Many have at least began to dip there toes into "playing" the online based game that launched in 2018. The concept quickly had internet users attention with its Monopoly like concept with a virtual escrow twist.
The way Upland functions is by way of the player making their way around the digitized "World". The... Dare I say it?
The digital World that I speak of, the Metaverse; if you will, is really just a virtual gaming board that consists of states and cities. With 13 cities and counting, the game is quickly growing in popularity, and with that comes the demand for more cities. The appeal to players is the fact that that the properties within these cities are digital representations of real world addresses. So players purchase a piece of property and that digital property is tied to a real world address. Possibly somewhere that the player has once lived before ect.
Players are able to purchase these properties using UPX, which is Upland's form of digital currency. Upon purchasing land within Upland, the purchase is minted on the EOS blockchain. This is a huge incentive for a lot of folks given that means the purchase of this digital property comes with a sense of security, and a well documented history of the transaction on the Blockchain. These factors coupled with the players digital ownership of the property makes purchasing land in the game much more encouraging. Uplands currency UPX is not to be confused with the Crypto Token that exists on the BNB blockchain called, Uplexa OR UPX, as it is known too many.
To help you better understand how currency works within the Upland game, we must first understand the difference between Crypto Coins and Crypto Tokens, and, the relevance of that to Upland.
Coins Vs. Tokens:
Coins: Coins transfer monetary value; for example, Bitcoin (BTC) Litecoin (LTC). These coins operate on a blockchain, meaning that every transaction from start to finish is logged and imprinted on the blockchain. Similar to a financial ledger that one would keep on paper, but rather the virtual version of it.
Tokens: There are two types of tokens you need to familiarize yourself with in order to truly understand the difference between coins and tokens.
Security Tokens : Firstly, we will talk about security tokens. Simply put security tokens give rights of ownership to a company. This means that security Tokens can be viewed as decentralized digitized share of a stock.
Utility Tokens: As the name would imply, utility tokens serve one single purpose, and is not minable.
So, in short, digital coins are a form of currency. Whereas digital tokens are a representation of something that can be assigned value.
With all of this being said it is safe to say that UPX is a utility token. As UPX is used strictly within the Upland game, it is not interchangeable. Meaning you cannot trade UPX for UPX. It is strictly used for purchasing land Within Upland and Upland only.
It is important to note that UPX can also NOT be traded for fiat currency. However, one can purchase property within Upland via UPX and then sell it for USD, if they are looking to gain capital from playing the game.
Understanding Spark:
UPX is not the only form of currency used within Upland. Players also gain Spark, Which is beneficial to the player in a different way than UPX. Spark is a resource within Upland that allows for players to build a house on the property that they have purchased with UPX. It is important to remember that property can only be purchased with UPX and and the buildings can only be built with Spark. Spark and UPX are not interchangeable and can only be used for the purposes mentioned above. As Upland gains popularity, spark is going to become more important in the game, as it will be used for not only building houses but also for building cars, and all other monetary items one would need.
Spark can currently only be earned through scavenger hunts, and progression in the game. So, somebody that has a higher status than another person would have the ability to earn more spark than someone that is just starting out in the game.
How to "stake" Spark:
The way Spark works is in terms of man hours. So, for example, if somebody wanted to build a townhouse that was 1000 Sparks And the person only had 1 Spark to stake, then it would take1000 hours for that person to complete the building of their home.. So basically 1,000 is divided by 1 and the result is the amount of hours that it would take to build the property. So, for example, if somebody had 2 sparks to stake, then it would only take them 500 hours to build the property, assuming the property is priced at 1,000 still. So again, the equation is 1,000 divided by 2, which equals 500. Users can determine the amount of hours required to build there home with the equation: Cost divided by spark staked.
I can say from personal experience that it can be frustrating trying to find property to buy that is within your price range of upx without investing actually USD into it. Spark is even more difficult and is not something that you can purchase with USD as you can with UPX. I found that investing just a little bit of real fiat currency when starting out really aids in buying your first piece of property. With this property you are continuously earning upx as people are crossing over your property as they play the game as well. ( much like traditional monopoly) . I invested around $50 into Upland when I first started playing, and that has gotten me two properties that are now continuously bringing UPX in.
This is a screen grab of my list of properties. I currently only have two,🤫🤭🤗 which is two more then none.
The Metaverse:
Alright, here goes.
I ALWAYS Dodge talking about the Metaverse because it is so controversial and there is so much undiscovered its hard to have real factual opinions on it. So what better way to start off then with words from Mark Zuckerberg.
According to Mark Zuckerberg, mankind will migrate into the metaverse in the future, leaving reality behind for a world that we create and govern entirely
Zuckerbergs notion is that there will come a point (in the near future) where people are so addicted to the internet and gaming, virtual reality and such, that we will not want to return to real life. In turn the Metaverse will truly exist.
If you use the internet at all you have probably heard the term "the metaverse". A mysterious distant universe where physical beings cease to exsist. If that doesn't make sense to you I will do my best to explain, as the Metaverse is hard to gain understanding of given it doesn't truly exist yet.
In short, the metaverse is everything the universe isn't, but from a digitized standpoint. Let me explain, the metaverse ecosystem thrives on virtual reality gaming , 3D enhancement, and of course, cryptocurrency. Without these components the metaverse ceases to exist. That is why Upland is so important to the being of the metaverse and vice versa, both need one another to thrive.
The Metaverse is completely decentralized. Meaning there is no one person controlling/ facilitating or profiting from it. With that being said there are multiple ways to access the metaverse, there is no one app called the metaverse. But rather in the metaverse exist via different apps and the net. This brings confusion to a lot of people as since there is no one entity that is the metaverse I rather a combination of many other digital beings, the tangibility of the Metaverse is questioned.
Characteristics of the Metaverse include persistentince, boundless, immersive, decentralized and having a socially, economically evolved, structure. The Metaverse, much like the universe, is boundless and the opportunities are endless since it is continuously growing and evolving anything is possible. It is persistent as no matter how much some may reset technology is ever growing and is only embedding itself into our everyday life more and more.
So, to wrap things up what did we learn? Upland is a fun, new , innovative way to enjoy the gaming taste that is nostalgically similar to Monoply. While in my opinion it was a bit slow starting out oh, once I got into the swing of things I actually found it for the slow pace enjoyable are they gave me time to really dumped into the details that were fine-tuned in this game to make it personable, but without lacking that hint of nostalgia at the hands of Monopoly.
My thoughts and overall recommendations?:
If you have extra cash on hand available, then your best bet is to invest a little bit into the game and buy a few properties so that you have that steady income of upx coming through when you're not even playing. If you don't have extra cash handy, don't worry that doesn't mean that you can't still enjoy all the benefits of the game, it just may take a little bit longer to move up to "Uplander" status from visitor. This just means that you have to renew an uplander Visa once every seven days in order to keep your player active in the Upland community. Once you own your first property you are promoted to a "newbie" and officially a permanent Uplander resident.
Also, don't forget Spark is very industrially mandatory in this game, but also hard to obtain. So join scavenger hunts to get Spark whenever you can and if another opportunity for obtaining Spark should come your way, take it! Spark is only going to become more and more useful as the game continues to grow. I say get in while the game is still growing so if it does get
HUGE
you have involvement and get benefits for being an original member, possibly.
That's all I have for now! If you havent tried Upland give it a go. I hope you enjoyed reading this post as much as I did writing it🤓