Impossible Finance Research Report #24 — Earn Alliance

Daniel 24 Sep 2024

Context

With a rapidly growing Global Advertising Market that is expected to surpass $130B by 2025 and Ads spending hitting 150M this year, Game Developing and Publishing companies are spending big money to for users acquisition.

Web 3 Gaming has seen an explosive growth the first half of 2024 with both impressive traction of household names like Ronin hitting record numbers in Monthly Active User and new gaming ecosystems are thriving op top of vibrant ecosystem like Arbitrum and Solana with introduction of XAI and recently SonicSVM.

Q3 2024 witnessed a record breaking quarter for Web 3 gaming in general and TG Miniapps in particular with games like Hamster Kombat hitting 300 millions users - which is unheard of in Web 3.

Earn Alliance is the gateway to present these users other parts of Web 3 starting with Gaming, not limited to any ecosystem, any geography or any demographic. Platforms like Earn Alliance are primed to capture value from Game Developers/Publishers who are eager to acquire the next Billion users and Gamers who are looking for the the next Web 3 Unicorn.

Mission / Vision

Understanding the Web3 Game Space: Key Challenges

Web3 gaming has opened up a world of new opportunities for players, developers, and stakeholders alike. But like any evolving landscape, it comes with a unique set of challenges:

Discovering Good Games: In a noisy world, it’s difficult for players to discover and identify web3 games that are truly fun, engaging and worth their time. With a dizzying number of options, it becomes near impossible to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Projects Without Governance: Game studios – and blockchain tech in general – have acquired massive amounts of capital without a governing board in place. This is especially the case with self-funded projects via NFT sales before showcasing any output. This has led to quick-profit projects, which have become off-putting for genuine enthusiasts and made it difficult to find great leaders in the space.
Understanding Game NFT Ownership: Users find it hard to track and understand personal NFT holdings. Despite the popularity and engineering behind crypto wallets, no one can easily understand what’s in the wallet! Understanding and yielding digital collectibles through learning with friends, communities, and online influencers is missing.
Web3 Game Developers Need Strategic User Targeting: The vastness of the web3 game space can make it hard for developers to differentiate between NFT enthusiasts and true gamers, making targeted engagement a challenge. The next generation of games requires power users to genuinely stimulate web3 game economies. Competitive earning loops for gamers need to be made dead simple.
Today’s Marketplaces Prioritize Profits Over Games: Marketplaces and aggregators have dipped their toes in game markets, but do not keep up due to the fragmentation of web3 games across hundreds of blockchains.

By highlighting these challenges, Earn Alliance emphasizing the pressing need for solutions that can enhance the overall experience in the web3 game space. Addressing these pain points will not only benefit gamers and developers but will also ensure a robust and sustainable future for the industry.

Value Proposition

Earn Alliance is uniquely positioned in the intersection between Gamers, Developers and Publishers, Offering a one-stop product for these stakeholders to capture value:

Gamers discover games, opportunity to have fun and earn
Developers study user behavior, using that data for advertising, improve their game and use Earn Alliance Platform as a powerful user acquisition tool
Gamer Publishers to tap into the market of Web 2 and Web 3 gamers

Earn Alliance’s value proposition is as follows:

A Thriving Community: Earn Alliance isn't just a platform; it's a community. Offering a trusted space for all users to learn, share, and build meaningful connections within the web3 gaming ecosystem.
All Things Gaming Under One Roof: Users have a holistic directory at their fingertips. Stay updated with the latest news, explore a vast game directory, access game NFTs, and dive into game profiles to uncover gamers' interests and accomplishments.
A Platform for Game Developers: Game developers take the center stage! With features like game quests, daily challenges, unique badges, providing an unmatched stage to captivate and engage Developer’s desired gaming audience.
Empowering Gamers & Game Studios Alike: Using a bottom-up approach, Earn Alliance foster synergy among gamers to elevate game studios. This is achieved through supporting content, gamified events, and voting mechanisms, all aimed at enhancing the visibility of high-quality projects in the industry.
Seamless Integration of Chains and Wallets: With Earn Alliance, gamers can unify chains and wallets, curating an easily navigable profile that proudly displays game NFT ownership across multiple chains and wallets. Not to mention, all User’s web2 and web3 game experience can be inside the platform.
Mobile-first Experience: Earn Alliance offers an intuitive mobile experience, eliminating the immediate need to grapple with gas payments or the complexities of onboarding new chains, making it easy to claim Web 3 asset even if gamers are on the go.

Highlights

Milestones:

In December 2022, Earn Alliance's OG community gained access to the locked Private Alpha of the platform. 75,000+ users minted the Badge to access the site, which went live in April 2023.
In August 2023, the platform surpassed 100,000 monthly active users.
In September 2023, Earn Alliance announced 16 games in a Mint Marathon event across Polygon, Binance and Immutable.
In March 2024, 150,000+ users were rewarded for their gaming history with 150M ALLY tokens.
In May 2024, Earn Alliance surpassed 500K verified (and bot-filtered) users!
In Aug 2024, Earn Alliance launched the Ally Pass – Earn Alliance’s battle pass – for users to discover and engage with games in a fun, rewarding way.

Traction:

Raised 7M USD raised to date.
500K anti-bot verified gamers and web3 enthusiasts amassing over 1 billion hours of gameplay history and 3 million purchased games tracked across Steam, Epic Games, and the only platform supporting Google Play Game history tracking.
With over 3,500+ web3 games aggregated - the “Wall”, an aggregated social feed, gets over 60M impressions and 900M events per month.
Earn Alliance has launched more game NFT mints than Magic Eden and Open Sea combined, totaling 200+ in the last 15 months with games such as Gods Unchained, Big Time, Mighty Action Heroes, Apeiron, and more.
Over 450,000+ wallets have minted over 1.5 million NFTs across Polygon, Base, BNB and Immutable chains
Averaging 50K DAUs and 175K MAUs in the last 4 months with a 52% D30+ retention for users who discover the gamified features within the platform
Jeff Drobick - Founder of Tapjoy who invented and built 1.6B MAU web2 questing network join the team as COO.

What is next

Partnership with OKX wallet / exchange and Web2 offer wall partners expanding quest and mission campaigns to 25 MILLION DAILY ACTIVE web2 gamers and 1 MILLION DAILY ACTIVE web3 wallets Q3 2024.
Annoucing Accelerator Program with Tier 1 Esports team to back games by pushing merch strategy, web2 esports pros, web3 enthusiast, web2 gamers and web3 go-to-market tools for games Q2 2024
Season 2 Airdrop + TGE includes Blizzard, Playstation, Xbox and first to support Riot Games gamer history in exchange for airdrops.
Launching Telegram Miniapp Tap Tap staking and reward game App.
Launching Battle Pass Play to Airdrop Tools for Web3 games Q3 2024.

Product Overview

Earn Alliance product line is versatile with general Web 3 Discovery product to dedicated tailored campaign service for Web 3 Game studios.

Web 3 discovery products:

Games Directory - 2600+ web3 games and content discoverable
The Wall - 3700+ web3 game social, discord, twitter spaces and more aggregated into a single feed

Two-side marketplace for quest:

Quests & Mints - Largest web3 game NFT launchpad in terms of users with 500K+ NFTs and digital collectibles available to be claimed for supporting web3 games.
Challenges - Difficult tasks with high rewards across various games to entice gamers to play web3 games daily.

Battlepass for Web 3 enthusiasts:

Ally Pass - Gamified play to airdrop technology with real time on chain and digita rewards.
Game Pass - White-labeled battle pass as a service to run play to airdrop campaigns in a fun, gamified fashion.

Complimentary Web 3 products catering user’s need:

Marketplace - largest web3 game NFT marketplace aggregator, uniting Ronin, Arb, Avax, BNB, Polygon, and many other game NFT marketplaces into a single app.
Engagement Network Portal: Self-service portal to launch engagement campaigns (quests) via credit card or crypto to 25 million DAU gamers and 1M+ web3 enthusiasts/crypto wallets.
Digital Asset Exchange - an aggregator of on-chain tokens, digital currencies, and collectibles allowing investors to resell digital currencies and gamers to buy discounted game content.

ALLY Token Utility

ALLY token use cases:

Secure your favorite NFT Launches for your favorite games, taking your gaming journey to new heights, by buying whitelist early access with ALLY tokens.
Compete in-game challenges by spending ALLY token to enter and win rewards.
Purchase an XP Booster to get a 1.5x XP multiplier and progress faster in the Ally Pass

How to Earn ALLY:

Use gold to unlock Daily Chest and Legendary Chests that contain ALLY tokens and other valuable rewards by scrolling The Wall.
Progress your Ally Pass and buy the Premium Pass for a guaranteed ALLY.
Buy into a game challenge with ALLY token. Win before your time runs out and earn more tokens!
Refer friends to join the Earn Alliance during time-sensitive recruitment events.

Token Reward Economy

The token reward economy is being carefully crafted to become sustainable. Initially, users on the platform will be rewarded through the Platform Incentives pool. Earn Alliance will initially develop a dynamic purchase strategy where game advertisers will spend fiat or crypto which will be processed to automatically buy ALLY tokens from liquidity providers and use a portion of the tokens purchased as rewards for completing a mission on Earn Alliance.

Below is an example (percentages are subject to change) of 30% of the purchase from Game Advertisers being used as a reward for a Gamer. 8% is used for the cost to run the Earn Alliance platform (COGS), 3% of the ALLY reward is stored in the company treasury, and 70% is kept as revenue.

Team

Joseph Cooper - Founder

Serial game entrepreneur built 4 businesses with 2 exits to Pokerstars and Jack Dorsey’s CashApp. Started as an engineer and turned product, shipped 15+ games with over 200M downloads. Started trading crypto in 2012.

Jeff Drobick - COO

Previous CEO/CPO of Tapjoy, the company that invented the largest web2 game questing network with 1.6 billion monthly active gamers which sold to Ironsource for 400M USD which led to the merger with Unity Technology for 4.4B USD. After the sale, Jeff worked as an executive at Unity and previously led product teams at eBay.

Kimberly Knoller - CMO

Previously helped build and sold Pixelynx, one of the first music metaverse gaming experiences after founding her own music company, The Knoller Group, which founded Echosmith’s multi-platinum hit “Cool Kids”. She worked at Warner Records and helped build brands for My Chemical Romance, Green Day, and Metallica.

Benjamin Chen - CRO

Ben worked with Jeff at Tapjoy and previously was the executive of game publishing and managed the 1.6B MAU game network for Unity’s ad network driving 2B USD in revenue in 2023.

Halley Capo - Head of Community and Support

Previously Blizzard, Rockstar Games, and Pixelynx, Halley has worked with and built some of the best game communities in the world and is poised to do the same here at Earn Alliance.

Till Aschwanden - Head of Design

A renowned artist previously working at Blizzard Entertainment and founded indie game studio, Awfully Nice, and previously built games with Coop at Junglee Games.

Graeme Griffin - Head of Games

Leading tokenomics and gamification economy designer. Previously worked at Zynga, Ubisoft, and VGW with over 25+ years of experience in game design. At VGW, Graeme led teams that designed game economies that generated 3B USD per year.

Diana Choo - Head of Business Development and Partnerships

Previously a director at Coinstore, EMERGE Group, Paktor, and leading sales teams up to 20+.

Tiffany Chan - Head of Product

Founding member at Earn Alliance and serial entrepreneur previously founding an e-commerce store.

Market

Gaming is well understood to be the largest entertainment category globally. Across all categories of global spending, gaming constitutes a $317 billion industry.

Mobile Games industry alone represent an industry with over $90B market, where main monetization venues include in-app-purchases and advertising.

Source: Bitkraft https://www.bitkraft.vc/gaming-industry-market-size/

Determining the best user acquisition (UA) channels for mobile games in terms of revenue involves a multifaceted analysis of various advertising platforms, targeting capabilities and also performance metrics.

According to industry experts and data analysis, several UA channels consistently emerge as top performers for driving revenue in the mobile gaming sector. Mobile games revenue is projected to increase by 4% YoY in this year, reaching $111 billion.

Concurrently, in-app advertising (IAA) has become increasingly prevalent, with developers leveraging targeted ads, sponsored content and rewarded videos to generate revenue; experts predict that In-app advertisements alone will hit $177 billion in 2024.

Competitive Advantage:

Unique Technology to update real-time Steam and Epic Games account integration, allowing users to share their Gaming Data in real time with just one sign up.
Proven track record of Founder Market Fit: With over $5B dollars in companies value in previous businesses, the executive team at Earn Alliance has proven to be stellar in growing their companies.
Sustainable business model and expected positive cashflow: With recent launch of Ally Pass and other products, Earn Alliance have returned over $500k in revenue year to date, expecting positive burn rate (profitable) in Q4 2024.
Anti-bot traction: With proper method in anti-botting and sybils prevention, Earn Alliance has developed a 500K strong community of gamers and developers.

Token Distribution & Funding

Investors: Earn Alliance is backed by CoinFund, Fabric Ventures, Animoca Brands, Stake Capital, Blockchain Coinvestors, Polygon, GameFi Ventures, Athena Ventures, HGR Digital Asset Group and many more.

Holder	Vesting	Ownership
Seed Investor	3 years. 4-month cliff. Monthly vesting thereafter.	17.49%
Strategic Investor	3 years. 4-month cliff. Monthly vesting thereafter.	5.01%
KOL	10% TGE, 1-month cliff. Monthly vesting thereafter.	1%
Public round with Impossible Finance	3 months. 25% TGE. Monthly vesting there after	3%
Team	3 years. 12-month cliff. Monthly vesting thereafter.	20%
Product Incentives	1-month lock, 24 month vesting thereafter.	29%
Early Supporter Reward	100% TGE	3%
Marketing	6-month lock, 24 month vesting thereafter	5%
Ecosystem/Reserve	10% TGE, 6-month lock, 12 month vesting thereafter	10%
Advisor	12-month lock, 24 month vesting thereafter	1.5%
Liquidity	50% TGE, the rest will be unlocked at the discretion of the team	5%
Total		100%

ALLY’s Community Round:

Hosted at Impossible Launchpad
Valuation: 35M FDV without taking into account different promotions campaigns offering bonuses
Vesting: 25% TGE + 3m vesting.

Investment Thesis

As a part of our thesis of Gaming will be one of the primary avenue for Crypto Mass Adoption, we believe it is essential to create a bridge between Gamers, Developers and Publishers.

ALLY is uniquely positioned to capitalize on solving the main painpoints of Game Developers and Publishers in user acquisition and at the same time offer users a trusted avenue to discover, play and earn within Web 3.

With a team of seasonal veterans who have experience building products and executing tremendous growth to 1.6 Billions Monthly Active Users in the same vertical in Web 2, we believe Earn Alliance can serve the ever-demanding audience of Web 3.

With impressive tractions on Registered Users, Number of Games Integrated and exciting Partnership around the corner with both Web 2 and Web 3 companies, Earn Alliance is strongly demonstrating their Product Market Fit.

Earn Alliance’s strong leadership and experience, their proving Product Market Fit with impressive traction further solidify Earn Alliance’s ability to capture the $130B Mobile Ads Market.

Earn Alliance's Links

Key Risks

The key risks identified for ecosystem participants on ALLY are smart contract risks on their main building blocks and the dependency on messaging/bridging infrastructure to enable interoperability among different blockchains.

ALLY also allows the creation of non-custodial wallets, for which the users are entirely responsible of storing the login information.

Featuring of ALLY

About Impossible Finance

Impossible Finance is the go-to crypto investment platform that empowers you with high-quality, fair and accessible crypto opportunities. We simplify DeFi so you can enjoy fairer investing, cheaper trading and better yields through our accelerator, launchpad, and swap platform.

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Disclaimers

Composed and presented by Impossible Finance Research Team based on information provided by Earns Alliance’s team.

Notes: DISCLAIMERS, TERMS, and RISKS
Risk Warning: Trading and/or generally investing in any cryptocurrency involve significant risks and can result in the complete loss of your capital. You should not invest more than you can afford to lose and you should ensure that you fully understand the risks involved. Before investing, please consider your level of experience, objectives, and risk tolerance, and seek independent financial and legal advice if necessary. It is your responsibility to ascertain whether you are permitted to use the services of Impossible Finance based on the legal and regulatory requirements of your country of residence and/or applicable jurisdiction(s).
The information provided on this memo does not constitute investment advice, financial advice, trading advice, or any other sort of advice and you should not treat any of the website's content as such. Impossible Finance does not recommend that any cryptocurrency should be bought, sold, or held by you. Do conduct your own due diligence and consult your financial advisor before making any investment decisions.
The details provided in this document are summarized from materials provided in due diligence from Earn Alliance's team to Impossible Finance