The price of Wolf Game has skyrocketed dozens of times in two days. Is it innovation or a bubble?

Author: 0x13, Rhythm BlockBeats

This weekend, Wolf Game became the focus of the NFT community. As of the time of writing, the floor price on OpenSea is 4 ETH, which is 58 times the initial sale price of 0.069 ETH, with a total trading volume in the secondary market reaching 11,900 ETH, approximately 50 million USD.

Famous NFT collector Beanie has posted and retweeted 69 tweets since November 19, 61 of which praise Wolf Game, and he even held a special live stream for it. Prior to this, Beanie expressed his dislike for Doodles, and the last project he promoted as frequently was his own PUNKS Comic.

What exactly attracted Beanie and many other NFT players to join Wolf Game? Let's first take a look at its unique gameplay.

Staking + Game Theory

The initial sale price of Wolf Game was about 0.069 ETH, with a 10% chance of getting a wolf and a 90% chance of getting a sheep. Ultimately, out of the 10,000 NFTs initially sold, 8,903 sheep and 1,097 wolves were hatched.

Then comes the recently common gameplay: staking + breeding. A sheep can produce 10,000 wool tokens (WOOL) per day, which can be sold directly or used to breed the next generation.

The introduction of the "villain" role of the wolf complicates this simple mechanism.

Firstly, wolves can also stake, and every time a sheep holder claims WOOL, they must give 20% of their earnings to the wolves. After accumulating 20,000 WOOL tokens, a sheep can unstake, but when unstaking, there is a 50% chance that the wolf will steal all the WOOL from the sheep. The next generation of NFTs bred still has a 10% chance of being a wolf and a 90% chance of being a sheep, but the newly born NFTs will have a 10% chance of being stolen by wolves.

Thus, a simple staking mechanism becomes more game-theoretic: should one choose stable income of 80%, or take the risk for a chance at 100% WOOL? Should one breed the next generation for a chance at greater rewards, or stay away from mechanisms that might waste WOOL? Each participant will choose different answers based on their personality and views on the project, making Wolf Game quite engaging.

Based on the current WOOL token price, purchasing a sheep for staking yields about 1,800 USD per day, allowing for a return on investment in about 10 days, and this is without selling the NFT.

This is the gameplay of Wolf Game's first phase. Currently, the second phase has officially started.

On November 22, Wolf Game announced the gameplay for the second phase on Twitter. Wolf Game has released 20,000 plots of land, with 10,000 given to players holding the initial 10,000 NFTs, and the other 10,000 available for public sale. They also introduced the "farmer" role, which requires players to spend WOOL tokens to purchase.

It is said that each plot of land is random, with different sizes, resources, and attributes, and each farmer has different abilities. The specific gameplay for land and farmers has not yet been announced, but Wolf Game's official website mentioned "Cultivate Assets," stating that WOOL is a valuable resource for the ecosystem and will be used to plan the future of the game. It is clear that Wolf Game's future plans will continue to revolve around the WOOL token.

Potential Risks of Wolf Game

Indeed, high returns, fresh gameplay, and the rapid advancement of subsequent gameplay have led to FOMO, with people madly joining this game while continuously recommending it to others. Beanie even regards Wolf Game as a "textbook" for the design of Play to Earn game economies, frequently retweeting cases of users earning tens of times their investment through Wolf Game, aiming to attract more participants.

Although many people praise Wolf Game, we still need to do our research before deciding to enter and ask ourselves: Does Wolf Game really have no risks?

Setting aside technical issues like contracts, let's first analyze the WOOL token.

It must be acknowledged that among the many factors such as wealth effect and fresh gameplay, the majority of players are drawn by the "wealth effect," which relies on the WOOL token. The price of WOOL token surged tenfold in two days, and as the token price skyrocketed, many who couldn't buy NFTs began purchasing WOOL to mint NFTs, hoping to start earning WOOL tokens quickly, which further drove up the price of WOOL.

Currently, Wolf Game is still in a "honeymoon period" where both WOOL token and NFT prices are rising. However, if a large holder sells WOOL, causing a price drop that triggers panic, or if prices continue to rise to a point where new players can no longer afford the entry fee, user growth may hit a bottleneck, and Wolf Game could enter a "death spiral." If that moment truly arrives, the weakness of NFT illiquidity will be exposed, and being unable to sell NFTs will cause greater losses for holders. Moreover, this issue with the WOOL token remains unresolved in the announced second phase gameplay.

As investors, we need to carefully consider the risks of joining Wolf Game at this time and participate rationally.

However, the future development of Wolf Game is worth looking forward to. On November 22, a user discovered a vulnerability in the Wolf Game contract and promptly disclosed it. The project team responded immediately with a solution, prioritizing the vulnerability fix. This shows that the project team is proactive and serious, and the rapid announcement of the second phase gameplay indicates that they have a clear and comprehensive plan for the future.

The official also refers to WOOL as a "governance token" and "utility token." We can look forward to the project team continuously empowering the token, giving it real value support, which will help Wolf Game transition from speculation driven by the wealth effect to a more stable development path.

For ordinary participants and investors, it is essential to conduct thorough research on any new project, DYOR—do your own research and analyze whether the current hype and price surge are based on real value support or merely speculation, and whether future sustainable development is feasible or just a fleeting trend. Reject participation in bubble speculation and strive to be a value investor.