A few weeks ago I decided to buy into the games token ILV for the price of $700 and stake it into one of their core pools. I wrote this article explaining the game and what we can expect in the coming months.
I figured that it would be a good time to double back and let you know how things are going with this investment.
This is all still a speculative / defi position to be in at the moment. There is no gameplay as of yet. Yesterday, their was a trailer released which showed actual gameplay footage. you can see that linked below.
From the looks of it, it looks like it is going to be a very cool game. One that will compete with the big games out there today. The big difference is that this one will pay you outright. No need to twitch or sell in-game assets through classified ads. Blockchain gaming is a real game-changer! (pun intended).
Since purchasing the token, I have seen some pretty good gains in the valuation of the ILV token. I purchased it for $700, after waiting for a dip in price that never came. I was watching it from sub $500. The ILV token is currently valued at over $1000. The trailer I linked above was released this weekend and could be a reason for the most recent pump in price.
This is a token that will play a role in governance moving forward and can also be used in game.
I have been staking my ILV on the illuvium website in the sushi swap core pool. It is a 50/50 pool pairing ILV with ETH. In order to get rewarded by the game, you must purchase LP tokens from sushiswap and then stake deposit them on the game's website.
In order to get things staked, it cost somewhere in the ballpark of $300 in gas. That being said, if you plan on staking ILV, it is not worth staking small amounts unless you plan on staking for the long haul.
In the 17 days of staking $4800 worth of LP tokens, I have farmed $542 worth of ILV! That seems to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 242% APR if this trend continues. I kept my stake flexible, meaning I can take it out at anytime. If you lock it up for a full year, the APR will double. That could be an option if you see yourself going hard on Illuvium. I wanted to farm a good chunk while still being able to make moves if things start to escalate in the crypto-sphere. Which they could at any time.
You cannot take your ILV to market for 12 months. You can claim the ILV as sILV as use it in game. So, this kind of APR is not really up for grabs to all of the DeFi apes. This kind of APR is on the table for anyone who plans on hunting for monsters when the game goes live. The more money you have in the game, the more you can spend on supplies and travel to catch all of the rare and soon to be expensive monsters.
Don't ape into this lucrative APR without planning on playing the game. If you want to capitalize on some great APR's, there are lots of great options that you can find quite readily on all sorts of Defi platforms. Cub finance can earn you as much as 216% at the time of writing.
If you plan on playing the game, this is a great way to farm some in game currency and get a leg up on the competition when the game goes live. I think the scope and magnitude of this project paired with the success of projects that go live on the Ethereum blockchain is a recipe for success. Combine that with the fact that pokemon has been very successful and this game has some similar elements to pokemon, this game should likely do very well.
