Partnership Announcement — Gotbit Incubator

We have recently partnered with Gotbit, to help us improve the project plan and find investors. Gotbit is a market maker and incubator that has been active in crypto since 2017. The incubation process includes improving/standardizing our pitch deck, tokenomics and web page, and getting to present our project to their network of investors in 3 separate sessions. Gotbit will also make personal introductions to all interested VCs in their network.

Gotbit has agreed on a token deal and a drastically much cheaper price as a partnership deal, and will take the first spot as one of our ten Gold Partners.

Brinc/Animoca Accelerator Program

A while ago, we signed up to the Brinc/Animoca Accelerator program, and a few days ago, we found out that we have moved on to the next phase in their selection process. Their acceleration includes an investment of $250,000 which would be the ideal amount for us to be able to get started. We are very excited to see where this may lead!

Crypto Guilds

We recently partnered with a guild aggregator platform called Crypto Guilds. The purpose is not only to get in touch with guilds and players for our upcoming closed Alpha Test, but to get an opportunity to participate in their show called The Tavern. This is a Dragon’s Den like show where we will get to present in front of 4 VCs for an opportunity of investments and/or valuable feedback on our pitch, and our chances moving forward. The show will be made public in their YouTube channel afterwards — stay tuned for a link!

Plan B

We are currently also exploring new partnerships that may enable the opportunity of an NFT sale as the first funding round. A lot of VCs have expressed interest in seeing more progress such as a larger follower base and promising retention numbers — something we simply cannot provide without funding. If we fail to find a lead investor, one solution could be to fund these initiatives with an NFT sale instead. Given our current size, we will need to find a beneficial partner for such an initiative, who will be able to get us sold out. But there are many initiatives working with such business models, which we are currently exploring!

Conclusion

We have been working hard to try and find investors and partnerships, and the process has been slow but educative. Needless to say, we’ve had to learn a lot to get to this point — a point where we can confidently present ourselves as a competing project in all areas. But the position we are at now, we feel is powerful and attractive. And in a way, we’re fortunate to still be unfunded and not on a burn rate, like many other projects that are now struggling to survive. We can’t wait to be able to present progress on the investment side!

Until next time!

The ZiberTeam

https://ziberbugs.io

After our successful results into the ABGA & Klaytn Hackathon, we are proud to get to announce our partnership with Klaytn, the purpose of which is that we will be integrating and deploying with them. We aspire to be done with this within a year after we close the seed round. They have already provided, and continue to provide much help to us, and we are very thankful to be included by them.

About Klaytn

Klaytn is a blockchain and Metaverse platform solution that provides not only a fast, secure and efficient blockchain but also extensive business support to their partners. The blockchain is run by an innovative governance structure, consisting of an alliance of leading DAOs and multinational organizations that operate their consensus node network and drive ecosystem growth.

The Klaytn Foundation has its headquarter in Singapore, however the blockchain has gained its biggest virality in South Korea — the heart of competitive gaming.

Website | Twitter | Telegram | Discord

About ZiberBugs

ZiberBugs is a Web3 Competitive NFT Autobattler, built for the competitive player, with fun as the top priority. The project seeks to build its gaming ecosystem with viewability, tournament play and esports as a core focus, with a Web3 integration to greatly increase the number of professional gamers in the world.

ZiberBugs is the first of many initiatives in the Ziberverse.

Website | Twitter | Discord

Multi-platform

ZiberBugs’ core values remain intact — we will design our platform from the ground up with a multi-chain purpose in mind. Therefore, we intend to expand our views beyond Cardano, not with the intention to scrap any old plans, but to include it all.

Until next time,

The ZiberBugs team

Hey Ziber community! It has been a while since our last update. With the Summer and the state of the market, news has not been coming as fast and furious as it was before, but now we’ve got some juicy items to share.

ZiberBugs takes shape

First, as we shared in our last update, we’re building a playable prototype. I’m happy to report that there has been a lot of progress! In our recent company meeting, Simon showed us his work in progress, with a battlefield, live bug animations, drag-and-drop placement, and even the beginnings of a real fight between sides. It’s truly amazing how much one clever and highly-motivated coder can get done in a short period of time. It doesn’t hurt that Fabio has been feeding amazing 3D models into the process in parallel. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to actually play this game.

Catalyst advances — register to vote now!

In order to help defer some of the costs of building the prototype, we have applied for a Catalyst grant in Fund 9. Catalyst, for those of you who don’t already know, is the community governed “VC” in the Cardano network. If you hold any ADA, please vote! There are a few steps, but there should be a voting section in your wallet of choice. In “Eternl” (my wallet of choice), you go to the Voting tab, and follow the instructions, which involves downloading the voting app for your phone and scanning a QR code.

Important: you must register to vote! The voting power snapshot is on August 4th, and voting is between August 11th and August 25th.

To learn more about our grant application, take a look here.

Claim your ZIBER

For ten epochs, we were giving away ZIBER tokens to people staking with 63 of the pools in the eXtra Small Stake Pool Operators (xSPO) community. It was a great success. If you were staking with any of those pools, head over to the Seal Pool vending machine to claim your rewards.

Thanks again to our friends and partners in the xSPO leadership — it was great to work with you!

Corporate stuff

Since Ziber Technology Corp is a legit, registered company, we had to file our first financial reports recently for the first half of 2022. It’s very interesting, running a company where all the transactions exist on a public blockchain. For example, what is the purpose of a traditional receipt in such a situation? It becomes obvious that the “distributed trust” inherent in blockchain technology is going to create massive changes in the world of business.

Do you know a company that does business exclusively on the blockchain? We would love to hear from you about how you have innovated your business processes.

That’s it for now. Enjoy the Summer everyone!

Until next time,

The ZiberTeam
https://ziberbugs.io

Elements take shape

Yes, the crypto markets are a bloodbath, and it’s a terrible time to attract investors no matter how cool your project is. So why not build software instead? As we announced recently, we’re building a playable prototype of ZiberBugs, and wishing to waste no time, our development and creative design teams are already building out assets. Pictured above is the first bug actually created in Blender. After modelling, rigging and animating, it will be imported into Unity to be hooked up to the game logic. It’s very exciting to see it taking shape!

Catalyst grant

One of the ways we can raise some funds to help move the game forward is through the Catalyst program. Catalyst is the venture capital arm of Cardano, where ADA holders vote on which grant requests will be funded. Fund 9 submissions are due to be finalized on June 30th, but you can see our draft grant application here. Please register now, so you can vote for us!

Among other things, we will be working with our partners the xSPO and getting interviewed by Rhys from Stoic Pool, to drum up support for the project.

NFT sale delayed

Our ancestor bug NFTs are going to be extremely cool, video-based, rare and actually playable in the game, and yes it’s exciting. However, due to the aforementioned market carnage, we have also decided to delay the sale of these exciting NFTs until conditions are more favorable. Stay tuned on our channels for updates.

Summer break

In spite of our great enthusiasm for moving forward with all speed, one does not fight with the Swedish tradition of Summer holidays. Stockholm is famously dark, cold and wet most of the year, so can you blame the Swedes for making the most of the sun and warmth of the Summer months? Consequently we may be posting fewer Medium articles for the next few weeks. Indeed, the “Bi-Weekly” update might not be exactly bi-weekly. The team at ZiberBugs hopes that you too are having a warm and relaxing Summer.

Until next time,

The ZiberTeam
https://ziberbugs.io

What We’re Doing

We have managed to allocate resources and make a plan to build it during the summer. It will be an offline, share-the-screen type prototype, but can in theory be played on a stream with people in the chat due to the chess-style nature of the game. It will be the real thing — the skeleton of what will later become the whole game. While some graphical assets may start off as placeholders in the early stages, our goal is to make constant improvements until the prototype feels like something we can be proud of. And we are convinced that by the time everything starts looking like ZiberBugs, no one will look at us anymore and say they’re not interested.

The prototype will feature mirror teams of 6 bugs and 2 symbiosis cores, yet to be determined which ones. We will include all of the genetic boosters (most of which may be changed) and a couple of the onyx pillars. The game shall be fully playable and feature a best of 9 rounds, including all promotions!

Why We’re Doing It

There have been hardships and struggles to try to start an NFT gaming company during the bear market called 2022. In such a rough climate, investors tend to be much more picky than usual. We have been told by important people that a newly formed company, founded by people brand new to crypto, and no product to show is not likely to end up on anyone’s priority list. Therefore, we have determined that the most likely path to success ahead of us is to make the product.

We expect that once we get to showcase our gameplay and our visual concept, we will massively accelerate not only community growth, but also fundraising. And with a completed prototype, the development phase is likely to be much shorter than previously planned.

When We’re Doing It

We will commence work on it shortly. First, the NFT sale will take priority, and we will likely launch the sale prior to beginning to build. In our Discord, we will relay all information about when it’s starting and how it’s going. We may even stream some of the development in one of our voice/video channels. If you haven’t already, please join us there!

We’re so excited for this!!!

The ZiberTeam
https://ziberbugs.io

ZiberBugs is determined to not only provide entertainment to the blockchain industry, but also help the good cause of Cardano platform. Due to our focus on insects, ZiberBugs has decided to stake its entire treasury with an operator from the xSPO Alliance — beadapool.com (ticker: BEADA) — until further notice. We will also donate all of the stake rewards to the operator!

If you feel you don’t know enough about how much bees contribute to our environment, take these guys’ word for it! We ask all of you to join in on this endeavour — place your stakes with us in the BEADA pool!

About BEADA

The pool is run by a husband and wife that are beekeepers on top of their regular jobs. They currently operate 12 hives, which is about the maximum that a family can handle without doing it full-time as a job. They are also both active in educating and lecturing about the importance of bees for our environment in their region.

“As beekeepers, our mission is to spread knowledge and understanding of bees and their importance to our environment and ecosystem”, says Stephen, who owns and operates the pool. “We strive to support the bee population by keeping bees, to educate others, and help and train as many people possible to become beekeepers themselves.”

The couple is also set on donating 20% of their pool rewards to charity.

Website | Twitter | Pool

About ZiberBugs

ZiberBugs is an NFT Autobattler on the Cardano blockchain, revolving around cybernetic insects battling each other. Built for the competitive player, aspiring to greatly increase the number of professional gamers in the world.

The ZiberBugs team is looking forward to this collaboration and to exploring additional opportunitites together in the future!

Website | Twitter | Discord | Telegram

The Market Conditions

We know guys. The market sucks right now, and it’s draining the energy out of us all. Not only that, it is affecting our possibilities to progress. Investors are a lot more reluctant and lots of entities are spending time on damage control over other things, giving new initiatives less attention. Discord is a lot more calm, and activities have halted. But we are far, far from giving up or letting that stop us! It may affect how long it’ll take us to launch, but your support keeps us going, and we will do everything in our power to make sure your investments don’t turn to zero.

We are discussing re-allocating our efforts into building a working, playable prototype. This infant of a product could be an offline, share-the-screen version of the game that could still be playable with others — the nature of our game allows for a Chess-style communication of moves, that could be used while streaming the game to the community and playing with people in the chat.

This prototype’s main purpose would be to showcase to investors. A lot of interest has been shown by VCs and others to be able to see and experience the game, before they make decisions about whether to invest or not. But having a prototype would of course also have the added benefit of us being able to not only depict but evolve the game design together with the community!

Ongoing discussion — no decisions yet!

I should also mention that there are great things coming to our community in terms of fun activities! Stay tuned!

The xSPO Alliance ISPO

Thanks again to all the fantastic stake pool operators that we’re working with right now! The exposure you’re giving us by marketing this is tremendous! As a thank you, we recently increased our ISPO token rewards from 100,000 to 240,000 (a 140% increase)! This should reward the people who delegate more fairly in comparison to how much the operators deserve it.

We are also happy to announce that we have offered a slot in our private seed to the Alliance. As an incentive for the operators to invest, we will be extending the ISPO for 10 additional epochs, with even more ZIBER stake rewards, to anyone that does! We have just presented this opportunity, now gathering interests and preparing plans for not only this extension but also other rewards given to operators that choose to invest. Looking forward to a long and prosperous collaboration!

Follow-ups on Previous Mentions

Advisor Negotiation— Six weeks ago, we announced that we are negotiating with an exciting potential advisor! The negotiations are still ongoing and will be concluded very soon! Stay tuned!

ABGA — The investor negotiations haven’t progressed since they expressed interest. Will reconnect with them once we find our lead investor.

Genius-X — Unfortunately, they did not follow through on their promise to send us an offer.

Stockholm Coffee Meeting — Simon was contacted by a man wanting to grab a coffee in Stockholm two weeks ago. The man turned out to be a successful business man having worked as an advisor for startups seeking investments. He is brand new to crypto, but is intrigued by it and is looking for a way in, expanding his business there. The man was pitched the entire project and then there were discussions about advisorship. He declared that he would want to see us further along before committing to anything though. We plan to reconnect with him later.

Marketing Agency Partnership — Negotiations are ongoing and both parties are very excited. We have a price proposal, and are working towards an agreement and allocating the appropriate amount of funds. If all goes according to plan, we will onboard them to launch a fairly big initiative to market the:

NFT Sale

Last but certainly not least, we have decided to sell some of our Ancestors on the jpg.store marketplace! The price will be 1,000 ADA each, and the NFTs will be released continuously as the 3D models are completed, starting with the three purebreds: Arachnomancer, Stinger and Praetorian!

Not only have we received a lot of enthusiasm around this opportunity when having discussed it with our community, we also find ourselves in a situation where it is a necessity to be able to move along in a decent pace. We cannot rely on finding investors in time, and we want decent capital to keep moving along, hence this is the best call-to-action for our marketing push in many aspects.

The marketing push will not only help us sell all the Ancestors, it will naturally also increase our follower base, which feels like a great two-birds-with-one-stone decision! I hope you are as excited about this as we are!

Until next time,

The ZiberTeam
https://ziberbugs.io

ZiberBugs has just launched an ISPO over 10 epochs. For the next 50 days, you will be able to stake ADA and receive not only your usual ADA rewards, but also a share of 100,000 ZIBER tokens (IDO valuation: $25,000) and a chance to win an Ancestor Bug (value: 1,000 ADA)!

The ISPO format is not your usual one — it’s a partnership with a group of stake pools (63 to be exact), divided into 9 teams. They compete for the most amount of new delegators, and the team recruiting the most will not only double their ZIBER rewards, but also win 7 Ancestor NFTs (one each) to reward to their delegators!

How Does It Work?

If you’re an ADA holder who wants to get your hands on some ZIBER, all you need to do is to stake with one of the 63 pools. The full list of teams and ticker symbols is below. To stake your ADA, you need to transfer it to a Cardano wallet (we recommend Nami or Eternl) and look for the staking tab inside your wallet. There, you can search for tickers — enter the 3–5 letter ticker symbol there to find your stake pool. Then click the stake pool and press “Delegate”.

If you want to increase your chances to win bonus ZIBER and an Ancestor, encourage your ADA friends and family to join the team you selected to support the pools and the project together with you.

You will be able to claim your ZIBER rewards on https://vm.adaseal.eu/vending at the end of the epochs. Follow us on Twitter to get reminders and instructions about this! The SPOs themselves will be responsible over rewarding the NFT, so if you’re on a winning team, consult your operator to learn what you need to do!

Full List of Teams

Here is a full list of teams, their Twitter handles and their stake pool ticker.

Arachnomancer
@PetStake [PET]
@psyadapool [PSYA]
@Karma_Pool [KARMA]
@TTLStakePool [TTL]
@ResponsibleSta3 [VITAL]
@zpctpool [ZPCT]
@NexusStake [NEXUS]

Praetorian
@ada4goodp [A4G]
@anew_pool [ANEW]
@CardanoChefpool [CHEF]
@Gvolcy [VOLCY]
@PANL_stakepool [PANL]
@PoolShamrock [SHA]
@weebl2000 [SPIDR]

Sentinel
@SwiftCryptoLLC [4WARD]
@CIEL_Stake_Pool [CIEL]
@lonestarstaking [LSSP]
@877PSBYTE6 [PSB]
@sharethlovelace [STLL]
@Cryptofly777 [MALU]
@stuffedkohlrabi [EUTXO]

BileBomber
@cardanoBH [CBH]
@sergiu_cazan [ELIK]
@freedomSocal [FRSC]
@HarmonicPool [ARMN]
@PoolKaya [KAYA]
@grafleck [ZIBER]
@ada_rewards [ADAR]

Overseer
@AdaSquirrel [SQRL]
@AntrixPool [ANTRX]
@earncoinpool [ECP]
@OneequityP [EQUTY]
@SeasideStaking [SEA]
@XystencePool [XSP]
@pool_salmon [SAMON]

Zephyr
@Charity_Lounge [CLP]
@AlessioDevPool [DEV]
@envystakepool [ENVY]
@irf160 [IRF]
@MnstrPool [MNSTR]
@thinkgrowcrypto [21ADA]
@BrosCoudre [CBROS]

Swarmer
@46south1 [46S]
@RegenStakePool [REGEN]
@StakeAlice [ALICE]
@AtfFpool [ATFF]
@fasopool [FASO]
@WoofPool [WOOF]
@KNGHTstakepool [KNGHT]

SpinReaver
@RXIE14159243 [ADAX1]
@EnigmA_SPO [ONE]
@Everest_ADA [ESP]
@JStakepool [JED]
@gloonsy [PHXP]
@rabbitholepools [RABIT]
@AdaRarePool [ARARE]

Stinger
@AdaberryPi [00000]
@cardanoapexpool [APEX]
@FLUID7 [FLUID]
@upstream_ada [UPSTR]
@valhallapool [VLHLA]
@wafflepool [WFFL]
@AlfaCardanoPool [ALFA]

FAQ

Does it cost me anything? — The only cost associated with this ISPO is the transaction fee you pay when you claim your rewards. Fortunately, the Cardano blockchain is cheap to use, and the cost will be miniscule.

Will we be able to track the progress? — Yes, you have to join our Discord and follow the Leaderboard channel. In it, we will post updates about how each of the teams are doing continuously.

What team should I pick? — The team with the best marketing strategy will likely recruit the most amount of new delegators. If you identify that team and stake with any of their pools, you increase your chances to win additional rewards.

I was staked in one of the pools since before. Do I get rewards? — Yes. While your entry will not count towards the competition of recruiting new delegators for your operator, you will still receive full ZIBER rewards.

From when do you start counting? — The start of Epoch 341 (4th Jun 2022) will mark the first delegation snapshot, making you eligible for ZIBER rewards. Ten snapshots in total will reward you winnings.

When and how can we claim our rewards? — The rewards will be claimable after the snapshot data has been gathered for each epoch. At this point, we will distribute earnings through https://vm.adaseal.eu/vending — make sure to follow us for additional instructions when the time comes!

Is there a minimum amount I need to delegate? — Any amount of ADA delegated will reward ZIBER. However, if you wish to participate and be counted in the delegation competition, you must have at least 500 ADA delegated.

I have other questions, where can I ask them? — You can either join our Discord and ask the team in the #ask-us-anything channel, or you can come to our very first Twitter space on Thursday June 2nd at 8pm UTC and ask us or the SPOs any questions live!

Good luck to all teams!

https://ziberbugs.io

ISPO With xSPO Alliance

As announced in the Bi-weekly #4, we have partnered with xSPO Alliance to host a competition similar to an ISPO. 63 different Cardano stake pools divided into 9 teams have entered into the competition, and the goal is to increase the number of delegators as much as they can for 10 epochs. The competition has now started, and everyone staking ADA through any of the registered pools will receive not only their usual stake rewards, but also ZIBER tokens matching their allocations. The team able to recruit the most delegators each epoch will also be rewarding double ZIBER rewards to their delegators that epoch.

We’re giving out 100,000 ZIBER in total. Join our Discord or follow us on Twitter to get all the info you need regarding teams, stake pools and tickers.

ABGA Matchmaking Meeting Followup

Last week, we got to present our project in front of many potential investors from the Asia Blockchain Gaming Alliance (ABGA) together with 5 other awesome projects. The competition was fierce, and we learned a lot from listening to the other projects’ pitches. After the meeting, we got contacted by an investor, with which we are currently having a dialog. They asked various detailed questions about our sustainability solutions, and they brought forth a discussion regarding having the IDOs and the pool launch at a later stage, given the current marketing conditions. They also expressed a certain desire to see a lead investor prior to investing.

Genius-X Followup

We had a meeting with Laurent Bellandi of Genius-X, where we discussed the opportunity of partnering with them to incubate/accelerate our project. They required us to do everything through their legal partners and business partners in Switzerland, including re-registering our company there. This is likely a costly operation, but could potentially be worth it if they prove to be resourceful in acquiring appropriate investments and more. They have promised to send us a full proposal soon, which we are looking forward to!

AMA with RichieRich

On Thursday at 8pm UTC, Simon is doing an AMA with RichieRich, Turkish content creator. The AMA will be in English, and will be held on the RichieLand Discord. Looking forward to seeing if this can boost our initiative to launch a Turkish section in our own Discord.

More meetings!

Next week, we will meet with a newly started marketing agency willing to discuss a partnership. This partnership would mean that they would “invest” in us in one way or another, willing to accept a risk in their agreement with us. All other marketing agencies we’ve met with so far have required cash payments only, which makes these people seem like a more suitable choice — an opportunity to grow together!

We are also looking forward to a coffee with a successful US business man in Stockholm, eager to get his hands into crypto. We know little about this encounter still, but he reached out to us through an ex-colleague of Simon’s and wanted to meet. This may or may not lead to anything, but noteworthy regardless.

Until next time,

The ZiberTeam
https://ziberbugs.io

DevCom 2022 Twitter Space

The team has been in touch with top-rated marketing agency Crowdcreate to explore using their services for marketing and networking with investors. While nothing is finalized yet, Ivan Kan — one of the co-founders — reached out and offered to include our very own Simon Isbäck as a speaker for their DevCom 2022. The conference is a Twitter space where you can listen to thought leading experts discuss hotly debated topics, and new startup projects pitch their idea. We will discuss topics like crowdsourcing, NFTs and more.

Direct link to the twitter space: https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1rmGPgmmpQmKN/peek

ABGA Matchmaking Meeting

A while ago, we became members of the Asia Blockchain Gaming Alliance investor group. On Tuesday, we are invited to a matchmaking meeting with their investors, where we get to pitch our project and game. This may or may not lead to a sale in our seed round, but we are excited to get to introduce our project and get valuable insights from some of the leading investors in blockchain gaming.

Genius-X

Recently, we reached out to two different accelerator platforms, looking for help to accelerate the launch of our project. One of them got back to us and expressed interest, namely Genius-X. We’re very excited to explore this opportunity, see who these people are, what they do and how we can potentially benefit from each other. Disclaimer: This is by no means a done deal, we may still turn out to not be right for each other.

VyFinance IFO & Public Seed Round Update

We’re excited to announce that our VyFi IFO sold out in approximately two weeks! All our tokens are now claimed, and you can no longer participate to get ZIBER staking rewards on VyFi. This is beyond what we could have expected, and we’re very excited to have seen such massive interest! As a consequence of that, we received a lot more investment requests as the VyFi followers joined our channels. And now the public seed round is also closed — we have raised a total of $60k. This money is allocated towards our fund for services from Crowdcreate, who will help us with both marketing and investor connections.

Conclusion

The ball has started to roll, and it’s rolling fast! Many exciting trails are currently possible, and we feel more confident than ever. There are more exciting things coming too, that didn’t quite make it into the list — stay tuned for these. We warmly recommend joining our Discord, which is our main community channel.

That’s all for now!

The ZiberTeam
https://ziberbugs.io