Tuesday Project Spotlight: TipsyCoin

TWO PROBLEMS

Superstition

“Every ethnic group in Nigeria has a name for females and males who are believed to openly or secretly collaborate with dark forces to invoke harm upon others. The English words ‘witch’ and ‘wizard’ are insufficient to convey the depths of evil culturally associated with such people – their ‘manipulations’ are often blamed for a variety of afflictions, from disease to infertility, poverty and failure. So entrenched is the belief in, and abhorrence of, witchcraft that a section of the Nigerian criminal code, originally introduced under British colonial rule, still forbids its practice, and it is punishable by a jail term. While reports of convictions are not common, the media regularly features stories of people being branded witches and being brutalised or lynched. Rights groups condemn the killings, saying superstitious beliefs result in the loss of innocent lives, often those of women and children (1).”

“[C]hildren are often blamed for the passing of a village head, a failed harvest or even due to mechanical problems with the family motorbike. They are subjected to torture in the most terrible forms, such as poisoning, knife stabs and starvation, being chained, beaten, raped, having their eyes gouged out or their ears chopped off. These children live in constant fear and pain. In 2009, campaigners against the witch-hunt practise reported that in over a decade, around 15,000 children were accused of witchcraft in 2 of Nigeria’s 36 states. Around 1,000 of them had been murdered. Since then, the problem has only gotten worse (2).”

Penguins

“The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has recognized that from a total of 18 species of penguins, 13 of these species are either severely threatened or endangered. There is a high risk of penguins becoming extinct by 2050 as there has been a 60% decline of the species since 1950. Factors such as oil spillages are affecting penguins’ body temperatures in colder waters and penguins often mistake human rubbish for food within the ocean. Plastics also play a heavy role in the cause of penguin decline, since they take around 450 years to disintegrate. The continuous build-up in the ocean — 130,000 tonnes of plastic each year — is causing a momentous effect on the penguins’ habitat (3).”

TWO PROPOSED SOLUTIONS

The Land of Hope

“In 2015, with the help of Engineers Without Borders and the African Children’s Aid Education and Development Foundation (ACAEDF), the Land of Hope (formerly DINNødhjælp) bought a large piece of land in Akwa Ibom to build a children’s centre. Today, this centre, the Land of Hope, is a fenced and monitored area of more than three acres. In addition to the children’s private home which consists of separate living quarters for both the girls and the boys, the premises features accommodation for 58 employees, a large kitchen, an agricultural zone for sustenance, a children’s hospital, an art room, a music studio and a football field. The children go to public schools, with the Land of Hope fully subsidizing this cost. ‘When we rescue children, we take care of their health and send them to school,’ says founder Anja Ringgren Lovén. ‘Eventually, we go on home visits with the children, who by then speak good English and look healthy, confident and strong. It makes quite an impression on the entire village who realize they were terribly wrong about the child (4).'”

Paradise Wildlife Park

Paradise Wildlife Park is a registered charity (under The Zoological Society of Hertfordshire no.1108609) that supports wildlife conservation projects in the UK and globally. One project includes the ability for groups and individuals to “adopt” penguins to support the successful breeding program of “colony couples” who enjoy all sustainably sourced fish scraps mimicking their diets in the wild.

HOW IT WORKS

Enter TipsyCoin/TipsyVerse. Powered by Minecraft with NFT and Blockchain interoperability, TipsyVerse is an open-world online metaverse game which promotes mental well-being. (Note: TipsyVerse is in no way associated with, endorsed by, or a partner of Minecraft, Mojang, Microsoft or any related parties.)

TipsyCoin ($tipsy) is a deflationary coin launched on Binance Smart Chain. $tipsy will be the preferred currency to buy NFTs that will be used in TipsyVerse.

“A deflationary currency discourages consumer spending. If a currency is expected to appreciate in value, it disincentives economic activity because it causes investors to hold on to the currency instead of spending it. Digital items in TipsyVerse are all assets. These include clothes and accessories for characters, transport which players own, and land and houses which players build and personalize. These digital assets are in the form of NFTs and will stay with players forever if they have it. They will appear as NFTs in their wallets unless of course they decide to sell them for a profit using platforms such as OpenSea. Players in TipsyVerse will not need to eat or drink within the game as a function. The possibility to consume food and drinks in TipsyVerse may be introduced overtime, but this function is purely for cosmetic and entertainment purposes (and will not involve $tipsy); characters in TipsyVerse will not fall ill or suffer death due to thirst or starvation. Since $tipsy is positioned as a valuable coin with hyper-deflationary and reward features, players would not want to use $tipsy in-game to purchase ‘consumables,’ or items that only have temporary benefit. With a foresight to TipsyCoin’s future, all digital assets (NFTs) are assets and can only be bought using $tipsy. NFTs in TipsyVerse are all individually numbered and identifiable (5).”

In TipsyVerse, players progress through a story quest and participate in various activities, earning $gin and NFTs along the way. Play-to-Earn activities include fighting mobs, competitive events like kart-racing, and resource trading. Companion penguins fight alongside you and provide you various benefits in TipsyVerse. 2345 Genesis Penguins exist (988 Burnt [at publication]). The game promotes no violence and is set to have its alpha-release in 2023.

There are 3 billion TipsyCoin apportioned for charitable causes and before the project’s smart contracts were even fully coded, 81 Nigerian children were saved and TipsyCoin’s donation helped pay for the children’s food, shelter, and education. TipsyCoin also used some funds to adopt 50 penguins.

According to the IUCN, there is a high risk of penguins becoming extinct by 2050, as there has been a 60% decline of the species since 1950 due to ocean plastics and global warming. A big thank you to @TipsyCoin for adopting 50 penguins! Adopt via our website We ❤️️ $tipsy pic.twitter.com/x2WvifKXWt — Paradise Wildlife Park (@ParadiseWLPark) December 9, 2021

A copy of the project’s whitepaper is embedded below and can be found on TipsyCoin’s site. TipsyCoin-Technical-Whitepaper-V1.0

WHERE TO LEARN MORE

These short videos tease the project.

And this longer video walks you through the process of buying TipsyCoin, but you may want to check out the how to buy $tipsy page first before jumping straight into the video.

For future videos, you can subscribe to TipsyCoin’s YouTube channel.

And, of course, you can connect with TipsyCoin on Discord, Twitter, and Instagram to see regular updates.

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