英文版：

https://mirror.xyz/kingbtc.eth/WqqwWcVKwCdlTWdfAZ0EwSPHI4JDla4-aIlJvOQIDkc

Website: https://ageth.io

Discord: https://discord.gg/age

Twitter: https://twitter.com/A_G_Eth

A.G.E (Amateur Guardians of Ethereum) -- 以太的业余守卫者，是世界上第一款 hold-to-earn 的NFT，是融合了NFTs和DeFi的开创性和革命性的实验。守卫者联盟由10,000个独特的NFT组成，在以太坊宇宙中以守护ETH的价值为使命。

• 与传统的NFT不同，AGE是一种新型的代币支撑型NFT（Token-backed NFT，缩写为TB-NFT），在他们被成功买卖交易时，一部分的成交金额会被储存在自己之中，并且其持有者可以从A.G.E的DeFi功能中获得被动的ETH收益。通过在加密代币和NFT艺术品之间建立这种共生关系，我们使每件艺术品的内在价值随着交易次数的增多而增长。

• 与其他具有盈利功能的NFT不同，如Cyberkongz允许持有人赚取新的项目独特的代币（如BANANA），AGE通过革命性的DeFi功能使持有人能够赚取现有的代币，如ETH/WETH。

AGE的价值和用处

NFT和加密货币的双重价值

通过在加密货币和NFT艺术品之间建立共生关系，我们正在尝试首次将加密货币的一些价值（去中心化金融）和NFT的一些价值（艺术品，会员关系，社会影响）结合起来。

持有人的权益

1. 酷毙了的头像。原创的、手绘的、独特的艺术作品和头像，用于你的社交媒体PFP。

2. A.G.E会员。AGE NFTs的所有权和商业使用权归持有人所有。 获得守卫者专用的活动、商品和私人 Discord 频道。 被动收益。

3. 被动收益。从路线图1.0的DeFi功能中获得被动收益。

4. 参与A.G.E.的未来创新产品功能的独家权限。

NFT艺术设计

600多个手绘的原始性状

8种类型。猿猴、兔子、猫、疣猪、鹰、鲨鱼、外星人和机器人

AGE的形象设计以太坊的标志作为灵感，每个AGE都有一个 "以太反应堆（Ethereum Reactor）"嵌入其胸口，标志着他们对守护者联盟的归属，反映了我们项目的使命--守护ETH的价值。

DeFi功能

AGE的DeFi功能的基础是一种新形式的NFT -- TB-NFT（代币支撑型NFT），当TB-NFT被铸造或交易时，部分被支付代币将被添加到其自身的之中。持有者可以通过他们的TB-NFT，与任何其他的DeFi协议进行互动。

TB-NFT（代币支撑型NFT）机制

A.G.E NFT是一种代币支撑型NFT（TB-NFT），它自身能够存储ETH并将其作为自身价值的一部分。

每个TB-NFT的存储的ETH数量会随着交易量的增加而增长。TB-NFT被交易的次数越多，将存储更多的代币。随着交易量的增加，其存储的代币价值将不断累积。而持有人必须销毁掉TB-NFT才能拿出其中存储的ETH。

将TB-NFT想象成一个特殊的存钱罐

你买了一个存钱罐，刚开始里面就存着一些钱，然后你卖给了另一个人，之后这个存钱罐开始在市场上流通。当它每次被成功交易后，一定比例的付款金额将被储存到存钱罐之中。随着交易量的增加，储存的钱将不断累积的越来越多。而你必须打破存钱罐才能拿出其中储存的钱。

3个关键机制：

• 每一个A.G.E NFT在被铸造时，将有10%的铸造费被储存进AGE作为初始资金。

• 每次A.G.E NFT在OpenSea进行交易时，3%的支付金额将被储存在NFT本身。

• 持有者将必须销毁掉TB-NFT才能拿出其存储的代币。

为什么我们选择ETH作为首个代币进行这项实验？

我们相信以太坊是下一代互联网的基石，所以我们选择ETH作为我们实验的第一个加密货币。这将能够帮助整个以太坊社区，保护ETH不被出售，同时也将有助于AGE的持有者长期拿住ETH。HODLers WIN！

被动收益

我已经介绍了TB-NFT机制，而“被动收益”功能建立在它的基础上。所有被储存在AGE之中的ETH将被集合起来，用于投资其他DeFi协议来赚取收益。与个人投资相比，这种方式能够极大的减少摩擦和矿工费，并且我们的投资协议将自动优化投资策略，以获得更高的APR。

存储ETH的AGE金库中被设计为2个独立的部分。：

1. 本金部分。这是每个AGE的存储的ETH。本金部分只有在持有人销毁掉他的AGE之后才能被取出。

2. 收益部分。这是在AGE的DeFi功能运行期间，从每个AGE的本金部分中获得的DeFi收益。收益部分可以由AGE的持有者在某个时间点提出。

大致解释一下AGE DeFi的盈利模式。正如我之前提到的，A.G.E不会发布一个新的代币作为我们持有人的收益。整个社区存储在AGE背后的ETH将被投资于其他DeFi项目，甚至是以太坊2.0的质押。投资的回报将根据"守护指数（guard index）"分配给所有的AGE持有者，它由2个因子计算得出。

对于每个持有者而言，需要平衡个以下2个守护因子：

1. 存储在AGE中的ETH金额（Backed-ETH)

2. AGE被当前持有人所持有的时间，即持有区块数量

根据TB-NFT的机制，当一个AGE被多次交易后，自身之中存储ETH代币会增多，而在持有时间方面，则会以新的持有人收到AGE时的区块高度为基准，重新开始计算。而一个AGE被长期持有则是相反的情况。因此我们将会对投资模型将不断进行测试和调整，以平衡这两个守护因子来得到计算守护指数的合理结果。有一条原则是：在计算收益分配时，持有时间因子的权重将不低于Backed-ETH因子的权重，这意味着持有者从持有AGE中获得的收益将不会低于他从频繁交易AGE所获的的。因为我们认为“持有”的价值不比交易的价值小，甚至更大。

下列2种情况将可能会发生：

1. 有人打算持有AGE来获得收益分配。对于持有者方面，如果他卖出，他将不会得到被动收益，因为他不再是持有者了。但如果AGE的底价足够高，持有人可能会决定卖掉它。

2. 有人在自己的不同钱包中来回做私下买卖自己的AGE，以增加其交易量，从而增加他的AGE中储存的ETH数量。

这2种情况其实反映了2种不同的投资策略：

• 在情况1中，这个人更喜欢投资于“持有时间”。他可以获得越来越多的被动收益，因为他持有的时间因子越来越大，如果他卖出，也可以从价格波动中获得收益。

• 在情况2中，这位交易员更愿意投资于交易量而不是“持有时间”。他通过他的小动作为他的AGE赚取了更多的Backed-ETH，所以他将从分配中获得更多的收益，因为她的 Backed-ETH的因子变大了。但是相比于其他人仅仅持有而不交易，他是否能够赚取获得更多的收益？这可能需要每个人自己来做权衡。但这种行为确实是有助于整个社区的，因为A.G.E的社区基金持续地获得成交金额1%的资金流入。

如果整个系统像我预期的那样运行，整个AGE系统的价值会像飞轮一样越来越高。

• 被储存在AGE中的ETH金额就像一个“底价保护机制“，持有人不会以低于其存储ETH金额的价格出售他的AGE，因为以这个价格出售显然比销毁掉它还要糟糕。(而销毁将使AGE变得通货紧缩)。所以随着AGE的交易量越来越大，作为其背后支撑的ETH也将越来越多，AGE的“底价保护”也就越来越高，最终整个A.G.E系统的价值也越来越高。

• 此外，在未来我们可能会开发一项功能，它允许持有者不拿出从本金赚取的收益，而并把这些收益再次放回系统中来促进这个飞轮，就像复利的工作方式一样。

关于A.G.E的DeFi功能的更多细节将与社区讨论并在未来的文章中披露。

A.G.E背后的一些思考

我观察到非常讽刺的现象是，非同质化代币变得越来越同质化（Non-fungible Token is becoming “Fungible“ ）。

在2021年年底，随着主流商业领域对元宇宙的拥抱，越来越多的NFT项目开始将元宇宙游戏作为他们的最终目标，仿佛这是NFT的唯一出路。 这些项目大多以BAYC这样的头像NFT社区为起点，向着元宇宙的终极目标航行，然而在目前阶段提供给NFT持有人的用处却少得可怜。其中一些项目在完成销售目标后就把他们的宏伟目标放在一边，让社区和持有者丝毫不知道他们什么时候会进入元宇宙；或者更糟糕的是，其中一些项目是一个彻头彻尾的骗局，团队在完成公开销售后就消失了，相当多的人曾经被骗过了（我也是其中之一）。当然，我们也能看到很多项目在继续为社区和用户创造价值，一步一步地履行他们对社区的承诺。也许这就是加密货币市场的达摩克利斯之剑，NFT的狂热既带来了财富也带来了魔鬼。

但是，我们对NFT的创新，难道就只有元宇宙游戏一个方向了吗？

我记得曾经我们尝试过很多其他有趣的方向，比如猜谜、卡通、生成艺术、DAO，以及尝试去增加NFT作为资产的流动性。不像现在的元宇宙游戏一统江湖。我认为我们距离达到理想状态中的元宇宙还有很长的路要走，这需要投入大量的时间、人力和金钱成本。在进入元宇宙之前，我认为目前的NFT市场上有3个基本问题至今还没有被解决。

1. 图像的所有权无法得到验证。以目前的技术，我们只能通过智能合约证明ERC721/ERC155协议的代币和用户钱包之间的所有权，但无法证明这些数字内容和社交媒体账户的关联性，也无法证明图片的原始创意版权。现在NFT头像往往代表着某种社区力量甚至荣誉，然而任何人都可以下载图片设置头像，从而在社交媒体上制造虚假身份，轻松进行诈骗活动（我相信随着社交媒体上线NFT所有权的认证功能，这个问题将很容易解决）；有些人可以轻松复制图片，建立盗版、欺诈项目。(我认为这个问题需要通过图像编码方式的创新来解决)

2. 项目方兑现承诺的困难。NFT持有人能否充分享受社区成员的好处，取决于项目是否有能力运营一个长期的、良好的社区。这不仅考验着项目组的责任和能力，也需要持有人花费注意力和时间成本来持有NFT。如果社区经营不善，那么购买NFT的人有可能在社区内得不到相应的价值回报，甚至可能携款而逃。

3. NFT作为投资标的物有三大问题：流动性差，无法进行二次投资，套利方式单一。

   1. 流动性差。NFT资产形式流动性差的问题一直存在，而且由于买卖价差较大，持有者很难在理想的价格快速套现。

   2. 无法进行二级投资。NFT无法被二次投资在某处来为持有人产生额外的收益，而ERC20代币却可以在DeFi系统中进行二次投资。

   3. 套利方式单一。单一方式的套利伴随着投资的高风险。NFT投资者只能通过在NFT价格变化中低买高卖来赚钱，甚至都无法做空。然而更高的风险是，NFT的价格与它的品牌运营情况和社区资产的实力等等因素息息相关。如果NFT的社区运行不够好（或者项目方携款潜逃），导致NFT没有价格波动，那么套利的空间就非常小。

我们看到诸如NFTX、Nftfi等项目在NFT策略投资方面不断取得进展。我相信A.G.E将设定未来的标准，为其社区和守护者们提供最大的NFT投资机会。

Holder holder, chicken dinner! LFG!

Website: https://ageth.io

Discord: https://discord.gg/age

Twitter: https://twitter.com/A_G_Eth

https://mirror.xyz/kingbtc.eth/WqqwWcVKwCdlTWdfAZ0EwSPHI4JDla4-aIlJvOQIDkc

Website: https://ageth.io

Join our Discord: discord.gg/age

Follow us on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/A_G_Eth

A.G.E (Amateur Guardians of Ethereum) are the world’s first hold-to-earn NFT collectibles. A groundbreaking and revolutionary experiment combining NFTs and DeFi. An alliance consisting of 10,000 unique NFTs who dwell in the Ethereum universe with a primary mission to guard and protect the value of ETH.

• Different from traditional NFTs, AGE’s were created as Token-backed NFT (TB-NFT) as they are designed to store crypto tokens under each transaction into themselves. As the guardians are traded, a portion of the distributable ETH of trade payment will be stored on the back of the AGE. Holders have the ability to generate passive ETH profit from the DeFi harvesting feature of A.G.E. By creating and nurturing such a symbiotic relationship between crypto tokens and NFT art, we are enabling the intrinsic value of each piece of art to grow with each transaction.

• Unique from other NFTs with profit features such as Cyberkongz, which permits holders to earn new project-unique tokens (like BANANA), AGE enables holders to earn existing tokens such as ETH/WETH through the revolutionary DeFi features.

Value & Utility of A.G.E

Dual value of NFT and Crypto

By building a symbiotic relationship between Crypto and NFT artworks, we are experimenting with combining some value of crypto (Decentralized Finance) and some value of NFT (artworks, membership of community, social influence) for the first time.

Utilities for holders:

1. Awesome avatars. Original, hand-drawn, and unique artworks and avatars for your social media PFP. Ownership and commercial usage rights of AGE NFTs are granted to the holder.

2. A.G.E membership. Get access to guardians-only events, merch, and private a Discord channel.

3. Passive profit. Earn passive profit from the DeFi feature of Roadmap 1.0.

4. Exclusive access to futural innovative product features of the A.G.E.

NFT Artworks

600+ hand-drawn original traits

8 types: Ape, Bunny, Cat, Warthog, Eagle, Shark, Alien, and Robot

The image of the AGE is derived from the logo of Ethereum to reflect the mission of our project — to guard and protect the value of ETH. Each AGE also has an “Ethereum Reactor” embedded in his/her chest to mark their affiliation to the guardians' alliance.

DeFi Features

The foundation of DeFi features of AGEs is the TB-NFT (Token-Backed NFT), a new form of NFT. When it is minted or traded, a portion of the payment token will be added into the inner of itself. It allows AGE holders the unique ability to interact with any other DeFi protocols through their NFTs.

The Foundation: TB-NFT (Token-Backed NFT) mechanism

A.G.E NFTs are Token-backed NFTs (TB-NFT) that store ETH as part of their value.

The backed-ETH value of each NFT grows as the volume of trades increases. The more frequently the NFT is traded, the more tokens will be stored. The token value stored will continue accumulating as the volume of trades. To acquire the stored ETH, the holder would need to burn the NFT.

Imagining TB-NFT as a special piggy bank:

You bought a piggy bank which had saved some money within it as the initial, then you sold to someone and the piggy bank continues circulating on the market. Every time it is traded successfully, a portion of the payment is stored in the piggy bank itself. The money stored will continue accumulating as the volume of trades increases. And the owner of the piggy bank needs to wreck it to obtain the money.

The key points:

• 10% of the minting fee will be stored on the back of each A.G.E NFT at the initial period it is minted.

• Every time each A.G.E NFT is traded on OpenSea, 3% of the payment amount will be stored in the NFT itself.

• Holders will have to burn the NFT to acquire the stored tokens.

Why did we choose ETH to be the first crypto to begin this experiment?

We believe Ethereum is the cornerstone of the next-generation internet, so we chose ETH as our first crypto coin for our experiment. It will enable the entire Ethereum community to protect the “backed” ETH from being sold; and also will support holders of AGEs to hold ETHs for a very long time. HODLers WIN!

Passive Profit

I have introduced the TB-NFT mechanism, the passive profit feature is built on the base of it. These backed-ETHs will be assembled and utilized to invest in other DeFi protocols to earn ETH, so we can greatly reduce the gas fees compared to the individual investment. Also, our investment protocol will automatically optimize the investment strategy to achieve a higher APR.

There will be separated into 2 portions in the A.G.E vault:

1. The principal portion is the backed ETH value of each AGE. The principal can be staked out only when the holder burns his AGE,

2. The profit portion is the DeFi profit from the backed value of each AGE during the AGE DeFi feature running. The portion can be claimed by the holder at a certain point.

Roughly explain the profit model of AGE DeFi:

As I said, the A.G.E won’t publish a new token as the profit for our holders. The backed-ETH of the whole community’s AGEs will be invested in other DeFi projects or even the Ethereum 2.0 staking. The rewards of the investment will be distributed to all holders according to the “Guarding Index” which is calculated by 2 factors.

The 2 guarding factors that need to be balanced for individual AGE investment profit:

1. the backed-ETH amounts of the AGE

2. the AGE holding time(holding blocks) of the current owner

According to the mechanism of TB-NFT, recurring A.G.E. trades will increase the backed token of itself but decrease the holder’s holding time, the accumulation of holding time will restart based on the block number of the new holder received by the AGE. Holding for an extended time will be on the contrary.

The investment model will continue to be tested and adjusted to enable balancing of these 2 guarding factors in order to obtain reasonable results of the Guarding Index. When calculating the profit distribution, the weight of the holding-time factor will not be less than the weight of the backed-ETH factor, which means the profit that holders receive from holding AGEs will not be less than trading AGEs. As we believe the value of holding is not less than the value of trading, even more valuable.

Some situations might happen:

1. Someone intends to hold AGEs to receive the profit distribution. For the holder aspect, if he sells, he will not get the passive profit since he is not a holder any longer. But if the AGE floor price is high enough, the holder might decide to sell it instead.

2. An individual doing a private sale back and forth to a different wallet of his own to increase the trade volume by themselves, in order to increase the backed-ETH of his AGEs.

These 2 situations reflect 2 different investment strategies:

• In situation 1, the individual prefers to invest in holding time. He could receive continued passive profit as his holding-time factor increases as he is holding, but he also receives profit from the price fluctuations if he sold.

• In situation 2, the trader prefers to invest in the trade volume rather than the holding time. He generated more backed-ETH to his AGE through his tricks; so he will receive profit from the distributions because of the bigger backed-ETH factor. But how do we know if he receives more profit in this way than just holding? However, this does help the whole community because the community fund always raises from 1% of the trade price on Opensea.

If the project & system run as I expect, the value of the entire A.G.E collection will grow increasingly higher and higher like a flywheel:

• The backed-ETH is the floor price protection mechanism. The holder won’t sell his AGE at a price lower than the backed-ETH value, because selling it at that price is obviously worse than burning it. (Burning is making the AGEs deflationary.) So as AGE are traded more frequently, the backed-ETH becomes grows, the floor price protection of AGE moves higher, and the entire value of the AGE collectibles moon.

• Also, there is a possible way to incentivize holders not to claim ETH profit and return it to the system for model boosting: An option for holders that adds the profit to the principal part, similar to the way compound interest works.

More details of AGE DeFi features will be discussed with the community and revealed in future articles.

A few additional thoughts behind the A.G.E model

It’s incredibly ironic that the Non-fungible Token is becoming “Fungible”.

At the end of 2021, as the mainstream commercial industry began embracing the metaverse, more and more NFT projects were starting to utilize metaverse games as their ultimate goal, as if that is the only way forward for NFTs.

Most of these projects are using the BAYC-like avatar NFT community as a starting point to jettison towards the ultimate goal of the metaverse, yet the NFT utility offered to holders at the moment is pitifully low. Some of these projects put their ambitious goals aside after they have completed their sales goals, while the community and holders have not the slightest idea when they will enter the metaverse. Even worse, some of them are outright scams, teams just disappeared after completing their public sales, and leave holders/investors/customers frustrated and hurt (I was one of them). Of course, we also have seen many projects that are continuing to create value for the community and users, and step by step they are fulfilling their promises to the community. Maybe this is the sword of Damocles of the crypto market, the NFT frenzy has brought the wealth, but also the demons.

But is our innovative direction for NFT all that’s left to go into the metaverse?

I remember once we tried many other interesting directions, such as puzzles, cartoons, generative art, DAO, and attempts to increase the liquidity of NFT assets. Unlike the metaverse that now rules the roost.

I think we are still a long way from reaching the ideal metaverse, which requires a huge investment of time, manpower, and money to build. Before entering the metaverse, I think 3 fundamental issues have not been resolved in the current NFT collectibles market so far:

1. The ownership of images cannot be authenticated. With the current technology, we can only prove the ownership between a token of ERC721/ERC155 protocol and user wallets through the smart contracts, but we cannot prove the relevance of these digital contents and social media accounts; nor can we prove the original creative copyright of the images. NFT avatars often represent some form of community power and even honor, yet anyone can download images to set up avatars and thus create fake identities on social media to easily conduct scam activities (I believe this problem will be easily solved as social media goes live with the authentication feature of NFT ownership). Furthermore, some individuals can easily copy images to build pirated, fraudulent projects. (I think this problem needs to be solved by innovation in the way images are encoded)

2. The challenge of meeting the commitments of the projects. The possibility of NFT holders to fully enjoy the benefits of community membership depends on the project's ability to run a long-term, well-run community. This not only tests the responsibility and ability of the project team but also requires the holder to spend attention and time cost of holding the NFT. If the community is not well led and managed, then it is possible that the purchase of NFTs will not be rewarded with corresponding value rewards in the community, or may even flee with the money.

3. NFT as the subject of investment has three major issues: poor liquidity, the inability of secondary investments, and arbitrage in a single way:

• Poor liquidity: NFT asset form of poor liquidity problem has always existed, and because of the large bid-ask spread, holders are difficult to quickly cash out at the desired price. Although some projects like NFTX have made attempts to solve the problem of illiquidity in terms of funds, the results are not very satisfactory.

• The inability of secondary investments: NFT cannot be secondary investments somewhere to generate additional profit. While ERC20 tokens can be secondary investments in the DeFi system.

• Arbitrage in a single way: Arbitrage in a single way is accompanied by a high risk of investment. NFT investors can only arbitrage by making the right buy and sell trades when the NFT price fluctuates. The higher risk, however, is that the price of NFT is tied to factors such as how well its brand operates and the strength of its community equity. If the community of NFT is not running well enough (or the project team flees with the money), resulting in the price of NFT not being able to rise, then there is very little room for arbitrage.

We have seen projects such as NFTX, Nftfi, etc. continue to progress on the strategic investment side. I am confident A.G.E will set the standard going forward and maximize the investment opportunity for its community and guardians.

Holder holder, chicken dinner! LFG!

Website: https://ageth.io

Follow us on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/A_G_Eth

Join our Discord: discord.gg/age

A.G.E (Amateur Guardians of Ethereum) are the world’s first hold-to-earn NFT collectibles. A groundbreaking and revolutionary experiment combining NFTs and DeFi. An alliance consisting of 10,000 unique NFTs who dwell in the Ethereum universe with a primary mission to guard and protect the value of ETH.

• Different from traditional NFTs, AGE’s were created as Token-backed NFT (TB-NFT) as they are designed to store crypto tokens under each transaction into themselves. As the guardians are traded, a portion of the distributable ETH of trade payment will be stored on the back of the AGE. Holders have the ability to generate passive ETH profit from the DeFi harvesting feature of A.G.E. By creating and nurturing such a symbiotic relationship between crypto tokens and NFT art, we are enabling the intrinsic value of each piece of art to grow with each transaction.

• Unique from other NFTs with profit features such as Cyberkongz, which permits holders to earn new project-unique tokens (like BANANA), AGE enables holders to earn existing tokens such as ETH/WETH through the revolutionary DeFi features.

Value & Utility of A.G.E

Dual value of NFT and Crypto

By building a symbiotic relationship between Crypto and NFT artworks, we are experimenting with combining some value of crypto (Decentralized Finance) and some value of NFT (artworks, membership of community, social influence) for the first time.

Utilities for holders:

1. Awesome avatars. Original, hand-drawn, and unique artworks and avatars for your social media PFP. Ownership and commercial usage rights of AGE NFTs are granted to the holder.

2. A.G.E membership. Get access to guardians-only events, merch, and private a Discord channel.

3. Passive profit. Earn passive profit from the DeFi feature of Roadmap 1.0.

4. Exclusive access to futural innovative product features of the A.G.E.

NFT Artworks

600+ hand-drawn original traits

8 types: Ape, Bunny, Cat, Warthog, Eagle, Shark, Alien, and Robot

The image of the AGE is derived from the logo of Ethereum to reflect the mission of our project — to guard and protect the value of ETH. Each AGE also has an “Ethereum Reactor” embedded in his/her chest to mark their affiliation to the guardians' alliance.

DeFi Features

The foundation of DeFi features of AGEs is the TB-NFT (Token-Backed NFT), a new form of NFT. When it is minted or traded, a portion of the payment token will be added into the inner of itself. It allows AGE holders the unique ability to interact with any other DeFi protocols through their NFTs.

The Foundation: TB-NFT (Token-Backed NFT) mechanism

A.G.E NFTs are Token-backed NFTs (TB-NFT) that store ETH as part of their value.

The backed-ETH value of each NFT grows as the volume of trades increases. The more frequently the NFT is traded, the more tokens will be stored. The token value stored will continue accumulating as the volume of trades. To acquire the stored ETH, the holder would need to burn the NFT.

Imagining TB-NFT as a special piggy bank:

You bought a piggy bank which had saved some money within it as the initial, then you sold to someone and the piggy bank continues circulating on the market. Every time it is traded successfully, a portion of the payment is stored in the piggy bank itself. The money stored will continue accumulating as the volume of trades increases. And the owner of the piggy bank needs to wreck it to obtain the money.

The key points:

• 10% of the minting fee will be stored on the back of each A.G.E NFT at the initial period it is minted.

• Every time each A.G.E NFT is traded on OpenSea, 3% of the payment amount will be stored in the NFT itself.

• Holders will have to burn the NFT to acquire the stored tokens.

Why did we choose ETH to be the first crypto to begin this experiment?

We believe Ethereum is the cornerstone of the next-generation internet, so we chose ETH as our first crypto coin for our experiment. It will enable the entire Ethereum community to protect the “backed” ETH from being sold; and also will support holders of AGEs to hold ETHs for a very long time. HODLers WIN!

Passive Profit

I have introduced the TB-NFT mechanism, the passive profit feature is built on the base of it. These backed-ETHs will be assembled and utilized to invest in other DeFi protocols to earn ETH, so we can greatly reduce the gas fees compared to the individual investment. Also, our investment protocol will automatically optimize the investment strategy to achieve a higher APR.

There will be separated into 2 portions in the A.G.E vault:

1. **The principal **portion is the backed ETH value of each AGE. The principal can be staked out only when the holder burns his AGE,

2. **The profit **portion is the DeFi profit from the backed value of each AGE during the AGE DeFi feature running. The portion can be claimed by the holder at a certain point.

As I said, the A.G.E won’t publish a new token as the profit for our holders. The backed-ETH of the whole community’s AGEs will be invested in other DeFi projects or even the Ethereum 2.0 staking. The rewards of the investment will be distributed to all holders according to the “Guarding Index” which is calculated by 2 factors.

The 2 guarding factors that need to be balanced for individual AGE investment profit:

1. the backed-ETH amounts of the AGE

2. the AGE holding time(holding blocks) of the current owner

According to the mechanism of TB-NFT, recurring A.G.E. trades will increase the backed token of itself but decrease the holder’s holding time, the accumulation of holding time will restart based on the block number of the new holder received by the AGE. Holding for an extended time will be on the contrary.

The investment model will continue to be tested and adjusted to enable balancing of these 2 guarding factors in order to obtain reasonable results of the Guarding Index. When calculating the profit distribution, the weight of the holding-time factor will not be less than the weight of the backed-ETH factor, which means the profit that holders receive from holding AGEs will not be less than trading AGEs. As we believe the value of holding is not less than the value of trading, even more valuable.

Some situations might happen:

1. Someone intends to hold AGEs to receive the profit distribution. For the holder aspect, if he sells, he will not get the passive profit since he is not a holder any longer. But if the AGE floor price is high enough, the holder might decide to sell it instead.

2. An individual doing a private sale back and forth to a different wallet of his own to increase the trade volume by themselves, in order to increase the backed-ETH of his AGEs.

These 2 situations reflect 2 different investment strategies:

• In situation 1, the individual prefers to invest in holding time. He could receive continued passive profit as his holding-time factor increases as he is holding, but he also receives profit from the price fluctuations if he sold.

• In situation 2, the trader prefers to invest in the trade volume rather than the holding time. He generated more backed-ETH to his AGE through his tricks; so he will receive profit from the distributions because of the bigger backed-ETH factor. But how do we know if he receives more profit in this way than just holding? However, this does help the whole community because the community fund always raises from 1% of the trade price on Opensea.

If the project & system run as I expect, the value of the entire A.G.E collection will grow increasingly higher and higher like a flywheel:

• The backed-ETH is the floor price protection mechanism. The holder won’t sell his AGE at a price lower than the backed-ETH value, because selling it at that price is obviously worse than burning it. (Burning is making the AGEs deflationary.) So as AGE are traded more frequently, the backed-ETH becomes grows, the floor price protection of AGE moves higher, and the entire value of the AGE collectibles moon.

• Also, there is a possible way to incentivize holders not to claim ETH profit and return it to the system for model boosting: An option for holders that adds the profit to the principal part, similar to the way compound interest works.

More details of A.G.E DeFi features will be discussed with the community and revealed in future articles.

A few additional thoughts behind the A.G.E model

It’s incredibly ironic that the Non-fungible Token is becoming “Fungible”.

At the end of 2021, as the mainstream commercial industry began embracing the metaverse, more and more NFT projects were starting to utilize metaverse games as their ultimate goal, as if that is the only way forward for NFTs.

Most of these projects are using the BAYC-like avatar NFT community as a starting point to jettison towards the ultimate goal of the metaverse, yet the NFT utility offered to holders at the moment is pitifully low. Some of these projects put their ambitious goals aside after they have completed their sales goals, while the community and holders have not the slightest idea when they will enter the metaverse. Even worse, some of them are outright scams, teams just disappeared after completing their public sales, and leave holders/investors/customers frustrated and hurt (I was one of them). Of course, we also have seen many projects that are continuing to create value for the community and users, and step by step they are fulfilling their promises to the community. Maybe this is the sword of Damocles of the crypto market, the NFT frenzy has brought the wealth, but also the demons.

But is our innovative direction for NFT all that’s left to go into the metaverse?

I remember once we tried many other interesting directions, such as puzzles, cartoons, generative art, DAO, and attempts to increase the liquidity of NFT assets. Unlike the metaverse that now rules the roost.

I think we are still a long way from reaching the ideal metaverse, which requires a huge investment of time, manpower, and money to build. Before entering the metaverse, I think 3 fundamental issues have not been resolved in the current NFT collectibles market so far:

1. The ownership of images cannot be authenticated. With the current technology, we can only prove the ownership between a token of ERC721/ERC155 protocol and user wallets through the smart contracts, but we cannot prove the relevance of these digital contents and social media accounts; nor can we prove the original creative copyright of the images. NFT avatars often represent some form of community power and even honor, yet anyone can download images to set up avatars and thus create fake identities on social media to easily conduct scam activities (I believe this problem will be easily solved as social media goes live with the authentication feature of NFT ownership). Furthermore, some individuals can easily copy images to build pirated, fraudulent projects. (I think this problem needs to be solved by innovation in the way images are encoded)

2. The challenge of meeting the commitments of the projects. The possibility of NFT holders to fully enjoy the benefits of community membership depends on the project's ability to run a long-term, well-run community. This not only tests the responsibility and ability of the project team but also requires the holder to spend attention and time cost of holding the NFT. If the community is not well led and managed, then it is possible that the purchase of NFTs will not be rewarded with corresponding value rewards in the community, or may even flee with the money.

3. NFT as the subject of investment has three major issues: poor liquidity, the inability of secondary investments, and arbitrage in a single way:

• Poor liquidity: NFT asset form of poor liquidity problem has always existed, and because of the large bid-ask spread, holders are difficult to quickly cash out at the desired price. Although some projects like NFTX have made attempts to solve the problem of illiquidity in terms of funds, the results are not very satisfactory.

• The inability of secondary investments: NFT cannot be secondary investments somewhere to generate additional profit. While ERC20 tokens can be secondary investments in the DeFi system.

• Arbitrage in a single way: Arbitrage in a single way is accompanied by a high risk of investment. NFT investors can only arbitrage by making the right buy and sell trades when the NFT price fluctuates. The higher risk, however, is that the price of NFT is tied to factors such as how well its brand operates and the strength of its community equity. If the community of NFT is not running well enough (or the project team flees with the money), resulting in the price of NFT not being able to rise, then there is very little room for arbitrage.

We have seen projects such as NFTX, Nftfi, etc. continue to progress on the strategic investment side. I am confident A.G.E will set the standard going forward and maximize the investment opportunity for its community and guardians.

Holder holder, chicken dinner! LFG!