As always, remember: Never invest money you can't afford to lose.
As I hinted that I might in my last column, I decided to take a serious look at the blockchain game R-Planet.
To do it right, I needed wax currency. That in itself is an adventure, buying ethereum with fiat ($200 USD in my case) on Coinbase and then swapping the ethereum for wax via the ChangeNow link in my wax.io wallet.
https://wallet.wax.io/
You can also swap bitcoin for wax, which is what I've done before. But I wanted to see if buying wax with ethereum would be a different process.
I found it was essentially the same.
Please note that you can play R-Planet without spending any money, crypto or otherwise, notably by earning aether via NFT (non-fungible token) staking.
That's the process that interests me the most, the ability to earn NFTs in other crypto-based games/apps and stake them in R-Planet.
There is a staking calculator available which has been very helpful as far as determining NFT value goes. It takes the guesswork out of the process. And remember that not every NFT out there can be staked.
By staking eligible NFTs you can earn aether, the in-game currency in R-Planet. The earned aether can be used to buy one of four basic elements: earth, air, water, and fire. They cost 10,000 ae per unit.
The idea is that players will try to discover new elements with the ingredients they've earned. So they don't actually provide you with a recipe book in the game, which is decidedly inconvenient.
You'll want to bookmark this link, which has not only known recipes but also the quantity of each newly-discovered ingredient in R-Planet:
https://rplanet-tools.vercel.app/generator/
The first 600 times a new ingredient is created, the player receives both the in-game element and a matching NFT that can be staked or sold.
As of this writing, the most expensive known element in R-Planet is Ring at 1.87M ae (1,877,000 aether) needed to buy the base ingredients.
But the NFT payoff is huge. Staking an R-Planet Ring NFT back into the game provides you with a staggering 233.8 ae/hour.
As crypto enthusiasts (gaming or otherwise) have begun to learn about R-Planet and the staking possibilities and then sampled the game, the market for the short-term has been flooded with aether. You can swap aether for wax via the Alcor Exchange, and plenty of new players have done that.
But as more ingredients pass the 600 creation threshold for NFTs (with a firm cap of 600 NFTs per ingredient), the amount needed to earn NFTs via an R-Planet recipe is simultaneously becoming increasingly expensive. That cost increase is likely going to drive up the price of aether, or at least that's my anticipation.
My initial focus was on the element Dark Glass. When I began, that seemed like a good target at 280,000 aether. It was moving perilously close to the 600 NFT cut-off, but I thought I had time to buy the base elements and follow the recipes to make it in time.
I kept an eye on the X/600 counter for Dark Glass as I double-checked recipes I needed to get the ingredients to actually make the Dark Glass NFT.
Unfortunately for me, the quickly dwindling supply cleared out before I could finish the process.
Annoyed, I doubled-back and instead opted to create a Cabbage NFT, which at 190K ae was by far the most affordable element with NFTs remaining on the list.
It wasn't all that much later in the evening that the Cabbage NFTs sold out as well.
From the aborted Dark Glass NFT chase, I ended up with two units of Obsidian. It was rather frustrating in the moment as there is no known recipe yet involving Obsidian for anything else.
If I were to figure out a formula that would reveal a brand new element, I would receive that fungible element in-game, along with a pack that I could turn into the #1 mint NFT of the element *and* a special NFT designating me as the inventor.
However, there is risk involved. If the recipe fails, you lose the ingredients and get nothing. And two units of Obsidian combined are equivalent to 260K ae worth of basic elements.
Fortunately, the recipe book webpage allows you to test out recipe variables to see if anyone has tried them out yet. But because Obsidian is a rather obscure category that I consider higher-risk for failure, I've opted for now to try selling it at the Simple Market.
59.99 wax has me as the low price on the board for now with one of my Obsidian units. I've never purchased or sold fungibles this way before, but it appears rather straightforward.
Despite landing the Cabbage NFT, I needed more than a consolation prize to truly experience the process. So I spent some of the wax currency that I mentioned earlier, buying 600,000 aether at Alcor with 41.4 wax.
My goal was the Storm NFT, a chase which was going to cost me 730K ae for the ingredients. And this time I made it.
The process itself is rather cumbersome, a multi-step approach that you can't rush through lest you botch a recipe and squander tens of thousands of aether. The game won't do the in-between steps for you.
Trying to do that in the blind would be maddening, but that's why I linked to the recipe book earlier.
There are two places I know of where you can buy/sell R-Planet NFTs, and that's the Simple Market and the Atomic Asset Marketplace. Some other sites (notably NFT Hive) have the same listings you can find on AtomicHub.
Ironically, right as I prepared to list my newly-earned Storm NFT on the Atomic Asset Marketplace, I discovered a remarkable deal. Another player was selling a Storm NFT for just 18 wax.
So I made a quick purchase, staked it, and then put my newly-obtained NFT Storm on the market. My hope is that it will sell for near 100 wax, though other Storm NFTs have shown up on the board in the interim.
But patience is a virtue that is especially valuable in blockchain gaming. And now I'm all set, at this point above the 4,000 ae/hr mark with the NFT staking.
My plan now is to let the aether start stacking up while I keep a sharp eye on the market. Cycle through the top known elements and see if there's a bargain to be had.
You may not land anything like the Electricity NFT I snagged for 27 wax earlier today, but you might find something even better. And that also is part of the fun.
SEE ALSO:
The Beginner's Guide to R-Planet (CozyCrypto)
Stake Your NFTs to Earn Crypto with R-Planet (CryptoStache)
R-Planet Staking Strategy and Kolobok
Alien Worlds and Aggressive R-Planet Staking
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