An All-Encompasing Breakdown of Aperion
The best way to position yourself in the Apeiron ecosystem - a guest post by @RaggaPrince.
This is a guest post by RaggaPrince, make sure to follow him on Twitter.
Disclaimer: This article was originally posted within the Wolves DAO Discord server on December 12th, 2023. It is based on the information that was available before December 12th and what RaggaPrince was able to finagle out of one of the co-founders. Since then, some of the information in the original article has become outdated as new information has come to light. Namely, this article mentions that APRS will not be airdropped to Primeval holders during the TGE and that the TGE will instead be through a community round. While there won't be an airdrop for the initial TGE, there will be airdrop(s) for Primeval holders at an unspecified point(s) in the future.
Everything in this article is the opinion of RaggaPrince and does not constitute financial advice.
Apeiron: A Tough Nut to Crack
It is my curse, apparently, to become interested in extremely complex gaming ecosystems. Yuga’s ecosystem pales in comparison to Apeiron. Luckily for you, you get to benefit from my affinity for information inefficiencies. Read on to learn about Apeiron, their surprisingly fun game, their upcoming migration to the Ronin network, their seemingly under-the-radar massive seed round, and, most importantly, their upcoming TGE (token generation event).
TLDR:
Apeiron is a collection of NFT projects and an upcoming “god game” created by Singapore-based studio Foonie Magnus.
Foonie Magnus received roughly $25M in funding through various seed rounds, an ICO, and through NFT sales.
Apeiron’s TGE will be coming in Q1 of 2024 alongside the mobile launch of their game. Apeiron will be launching two coins: Apeiros (APRS) and Anima (ANIMA). APRS will be launched through a community round exclusive to Primeval and Star holders while ANIMA will be earned by all Planet holders for playing the game and completing quests.
A demo of the game is currently available to play through the Epic Game Store. It’s surprisingly fun for a web3 game.
Apeiron is hosting a daily check-in bonus here for anyone which features small community rewards and RON (token of Ronin chain).
Planets are the most important asset in the Apeiron ecosystem and Primevals (also known as Exordium) is the most important trait. Primevals indicate that the Planet is an OG Planet from the initial mint. Primeval Planets get an allocation for the community round of APRS, multipliers on ANIMA earned in game, and significantly lower breeding costs. Non-Primeval Planets do not get an allocation for the community round but still can earn ANIMA by playing the game.
Planets can be bred with one another to create a new Planet. This new Planet takes on a combination of the traits and characteristics of the parent Planets.
Within Apeiron, there are 4 base elements that a Planet could be: Water, Earth, Fire, and Air. A Planet can be exclusively one element or it could be a combination of 2, 3, or all of the elements. A Planet with a single element is called a Pure and is considered the most powerful. The more diluted the “bloodline” of a Planet becomes, the less powerful it is. The goal, when breeding, is to try to get more pure Planets.
Each Planet can breed up to 3 times. The amount of times a Planet has bred before is called Conjunctions. If a Planet has a Conjunction of 3, it has already bred 3 times and cannot breed again. Generally, the lower the Conjunction, the better.
Every 24 hours, a Planet ages 1 year. The older a Planet is, the more powerful it can be in-game.
Stars are used to buff Planets by increasing the speed at which they age. The spare capacity of Stars can also be rented out. Just like Primevals, Stars receive an allocation towards the community round for APRS. Stars are supposed to be the premium asset in the ecosystem but they are relatively underwhelming.
Primeval Planets are by far the best asset in the ecosystem and feel cheap proportional to all of their benefits.
The biggest negative of Apeiron is the fact that its assets have fairly low volume due to them being on Polygon. Migrating to the Ronin network could help or it could make this even worse.
Though a strong project, Apeiron suffers- like most other gaming NFT projects- from having a not insignificant amount of elements that are either complicated, intangible, or extraneous.
What is Apeiron?
Apeiron is a collection of gaming NFT projects along with an upcoming cross-platform game created and developed by Singapore-based studio Foonie Magnus. The game, which is slated to release in Q1 of 2024, is described as a P2E “god game” in which you “play god” by controlling all aspects of a world and a population- similar to games like Black and White, Populous, Spore, and Sims. However, Apeiron is combining this genre with more typical RPG elements such as dungeons, guilds, and PvP. Currently, a limited early alpha version of the game is available to play through the Epic Game Store. Foonie Magnus, who has supposedly been developing this game for the last 7 years, has raised roughly $25M over the last two years: $4.5M through an ICO, $3M through a pre-seed round, $10M through a seed round, and approximately $6.4M through NFT sales.
Apeiron has a few NFT collections, but the two main ones I’m going to be discussing are Planets and Stars. Planets are the main asset of the ecosystem, giving you access to the game and the ability to earn tokens within it. Stars- and their accompanying Astronomicals- are basically the “land” assets of the ecosystem that serve to buff your Planets and will eventually be the basis of guilds within Apeiron. There’s also a final bundle of various NFTs called Relics, however, the only Relics that currently exist are Apostles and they aren’t super important right now.
Last week, Apeiron announced that they will be partnering with Sky Mavis and the Ronin network (yes, that Ronin network) and that all Apeiron assets, which are currently on Polygon, will be migrated to Ronin. The migration to Ronin will begin on December 18th. Ronin is touted as a blockchain specifically for gaming and is most famous for being the base layer of Axie Infinity. If, like me, you weren’t involved in Axie when it was big, then you probably know the name Ronin because it got exploited to the tune of $600M+ in March of last year. Sky Mavis has said that the exploit was a result of social engineering and not due to a vulnerability in the network itself. Since then, Sky Mavis has added additional validators to Ronin to prevent further security breaches as well as reimbursed those who were affected by the exploit.
To incentivize users to migrate and drum up attention, Apeiron is hosting a daily check-in bonus here. It’s unclear what benefits the daily check-in has but I’m assuming they are minimal. Doesn’t hurt to click “check-in” once a day. Most importantly, alongside this announcement that they are migrating to Ronin, they also shared more details of their coming tokens, the TGE of which will be happening sometime in Q1 of 2024 (likely will coincide with the release of Apeiron on mobile).
Apeiron’s NFT Ecosystem Overview
Planets
Planets are the most important asset and main entry into the Apeiron ecosystem. Each Planet comes with an Avatar, which is basically your little god character with which you rule over your Planet. Through the process of “Celestial Conjunction” (you can also call it “Cosmic Coitus” if you’d like), you can create new Planets- basically the equivalent of breeding in Axie. Just like actual IRL breeding (god that’s a phrase I never thought I’d say), the newly created Planets take on a combination of traits and characteristics of the parent Planets.
I’ll briefly go through the pertinent Planet traits.
Planet Traits
Primeval Exordiums: Primeval Exordiums, Exordiums, or just Primevals (it’s all the same thing) is the trait that indicates that these are the OG planets from the initial mint. There are 4,358 Primevals, with a couple hundred being held by the team. Primevals, being the OGs of the ecosystem, are the premier asset that receives token allocations, token multipliers in-game, and other various benefits. Primevals come in 5 rarities, with the higher rarities receiving higher token allocations and higher multipliers. The 5 rarities are, in order: Elemental Primeval, Mythic Primeval, Arcane Primeval, Divine Primeval, and Primal Primeval.
Elements and Bloodline: If you understand Avatar: The Last Airbender, this will make sense. If you don’t, there are 4 base elements: Water, Earth, Fire, and Air- or: Leviathan, Gigas, Inferno, and Tempest, respectively. These are what are referred to as pure Elementals or a pure Bloodline. Now let’s say you wanted to breed a pure Inferno with a pure Earth; you would get a mix of both the previous parents’ traits. The new Planet created as a combination of Fire and Earth is what is referred to as a Duo- or a Planet with two elements. The same concept applies to Tris (three elements), and Quads (all four elements). Within the game, it is more ideal to have a more pure (less elements) Planet; the closer you can get to pure, the stronger and more concentrated- and thus more rare- your Planet is. I’ll go through the various Elemental distributions:
Pure:
Leviathan (Water)
Gigas (Earth)
Inferno (Fire)
Tempest (Air)
Duo:
Archipelago (Water & Earth)
Volcanic (Fire & Earth)
Karsts (Earth & Air)
Tundra (Fire + Water)
Delta (Water & Air)
Dunes (Fire + Air)
Trio:
Mountainous (Fire, Water, & Earth)
Forestry (Water, Earth, & Air)
Wasteland (Fire, Earth, and Air)
Oasis (Fire, Water, and Air)
Quad:
Normal (Water, Earth, Fire, and Air)
Age: Within the Apeiron universe, Planets age by one day every 24 hours. The older a Planet is, the more benefits it will have access in the game (Relics) and the stronger it will be."
Conjunctions: Every Planet can only breed a limited amount of times- 3 to be exact. Conjunctions is simply the number of times that a Planet has bred. If a Planet has a 3 Conjunction, it means that it has already bred 3 times and it cannot breed anymore. A 0 Conjunction means that it has never bred before and it can breed up to 3 more times.
It’s important to keep in mind that, much like other web3 games, many of the traits of Planets are effectively useless until the game launches. Beyond rarity and price, Elemental distribution is meaningless outside of the game, as are things like Avatar Classes, Primeval Legacies, Boons, and Perks (which is why I’m not discussing those things). The current mechanics that exist for Planets are: Celestial Conjunction (breeding) and Expeditions (limited time staking events).
Stars and Astronomicals:
The other main asset within the Apeiron ecosystem is Stars. Stars are kinda like the “land” in Apeiron. While the concept of owning a Star around which your Planets orbit sounds sexy, the Stars essentially just exist to buff your Planets. Based on the tier/rarity of your Star, your Star will have several Orbital Tracks. Upon these Orbital Tracks, you can place your Planets. By having your Planet orbit a Star, your Planet will age faster, which allows the Planet to unlock more Relic slots, giving your Planet more benefits in battle.
In close relation to Stars are Astronomicals. While Stars serve to buff Planets, Astronomical serve to buff Stars. Various Astronomicals- things like asteroids, suns, supernovas, etc- give benefits to Stars like increased aging buffs, additional Orbital Tracks, and the all-important cosmetic effects.
As Stars have multiple Orbital Tracks and can age multiple Planets at once, unused Orbital Tracks can be rented out to other Planet owners through the Apeiron marketplace. From what I can tell, however, the rental market is relatively slow and quiet with rental prices being negligible- around $1-3 per day per Orbital Track.
The final mechanic for Stars, aside from aging and renting, is Constellations. Constellations are simply a collection of many Stars under a single entity- either a single whale or a guild of individuals who are pooling their resources. Certain combinations of Stars offer certain additional buffs to the holder(s). This is seemingly the basis for guilds or groups within Apeiron.
Relics
The last- and least- collection that will be mentioned very briefly is Relics. Relics are in-game items; these could be things like a weapon, artifact, or, in the case of Apostles, a little NPC who helps players fight in battle.
Gameplay Review
As mentioned above, Apeiron is planned to be a god game combined with RPG and RTS elements. This trailer, which was released in December 2021 depicts the “god game” portion of Apeiron in which you can either take care of or destroy your little world in various ways. Currently, the free-to-play demo of the game is available on PC or Mac through the Epic Game Store and is planned to be available on mobile in Q1 of 2024. The current demo includes the “battle” portion of the game (which you can find a slightly outdated trailer of here).
The demo feels like 20% auto battler, 50% RTS game, and 30% card game. I played it for about an hour, going through a few dungeons, and, though I’m generally picky about games and hard to please, I surprisingly enjoyed it. It was genuinely interesting and I found myself wanting to learn what the various abilities did and how I could best pair them together. I also quite enjoyed the art style. Obviously, it’s an early access game so it’s still pretty limited and rough around the edges but it definitely felt like it had a lot of potential, especially compared to other web3 games I’ve played. Throughout the experience, I often found myself thinking about how great it would be as a mobile game.
Frankly, that’s all I want to say on the topic. You can’t understand how a game works or how fun it is by reading someone else’s experiences with it; you have to go play it yourself.
Apeiron’s Tri-Token System and TGE
Apeiron plans to implement what they’re referring to as a tri-token system. These three tokens are:
Apeiros (APRS)
Anima (ANIMA)
Ringularity (RNGU).
All three tokens are planned to be listed on both DEXs and CEXs.
APRS will be Apeiron’s governance token that is used primarily for voting on the future development of the game. APRS will also be used in Celestial Conjunctions as well as turning in-game items into Relics (NFTs).
ANIMA is Apeiron’s P2E token. There will be two ways to earn ANIMA. The first way will be through Battledrops, which are quests in the game and within the community. The second will be simply playing and winning in the game. Only so much ANIMA can be generated per week but it has theoretically a total unlimited supply; the total supply scales based on the number of active players.". ANIMA will also be used in Celestial Conjunction as well as Chronomerging.
The final token, RNGU, is Apeiron’s token for events and tournaments- prize money basically. The intention is for RNGU to be used in close connection with guilds, alliances, and esports organizations. This token has been confirmed to be a long way away so we’re gonna forget about it for now.
So, if RNGU is a long way away, then how will the TGE for APRS and ANIMA work? Well firstly (and unfortunately), neither token will be an outright airdrop simply for holding Apeiron assets. APRS will be acquired through a community round while ANIMA is minted when a player accomplishes certain tasks within the game. All Planets, regardless of Primeval status, can earn ANIMA, however Primeval Planets get a significant multiplier on their ANIMA earned. The higher the rarity of the Primeval, the higher the multiplier. Additionally, normal Planets cannot participate in the APRS community round. Only Primevals and Stars can participate in the APRS community round, with similar multipliers to allocation based on rarity. While Stars could have potentially higher allocations than Primevals, it was confirmed that Primevals will have a better “allocation to mint cost ratio.”
As far as price, allocation, and tokenomics go, we don’t know much yet. I don’t really want to speculate on things like that. I’m expecting more information after the migration- perhaps in the new year.
Breeding and Why It’s Important
Breeding Costs
To breed, you need to have two Planets with a Conjunction of 2 or lower as well as one or more mini-Black Holes (mBH). The amount of mBHs needed to breed is based on whether the Planet is Primeval or not, how many Conjunctions it has, and what its Elemental distribution is. As the Conjunction amount gets higher or as the Planet gets more pure, it costs more mBH to breed per Planet. Primeval Planets, however, will always have a cost of 1 mBH per planet per breed regardless of Conjunction amount or Elemental distribution.
In the chart above, you can see the costs to breed various kinds of Planets. These numbers are per Planet. So, for example, if you wanted to breed a Primeval Planet (1 mBH) with a non-Primeval Duo with a Conjunction of 1 (9 mBH), it would cost a total of 10 mBH to breed those two Planets. mBHs are either given as prizes for Expeditions (limited-time staking events) or they can be purchased on OpenSea for around 0.025-0.03 ETH. In the future, when ANIMA and APRS are launched, mBHs will be purchasable with APRS.
This has important implications for the value of Primeval assets. They cost dramatically less to breed as opposed to non-Primevals and are thus far more value-creating than non-Primeval Planets. This also has implications for the value of pure Planets. Not only is it extremely difficult and extremely rare to get a pure (or even a Duo Planet for that matter) but it is also extremely expensive. Personally, the math doesn’t seem to be mathing to me- at least as far as investments go. Depending on the Planets used to create it, a pure Planet should theoretically cost 50-100 times more than a normal Planet and it should also theoretically be 50-100 times better and generate 50-100 times more ANIMA; all of those seem unlikely. To me, it feels like Primevals are significantly undervalued while Pures are significantly overvalued- particularly when taking into account that the purity of the Planet doesn’t have any impact on APRS allocation while Primeval does. Now on to aging.
Planet Age
The older the Planet is, the more Relic slots it can wield in battle. The more Relic slots it has, the stronger it is; it’s like the difference between having 1 sword and 2 swords. The first way to age a Planet we already discussed: Stars. The second is Chronomerging, which is the process of combining one Planet into another which gives the Age of one Planet to the receiving Planet. For example, you could cannibalize a 500-year-old Planet into a 605-year-old Planet. The 605-year old Planet would become 1105 years old and the 500-year old Planet would cease to exist. However, this mechanic does not exist yet. While I generally lean towards tangibility and I don’t care too much about mechanics that don’t exist yet, I thought this was important to mention because it means that there is a planned mechanic to manage the supply of Planets.
NFT Asset Overview and Final Thoughts
Before getting into my thoughts, I wanted to recap the various assets and what they actually do currently in really plain terms.
Non-Holder:
Gets access to the game when it comes out (game is free to play- everyone gets access).
Non-Primeval Planets:
Can earn ANIMA by playing the game when it comes out.
Can breed with other Planets if they have a Conjunction of 2 or lower.
Primeval Planets:
Can earn ANIMA by playing the game when it comes out and gets a significant multiplier on that ANIMA based on rarity.
Can breed with other Planets if they have a Conjunction of 2 or lower and pays significantly less than Non-Primeval Planets to breed.
Gets an allocation towards the community round of APRS with a multiplier based on rarity.
Gets higher multipliers of rewards during Expeditions (limited time staking events).
Stars:
Buffs Planets by aging them.
Can rent out unused Planet aging space to others, though at very negligible prices.
Gets an allocation towards the community round of APRS with a multiplier based on rarity.
Astronomicals:
Buffs Stars.
Alright, so when it comes to NFTs, particularly gaming NFTs, I like to take a conservative, practical, and tangible approach. Many gaming projects, as we know, often blur the lines between actual video game, game theory, and community. Therefore, I like to focus on the tangibles. For instance, aging your Planet with a Star gives you benefits… towards earning a token that doesn’t exist yet… in a game that doesn’t exist yet. Intangible. Aging could potentially be very important down the line, but it isn’t important right now and it doesn’t seem particularly important shortly either. Another example: breeding a Primeval with another Primeval, spending 0.05 ETH-ish on mBH to create a new Planet, and then selling that new Planet at floor for 0.15 ETH-ish. Very tangible. What I’m getting at here is that in nearly all NFT projects- but in gaming NFT projects especially- you have to be very cognizant of where the value lies.
By that logic, Primevals are by far my favorite bet- particularly Primevals with lower Conjunctions. If interest/volume in Apeiron picks up, Primevals feel wildly undervalued to me at their current prices (20-50% above floor). However, that little “if interest/volume in Apeiron picks up” caveat needs to be taken into account. Currently, one of my least favorite things about Apeiron (of which there are relatively few) is the lack of volume. It just feels really under the radar. Perhaps this is a symptom of being on Polygon. Perhaps this will be remedied slightly with their migration to Ronin. I couldn’t say. What I do know, however, is that Primevals have multiple outsized benefits over other assets in the ecosystem and are currently trading at a not-very-outsized premium.
Stars feel not worth it- or at least not worth it yet. Astronomical and Non-Primeval Planets feel really not worth it.
As far as the TGE goes, it’s slightly disappointing that it is not an airdrop and is instead a community round. However, it’s hard to speculate on the potential profitability without more information on price, allocation, etc.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
I’m a guy who is hard to impress and the demo game was genuinely fun to me. Not many games can say that- particularly web3 games. It has a lot of potential in my opinion. In particular, I think Apeiron is well suited for a mobile game.
The team (Singapore-based) seems to have a firm grasp on what kinds of games and IPs are most appealing to an Asian gaming crowd. I personally really enjoy the art style.
Big funding numbers ($10M seed round), though admittedly not from any notable VCs (perhaps that is a good thing).
Tokens and game launch coming within the next few months.
Cons:
Complex ecosystem. Very complex ecosystem. This post took me a week or so to research and 10-12 ish hours to write- and still I only covered the important/tangible stuff.
Pretty low volume (a few Planet sales per day). I’m sure this is due in no small part to it being on Polygon but I’m also not certain how migrating to Ronin is going to help with this issue. It might make it worse in all honesty. On the flip side, some might consider this a good thing because the project is “under the radar.” To me, however, there’s a difference between a project being “under the radar” but still having somewhat healthy volume and a project that simply doesn’t have enough sustainable volume from enough individual participants.
Though Sky Mavis has claimed that the hack was a result of social engineering and not due to a vulnerability with the network itself, they have added additional security measures, and reimbursed those who were affected in the March 2022 exploit, you'd be forgiven if you still harbored some concerns around security on the Ronin blockchain. After all, one of the largest exploits in the history of crypto isn't easily forgotten. That being said, I am not a developer or a security expert so I don't have any opinion for or against the Ronin blockchain.
TGE is a community round instead of an outright airdrop. This could go well but it doesn’t create anywhere close to the amount of engagement and attention that an airdrop does. Particularly in this season of gaming tokens and Solana airdrop farming, a community round like this might fly too far under the radar.
Like many NFT projects and nearly all gaming NFT projects, Apeiron suffers from what I’m going to call the “IE Complex” or the “Intangible and Extraneous Complex.” Seemingly every single gaming project has elements, mechanics, or collections that are either intangible (don’t exist and/or don’t do anything) or extraneous (complicated, dilutive, or unnecessary). To be fair, this is an extremely hard thing to avoid but it is worth mentioning nonetheless. For everything interesting, novel or fun about Apeiron, there is another thing that either doesn’t exist yet, is complicated, is dilutive, or is completely unnecessary.
What is supposed to be the premium asset in the ecosystem- Stars- doesn’t feel very premium.
All in all, I like Apeiron. I think there is an inherent inclination to like and want to own the assets of a project with a fun game. With the right push and the right eyes on the project, I think Primevals in particular could do very well in the coming months. Even without that “right push,” there is enough inefficiency in the Apeiron economy that finding seemingly good deals on Primevals is relatively easy.