Greetings, NFT enthusiasts! My guest today is Stefano – Founder of Vip Card Room.
Stefano is born in the US and learnt to play poker from his grandfather at a very young age. He grew up in different countries around the world. After obtaining his Master degree in Applied Science from the University of Cambridge, he first started his career as quant trader in an investment bank and has worked with renowned companies in London, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Singapore. But poker has always been Stefano’s love and passion– he has been a frequent feature at WSOP and EPT, playing high-stake tournaments and cash games and has made a name for himself.
Chris: VIP Cardroom has completed its presale on 31st March. What is the whole concept of the token?
Stefano: Yes, our presale on 31st of March received an overwhelming response. A total of 500 pieces NFTs were minted at an affordable price of 0.1ETH each and were sold out within 2 hours. We did this mainly to reward our early supporters and active community members. I am glad to see our floor price has been going up steadily to around 0.4 ETH now. Guess all our fans are excited about our game release and all the benefits associated with it.
Our NFT is the admission to the game. You need to have at least one NFT to enter the game. The NFT you own can also be used as your unique in-game avatar. In addition, we will also be providing staking mechanism along with the game launch. If a NFT holder has more than one NFT he/she can stake them and earn passive income. We do this to make sure all NFT holders share the profit of the game!
Chris: Essentially, all of the 10000 tokens released are tickets to the game. What is the idea of the gameplay?
Stefano: We are a crypto poker room so the game itself is our core and foundation. The preliminary launch date has been moved forward and the game is expected to go live as early as mid May! We will start firstly with MTT on Holdem and gradually add more games such as Omaha, Short Deck and Cash game.
The game token – V Dollars (V$) will be given to NFT holders before the game launch, with each NFT entitled to 500 USD worth of token. Holders with OG role in Discord will enjoy double rewards which means they are receiving 1,000 USD worth of V$. Here are some snapshots of our games. We are confident in creating a high-quality game in terms of graphics and functionality.
Chris: Also, please tell us more about your CCO framework that allows users to customize their tokens and promote them as they like. How do you think it will help in the gameplay or the token future?
Stefano: Adopting CCO framework means we contribute all our artwork to the public domain. Our NFT owners are free to use the original VCR collection to re-create and hold the full commercial rights without restrictions! We encourage our community to develop the brand jointly by promoting their own derivative artwork. This might not essentially help in the gameplay but it will definitely make a difference when it comes to fostering an open environment for our NFT holders to grow VCR culture in the space. We recently hosted a fan artwork contest and encouraged our community members to make his/her derivatives from our theme. And guess what, we are very surprised by what the community came up with because some of the artwork are really stunning. The top 3 artwork with the most votes will be listed under VCR official Opensea collection and all profits will go to the creators. We believe such contest perfectly incorporate the same ideals that CCO is meant to achieve.
Chris: The holders can also earn passive income through the VIP Cardroom tokens. What would be their earning methods and how will they receive the profits?
Stefano: Yes, this is a new concept that no other poker games has ever implemented. We try to combine the best elements of poker and Gamefi. Since the beginning of the project, we emphasize on creating a popular poker game that appeals to all with a profit-sharing structure. Therefore, we have reserved a big chunk of tokens as staking pool for mining. For holders with 2 or more NFTs, a minimum APR of 300% can be expected and the rarer NFT you own, the higher the return! In the future, we will also introduce other staking methods like LP staking etc. As for now, let’s keep things simple – even if you are not good at poker you can still earn very sizeable income by staking. The staking pool will be re-filled with the game profit which means staking rewards that NFT holders gain will increase as the size of the pool grows. Imagine that your NFT is a stock you invested in that pays good dividends in the long run.
Chris: In the end, what are your plans for the diversification of the VIP cardroom tokens? How will it enhance the entire experience of the token holders?
Stefano: In the future, we will be releasing limited edition NFTs under the current collection. The next series of 1,000 uniquely designed pieces are already under production. The only way of obtaining these gems is through our in-game lucky draw. One of the directions I would like to take the game on, is that we aim to produce an influential IP in the NFT space. Lots of brilliantly creative ideas continue to spill out of the community since the beginning. We enjoy seeing great potentials in our members by engaging with them. Our members really inspires us to think out of the box. All the creative works we or the community come up with will eventually go back to public domain to strengthen the sustainability of VCR brand.
Finally, to wrap up, I want to share that our fundraising progress is also well on track. We have reached private sale deals with 3 investors for 24% of our tokens and received around 6 million USD in funding. This has provided us with a solid liquidity pool for V.Dollars (V$). We have no plan in further private sale or ICO. A large proportion of our tokens will rather be reserved for NFT holders as rewards to stake and P2E. We believe it’s one of the most significant differentiations we have towards our competitors. Our latest roadmap is attached here for anyone that’s keen on joining us to take a close look!
Also, don’t forget to join our socials. It is the best way to stay informed on news and announcements.
Discord: https://discord.gg/vipcardroom
Website: https://vipcardroom.io/
