10 things I wish I knew as a new player in Upland Metaverse
Avoid the common mistakes new players make when joining Upland Metaverse
What is the Upland metaverse?
It’s an EOS blockchain-based virtual property trading game that maps virtual properties (parcels of land) to real-world addresses.
Briefly, in Upland metaverse, you can buy, sell or trade parcels of land between players in UPX tokens or USD. In addition to virtual properties, players can build structures on their properties, buy, sell, trade, and manufacture cars and 3D objects that are NFTs in the EOS blockchain.
Want to join the Upland Metaverse? Use my referral link for bonus rewards.
Upland metaverse partners with the FIFA
Before diving in, I want to share the news that Upland metaverse has recently signed a partnership with FIFA to bring World Cup 2022 experience into the Upland Metaverse.
Upland has also announced that whichever nation wins the FIFA World Cup 2022 finals, that nation's capital will be the next city to be released into the Upland metaverse, so an excellent opportunity to join Upland and own some properties in the World Cup 2022 winning nation’s capital.
Just to clarify, I love football (soccer), and I love the world cup. I do not support FIFA and its decisions, and I do not support the actions of any nation that has negatively impacted anyone.
In this article, I would like to help and guide new players to avoid making the mistakes I made as a new player. Some of the key points are
- Use a referral link to get bonus UPX tokens.
- Learn the difference between minting and buying
- Understand the FSA properties and take advantage of it
- Join the community and use the community tools
- Participate in the new city releases
- Start treasure hunting early
- Learn what Spark is, how it works and how to earn it
I have been playing the Upland game for nearly a year now.
1. Why should you join the Upland metaverse using a referral link?
When you sign-up for Upland metaverse using a referral link and make your first UPX token purchase, Upland will match your purchase (up to 100,000 UPX, $1 = 1,000 UPX) and give you 50%, and the player that referred you gets 50% bonus UPX.
Feel free to use my referral link https://r.upland.me/b4U3 or someone else’s. No pressure as long as you get the free UPX tokens.
I joined Upland metaverse without knowing about the referral program, and as a result, I missed out on some free UPX.
2. As a new player, focus on minting FSA properties, do not buy secondary market
One of the biggest mistakes new players make is that they start buying properties right after they join the Upland metaverse. Most of the time, they buy overpriced properties from other players (secondary market). Learning the difference between buying a property from a secondary market or minting FSA properties makes a huge difference.
What are FSA properties? These properties are offered only to new players (with a net worth below 100,000 UPX) for a lower price, and they mostly have a good resale value to help you make a profit and start your Upland journey. Every new city release reserves a portion of the city for new players as FSA properties.
How to keep my net worth below 100,000 UPX as a new player to exercise my rights to buy FSA properties? If you have used a referral link to join Upland metaverse, then I would suggest the highest amount you should consider spending is $49.99, which should give you 50,000 UPX and then because you used a referral link, Upland will match that purchase and give you 50% of it as a bonus (50% goes to the player that referred you), so additional 25,000 UPX and that will total to 75,000 UPX. You still have room for another purchase of $19.99 or less as long as you are below 99,000 UPX.
Do not sell FSA properties immediately unless you have reached 100,000 UPX (or close to it) because if you do sell for profit, then your net worth crosses 99,999 UPX, and you won’t be able to buy any more FSA properties. So, be patient, and once you max out your rights to buy FSA properties, you can start flipping for a good profit.
I will quickly explain the difference between properties and their colors in the screenshots below.
- The bottom-left parcel (dark blue) is your property
- The light blue property parcels are properties owned by other players
- The property with dark green color is a property owned by another player that is for sale.
- Finally, the property with a light green color in the bottom-right is a property that any player does not own, it’s available for minting from Upland by a new player with a net worth below 100,000 UPX.
In the screenshot below, three properties are grey with the “FSA” label, which only new players with a net worth below 100,000 UPX can mint, but because they are not within the discovery range of the block explorer, they show as grey.
If still unclear, don’t forget to join the Upland Discord server and ask for help in the #new-players-chat channel. Many players would tirelessly help answer your questions.
For example, above is a screenshot of a property that is FSA and bought by a new player, and they are selling it back (dark green color with FSA label). New players should avoid these properties unless it’s an excellent deal.
3. Learn about city tiers in Upland metaverse
In the Upland metaverse, each city has a tier, which is based on the prices of properties in that city in real life and some other factors. For example, Chicago, Los Angeles, Manhattan, and San Francisco are tier-1 cities in the Upland metaverse. Some of the tier-2 cities are Queens, Bronx, and Santa Clara. Similarly, Upland has tier 3, 4, and 5 cities.
As a new player, it’s good to know which tier city you are investing in, and the above will spike your curiosity and help you ask better questions.
4. Focus on properties or digital assets with better resale value
In my opinion, it’s easier to liquidate or flip properties that are cheaper and smaller but not too small or with weird shapes; however, it’s not always the case. Many factors would raise the value of a property, e.g., city tier, neighborhood, size and shape of the property, location, history of the property, the property being part of a collection, and so on.
For example, as of writing this article, if you could get your hands on a car or train terminal, you can sell it back 3x to 5x or even higher, so it’s good to be aware of the property and digital assets' value.
As shown below, 7268 Summitrose St. is an FSA property in Los Angeles. It’s 58 UP2 and has a monthly earning of 106.64, which is a 14% return.
If I were to start over, I would focus on minting FSA properties that are 24 UP2 in size and maybe in the range of 4000–7000 UPX, and this depends on the city tier and other factors; however, this would allow me to buy more than 10 FSA properties before I reach 100,000 UPX net worth. Once I can no longer buy FSA properties, I can start flipping them for a good profit and use the profit to purchase other properties (good deals) with higher earnings, and eventually, you will adopt a strategy.
As of writing this article, there are some decent-priced FSA properties in Queens, a tier-2 city.
5. Use tools to help you make better decisions
When I joined Upland, I used to click on each property for sale, then get the earnings and do the math to figure out the property’s original price. This is a tedious process, and some tools are more efficient and helpful.
Before you mint, buy, sell, or trade any properties, I recommend checking the floor prices on https://upxland.me/properties website to ensure you don’t sell below the floor and don’t buy overpriced properties.
There are many other tools and community Discord servers that, as a new player, you could benefit from a ton, so make sure to join them, below are a few I am part of.
- MetaMaps — Treasure hunting tips and tricks
- Analytics Assassins — The server does a great job of researching new city releases
- Upland Optimizer — Helps optimize your property earnings and offers other valuable features.
6. As a new player, participate in new city releases in Upland
When a new city is released, the community will research neighborhoods to indicate which locations are good to invest in. It would be good to be prepared and participate in a city release and mint as many properties in highly speculated areas as possible.
When Detroit was released, I invested 200,000 to 300,000 UPX in minting properties and made a profit of close to 1,000,000 UPX. It’s worth mentioning that many factors play a role in being successful in a city release.
The next city release in Upland might be the nation's capital that wins the FIFA World Cup 2022 finals, so a great time to join the Upland metaverse.
7. Build a treasure-hunting web of properties
There are different treasure-hunting types in the Upland metaverse, and as a new player, you can hunt for competitive (assuming you have done KYC) or standard treasures.
As the name implies, competitive treasure hunting is very competitive but also gives out higher rewards, so you might want to start with standard treasure hunting as a new player, where you have 5 minutes to find a treasure.
More details on treasure hunting are out of the scope of this article. One takeaway from this article, start treasure hunting early to earn extra UPX and Spark.
I only recommend treasure hunting if you have a good web of properties in a city, and this is to help you hop-around your own properties to triangulate the location o the treasure. Without a good web of properties, treasure hunting is not profitable.
I have around 300ish properties in Los Angeles, and I can do standard treasure hunts and make ~10,000 UPX a day and 0.4 or 0.6 Spark daily.
I started treasure hunting very late, another mistake 😐
8. What is Spark in Upland? How is it used? How to earn it?
Months after joining Upland (very late), I got interested in Spark. Spark is considered one of the most crucial and rare tokens in the Upland metaverse, and it’s used to build structures on properties, manufacture 3D objects, cars, and so on. You can even rent Spark to earn UPX in return, so learn about Spark as soon as you can and start finding these cute spark chests.
There are a few ways to get your hands on Spark.
- Buy it from the Upland Store (don’t recommend it, it’s expensive)
- Earn Spark doing standard treasure hunts
- Daily login will give you 0.01 spark after every seven days of consecutive logins.
- Competitive treasure sometimes gives you spark
- Earn Spark during the spark week by getting sparked-up treasures
- Only status-up (move from Uplander to Pro, and Pro to Director, and so on) during the spark week to get bonus spark
One thing to remember is to level up your Upland status during the spark week to get a bonus. For more on this, don’t forget to ask the Discord community.
9. Invest what you can afford to lose
When investing your hard-earned money, always invest what you can afford to lose, which is valid for all speculative investments. It’s easy to put money and relatively hard to cash out; liquidity also depends on what you are trying to sell.
So, before you go all out and put all your savings into platforms like this, ask yourself if you can afford to lose the money you are planning to invest, and if the answer is no, don’t invest. Also, join the Discord community, see what the players recommend, and be smart about your investment.
Some players have put thousands into this game, and then some do not spend money or spend the least amount of money and grow their portfolio organically. It all depends on your strategy and risk appetite.
My advice, take enough time to learn the game and the community, and the direction this platform is heading before investing a lot of money.
10. Join the Discord community as early as possible
Upland Discord and its affiliated community Discord servers (mentioned above) are where you find answers to all your questions, so don’t forget to join these communities.
You can find the Upland discord link in the Upland website in the bottom-right corner.
Conclusion
Knowing the above information will hopefully help you have a less bumpy ride and make better decisions on your Upland metaverse journey.
Once again, if you have not joined Upland yet, don’t forget to use my referral link https://r.upland.me/b4U3, that way, we both get rewarded.
Thank you for reading and supporting me.
