Find out how to take part in the Virtue Poker Alpha!
When we began work on the Virtue Poker project in May 2015, we couldn’t have imagined the level of support that we would receive from the online poker community. We’ve grown from a small crew with a big vision into a 13-person team of software developers, cryptographers, and poker industry experts. We’ve brought on poker pros Phil Ivey, Brian Rast, and Dan Colman as advisors. And we’ve received so many messages of support and feedback from the members of our passionate community.
Those of you who have followed the project closely will recall that we originally discussed launching the Virtue Player Points (VPP) token in late 2017, but ultimately decided to delay our sale. We were concerned about what we were seeing in the token market at the time. We pressed pause on the sale and remained heads down in development.
Today, Virtue Poker is excited to announce the official sale of Virtue Player Points (VPP). Virtue Poker will sell VPP only to consumers who intend to use them on the Virtue Poker platform. Virtue Poker will not offer pre-sale purchases, discounts or bonuses, and is limiting purchases to no more than 10% of available VPP in the first phase of our token sale. We are targeting customers who want to help grow the Virtue Poker network, not investors looking to speculate on our success at the detriment of our customers. The steps we are taking make clear that the token is not an investment, enable every participant to pay the same price, and ensure that a majority of people who want to use our Virtue Poker Alpha have that opportunity. This allows us to build an even stronger platform of engaged and passionate players that will lead to a healthier ecosystem and, ultimately, a more successful platform.
Virtue Poker Token Sale
Virtue Player Points have three core utilities within the Virtue Poker network: (1) VPP can be “locked” in a smart contract called the Justice Registry that enable users to stake tokens and validate hands on the network in exchange for fees from players, (2) they can be used as an in-game currency, and (3) they can be used to access special tournaments. More information about VPP can be found here.
The first phase of our token sale will begin on April 25th, 2018 at 10am EDT. To ensure that our token sale is transparent, fair and safe, we have implemented a number of changes to the sale process.
- The sale will be conducted in two phases:
- Phase 1 (the Early Adopter Sale) will begin on April 25th. US buyers will not be eligible for this first phase. While we remain enthusiastic about the US market for online gaming, our legal team is still analyzing the landscape with regard to both licensing an online gaming platform of our kind and the sale of tokens more generally. We want to make sure that if we’re selling tokens in the United States, we’re doing so compliantly — we hope to receive clarity on this point in the next few months. If we do become comfortable with selling tokens in the United States, it will be a part of our Phase 2 sale.
- The Phase 2 sale will occur when Virtue Poker is ready to launch on mainnet. There is no guarantee that a Phase 2 will occur, to the extent a Phase 2 sale does occur, the pricing for tokens in the Phase 2 sale will be determined at a later date. We anticipate limiting individual purchasers to a maximum of $50,000 USD equivalent in the Phase 2 sale but we reserve the right to adjust this number in any way in our sole discretion to the extent a Phase 2 sale occurs.
- Tokens bought in Phase 1 will be non-transferrable until mainnet launch of our platform.
- We have changed to a simple sale method, described in detail below.
- Interested token buyers will have to pass a General Assessment Test before registering for the sale.
Our hope in the Early Adopter Sale is that we will attract a range of users who are willing to share their expertise by providing us feedback and help in refining our product and platform, with our end goal to deliver the most robust poker network possible. If you choose, as a token buyer, to accept our offer to be part of the Virtue Poker Private Alpha (described below), you’ll become part of decentralized development, providing product feedback and helping us develop the world’s first fully decentralized online poker platform.
Virtue Poker Alpha Launch
As an Early Adopter, you will be granted exclusive access to the Virtue Poker Alpha. You will become an integral part of our development process and will help shape the development of our platform. As an additional incentive, you will compete to win prizes in daily, weekly and monthly tournaments, as well as leaderboard competitions and drawings (subject to regulatory and legal guidelines).
During the Alpha, your feedback will directly impact the direction the product takes. Virtue Poker is built by poker players, for poker players; we want you to be a part of shaping the future of online poker.
The Virtue Poker Alpha will launch on May 22nd. The only way you can participate in the Alpha program is as a token owner. Since Phase 1 tokens will be non-transferable until mainnet launch, you will only be able to participate in the Alpha if you participate directly in the Phase 1 sale.
Why a two-phase token sale?
Our team decided to break down the sale into two phases, with each phase representing a different fundamental goal for the success of Virtue Poker.
The goals for the Early Adopter Token Sale are:
- to grow a community of interested participants who want to help shape the future of decentralized online poker, and
- to attract a group of consumers who want to help us design and implement the best possible feature set and Justice System
We expect to work with our Alpha testers as a team. We will ask you for feedback throughout the development process, since we strongly believe our Alpha testers are in the best possible position to tell us what makes the most sense. In addition, we will run a series of pilot programs for the Justice System, which will accomplish two objectives: (a) ensuring that the Justice System works as designed to enforce game security and (b) creating our first group of Justices who can perform Justice Node tasks when the site goes live.
The goal for the Public Launch Token Sale is:
- to attract an even broader network of players to join our community
Phase 2 of our token sale will occur as we near our mainnet launch.
Early Adopter Token Sale Structure
Virtue Poker will use a simple sale for Phase 1. A total of 500,000,000 tokens (called VPPs) will be created, and 20% (100 million) will be sold.
IMPORTANT NOTE: The hard and soft caps are expressed here as USD; however, 24 hours prior to the offering, the caps will be converted to ETH at the then-current exchange rate. All examples here use USD for simplicity.
The sale will be conducted on April 25, 2018 as a simple sale. We will sell 100 million tokens, regardless of the amount of ETH pledged (above the soft cap), with a minimum price of $0.06 and a maximum of $0.125. The price per token will be determined at the end of the sale by dividing the total pledged by 100 million.
Examples:
- If the token sale sells out the entire $12.5 million hard cap, the price per token will be $0.125 ($12.5 million / 100 million tokens).
- If the token sale yields $10 million, the price per token will be $0.10 ($10 million / 100 million tokens).
- If the token sale yields $5 million (less than the soft cap), the sale will be cancelled and all contributions will be refunded.
All purchasers will receive tokens based on the final price per token, which is determined based on the final amount raised in the token sale. This means that all purchasers receive tokens at the same price per token. The final number of tokens a contributor will receive will be determined when the sale is complete. Therefore, purchasing early in the sale does not result in any bonus or discount, but rather it guarantees inclusion in the sale.
There has been no pre-sale or private sale, and there will be none moving forward. There are also no bonuses awarded as part of this purchase.
Tokens purchased in the Early Adopter sale will not be transferrable until our mainnet launch.
General Assessment Test
To comply with both regulatory guidelines, we require you to complete a brief General Assessment Test. This ensures that (a) token buyers have a general grasp of the underlying technologies behind the platforms and applications to which they are contributing funds and (b) only users who are interested in using the tokens purchase them.
Individuals who have a general understanding of blockchain technology will be able to pass the assessment in approximately 10 minutes. For those who find the questions difficult, we recommend that you review the Ethereum white paper, the Virtue Poker white paper and the blog post about our VPP token before you consider registering for our token sale.
The full registration portal, including the General Assessment Test, will go live next week. For now, you can go to https://virtue.poker/launch/ to complete ID verification. If you have already completed your ID verification, you will still have to complete the General Assessment test but you will not be required to upload ID documents again.
We are excited to bring integrity back to the ecosystem and change the future of online poker.
If you have any questions, join our community on Telegram.
YOU SHOULD NOT PURCHASE VPP TOKENS (VPPs) UNLESS YOU INTEND TO USE THE VPPsON THE VIRTUE POKER PLATFORM TO (1) PLAY GAMES AND/OR (2) SERVE AS A JUSTICE. DO NOT PURCHASE VPPs IF YOUR INTENTION IS TO PROFIT BY RESELLING THE TOKENS TO THIRD PARTIES FOR A PROFIT. VPPs ARE NOT INTENDED TO BE AN INVESTMENT AND THERE IS NO GUARANTEE THAT THEY WILL APPRECIATE IN VALUE, OR THAT VIRTUE POKER’S BUSINESS PLAN WILL SUPPORT AN APPRECIATION IN VPP PRICES. YOU SHOULD CAREFULLY READ AND MAKE SURE YOU UNDERSTAND ALL TERMS AND CONDITIONS BEFORE PURCHASING VPPs.