Tanks Update

A few people have privately messaged me recently with the same sets of questions over the last week. There is a concern about what has happened so I’d like to give some context to where we are and where we are going. For many people who are following Tanks — this is their first time following a crypto project, for others, this isn’t their first rodeo and they understand the crypto market cycle.

Market Update

Just over a week ago saw a significant event in crypto history. Terra (UST) lost its peg, Luna crashed and billions of dollars of capital were wiped out. A few Tanks investors I’ve spoken with have lost significant amounts of capital in what was supposed to be a stable token and healthy ecosystem.

Bitcoin and Ethereum have continued their descent since hitting highs in December, heading below 30k and 2k USD respectively. A potential rally in late March never materialized into a rebound and many commentators say that we’ve entered a bear or bear-like market. Add in global macroeconomic issues around lockdowns, inflation, war, and rising interest rates and the position of risky assets such as crypto are even more precarious.

Small marketcap projects (such as Tanks) fare worse in these conditions, however, exceptions do exist. Some of our fellow small-cap gaming partners are suffering similar fates. We’ve spoken to them and their stories are the same, no matter what they do (new features, marketing, etc), engagement has dropped, their communities are dispirited and prices continue to slide.

Team Update

As we had anticipated eventually happening, COVID ended up affecting the team and has set back our initial development plans by over a week. There is still a risk of other team members being affected, and we need to be mindful of this as we progress. Nevertheless, we are getting close to kicking off testing of Season Two and we are hoping this can begin around the start of June.

While functional parts of the game are near completion, we are behind when it comes to having a holistic and coherent art style through all parts of our product. As our main artist is no longer with the team, we’re still on the hunt for artists to join our team. We are currently in the process of trialing a few people at the moment.

It is with sadness that we have to say goodbye to Anurag (aka Harsh). He has been a member of our team who has been with us since the early days of the project. Harsh has provided us with market research, pitched in with community development efforts on Telegram, and spearheaded discussions that lead to some of our partnerships. Harsh’s work was instrumental in creating what became our Play-to-earn strategy. At the start of June, Harsh begins a full-time position with Star Atlas, providing them with economic analysis and strategy for their ecosystem. We thank Harsh for his hard work over this period and wish him all the best in his new position!

Minting Update

Last week we discussed the minting plan with our partner and realized that our decision to move our token and ecosystem to BSC-only has led to a few unexpected roadblocks. We’ll be working with them to ensure that mint can proceed, however, there may need to be some compromises to make everything happen. More updates will follow in the next few weeks as we finalize the plan.

Under this backdrop, we’ve decided to delay the Play-to-earn mint until at least late last June or early July. Based on a recent market study we performed, the current market conditions are not conducive to going to market prematurely on hype alone. Our focus remains on delivering a solid product — this is the important lesson we have taken away from Season One.

Final thoughts

As a team, we haven’t given up! We are still committed to delivering Season Two and making Tanks successful however we are under no illusions — the journey will be difficult.

We know there are still opportunities to find success even in a bear market. We also have to be realistic — the core team cannot continue development unpaid indefinitely and development will slow should we need to transition to supporting the game only on a part-time basis. We have to be smart with how we deploy our dwindling assets and time.