing tool. Of course the fewer users in theory the higher returns people can make from watching YouTube.
Crypto Marketing Campaign
When we launched the Plug-In some people may have noticed we reduced our marketing to the crypto community slightly. We did this for a few reasons, firstly the team needed to take a step back and put full focus on the product rollout. Secondly, the market of course has seen a downturn. The good news is that the crypto marketing campaigns will start again for XCAD and be aligned with the fan token rollouts. We have lots of exciting announcements saved up.
AMA With Oliver Bell, CEO of XCAD Network
To answer any questions about the product, creators, roadmap, and development our CEO Oliver Bell will host an AMA in the XCAD Network Telegram channel on Wednesday 17th Aug at 1PM UTC (2pm UK time).
Conclusion
We are continuing the progressive rollout phase, although we will shortly be entering a phase where it will speed up — people have seen the technology work almost flawlessly. I understand some of the community’s impatience, and in fact, as the CEO, I feel it myself the product is there, I just want to get the ball rolling. I am excited and frustrated at the same time. However, I must feel 100% confident in every single aspect of the product, due to the scale of what we can achieve. A few issues above need resolving, although they are not big they are important to us.
I also feel rolling out the marketing with this additional ‘Play’ economics and gamified system for higher yield is an important part and could help us get to where we want to go even faster, allowing us to appeal to more users. For example, a user that may not be interested in fan tokens exactly may still use the product as they may be interested in a high-yield game. Not every fan of every creator will care for the fan tokens right away, it’s a great way to get more users interested and using the product & involved in the ecosystem. This offers almost two products in one. Although the fan token side will be the only promoted side, when users stake XCAD they will get a notification asking if they want to participate in high yield.
We also have to plan ahead with the creators, we cannot have one creator out then a gap. There’s a lot of logistics. Once the train starts rolling it must keep going, and we expect things to scale up fast. We cannot have a one month delay before another promotional video for example.
At times, I also wish I could share everything going on behind the scenes, but sadly I cannot. I am extremely excited about revealing it all to you in due course!
As a company, we are in a fantastic position. We have signed some of the very top talent worldwide, all of whom are as excited to get started as you guys. Our plug-in is so close to perfect, and we know once out it’s going to change the game regarding the way influencers interact with their audience. I would also like to thank some of the community members for their support through the storms we have faced, no path to success is ever straightforward. We have a detailed plan, and we are now beginning the execution of it.
We will start the creator marketing campaign between the 30th of August and the 16th of September, regardless of the status of the “Play” system (extended economics). During this period, the creators themselves will create and publish a promotional video of the product.
The ‘Play’ System to us is extremely bullish based on the success of GMT. It opens the product up to a new group of users, crypto users for example, that are more inclined to play a game with high yields than users that care about fan tokens alone, this opens up a huge market to gather fees which can be injected into XCAD.
We can’t wait to show you all that we have accomplished and to begin the #Watch2Earn revolution with you all.
via this site.
