The Crab Report (Apr 23rd - 29th)
Hello again fellow Crabadians! This week we had an overload of info as Battle Game skills and gameplay mechanics were announced. Meanwhile, TUS price action has been about as fun as a sharp stick in the eye. It’s been a brutal week navigating the turbulent waters of Crustaco Bay, so let’s get right to it.
TUS Sell Pressure
In last week’s report, we talked about what’s happening with TUS price action (you can find it here) and it looked as if we had found some sort of a bottom. However, we continue to see sell pressure for the same reasons we covered last week. I think what has been so alarming is the rate at which TUS price has dropped recently. To get a better sense of what’s happening, aklmsd from the Crab Cartel discord posted insightful data on TUS transactions. Although it’s only 3 days worth of data (Apr 23-26) I think it likely confirms the gas-sell-pressure thesis.
“Tiny TUS trades are occurring in enormous quantities, presumably for gas. These are being offset by large buys from presumably larger investors. We can see that overall there are far more TUS sells than buys, and yet the total volume in TUS is almost the same”
If we look at the distribution of the number of trades, with the trades banded by USD value, we can see that 87% of Sells are for less than $200. It can be assumed that at least a large proportion of these are for gas.
This is a small sample size and most likely doesn’t capture the full picture. However, when I think about my own game play (I also sell TUS in small increments to buy gas everyday at the last possible second) these numbers makes sense.
Barring any significant info released by the team (that helps clarify the meta) or whales ramping up breeding, it’s unlikely that we will see this forced sell pressure dissipate before we migrate to Swimmer Network. We have 14 more days until that happens. Stay strong fellow crab farmers.
Battle Game Skills
The big news this week was updated skills for Battle Game as well as gameplay mechanics. Because there was such an overload of info, I’m just going to go through the basics. After I’ve had more time to digest the details, I’d like to go through more theory crafting, min/max analysis, and speculate on the next meta.
We previously learned that the most important aspects of a crab are the pincers and the eyes. This week we got detail about each pincer type skill as well as eye effect (here). As a reminder, it’s more favorable to have matching pincer/eye combos (except in certain cases). We also got details about general modifier and Crabada class modifier formulas for Battle Game Stats (here). Game mechanics info also included the following: pincer skill bar rule (here), eye effects (here), battle formula (here), turn order (here), formation rules (here), and factional advantage (here).
I plan on doing a deep dive into all these Battle Game skills and mechanics in future Crab Reports.
Daily Active Users
Unfortunately TUS price has overshadowed the fact that the game continues to add Daily Active Users at a solid rate (6.19% on the week). However we did see Marketplace users drop by 8.08% on the week which could be due to people waiting for Battle Game info.
Tweet of the Week
This tweet is crazy. On Wednesday of last week, Crabada generated more transaction fees in one day than Bitcoin, Solana, Polygon, Fantom and Terra combined.
CoinGecko Article
It was exciting to see CoinGecko, which has 1.3M followers, write an article featuring Crabada. The article was an introduction to the game as well as how to play using different strategies.
Crab Radio
The mood on this week’s Crab Radio was a good representation of what most in the community are feeling: frustration at the current situation but hopeful that the game will still reach its full potential. Hosts Leo, Trading With Aloha and Doug spoke a little bit about the current TUS price before going over what we know about Battle Game skills/mechanics. Trading With Aloha had some thoughts on what he expected to be important in Battle Game (stat bonuses of 5/6 vs 6/6, pincer-eye combo, speed, factional advantage, formation, class modifiers, etc). He reiterated the point that it’s so early and there is so much info that it’s going to take time to really interpret this data. Other topics we still don’t know anything about are Battle Game rewards, how food crafting works and how all these play out in terms of defining a new meta.
Crab Cartel
If you’re new to Crabada, it can be a bit intimidating with everyone in the main Discord screaming about high gas fees and the copious amounts of info spread out over Twitter/Discord/Medium etc. If you’re looking for high quality conversation about the crabs and a healthy dose of alpha you should check out the Crab Cartel discord (here). Some of the finest minds in the game frequent it. Warning: if you are only looking to complain about TUS price and gas fees I don’t think this is the place for you.
Before I go…
I think we need a little motivational speech. I know many of you are frustrated that TUS price keeps falling and gas keeps rising. I too have watched in horror as my profitability has dropped. The market looks terrible, macro outlook looks awful and there are still many risks for Crabada. So what can we do? Instead of watching the 1 minute chart, take a deep breath. Go outside. Do some exercise. This game isn’t going anywhere (except maybe Valhalla). The best thing you can do is try to take the emotion out of it. Anytime I invest a decent amount in a project, I usually write down the reasons I am investing and the potential catalysts. When price action gets ugly (because it always does) I refer back to that list. If nothing has changed then I’m able to avoid selling because of emotion. I believe Crabada has the potential to be one of the biggest Play and Earn games in the space for the following reasons:
Stellar dev team that under promises and over delivers (Swimmer delay was out of their hands)
Swimmer Network will change the gas token to TUS, of which 25% will initially be burnt which scales up to 80% long term (other games launched on Swimmer will be burning TUS as well). This creates a significant utility for TUS
Continued organic adoption achieved with no marketing budget (marketing budget will be deployed when the time is right)
Launch of Swimmer Network creates the potential to value Crabada not as a game but as a platform
Tokenomics improve dramatically with launch of Swimmer Network and new Battle Game sinks for TUS
Launch of Battle Game and Discipleships (scholarships) has potential to expand Daily Active Users immensely as gameplay becomes more interesting and metas expand and gaming guild move into the game
None of these reasons have changed so I’m continuing to accumulate my TUS and breed more crabs.
And for all those people fudding their own bags, saying “Devs Do Something!”, remember that this is a free market with thousands of participants making independent decisions. The devs have no control over that. And when you think about all the stress and anxiety you are feeling about the price going down, just think about what Crabada headquarters is like right now. They probably haven’t slept in a year. Cut them some slack. Be patient. Swimmer Network is almost here. Battle Game is coming. The winds of Crustaco Bay will shift and the sun will shine again.
#snibsnib