The Next Chapter For White Sands

Announcement from Adam, dated 07/26/2024

White Sands Community – I have some important news to share with you. There’s a lot to unpack, so for those who aren’t interested in the details, I’ve provided a set of TLDR bullet points at the top. But for those genuinely passionate about our project, I’d recommend reading through all of the below. TLDR SUMMARY:

• White Sands, while in “stealth” mode for the last 18 months, has developed a tremendous amount of unreleased content and assets. A high-resolution preview of our main island as it currently exists on our build server is featured above. This is not a hypothetical view of what we envision; this is already completed & ready for release. We believe it eclipses the scale of anything created for HYTOPIA to-date by a wide margin.

• In addition to what you can see in the render above, there are hundreds of unreleased furniture, pet, vehicle and cosmetic items already designed and ready for release. There are also a variety of sub-experiences, mini-games and partnerships in third-party games that have been developed or are underway. White Sands is well positioned to be a major player in the HYTOPIA ecosystem once the platform enables non-Minecraft server support, targeted for next year.

• Adonis, one of the most respected members of the HYTOPIA ecosystem and community, will be taking over leadership of White Sands. I’ll be staying on as a strategic advisor with a commitment to spend meaningful time with Adonis to help him and the team continue to steer White Sands in a positive direction.

• All of the assets owned by White Sands have been transferred to a newly formed company that Adonis has founded in his own home country. These assets include 100% of the project funds, both fiat and crypto, as well as 100% of the project’s owned HYTOPIA Worlds and Node Keys. Adonis is contractually required to spend these funds operationally running the project and to continue distributing 100% of the $TOPIA yield from our Worlds to holders.

• The only compensation I am accepting for transferring these assets are 150 White Sands Parcel Pass NFTs from Adonis, making me (by far) the largest holder of the project. Note: I have not taken any personal compensation from White Sands since August 2022, two years ago.

• With the assets now transferred to Adonis, White Sands has between 2-3 years of runway, even if the company doesn't generate a single dollar of additional revenue. This ensures that the project can build patiently while awaiting the necessary support from HYTOPIA.

FULL ANNOUNCEMENT:

When Microsoft rugged the NFT Worlds ecosystem, White Sands was one of the only projects that kept meaningfully building. We never stopped supporting HYTOPIA. Our project launched with a commitment to release customizable homes with personalized furniture, interactive pets, working vehicles and connections to experiences.

I’m proud to say that we delivered on those promises. Not only that, but we released dozens of blueprint homes based on popular NFT projects, added staking with resource generation, a live-updating browser map of our world, themed events and much more. All while delivering millions of $TOPIA to our holders via dozens of airdrops.

But behind the scenes, we’ve been quietly creating the most impressive interactive world anyone on the HYTOPIA platform has ever imagined – and at a White Sands level of quality.

No one outside our team has seen the following renders until today. They are not imaginative concept drawings. Everything you see already exists on our build server, ready for release. I want to point out the absolutely massive scale of our main island. See those little dots around the North and South edges? Those are Villas. Which in and of themselves are sizeable structures. White Sands will be more than a destination on HYTOPIA – it’s been built from the beginning as a Nexus.

We’ve also already developed hundreds of 3D modeled furniture pieces, interactive pets, working vehicles and cosmetics that are 100% ready for release. We’ve vaulted them, along with most of the island above, because it simply doesn’t make sense to launch them yet. We’ve been awaiting the ability to move completely to the HYTOPIA platform and remove reliance on Minecraft, and for a marketplace where we can distribute and sell these items to the vibrant community that HYTOPIA is building.

The reality is, White Sands hasn’t had a real revenue-producing business model since mint. Though that time is coming. The opportunity is there, waiting to be unlocked by the HYTOPIA platform.

But that's not the announcement for today; it's simply the backdrop. The news I wanted to share is that Adonis will be taking over leadership of White Sands.

Adonis is one of the most prominent and well-respected voices regarding HYTOPIA. He’s also been the largest holder in White Sands for years. There’s no one outside the HYTOPIA team itself that’s more active or representative of the ecosystem as a whole. And as a result, I have a lot of faith that he's the right person to take White Sands forward. I want to share a short story:

When White Sands completed its mint, we publicly purchased $1.25 million of HYTOPIA Worlds from Preps. Preps is a great guy and a tremendous friend to the HYTOPIA ecosystem. He continues to be one of its largest holders and supporters. When the HYTOPIA Node Sale went live earlier this year, I pinged Preps and asked if he’d mind using the WHITESANDS referral code. You’d think that someone who received a seven-figure purchase from our project wouldn’t mind, right? But what he responded was surprising. He said that as much as he respected our project, that he had to use the ADONIS code because he's a hugely positive force for HYTOPIA and we need to make sure he knows it. It was of course hard for me to disagree. In this moment I also reflected to myself how far Adonis had come and how important he'd become to the HYTOPIA community.

With someone like Adonis wanting to take over, I had to consider what’s best for our holders. I genuinely believe having someone at the helm who wakes up every day thinking about, living, eating, breathing HYTOPIA is a considerable benefit to the White Sands project and community.

He's built meaningful relationships within the Minecraft/HYTOPIA ecosystem and has a deep understanding of what players will be looking for in the game. He's also spent years as a holder with his own ideas about what success for White Sands should look like. Adonis has setup a new entity in his home country and all of the White Sands assets are now owned by him. This includes all of our remaining capital, fiat and crypto, all of our HYTOPIA Worlds, Node Keys, servers and code.

Adonis has enough funds for 2-3 years of runway for White Sands, even without generating any additional revenue. This ensures the project can continue to patiently build while awaiting the foundational support necessary from HYTOPIA.

I’m not going anywhere. While I didn’t receive traditional compensation for transferring our assets to Adonis, I did accept two things. He’s sending me 150 Parcel Pass NFTs, making me the largest holder in White Sands. This is largely ceremonial. But I want it to be clear, on-chain, that I will continue to support White Sands and HYTOPIA moving forward. In addition, I’ve assumed a formal strategic advisory position with the project for a minimum of one year.

This will allow me to spend meaningful time with Adonis and the team to help guide the project in a positive direction.

There are few founders in web3 that would essentially “gift” away such a sizeable amount of funds and assets. But I want to be clear: while Adonis will be running the project and own the company, the gift was not to him – but to the community. My agreement with Adonis states that 100% of the funds transferred are to be used to operate the business. Not one dollar can be taken by Adonis himself, in distribution, salary, bonus or otherwise. The opportunity for Adonis is to use these funds and assets to build a sustainable business aligned with HYTOPIA. There’s plenty of upside for him to earn as the project sees success from its future endeavors.

Moreover the 5-year $TOPIA yield from our 45 HYTOPIA Worlds is contractually guaranteed to be distributed 100% to holders, as we’ve promised and delivered on since Day 1.

HYTOPIA has a bright future. And I believe with Adonis at the helm, White Sands has a brighter future than ever. I hope you’ll all join me in congratulating him on the start of this journey. And I look forward to experiencing what’s to come.

With genuine love and gratitude, Adam