Virtue Update Q1 2022

Our team knows we’ve been quiet over the past few months, but our team has been hard at work:

• Play-to-Earn 2.0 and Gold Mine Promotion: Our new P2E 2.0 model (“Play-and-Earn”) and our next promotion will go live on Monday April 4th
• VPP Tokenomics 2.0: We will be launching a staking program open to all VPP holders which will be going live in April 2022
• New Hires: We’ve hired and onboarded 4 new staff members including a COO, Head of Marketing and Senior Product Leader
• New Product and Website Release: We have updated our websites and are releasing the next version of Virtue today March 31st 2022
• White Paper 2.0 We’ve completed an updated White Paper for our 2022 roadmap and beyond that will be released in April 2022
• Top 10 CEX Listing Coordination: After several legal opinions and back-and-forth, VPP has been approved to be listed on a top 10 exchange - our listing will proceed in April 2022.
• NFT Avatars: Virtue will be conducting a genesis mint of NFT avatars that can be used to boost earnings across both our P2E and real-money products, coming in May 2022
• Multi-table Tournaments: Our team has been building our MTT MVP software since last November and plan to launch our beta MTT software across both our real-money and P2E experiences in Q3 2022.
• Metaverse Poker: We’ve partnered with a major land owner in Decentraland and are creating a Metaverse Poker game in a joint-venture, extending the Virtue software and community to Decentraland in Q3 2022
  

Discord Launch

Virtue has also launched our own Discord channel. We feel that discord provides functionality that will better serve our community including:

• Dedicated giveaway channels: to announce giveaways and special drawings
• Dedicated support channel: communicate directly with a support agent faster
• “Players Online” Channel: chat with other players who are active online to find games
• And eventually, streaming: allowing Virtue to stream high profile match-ups directly in our discord group with voice chat to commentate and discuss crazy hands!  

Individuals interested in joining our Discord channel can join here

To celebrate - we are giving 3 people $1000 each for those who join our channel. Enter by joining our discord, going to our “giveaways” channel and entering (enter up through 23:59 UTC on Monday April 4th).

We will announce the winners on Tuesday April 5th.

New Hires

Thibault Richard-Folian - Chief Operating Officer: Thibault has over 12 years of experience in the igaming industry. Formerly a poker pro, he first joined BetClic (UK) and then Full Tilt Poker (Ireland), helping them in their localization efforts and launch plans on the French and Italian markets. He then worked in South East Asia on the launch of a brand new online poker room purpose built for Asian players: PokerAce. He was then hired by the Rational Group (PokerStars) to lead the efforts towards the launch and integration of new brands (i.e. Full Tilt, Betstars, Starsdraft) and products (casino, sports betting, fantasy games) in the group. Previous to joining Virtue Poker, Thibault worked as a Chief Operating Officer at Replay Gaming for 5 years, with the mission of structuring the company, developing the business and leading on all its functions across the board.

Oliver Cross - Senior Product Manager, Games and Operations: Oliver has been working in the online gaming industry for over 15 years. He began his career in poker at Victor Chandler and has since worked for Gala Coral, Lottoland, Gamesys and Roxor Gaming. He is well versed in feature development, sales strategies and data analysis as well as data driven B2B and B2C gaming products. He is a skilful and highly motivated Product Manager, accomplished in handling the whole product life cycle from development, through release and into live management.

Marika Nowak - Head of Marketing: Marika has over 12 years of experience in the iGaming industry. She discovered poker at University, and ever since, she's been combining her Medical Science interest with a poker passion. She collaborated as a freelancer with Full-Tilt, Unibet, Betfair, and HeyPoker, having worked as a journalist, live events reporter, and book editor. After moving to Malta, she managed the poker product of three core Betsson Group brands: Betsson, Betsafe, and Nordicbet. In addition to her primary job functions, she gained experience in the marketing field. She created, executed, and managed poker and casino campaigns. After a commercial venture, she moved to a marketing role for a poker startup app – Run It Once, where she was responsible for developing and implementing the strategic marketing plan.

Product Update

A new release will go live tomorrow across both the client application and websites:

• New KYC Provider: We have switched our KYC provider to Fractal to more easily process our new and current player KYC requests. Fractal is a crypto-native KYC provider that can process non-latin documents unlike our previous provider Hooyu
• Promotions Section in Lobby: The promotions section in the client includes: information about the ongoing promotions, a link to the weekly leaderboard, a link to all drawing winners, and can be updated as new promotions are announced
• Chips Tables: Players will find Chips denominated tables in the lobby (more info below)
• $GOLD Token Prizes: A new contract within the sidechain was deployed to reward players with GOLD prizes (more info below)
• Updated Virtue Poker and Virtue Gaming Websites: Includes information on our updated token economy and promotions

Date: The release and websites will be updated on March 31st 2022 however the new promotion will begin on April 4th 2022 (more details on the promotion to be released on April 4th).

CEX Listing

VPP has been approved to be listed on a top 10 CEX (according to Coinmarketcap rankings). We are planning to list on the CEX before the end of April.

This marks the first time a blockchain based poker DApp has been approved for a top 10 CEX and will be the first in many future listings to come as the Virtue and VPP community expands globally through both our P2E and real-money products.

And most importantly - all 2018 and 2021 token buyers will be fully vested by May 28th 2022 - therefore only the VPP issued from staking rewards will be introduced into the circulating supply for the next 12 months.

Therefore next 12 months will allow the VPP community and its corresponding value to grow without any new supply increases.  

Date: April 2022

White Paper 2.0

Our team has spent months researching competing play-to-earn games and mechanics and alternative tokenomics models. We have completed an updated White Paper outlining our full roadmap and strategy moving forward in 2022 and beyond.

Date: April 2022

Tokenomics 2.0

As we move into the future, the Virtue Gaming Ecosystem will include a variety of Web 3.0 digital assets:

• Chips: Chips are the limited amount of free-to-play chips players receive when they register an account on Virtue. These chips are used to compete in Weekly Challenges to earn $GOLD. Chips are only used internally within the Virtue application: they can neither be deposited or withdrawn.
• $GOLD: The $GOLD token is Virtue's loyalty token that can be earned through P2E challenges and through gameplay on ETH tables (coming April 18th). $GOLD can be redeemed for USDT or used to purchase Virtue Avatars (and burned).
• $ETH: Real-money players can deposit ETH and play in ETH table games and earn $GOLD for their gameplay.
• NFT Avatars: Virtue is planning on conducting a genesis mint of NFT avatars that will enhance the $GOLD earnings for owners across both play-to-earn and real-money gaming and will be used as your access key to Virtue's Metaverse poker game.
• $VPP: The $VPP token is a governance token that can be staked by players to vote on proposals to update the ecosystem while also receiving staking rewards for their participation.

More information on these mechanics will be detailed below.

Play-to-Earn 2.0

The most important updates to our new P2E model are:

• Globally Available: All players will be able to compete in our P2E games
• VPP Staking, instead of VPP Inflation: Bankroll chips will replace the VPP token as the token used to compete in P2E promotions, and players will be able to stake their VPP tokens to earn both staking rewards and bonus chips.
• Wider Distribution of Prizes: Each week between 300-400 unique players will win prizes in the form of our new $GOLD Token.
• NFT Avatar Integration: Players will be able to either redeem their $GOLD tokens for USDT or use them to purchase NFT avatars which provide extended access via bonus chips

How it Works

All players can get started for free to start building their crypto stack.

1. Download and Register: Download our software and create an account by following the instructions
2. Get a free bankroll: All new players who sign-up will receive a free 500 chip bankroll to get started.
3. Earn $GOLD: Compete to earn $GOLD in weekly challenges in our free-to-play chips tables. Players also can earn $GOLD through their play on ETH tables.
4. Redeem GOLD for USDT or Purchase NFT Avatar: Players can redeem their $GOLD tokens for USDT at the end of the promotion or use them to purchase an NFT Avatar

We will go into more on the exact promotion structure when we announce the new promotion on Monday April 4th.

Bankroll Chips

Instead of using VPP tokens as the free bankroll players receive at the beginning of the promotion - players will instead receive 500 bankroll chips. These chips only exist within the Virtue application - and can be used to buy into chip tables to compete in Daily and Weekly challenges where players.

All current and new players will receive bankroll chips to get started competing.

Bankroll chips are meant to allow all new and current players to begin playing for free to start earning without first having to deposit.

By utilizing bankroll chips instead of VPP, our community of players can scale without creating inflation or selling pressure on the VPP token.

However - players won’t receive unlimited bankroll chips - players will have to either stake VPP tokens or purchase an NFT to receive additional bankroll chip tokens to continue competing to earn GOLD (more info on this below).

VPP Staking 2.0

Virtue will update our VPP token utility by launching a staking program whereby VPP holders can stake their VPP tokens and earn VPP rewards.

Stakers will form the Virtue Council - whereby members will receive:

• Staking Rewards: A fixed annualized % reward for staking and locking their tokens for set periods of time in both GOLD and VPP
• Bankroll Chips Bonus: A bonus of bankroll chips to compete to play-to-earn GOLD prizes
• Governance Rights: Right to vote on updates to the Virtue ecosystem

Stakers who stake greater than 200,000 VPP will also become members of our Justice Program. Justice members are also council members and while Council Members receive VPP rewards, Justice members will receive:

• Additional Staking Rewards: A % of the ETH rake generated on real-money tables
• Additional Governance Rights: Be able to create and submit voting proposals

Staking pools will be limited and based on a first-come-first-serve basis when they go live. Each individual staking pool will have a total VPP cap - so stay tuned when we announce our staking pools launch date.

Date: April 2022

$GOLD Token

The $GOLD token can be thought of as a rewards/loyalty program, where initially 1 $GOLD is equal to $1 USDT.

Players can earn $GOLD through their gameplay on the platform:

• Play-to-Earn: Players earn $GOLD through competing in Daily Jackpots and Weekly Challenges
• Real-Money: Players earn $GOLD as rakeback (cash-back for fees paid to play) and through competing in Weekly Grinder competitions

Players will be able to use their $GOLD earned in several ways:

• Compete: Real-money players can use their $GOLD earnings to wager in table games on the platform (with a % of rake being burned)
• Redeem: All players can redeem their GOLD tokens for USDT
• Purchase an NFT: All players can purchase an NFT avatar using GOLD from Virtue that provides: a one-time chips bonus, VIP access to a private discord with Phil Ivey and other NFT owners, and exclusive access to special events
• Upgrade an NFT: All players can upgrade their NFT using GOLD for a NFT cosmetic item that comes with a one-time GOLD bonus.

The $GOLD token will be rolled out in 2 phases:

• Phase 1: Initially the $GOLD token will exist only within the Virtue platform and will be redeemable directly in the client (1 GOLD = 1 USDT) or can be used to purchase the genesis mint of Virtue NFTs prior to the end of the promotion.
• Phase 2: The $GOLD tokens on the application will be swapped for an ERC-20 token and Virtue will be creating liquidity pools for $GOLD on Polygon’s QuickSwap exchange so players can exchange for low fees.

Unlike previous P2E models, Virtue’s $GOLD token issuance will several distinctions:

• A finite supply based on the Bitcoin issuance model with halvings every 1 year (instead of 4)
• A predetermined GOLD prize pool each month (static)
• Deflationary over-time - as it will be burned when players purchase NFTs and upgrades

The design of our reward coin is that it is hyper-deflationary and limited versus hyper inflationary and unlimited (more details to come in the release of our White Paper 2.0).

A key component of Play-to-earn games are called “sinks” - these are mechanisms by which the reward token is removed from the circulating supply to balance out the reward coin issuance. It is paramount that games have a proper balance of issuance vs burn (“burn-to-earn” ratio) - so that the reward coin doesn’t spiral into hyper inflation.

The $GOLD coin will have several major sinks:

• $GOLD will be burned when an NFT Avatar is purchased
• $GOLD will be burned when an NFT Avatar is upgraded
• $GOLD rake for GOLD table games will burned
• $GOLD will be burned for a “tournament pass” to play special Multi-table Tournaments

And due to the limited supply and halvening events - GOLD’s supply will decrease over time.

More information on GOLD tokenomics will be found in the release of our White Paper 2.0.

Date: April 4th: Phase 1 // June 2022: Phase 2

NFT Avatar Launch

Virtue will conduct an initial genesis mint of 500 NFTs prior to the end of the next promotion - where players can use their GOLD earnings to redeem for NFTs (design details and partners to be announced later this month)

Virtue Avatars will have the following utility:

• Chips Bonus: All players who exchange their GOLD for an Avatar will receive a one-time chip bonus
• VIP Access: Players with NFT avatars will be eligible to participate in exclusive events - including competitions to earn a spot to play in Celebrity Tournaments, and be invited to a private Discord channel where players can speak directly with Virtue's team pro’s and other celebrity partners to be announced.
• Digital Passport to Metaverse Poker: NFT avatars will be portable across Virtue real-money and play-to-earn games into our Metaverse poker game (coming later this year).
  

Unlike NFTs used in previous P2E games, NFT issuance will be limited and will provide finite access to our P2E game with upgrades providing extended access (more details to come in the release of our White Paper 2.0).

Players participating in our upcoming promotion will essentially have exclusive rights to purchase our NFT avatars as they can only be purchased with $GOLD.

Roadmap

Pilot Program

As previously described our Pilot Program will launch on April 4th - testing our P2E mechanic, the GOLD reward token, and the balance between bankroll chips and the difficulty in competing and placing in Weekly Challenge.

Date(s): April 4th to May 29th 2022

NFT Genesis Mint

Virtue has partnered with a reputable graphic design shop to create our animated NFT Avatars to produce high quality NFT artwork. In addition - Virtue will leverage its partnership with 10-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner Phil Ivey (and potentially other new celebrity partners), to issue each of these special genesis NFTs.

Date(s): May 2022

Multi-chain support launch

Virtue Poker will launch on Polygon and BSC Chain with ETH/VPP/GOLD deposit/withdrawal functionality.

The goal for our Multi-Chain launch is to reduce the transaction costs associated with deposit and withdrawal on the client reducing this by >99%.

Date(s): June 2022

$GOLD token launch

As mentioned previously, the $GOLD tokens on the application will be swapped for an ERC-20 token and Virtue will be creating liquidity pools for $GOLD on Polygon’s QuickSwap exchange so players can exchange for low fees.

Virtue will create a Liquidity Pool on Uniswap for a USDC-GOLD pairing. All players will then be able to withdraw $GOLD.

Date(s): June 2022

NFT Integration into App

While players will immediately be able to use their NFT avatars to receive chips bonuses, Virtue will integrate the NFT artwork into their player profile, allowing their NFT Avatar to be displayed on the table felt.

Date(s): Q3 2022

Multi-Table Tournament Launch

Our development team has been working on Multi-table Tournaments since November 2021. The launch of multi-table tournaments across both play-to-earn and real-money experiences will be a game changer for our player base, as we can begin to allow players to compete for smaller buy-ins with larger prize pools.

In addition - multi-table tournaments allow Virtue to create additional utility for both GOLD and our NFT avatars by creating exclusive Avatar-only tournaments and allow other NFT communities to battle against our NFT avatars.

Date(s): Q3 2022

Metaverse Social Gaming Alpha Launch

Our goal is to launch Virtue Metaverse Poker in Q3 2022. More details to come on our joint-venture over the ensuing months….

Virtue is uniquely positioned to build a successful Metaverse poker platform as we are the only blockchain based poker platform to be licensed by a reputable gaming authority….

Date(s): Q3 2022

Conclusion

This year we will launch:

• P2E (Play-and-Earn) 2.0
• Reward token, $GOLD
• Multi-chain support (Polygon/BSC Chain)
• NFT Avatars
• Multi-table Tournaments
• Metaverse Poker

Our mission is to offer the most engaging, innovative and secure online gaming products. We will succeed by building a global borderless poker network of gamers across a multitude of social, play-to-earn, real-money, and metaverse gaming products competing everyday in games that provide both economic and entertainment value.

The Virtue community is just getting started.

We’ll see you on the tables.

The Virtue Poker Team