Newsletter: Technical issues, positive news, and the future

We have decided that as Cryplect is all about the community, we are and will always be fully transparent. That’s the reason we are publishing an article about our latest issues but also about the positive news.

Thank you and the other 8500 users who have joined Cryplect.com! Our mission is to create the best possible community in European basketball and to entertain basketball fans in a more interactive way. Yet, we understand that we have had a difficult start but we’ll be improving day by day to be better in the future.

The 6th of November was a big launch day for Cryplect in Lithuania. Everything was ready from the platform, every user that signed up was ready, LKL was ready, and we were ready. On the 6th of November’s morning we were thrilled and hosted several activities for the day such as Meet&Greet, Ultimate Quiz, Ask Me Anything, etc on Discord where we at the time had already over 800 members.

Unfortunately, at something around 10:30 the site went down. Everyone was shocked. What has happened? Quickly our development team looked at what went wrong but everything seemed to be okay. Yet, as the site was back up, it collapsed quickly. So we were investigating the situation and worked hard to solve everything quickly. Nothing helped and just within the seconds we had over 8000 people making noise on LKL’s Facebook, our Discord, our email inbox, and everywhere where it was possible. We felt towards the users and tried to solve everything. As it was 19:30, we got the site up and it’s still running.

We will make our best to figure out what was the problem and fix it before the next game day which takes place on the 19th of November. Cryplect.com is currently working and you can enter your lineup. We will open up the Marketplace and packs purchase functionality soon as well.

About the Marketplace

The marketplace is a feature on Cryplect that allows users to make transactions between themselves via PayPal. Today, over 100 transfers have gone through. On the 8th of November, some of our users started to tell that PayPal has frozen their accounts and their transfers had been stopped. We took the case very seriously and looked at our system as well as contacted PayPal’s representatives. From them, we received the information that the partnership between PayPal and Cryplect works flawlessly and due to GDPR, they can’t provide us with the information that relies upon the buyer and seller.

Even when the problem occurred for less than 7% of the users, we decided not to take the risk and make the Marketplace transactions unavailable until we find a better solution for our community to trade cards with each other.

Once we open the Marketplace again, we will let you all know on Discord, our social media channels, and by email.

First Pack Drop

The first pack drop took place on the launch day and even when we witnessed technical errors, a huge amount of the packs were sold. We decided to close the packs' distribution as we had the site not working properly. A day later, on the 7th of November, we allowed the users to purchase packs for 24h (ending on the 8th of November).

As the Marketplace is under maintenance for some period, we will announce some packs in a limited quantity before the 19th of November. The reason behind it is the fact that some of the users were not able to purchase packs on the pack drop time and there would be too high of a difference between the users.

As pack drops are limited, we will announce the next pack drop as early so every user could prepare for it. Please, in order to stay tuned about pack drops, follow us on our social media, as well as join our Discord community to be among the first to get the information.

Digital cards as an asset and a utility for fantasy league

All the users on Cryplect.com know what packs are. Once a user opened his/her account on Cryplect, he/she received a free Starter Pack that contained 10 Common tier cards. A huge amount of users have already also claimed their Reward packs from the Discord games or by referring Cryplect to a friend. Some of the users have purchased packs from pack drops as mentioned above.

Digital cards are found in different packs and from the Marketplace. Cards have a different tiers — Common, Rare, Legendary, Ultimate, and Hall of Fame. The rarer the tier, the more valuable the card is as an asset but as well as a utility in the fantasy league. Each tier of cards have different multiplier on player’s efficiency points.

Due to the fact that only common cards are not NFT-s, we have to talk about minting. Wait a second, what is NFT, what is minting?

NFT is a Non-Fungible Token. To be said easily, an NFT is a unique code in a system that proves that the card is real, the card belongs to one specific user, the card’s transactions are all public and there is no way that someone can steal or state that the card belongs to them without a real proof that the code behind the card provides. That’s also why there are serial numbers on each card — each card is unique and has an owner.

Minting is a process when this code is generated to make the NFT. At first, it’s a picture or a video in our system and then if there’s a user who has purchased it or received it somehow, we will let the system generate a unique and protected code behind it. After that, it belongs to the user and it’s an asset for him/her. This process can take time which depends on how long is the queue in the system. Usually, minting takes a few minutes but when there’s a huge demand, it can take several hours.

Every user can still use the card in their fantasy game, regardless that the minting takes time. You only can not make transactions with it while the process is ongoing. When the process is done, you will receive a confirmation email about it.

How To Play on Cryplect.com?

For a better overview of the game, we have created documentation that is found here as well as the video tutorial. If you still have any questions, we would like to see you on Discord where you get all the answers.

All the documentation about Cryplect and game rules is found here.

NB! The documentation will be updated on the 10th of November.

Development

Cryplect’s IT development team has over 10+ years of experience in software development. It’s a team of true professionals that want to contribute to the community of basketball by offering a technological product to the fans. Today, the team’s priority is testing and developing everything to be ready for the 19th of November so we wouldn’t witness any problems.

Also, they are searching for a new marketplace payments provider and developing new features that we have had in our backlog for some time.

Customer Support

Cryplect’s customer support takes place mainly on Discord. You can make a #support-ticket and we can give you live support. Get in touch with us if you have any questions or there’s help needed.

Discord — Cryplect’s Community platform

What is it really? Most people haven’t heard about Discord before. Easily said it’s a platform where you can host your community, have channels for discussion, host quizzes and giveaways, offer customer support, etc.

Cryplect’s Discord channel is very active and we are happy to see it! Today, there are over 1000 members from Lithuania who every day discuss Cryplect, Lithuanian basketball, and other topics. To play Cryplect it’s great to join our Discord as well. Then you can get information from our team as well as from other users about what is happening or what are the plans for the future. Also, on Cryplect’s Discord:

• We host giveaways where awards are different packs;
• We host quizzes where you can win our merch or packs;
• We have live chat forums in Lithuanian, Latvian, Estonian, and English;
• We provide the possibility to give feedback and share bugs that are found on the site;
• You can show off your cards and lineups;
• You can tell users what you listed on sale to Marketplace, negotiate deals and share what there’s interesting on sale;
• Soon we announce challenges that will follow through the whole season (for example a challenge to collect 5 players from Rytas to win a pack, etc);
• Before the 19th of November we announce Community Roles for the users who are more active and want to be deeply involved with Cryplect
• We make announcements regarding the game;
• We let users become moderators and VIPs if they match certain criteria. With this role, they have an access to features that are not public.

… and many other functions. Join us now!

What to expect in the future?

As stated many times before, Cryplect means community. We have a vision of becoming the best fan-engagement platform in Europe. Not by providing fantasy league and cards, this is just the start. Community matters and we are deeply looking into the current fan-engagement field wondering what can be done better.

Nowadays interactive sports entertainment is broadcast based. Yet, in recent years we witness a decrease in viewer numbers in all sports. Studies made by world-leading companies and research institutes, they have found that the bridge between a live game and a TV broadcast isn’t well built. It solves the very initial need of cheering for your favorite team but it doesn’t offer the same interaction that can be experienced at the stadium or arena.

The pandemic wasn’t helping to solve the issue either. Games were held without the crowd and people who watched sports on the TV felt distracted from it because it wasn’t the same feeling as before. Even when stadiums and arenas were opened up again, attendance was lower than before.

In Cryplect, we believe that the connection point relies far deeper than it at first seems. Why do we love sports? Why do we love basketball for instance?

Most people love the game and they have fallen in love with it when they grew up seeing their idols play well and they used to try to play as well as the top athletes. Visiting a game was something exceptional, the only entertainment we really desired. Often, some of the players were the same guys we grew up with or knew from somewhere so this additionally created a connection. But the world has changed.

Whilst everything digital has taken over our everyday life, the love for our favorite sports still remains. But how to feel more entertained, and more connected with sport, the clubs, the players, and other fans? The solution is to give every true fan a chance to own part of the game (we do it by offering digital collectibles), give them the chance to decide, to have enough loud voice that they really deserve. Because at the end of the day, sports is entertainment that the fans are willing to pay for.

We want to create a solution that would gather the voice of fans and connects it with the leagues, with sports organizations. They should have the right to say who they want as a sponsor and on what terms, they should decide who is the next head coach, they should have a say to decide what design will be used for next season’s jersey, etc. Fans have to have a voice among the club owners and board members.

Cryplect is trying to bring it to life and to entertain in more ways than just watching the game. This is just the start of the journey and we are happy that you have joined us on this rollercoaster journey.

Let’s create something awesome together! Let’s play!

Sincerely,

Your Cryplect

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