SECTION 1: APPLICANT INFORMATION
Provide personal or organizational details, including applicant name, contact information, and any associated organization. This information ensures proper identification and communication throughout the grant process.
Applicant Name: Jake, BattleFly DAO
Project Name: BattleFly
Project Description:
BattleFly started as a free mint of 30,000 BattleFly NFTs on Arbitrum in March 2022, these NFTs were initially used in the strategic auto-battler game BattleFly Battlegrounds which reached peaks of 40,000+ DAUs and $50,000+ daily revenue. Following the success of Battlegrounds we have launched a new game mode: BattleFly Colosseum.
Both game modes are strategic sci-fi battlers centred around the strategy of selecting and applying mods to a BattleFly in a way that promotes synergy between the mods and effectively counters the mods of other BattleFlys.
BattleFly Battlegrounds is a passive game mode where players select their mods, daily battle frequency and send the BattleFly off to auto-battle, periodically checking back to tweak their loadout based on performance.
BattleFly Colosseum is an active game mode where players compete against each other in real time. Players decide on their loadout between each round based on their available mods and their opponent’s inventory.
Game Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bCb6zCkWgI&ab_channel=BattleFly
Team Members and Roles:
Ben Beath - Founder
Charlie Hoswell - Finance Lead
Jyro Blade - Product Lead
Frank Mongiove - Operations Lead
Kate - Head of Marketing
Archethect - Lead Blockchain Developer
Andreja - Project Manager
Anton - Backend Developer
Andrew - Junior Developer
Jake - Strategy & Operations
Project Links:
Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/BattleFlyGame
Website: https://www.battlefly.game
Docs: https://docs.battlefly.game
Discord: BattleFly DAO
Contact Information
Point of Contact:@0xjakeg
Point of Contact’s TG handle: @jakeg_0x
Twitter: @0xjakeg
Email: jake@battlefly.game
Do you acknowledge that your team will be subject to a KYC requirement?: Yes
SECTION 2a: Team and Product Information
Provide details on your team’s past and current experience. Any details relating to past projects, recent achievements and any past experience utilizing incentives. Additionally, please provide further details on the state of your product, audience segments, and how you expect incentives to impact the product’s long-term growth and sustainability.
Team experience (Any relevant experience that may be useful in evaluating ability to ship, or execution with grant incentives. Please provide references knowledgeable about past work, where relevant. If you wish to do so privately, indicate that. [Optional, but recommended]):
Ben Beath - Founder
Technical co-founder of FanHub, fantasy sports at scale. Co-founded and sold ANZ’s largest independent digital agency. Experienced tech investor and founder.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/arius_xyz
Jyro Blade - Product Lead
10+ years of game development experience. Led development of hit arcade game, Killer Queen. Led development of award winning Kleptocrat and served as senior engineer on AimLab.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/@JyroBlade
Charlie Hoswell - Finance Lead
Charlie has a background in engineering, mathematics and economics. He has a Masters degree in blockchain and digital currency and has been in the space since 2017. Charlie is heavily involved in the product at BattleFly, ensuring the economy is finely tuned for player incentives and scalability.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/@chozwell
Franklin Mongiove - Operations Lead
10+ years of management/operations experience in the public works sector, Franklin handles the day to day operational needs ensuring the DAO runs smoothly and efficiently.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/@TheCostcoKid89
Archethect - Lead Blockchain Developer
Enterprise Architect since 2018, Blockchain architect since 2021. Implemented one of the first crypto trackers in 2013 (Has been used by Kevin Rose as one of his favourite apps). Implemented various web3 protocols and applications with best in class security and more than 10 Million in AUM. In Web3: Co implemented Nil for NilDAO, Co-Founder Smolove, BattleFly SC Architect + contributed on various open source solutions.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/archethect
What novelty or innovation does your product bring to Arbitrum?
BattleFly has been building on Arbitrum since early 2022 and was one of the first games to launch on Arbitrum. Our mint onboarded the most new wallets to Arbitrum since the chain going live surge, increasing the active users on Arbitrum by almost 3x during our mint (See March 2nd 2022). In terms of innovation, BattleFly Colosseum is the first fair-start web3 tournament that doesn’t require a token to access.
Source
Is your project composable with other projects on Arbitrum? If so, please explain:
Yes, as BattleFly operates within the Treasure ecosystem we utilise many assets in our game loops that are not native to our protocol. Our primary in-game token is MAGIC and those with other assets from the Treasure ecosystem can utilise these assets to upgrade their BattleFlys. BattleFly launched with collaborations with over 90 web3 projects demonstrating that composability is at our core. The account abstraction technology that powers the BattleFly Colosseum mobile app will be open sourced and other Arbitrum builders will be able to add rewards to our loot boxes.
Do you have any comparable protocols within the Arbitrum ecosystem or other blockchains?
Many web3 strategy games exist across Arbitrum and other blockchains however none of them are directly comparable to BattleFly.
How do you measure and think about retention internally? (metrics, target KPIs):
The key metrics we use to measure performance are:
- Daily Active Users (by game mode, absolute terms and in relative growth terms)
- Daily Revenue (by source)
- New players
- New transacting players
- Number of daily battles
Relevant usage metrics - Please refer to the OBL relevant metrics chart. For your category (DEX, lending, gaming, etc) please provide a list of all respective metrics as well as all metrics in the general section:
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Daily Active Users: A time series metric representing the daily count of unique addresses interacting with the protocol’s contracts.
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Daily User Growth: A time series metric representing the daily user growth (in addresses) interacting with the protocol’s contracts.
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Daily Transaction Count: A time series metric representing the daily number of transactions interacting with the protocol’s contracts.
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Daily Protocol Fee: A time series data representing the daily total protocol fee generated. For example, swap fees, borrowing fees, etc., comprising all economic value generated through the protocol, contracts, apps, etc., by users.
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Daily Transaction Fee: A time series, daily total transaction fees generated daily by interactions with the protocol’s contracts.
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Daily ARB Expenditure and User Claims: Data on individual ARB incentive claim transactions made by users, as incentivized by the protocol. It should include the timestamp, user address, and the claimed ARB amount. The spent ARB will allow for the normalization of growth metrics.
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Incentivized User List & Gini: The list should include users incentivized by the protocol along with their performance metrics. For instance, if trading volume is incentivized, this would be a list of traders with their respective trading volumes. If liquidity providers are incentivized, it would include a list of LPs and their liquidities in USD. Protocols should also strive for more uniform engagement levels across a wide user base for long-term sustainability, which will be measured through a gini coefficient across reward recipients.
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List of Users & Transactions: A daily time series record of individuals or entities that have engaged with the game, along with the frequency of their interactions.
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In-Game Trading Volume: Daily time series metric, measured in USD, representing the trading volume within the game’s marketplace, if such a marketplace exists.
Do you agree to remove team-controlled wallets from all milestone metrics AND exclude team-controlled wallets from any incentives included in your plan:
Yes
Did you utilize a grants consultant or other third party not named as a grantee to draft this proposal? If so, please disclose the details of that arrangement here, including conflicts of interest (Note: this does NOT disqualify an applicant):
No
SECTION 2b: PROTOCOL DETAILS
Provide details about the Arbitrum protocol requirements relevant to the grant. This information ensures that the applicant is aligned with the technical specifications and commitments of the grant.
Is the protocol native to Arbitrum?:
Yes
On what other networks is the protocol deployed?:
No other chains.
What date did you deploy on Arbitrum mainnet?:
The BattleFly NFT contract was deployed on the 2nd of March 2022 [Transaction]
Do you have a native token?:
Yes, gFLY information is available here.
Past Incentivization: What liquidity mining/incentive programs, if any, have you previously run? Please share results and dashboards, as applicable?
The BattleFly Flywheel program has distributed millions of MAGIC to hundreds of gFLY stakers and liquidity providers.
Current Incentivization: How are you currently incentivizing your protocol?
Flywheel currently distributes gFLY to stakers of gFLY. Users battling in BattleFly Battlegrounds receive MAGIC from opponents they beat in battle and MAGIC when ranking sufficiently high on the daily leaderboards. In BattleFly Colosseum players receive MAGIC based on how they rank in each Competitive tournament.
Have you received a grant from the DAO, Foundation, or any Arbitrum ecosystem related program?
Yes, BattleFly DAO received an airdrop of 1,287,702 ARB. This airdrop was used for various purposes including: community giveaways, providing liquidity on Uniswap, funding operational expenses and the partial strategic diversification to ETH to ensure runway is maintained in the event of market volatility.
Protocol Performance:
BattleFly Battlegrounds has had over 45M games played from over 92,000 unique players and has generated over 600k USD in revenue. BattleFly Flywheel has distributed millions of MAGIC to stakers of gFLY. We currently average in excess of 1,500 DAU and 170,000 daily battles. Thanks to Arbitrum Odyssey on the 15th of November 2023, BattleFly was the #2 project on all of Arbitrum as measured by DAU.
Protocol Roadmap:
- Colosseum quality control (Now - 1 month from now)
- Colosseum post-MVP improvements (1 month - 3 months from now)
- Colosseum Arbitrum Gaming Night marketing push (1 month - 3 months from now)
- Arbitrum Arcade (2 months from now)
- Colosseum Mobile App (4 months from now)
- Month 1: Building out dev team and refining scope
- Month 2: Team assembled, refining technical details with team
- Months 3-4: Development work in full flight
- Month 5: Rudimentary MVP of app
- Month 6: Internal team, Select community members, and anyone from the Arbitrum team who is interested will test and provide feedback
- Month 7: Feedback and development loop
- Month 8: Continue feedback loop with more community members and some select streamers/influencers
- Month 9: Early access and the beginning of our market campaign
- Month 10: Full release on Android (expect Apple to take longer), with targeted marketing in web3 but also within apps with overlapping target audiences. Onboard traditional mobile gamers to Arbitrum with Account abstraction baked in.
- Month 11: Release on Apple app store, marketing blitz across twitter, mobile apps, app store sponsorship and web2 streamers
- Month 12: Continuous improvement
- Key partnerships with streamers
- Month 7: Outreach
- Month 8: Internal testing with partnered streamers
- Month 9: Early access for streamers to bring subsections of their communities and run giveaways
- Month 10: Streamers push the full release of the mobile app and stream daily as par of our marketing campaign
Audit History & Security Vendors:
BattleFly DAO has had formal audits performed by the smart contract audit firm Solidified on the two versions of our Flywheel code. The audits have been further peer reviewed by Tony Snark. Audits are available here.
Security Incidents:
In February 2022, our Discord was compromised when a team member clicked a malicious link allowing an attacker to obtain the team member’s Discord session token. In response to this, a new Discord server was created with updated security permissions. The team has had revised security training highlighting this attack vector and only those who are required to and have a high degree of operational security have Discord permissions.
SECTION 3: GRANT INFORMATION
Detail the requested grant size, provide an overview of the budget breakdown, specify the funding and contract addresses, and describe any matching funds if relevant.
Requested Grant Size: 100k ARB
Justification for the size of the grant:
The Competitive version of BattleFly Colosseum doesn’t allow bot participation and as a result, runs into player density issues in its early life with its fire-on-demand nature. The Casual version of Colosseum regularly sees days of 100+ games whilst still in beta testing, demonstrating the game style is enjoyable and fosters repeat engagement. To address the player density issue in Competitive Colosseum, BattleFly seeks to offer ARB incentives to play Competitive Colosseum and participate in live Game Nights to increase player density to the required levels.
BattleFly has proven it’s ability to create sustainable game modes with the success of Battlegrounds. To date in 2024, Battlegrounds averages 1500+ DAUs, 170+ paid DAUs and Daily Revenue of $186.5 (Game Rev + Bundle Rev) putting our Daily ARPU at $1.10.
As Colosseum is an active game and will likely be more popular than the passive Battlegrounds, additional daily revenue based on Competitive Colosseum players is modelled as follows:
- 10x Battlegrounds (1700 DAUs): +$1,062.50
- 5x Battlegrounds (850 DAUs): +$531.25
- 2x Battlegrounds (340 DAUs): +$212.50
- 1x Battlegrounds (170 DAUs): +$106.25
Annualising these projections gives a range of $39k to $388k showing that 100k ARB is a reasonable request based on projected growth after incentives establish the targeted player density.
Grant Breakdown:
Over the course of 12 weeks, BattleFly will run Colosseum Game Nights with prizes based on performance, attendance and other special participation actions. These Game Nights will be hosted by prominent crypto influencers to increase visibility of the events and will build to a Grand Final with outsized rewards in week 12. In addition to the distribution of ARB incentives at each event, ARB will be distributed to all players who place in the top 2 of any Competitive Colosseum game each week.
Funding Address: BattleFly L2 Treasury (Arbitrum) 0xF5411006eEfD66c213d2fd2033a1d340458B7226
Funding Address Characteristics: The BattleFly Treasury is 3/7 multisig with unique signers and securely stored keys. It can interact with ERC-721s.
Treasury Address: BattleFly L2 Treasury (Arbitrum) 0xF5411006eEfD66c213d2fd2033a1d340458B7226
Contract Address: BattleFly L2 Treasury (Arbitrum) 0xF5411006eEfD66c213d2fd2033a1d340458B7226
SECTION 4: GRANT OBJECTIVES, EXECUTION AND MILESTONES
Clearly outline the primary objectives of the program and the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), execution strategy, and milestones used to measure success. This helps reviewers understand what the program aims to achieve and how progress will be assessed.
Objectives:
We want to increase the number of players playing BattleFly Colosseum. As we move out of beta testing it becomes increasingly important to have the player density required to run regular Competitive games.
Execution Strategy:
BattleFly will utilise grant funding to directly incentivise player participation in our new game mode: Colosseum. Colosseum is currently in beta testing and the free Casual mode regularly sees days of 100+ battles. Comparably, our paid Competitive mode has seen little engagement as whilst the Casual mode allows you to play against bots, the Competitive mode does not. To increase player density to the required level BattleFly will host Colosseum Game Nights weekly over 12 weeks, with each week building to the Grand Final in week 12. Prominent crypto influencers will be hosting and guest starring in these Game Nights to increase reach and engagement.
ARB incentives will be distributed as follows:
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12 weeks of 5k ARB added to the weekly pool of winnings. Those who place 1st or 2nd over the course of the week in any Competitive game can proportionally claim ARB from the weekly pool.
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Best performers of the week will qualify to participate in live Game Nights with player and audience participation incentives listed below.
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Total of 2k ARB given away at each of the first 10 Game Nights, 5k at the penultimate and 15k at the Grand Final. From these pools, 5 audience members will each receive 100 ARB each night with the remainder of the pool being distributed to the best performing players of that night.
What mechanisms within the incentive design will you implement to incentivize “stickiness” whether it be users, liquidity or some other targeted metric?
The nature of Competitive Colosseum forces BattleFly to deal with a cold-start problem as for a single player to start a Competitive Colosseum game, 7 other players must simultaneously also be interested. The Casual mode demonstrates that Colosseum is an engaging game-mode and once the player density requirements are met we are certain retention will be high. BattleFly has proven its ability to create games that stick; Battleground winnings were initially subsidised by MAGIC and whilst these subsidies no longer exist, we still see 6000+ paid Battlegrounds games per day. We believe that creating engaging Game Nights with ARB rewards are the key to driving users to Colosseum to achieve the requisite player density for regular engagement.
Specify the KPIs that will be used to measure success in achieving the grant objectives and designate a source of truth for governance to use to verify accuracy.
The KPIs we will be using to measure success are:
- New wallets on Arbitrum
- Value transacted on Arbitrum
- Frequency of transactions on Arbitrum
- Number of Competitive games played with incentivisation
- Number of Competitive games played without incentivisation
- Number of participants at each Game Night
Grant Timeline and Milestones:
The distribution of the grant will occur at weekly intervals over the course of 12 weeks. With rewards being added to the pool of in-game rewards as well as being distributed at our Game Nights based on performance, participation and other special activities. Some notable milestones will include:
- 250/500/1000/2000 unique players playing Competitive Colosseum
- 250/500/1000/2000 concurrent viewers / participants in a given Game Night
How will receiving a grant enable you to foster growth or innovation within the Arbitrum ecosystem?
BattleFly was one of the first games to launch on Arbitrum and has remained loyal to and supported Arbitrum since our inception in March 2022. We believe that creating enjoyable gaming experiences is key and that value to the Arbitrum network will flow from these experiences.
We believe that an approach that emphasises fun first and crypto second is the future of web3 gaming and that this future is on Arbitrum. Our weekly events as well as our livestream eSports style Grand Final will feature prominent ‘Powered by Arbitrum’ graphics to showcase our alignment with the network and the support BattleFly has received.
Do you accept the funding of your grant streamed linearly for the duration of your grant proposal, and that the multisig holds the power to halt your stream?
Yes
SECTION 5: Data and Reporting
OpenBlock Labs has developed a comprehensive data and reporting checklist for tracking essential metrics across participating protocols. Teams must adhere to the specifications outlined in the provided link here: Onboarding Checklist from OBL. Along with this list, please answer the following:
Is your team prepared to comply with OBL’s data requirements for the entire life of the program and three months following and then handoff to the Arbitrum DAO? Are there any special requests/considerations that should be considered?
Yes, no special considerations.
Does your team agree to provide bi-weekly program updates on the Arbitrum Forum thread that reference your OBL dashboard?
Yes, bi-weekly reports referencing a Dune Dashboard for on-chain data will be made available.
*First Offense: In the event that a project does not provide a bi-weekly update, they will be reminded by an involved party (council, advisor, or program manager). Upon this reminder, the project is given 72 hours to complete the requirement or their funding will be halted.
Second Offense: Discussion with an involved party (advisor, pm, council member) that will lead to understanding if funds should keep flowing or not.
Third Offense: Funding is halted permanently
Does your team agree to provide a final closeout report not later than two weeks from the ending date of your program? This report should include summaries of work completed, final cost structure, whether any funds were returned, and any lessons the grantee feels came out of this grant. Where applicable, be sure to include final estimates of acquisition costs of any users, developers, or assets onboarded to Arbitrum chains.
Yes
Does your team acknowledge that failure to comply with any of the above requests can result in the halting of the program’s funding stream?:
Yes