What is Eight Hours (EHrT)?

Recently, I started to share more information about NFTs (Non-fungible tokens). Chances are, you’ve recently started to hear more about them. Although, I especially read a lot about NFTs on the Ethereum Network. Today, I’d love to introduce you to a project that utilises the VeChainThor blockchain and is building the world’s first blockchain-enabled tabletop game console. I’m talking about 8Hours Foundation. Their partners developed games you’ve definitely heard of before, and they already created a whole world of NFTs that came to life and have been embraced by a large, fast-growing and active community.

This is probably the most unique NFT project I’ve seen so far!

For in-depth research, please navigate to their white paper.

8Hours Foundation

I share 8Hours Foundation’s vision. The world is currently disconnected and many people spend their days in a digital world. They share that in the last fifty years, loneliness has doubled and this needs to change. Now it’s an ambitious goal, and it might not be for everyone, but 8Hours has found that 8 hours a week of social interacting can make a huge difference.

They connect digital games and physical toys with each other, to enable a whole new world. 

8Hours Foundation introduced the Playtable. On the Playtable, you can use physical objects in digital games. A great example of what that looks like can be seen in the video below. You might know one of their partners who created Catan.

A list of all partners can be found on their website. The Playtable really fills the gap between board games, video games, mobile applications and educational programs.

The gaming and toy industry is a multi-billion dollar industry, I quote from their white paper: ‘’The global toy industry is $88.1 billion1 , with the US market alone worth $20.1 billion.2 With the average price of a toy at $103 , there is an opportunity to bring 8.81 billion toys into the digital world every year. The global video game industry is $134.94 billion, while the smart toys industry is projected to reach $9.7 billion by 2025’’.

Utilising Blockchain Technology

While reading through the white paper, I came to understand what a no-brainer this actually is. Blockchain and NFT technology allow for true ownership, portability, security, and scalability.

VeChainThor’s non-fungible tokens allow for digital assets to be truly owned by the purchaser. Meaning developers cannot remove them from your possession in case you try to resell or modify them.

Portability enables you to use your NFTs in a way you imagine them to be used. I love the white paper example of a World of Warcraft character being used as a Rook in a (digital) chess game.

Another great example is their own created VimWorld. VimWorld called their NFT a 'VIM', a smart NFT that tracks ownership, gameplay, wins/losses, multiple in-game currencies and much more!

8Hours Foundation chose to use the VeChainThor blockchain for its Multi-Party Payment (MPP) and Multi-Task Transactions (MTT) functions which cannot be built on any other blockchains. This allows for mass-adoption by non-techy people, by enabling the foundation to sponsor user’s transactions. Meaning they do not have to worry about having gas fees in their wallets. That way, the family can play their games while their gas fees are still paid.

For more information on the technical side of things, I’d recommend you to check out their white paper.

VimWorld

Next to the Playtable, the foundation also created VimWorld. I recently discovered VimWorld and  started to collect my first few VIMs (virtual characters).

VIMs are much more than your regular NFT. They are a game piece, a collectible, and an income-generator. That's right,  you've got your own kind of 'DeFi' right there! By feeding VIMs to the highest tiers, you'll receive bi-weekly rewards funded by the revenue generated by 8Hours Foundation through the sales of VIMs.

I started to collect them because of their community, interesting roadmap and character features. VIMs come in different series and characters, a limited number of each one is created. This results in users starting a collection of unique VIMs. It’s currently possible to tier up your VIMs by feeding them EHrT. These tokens are not lost, your VIM basically uses them as a piggy bank while increasing their tier.

They are currently at an early stage in their roadmap. However, it will soon be possible to trade them on an actual marketplace (rather than OTC channels) and use them in battles! The full VimWorld white paper can be found here.

Their community counts thousands of people from all over the world, is extremely active and grows every day. Yesterday, a new VIM was released (Sha Wujing). Only 300 were for sale in the dispenser and they all sold out within 30 seconds! Luckily I was able to purchase one OTC.

Here is my collection so far:

My plan is to write another separate report about VimWorld in the near future.

The EHrT Token

The EHrT token is where things get even hotter! Eight Hour Tokens (EHrT) is the utility token used within their complete ecosystem. EHrT can be spent, staked, and/or burned for:

• Linking physical objects to digital counterparts through NFTs. Creating a digital identity for them.
• They can be spent by developers to create their own in-game digital currencies.
• Token holders can stake them for different grants of projects joining the platform, use them to vote for new projects to be on 8Hours or give them to other community members.
• Toy makers can use EHrT during the manufacturing process to create digital records of the toy.
• They can be spent to create colored tokens (now called treasures). These colored tokens can for example be used as in-game credits, proof of license or proof of rarity. Basically, colored tokens exist within the VIM and can only be created by the developer of the AAC. Any VIP-180 token can also be stored in an AAC.
  
  Example use case from the white paper: ‘’Manufacturer A’s toys might not be selling well, so A loads them all with $5 of VeThor. Now, the toys can function as gift cards with more redeemable value than their retail cost, creating the proper incentives to sell and increase inventory turnover. Another example would be a game developer that offers $20 of their own VIP-180 tokens to the first 1,000 players that beat the tutorial of their new game.’
• To make sure developers have access to tokens, part of the tokens were allocated specifically for developers. That way utility purpose is secured. Developers can purchase these EHrT tokens with fiat on the EHrT Exchange Service Pool.

More details on token distribution and tokenomics can be found in the white paper.

The Team and Advisors

The team is located in the San Francisco Bay Area (California, USA). The core team counts team members with a long history with startups, gaming and/or (blockchain) technology.

A full overview of all 8 core team members can be found in the white paper.

Their advisors include very well-known and successful people in the gaming industry. However, these are not all the advisors. The foundation also welcomed Ray Hatoyoma, ex-Pokémon advisor, ex-Hello Kitty CEO and director of LINE and Mitsubishi, as well as Michael Katz,Former Marketing Director of Mattel, President of Atari Video Game Division, and President of SEGA USA.

What do I think about 8Hours Foundation & VimWorld?

As said, I only recently got introduced to 8Hours Foundation. However, after spending some time in their community channels, browsing through the white paper, roadmap and website. I came to the conclusion that I see huge potential here. There is a lot more to write about, but I wanted to keep it readable for the average Joe.

I’m personally more interested in purchasing and holding VIMs, rather than EHrT at the moment. VIMs tend to keep their value in EHrT, while the rarer ones appreciate in value as time passes. To me, this feels like a more fun and better ‘investment’ than simply holding EHrT. EHrT has seen a continuous uptrend since July and it is hard to speculate on its potential market cap and price at this point. Therefore, I’d like to share that if you believe this industry (NFTs + Gaming) will grow, then this is probably a good token for you to add to your portfolio.

EHrT will see more use cases in the future, more partners / games are being added and EHrT is used throughout the complete ecosystem. Meaning VimWorld, Playtable and whatever else there is to come. Looking at their current partners, I can tell there’s already a lot of potential. As always, DYOR.

EHrT can currently be traded at: Bitmart, OceanEx and Bitrue.

This post is for informative purposes only, I’m not a financial advisor and I currently do not have a position in EHrT. I am not planning to change this position within the next 48 hours. I have not been paid for this post, this post is out of personal interest.