DeFi game Aavegotchi preps for Jan 4 main net debut with NFT auctions. A retro, Tamagotchi-inspired game that came to life at the end of DeFi Summer will be released in full on Jan. 4. Initially financed by the Decentralized Finance (DeFi) protocol Aave, Aavegotchi aims to make DeFi pleasant.
In November, Aave officially announced its investment in Pixelcraft Studios, the Singapore-based company building Aavegotchi. And now the non-fungible token (NFT) game is hosting a series of raffles to reward early adopters ahead of its mainnet launch next month.
Aavegotchi is a playable avatar representing DeFi collateral that is receiving Aave’s return. That said you can also battle the spooky little critters, level them and equip them with wearables that alter their traits. As for the ghost theme, that’s because “aave” is a ghost in Finnish.
Since an Aavegotchi represents locked assets, its owner can liquidate the underlying stake at any time. But in doing so the Aavegotchi will disappear. So it’s a test to see what happens to playability when characters have real value beyond their gaming value.
Users can summon an Aavegotchi by staking specific aTokens into their desired gotchi. aTokens (for example, aUSDC, aLINK, etc.) are interest-bearing tokens pegged 1:1 to the value of the underlying crypto asset that is deposited in the Aave protocol.
“We wanted to build a game around aTokens because of how intuitive their benefits are,” explained Coder Dan, Aavegotchi’s pseudonymous co-founder and CEO. “For instance, if you hold 1,000 aUSDC in your wallet now, you will likely find a higher balance in your wallet next time you look. That’s because the interest accrues natively in your wallet, in real time.”
There are two ways to acquire aTokens. Users can visit Aave and deposit tokens as collateral into the Aave protocol or they can swap other Ethereum-based assets for aTokens on decentralized exchanges like Uniswap.
[image: Twitter]
