Welcome to the second official newsletter from the Merit Circle. Let’s start off by wishing every single one reading this a very happy new year!
The last time we sent a newsletter was right after the closure of our seed round raising $4.5 million. Ever since we raised $105 million for Merit Circle, launched our staking module, invested in tons of games and even got listed on Binance and Gemini.
Through the hectic times we have tremendously grown as a DAO and a community. We want to take a moment to look back and share what’s ahead of us!
Balancer Liquidity Bootstrapping Sale
On the second, third, fourth and fifth of November, we held our Balancer Liquidity Bootstrapping Pool (BLBP) on Copperlaunch. Prior to the opening of the public sale, the team got together in Lisbon where we all made our estimates and guesses on what we would raise. We can tell, not a single person in the room that day got close to what we ended up raising.
The Balancer sale had broken all previous records, raising an incredible $105,576,956 million over the course of 72 hours. We achieved everything we wanted; a fair and equal distribution of the token and a largely filled treasury to start our investing journey off the right way.
Having exceeded all of our expectations, we suddenly unlocked way more opportunities than we could have ever imagined. Immediately after we started to notice all of the current, and upcoming Play-to-Earn games coming our way.
Locking up the circulating MC tokens
With the creation of the token, the finalizing of the public round, the Merit Circle token has officially been brought to life. To bring direct utility to the token, we launched our staking pools straight after we concluded our sale.
As part of our token economics, 10% of the total supply has been allocated towards staking rewards that are distributed in the first year. This is done across two pools;
MC → Single-sided staking pool. This pool will receive 20% of the liquidity mining rewards
MC/ETH LP → Liquidity position of 50% MC and 50% ETH. This pool will receive 80% of the liquidity mining rewards
To say that the interest for the staking pools was there is an understatement. Within the first couple of days, more than half of the circulating supply got locked up in both pools. Some numbers;
While this had all been happening we continued our conversations with a wide range of interesting Play-to-Earn games. However, before we could take next steps it was important to pass the formalities of being a DAO first.
Launching the DAO Governance
With investment opportunities surrounding us, and an idle treasury holding more than $100 million, we had to make sure we launched the governance side of the DAO. Any governance method is impossible without a place for discussion, and a place where token holders can vote.
Discussion
The first step of any proposal is the discussion. Anyone should be able to voice their opinion on a proposal to ensure it’s well thought out and constructive before it will be voted on. To stimulate the discussion occurring in a constructive manner, we have created a governance forum.
Voting
After at least two days of discussion, the author of the proposal can create a proposal on Snapshot. All of the current outstanding proposals and earlier passed proposals, can be viewed here.
We were humbled to see that the first proposals received a large amount of attention, feedback and constructive criticism by the community. Based on all of this, we adjusted the proposals to eventually move forward with the voting process.
Newly formed partnerships
We are constantly looking for new potential investments and partnerships to broaden our operations. Since our latest newsletter, we formed a strong set of partnerships that we’re more than delighted to share with you:
Treasury report
To properly show what we have been doing in terms of handling our treasury and the funds raised, we are more than happy to present the first version of the treasury report. In this report, we would like to take a moment to show an exact overview of our current financial status.
We share a breakdown of the current Merit Circle ecosystem treasury including any outstanding investments. This first version is based on the status of the treasury on the 30th of November. We will release a treasury report each month based on the numbers of the previous month.
We are hard at work on the latest treasury report, expect this one to arrive in a few days from now.
Focus on the road ahead
We are excited for the future of Merit Circle, and we are glad to be sharing this future with our beloved community. As we commence a new year, we will be sharing a thorough breakdown of our plans for the upcoming year. Now, for the short term, there are some items we would like to share with you.
Platform
In collaboration with Dept Agency we are building an industry-leading platform that will allow us to scale like never before. This platform will house our gaming operations and distinguish ourselves from any competitor. Read all about it in this announcement, on top of that, we have onboarded Omar Ramirez as our Product Owner leading the development of this platform.
Scaling our scholarship program
With the release of multiple games we are excited to prepare everything we can to scale our scholarship operations. The creation of the platform will however significantly increase our scaling power, and therefore we see 2022 as the year where we can achieve the numbers of scholars across the globe we envisioned from the very beginning.
A bright future
Again, thank you for supporting us from the very beginning. We are looking forward to the days, weeks, months and years ahead of us. It’s going to be an exciting ride and it’s great knowing we have such a strong community in the backseat.
Together, we’re building the metaverse!
Our next newsletter will be sent early March.
This content is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be relied upon as legal, business, investment, financial or tax advice. You should consult your own advisers as to those matters. References to any digital assets and the use of finance-related terminology are for illustrative purposes only, and do not constitute any recommendation for any action or an offer to provide investment, financial or other advisory services. This content may not under any circumstances be relied upon when making a decision to purchase any digital asset referenced herein. There can be no assurance that the investments mentioned herein will be profitable. The digital assets referenced in this report currently face an uncertain regulatory landscape in several jurisdictions. The legal and regulatory risks inherent in referenced digital assets are not the subject of this content. The content speaks only as of the date indicated.