0xU Galactic Markets — Issue 1 (April 12, 2019)

12 min readApr 12, 2019

Introduction

The advent of blockchain has ushered in an emergence of unique economies existing within various crypto games (DApps). From humble beginnings, the foundation of a good DApp is built around a great concept, a quality development team, and an engaging player community. Early adopters are not just players. They are a form of seed capital. An enthusiastic crowd funded resource, setting the stage for a potentially engaging game world with a real economy.

Enter 0xUniverse.

0xUniverse exists on the Ethereum blockchain. Players start playing by buying planets from the planet marketplace. Each planet produces population, knowledge, and resources, which allow players to invent, build, and launch rockets into space. Launched rockets either successfully discover a planet, or are lost to the void of space.

All planets come in one of four rarity types: common, rare, epic, and legendary. All planets also produce population and three resources. There are 29 different possible resources, which also fall into the same four rarity types: common, rare, epic, and legendary.

When a planet is discovered, a player gains the benefits of whatever population and resources that planet has and produces. These benefits currently give the player the ability to invent and launch new (hopefully better) rockets. Once a rocket is invented, it can be launched to search for more planets. The resource cost to launch a particular rocket also becomes exponentially more expensive by a factor of x1.5 the resource cost of the previous launch.

Players can also buy and sell planets in the planet marketplace. Planet prices are completely set by the player community. The developers take 5% from planet purchases, and a fee for renaming and renting planets.

At the end of 2018, I started inputting 0xUniverse planet discoveries and planet prices into an infographic called 0xUniverse Planets Summary. 0xU Galactic Markets will expand on this planet market data as well as provide additional information and material relevant to the economics of 0xUniverse.

This first issue includes a Planet Valuation Calculator (PVC) that utilizes various planet and market data to determine planet values. A detailed explanation of the Planet Valuation Calculator is provided below, but before getting into it, let’s review some of the planet market data used in the Planet Valuation Calculator.

Current Galactic Markets

The 0xUniverse Planets Summary reviews data for all planets discovered and in the marketplace as of a snapshot moment. Planet price information for the four basic rarity types, and three special rarity sub-types, are based on the average of the eight lowest cost planets of that rarity type in the marketplace.

The four basic rarity types are: common, rare, epic, and legendary.

Special rarity sub-types are planets with a resource of a rarity grade higher than the rarity of the planet. The three special rarity sub-types are: common planets with a rare resource (rare common); rare planets with an epic resource (epic rare), and epic planets with a legendary resource (legendary epic).

Relative Value

The 0xUniverse Planets Summary uses planet prices and total discovered planets to determine a relative value for each planet rarity type. The relative value calculation takes the total calculated price of all discovered planets, and adjusts prices so that the total value of all planets of a rarity type are all equal.

Relative value is calculated in four sets: one set of four for the four basic planet rarity types, and three sets of two, for each of the three special rarity sub-types. Each set aligns aggregate values of all planet rarity types within the set as follows:

Basic Rarity Types has one set of four: common|rare|epic|legendary
Special Rarity Sub-Types have three sets of two: 1) rare common|common (no rare); 2) epic rare|rare (no epic); and 3) epic legendary|epic (no legendary).

The below Market Price vs. Relative Value Comparison Chart better illustrates the relationship between market price and relative value. The value of all discovered planets has the same total calculated value using market price and relative value. In the below example, the total value of all discovered planets is 2,570.016 ETH. Relative value adjusts the price for each planet rarity type, so that all planet rarity types in the set have the same total value. In the below example, all common, rare, epic, and legendary planets have a total relative value of 642.504 ETH respectively.

Relative values are also calculated for each of the three special rarity subsets within common, rare, and epic planets. These three sets of calculations compare the two planets in each subset.

Relative value assumes that all planets of the same rarity type have the same aggregate value. If used as an indicator of planet value, a planet rarity type with a relative value greater than the market price would be considered under valued by the market, while a planet rarity type with a relative value less than the market price, would be considered over priced by the market.

The below Market Price vs. Relative Value by Rarity Type summarizes the historic market price vs. relative value as of six snapshot moments over the past four months. Based on these charts, common and rare planets are under priced versus relative value, epic planets were under priced but are now in line with relative value, and legendary planets are over priced.

This is not surprising. Epic planets seemed under priced for a while, but made a bit of a come back, and, although extremely rare, legendary planets fetch a high premium.

The Resources Planet Count shows the total number of discovered planets for every resource. Since all planets have three different resources, the total planet count equals all discovered planets multiplied by three.

For each resource rarity, the total number of planets is indicated. In the below chart, there are 157,287 planets with a specific common resource, 75,705 planets with a specific rare resource, 24,658 planets with a specific epic resource, and 2,300 planets with a specific legendary resource. The last column (RT/RTT) is the Resource Total divided by the Resource Rarity Total. This number gets proportionally higher the more rare a resource is. RT/RTT is also the factor used in the Planet Valuation Calculator to take into account the value of a planet’s current and produced resources.

Planet Valuation Calculator (PVC)

The Planet Valuation Calculator (PVC) was originally created in MS Excel. It has been uploaded to Google Drive in two versions: MS Excel version and a Google Sheets version. (see Related Links below for details and to access)

Below is an image of the MS Excel version of the PVC. It is not legible, but provides a big picture overview of the sheet. For purposes of better explaining the PVC in this article, blue rectangles with section numbers have been added to the below image.

SECTION 1: TITLE AND EXPLANATION Pretty self explanatory, this section provides a quick overview of the Planet Valuation Calculator (PVC).

SECTION 2: PRIMARY VARIABLES

There are three primary variables in Section 2:

Resource Value: This is a value assigned to each resource. The higher this number is, the more value it will add to a planet’s valuation. For each resource rarity, the value was determined using RT/RTT from the above Resources Planet Count. For Population, an average of the other four resource scarcity values was used.

Population was a difficult resource to assign a value to. While it is the least scarce, it is arguably the most important. It is used to accumulate the knowledge needed to build better rockets, and many players will take population into account when buying a planet. This is the only cell in the spreadsheet with a formula that is not locked. If you use the Google Sheets version of the PVC, and you change this, you can always set it back to an average formula by going to the Insert drop down and selecting function.

Den (Denominator): Den is the denominator used to value a planet. It is calculated in the BASE RATES section of the PVC (Sections 3A thru 3C). Den acts as a baseline valuation for each planet rarity type, representing a typical planet with a value equal to the Value Base.

Value Base: Value Base represents the assumed ETH value of Base Rate planets specified in Sections 3A thru 3C.

SECTIONS 3A thru 3C: BASE RATES CALCULATION

Base Rate planets are hypothetical planets used to represent a typical planet with a value equal to its corresponding Value Base. For a Base Rate planet, the numerator will always equal the denominator. This means that the calculated value of a Base Rate planet will always equal 1 x Value Base. Sections 3A thru 3C of the Base Rates calculation are summarized as follows:

SECTION 3A is where all the planet data is input.

Base Rate Factors are used to simplify the input process. xPop is the amount a planet’s population production (Prod) is multiplied by to determine the current (Curr) population. xRes is the amount that all three resources are multiplied by to determine current resources. RES+ is the production rate for all three resources.

The INPUTS section is where all a planet’s specifics are input. Since the hypothetical Base Rate planets use the Base Rate Factors to determine most of these number, users only need to input how much population a planet produces and specify the three resource rarities produced (C, R, E, or L).

SECTION 3B is where the Numerator (Num) is calculated. In the case of Base Rate planets, this is also where the Denominator (Den) used to calculate planet values in SECTIONS 4A thru 4C is determined.

For all current resources, the value is calculated as the square root of the current supply of that resource multiplied by the Resource Value input in Section 2. For all resource production, the value is calculated as the production of that resource multiplied by the Resource Value input in Section 2.

SECTION 3C is where a planet’s final valuation is calculated.

In the case of Base Planets, Num will always equal Den.

Mod (Modifier) is a multiplier used to adjust planet values. It serves no real purpose for Base Rate planets, but has been kept in as a variable.

SECTIONS 4A thru 4C: PLANET VALUATIONS

Planet Valuations is where values for actual planets are determined.

SECTION 4A is where planet specifics are input.

Users are required to input the planet rarity type, population (current and production), and for each resource (current, production, and rarity). Completing the Description information is optional. I used it to describe the statistics of a planet, but it could be used for whatever descriptive information is most useful.

SECTION 4B is where the Numerator (Num) is calculated. All calculations follow the same formulas as described above for Section 3B.

SECTION 4C is where a planet’s final valuation is calculated. A planet’s valuation is equal to (NUM/Planet Rarity DEN) x (Planet Rarity Value Base) x (Mod).

The Planet Valuation Calculator is only as good as the information put into it. All variables can significantly effect planet valuations. This is especially true of legendary planets and resources, due to there price and scarcity.

When completing the Base Rates for planet rarity types, I used a typical population, resource count, and production rate of a planet in the bottom eight planets of the marketplace. With the exception of legendary planets, I also assumed all three resources were the same as the planet rarity. (i.e, common = C-C-C; rare = R-R-R; epic = E-E-E.)

Legendary planets only had two options E-E-L or E-L-L. I ended up going with E-L-L, because using E-E-L as a Base Rate seemed to overprice the E-L-L legendary planets. The prices for the bottom eight legendary planets in the planet marketplace also skew higher than the other planet rarities. This is due to eight planets representing a much higher percentage of planets for sale. Using E-L-L as a Base Rate for legendary planets seems to offset the higher skew for the price of the bottom eight legendary planets.

The Value Base is also a key factor. Below are planet valuations for the 20 planets listed in Section 4A using four different methodologies to determine Value Base: 1) Current Market Price; 2) Current Relative Value; 3) Average of Current Market Price and Relative Value; and 4) Market Price (MP)|Relative Value (RV) weighted average based on the last five snapshot values, with greater weight given to market price and more recent values.

The MP|RV Weighted Average was calculated giving current Market Price (MP1) the most weight, and the oldest Relative Value (RV5) the least weight:

Applying the four methodologies to the 20 planets specified in Section 4A provided the following results:

Information and Communication

Being somewhat familiar with the 0xUniverse planets market, I was pleasantly surprised with the results of the Planet Value Calculator. It appears to provide reasonable valuations, as long as good information is put into it.

Some key points to consider when using the Planet Value Calculator are:

The 0xUniverse planet market is volatile. It is best to use up-to-date data, however, historic information should also be taken into consideration.
The parameters input into the PVC may be dependent on the reason for the valuations and the goals of all parties involved.
There may be circumstances where PVC parameters should be clearly stated in advance so that all parties are aware of the assumptions used.

We do not yet know all the details of the 0xUniverse Corporations expansion. Hopefully, players will be able to exchange planets directly for corporate shares. If this is possible, planet valuation parameters for such an exchange should be clearly stated.

For example, assume a corporation agrees to accept planets in exchange for corporate shares. Share holders agree to assign a premium value to Epic planets (+5%), and a lesser value to Legendary planets (-10%). The parameters set forth for players to exchange planets for shares could be as follows:

Conclusion

The potential for real economies to exist within the confines of cryptogames is an intriguing aspect of blockchain. It offers a paradigm shift in the distribution of entertainment value. 0xUniverse has a lot of potential, and I am excited to be part of this rocket ride to the unknown.

Links to both an MS Excel and Google Sheets version of the Planet Value Calculator are in the Related Links section below. I encourage players to check them out and tinker around with them.

I welcome any and all feedback and questions. Just PM or mention me in the 0xUniverse Discord server @Yostari#6273. A link to join the 0xUniverse Discord is also provided in Related Links.