How and Where to Buy Aavegotchi (GHST) – Detailed Guide

What Is Aavegotchi (GHST)?

Aavegotchi (GHST) is the eco-governance token of the Aavegotchi NFT Gaming protocol. GHST token holders receive voting power in the AavegotchiDAO, which oversees all aspects of the protocol, Aavegotchi’s flagship game the Gotchiverse, and Aavegotchi NFTs.

Aavegotchis themselves are pixelated ghosts backed by the ERC-721 token standard. The Aavegotchi NFTs have dynamic metadata that changes over time through user interaction. An Aavegotchi’s value is determined mainly by its Base Rarity Score, Kinship Score, and XP. Base Rarity Score can be increased by dressing the Aavegotchi in Wearables (ERC-1155), Kinship can be increased by petting the Aavegotchi twice daily at 12-hour intervals, and XP can be increased by participating in the DAO, attending community calls, and participating in minigame XP events.

Aavegotchi’s also have intrinsic value through their spirit force. Spirit force are interest bearing Tokens from the Aave protocol that are required to bring an Aavegotchi to life. Each Aavegotchi requires a specific type of Spirit Force, which can be determined by looking at the symbol on their head. Owner’s can liquidate the staked tokens at any time, however, liquidating the Spirit Force means you lose your Gotchi.

The protocol is called Aavegotchi as a nod to Aave, which translates to “ghost” in Finnish. The token ticker also cleverly spells out “ghost,” minus the vowel.

In November 2020, Aave invested in Pixelcraft Studios, bringing raffles to its protocol. The project’s mainnet launch was scheduled for Jan. 4, 2021, but was pushed to March of 2021 due to high transaction fees on the Ethereum blockchain. Due to the fact that Aavegotchis require daily interaction, the Aavegotchi community, AKA the GotchiGang, decided to launch the project on Polygon, the leading side chain to Ethereum.

Who Are the Founders of Aavegotchi?

A team with vast experience in different fields is behind the NFT Gaming Protocol. Coder Dan is its pseudonymous chief executive officer and co-founder. Its other co-founder is Jesse Johnson aka gldnXross.

Johnson is the COO of Pixelcraft Studios, the game studio behind the protocol, and the creator of Bullionix, the first gold-backed NFT collectibles. In the past, Johnson held key roles such as director of business relations/development and manager of international market development in different companies, including China Intop Exhibition Co and ZB Group.

The team also includes other members handling critical roles such as art director and Solidity lead. Aave’s founder, Stani Kulechov, was the project’s first advisor.

How Does Aavegotchi Work?

Each Aavegotchi NFT manages an escrow contract holding their Spirit Force, a balance of yield generating tokens from the Aave Protocol. Thanks to the yield they generate, the balance of an Aavegotchi’s Spirit Force increases over time.

Aavegotchis have a minimum amount of Spirit Force that is initially defined by their base rarity score. Upon opening a Portal, ten Aavegotchis are generated with a unique combination of traits. Users may only choose to summon one of the ten Aavegotchis, while the remaining nine are burned and gone forever. An Aavegotchi’s traits are generated via Chainlink VRF, an on-chain random number generator, and combine to form the base rarity score.

Traits also influence an Aavegotchi's rarity and their performance in the Gotchiverse game. In order to summon an Aavegotchi you must stake the required type of Spirit Force. The minimum stake of Spirit Force remains fixed for each Aavegotchi throughout its lifetime. However, there is no upper limit of Spirit Force for each NFT. Removing the minimum amount ejects the Aavegotchi back to the so-called Nether Realm, and the NFT is burned, with the collateral returned back to the owner.

What Makes Aavegotchi Unique?

Aavegotchi has pioneered a number of developments and features in the NFT Gaming Space. For starters, they were the first major NFT Protocol to go live on Polygon. The protocol has distributed millions in rewards through its original play-to-earn mechanism known as Rarity Farming, rewarding the most enthusiastically engaged members of the Aavegotchi ecosystem with GHST tokens across the categories of Rarity, Kinship, and XP.

Aavegotchi’s flagship game, the Gotchiverse, has been live on Polygon Mainnet since March 2021. Within the Gotchiverse, players use their Aavegotchi NFTs as web3 avatars to explore, build, battle, earn, and socialize. The Gotchiverse fair-launch playdrop introduced four new ERC-20 tokens collectively known as Gotchus Alchemica: FUD, FOMO, ALPHA, and KEK. These tokens act as the four elements of the Gotchiverse and are used to craft and upgrade Installation NFTs placed on a player’s Gotchiverse land parcel. A fifth ERC-20 token called GLTR was also created to reward Alchemica liquidity providers. GLTR’s primary utility is to speed up the crafting and upgrading time of Installations in the Gotchiverse.

Another Innovation the protocol developed is Gotchi Lending. Gotchi Lending is Aavegotchi’s improvement on the traditional scholarship model made popular by other play-to-earn games. Gotchi Lending requires no middle man and comes with zero risk of human error. It allows players to trustlessly lend their Aavegotchi NFTs to other players without any risk. The Gotchi Lending smart contract automatically splits any earned tokens per the agreed upon terms of the contract once the duration of the lending period expires.

Aavegotchi also became the first NFT Gaming protocol to have their eco-governance token available as collateral on Aave in February of 2022. The first ever cross-chain governance proposal on Aave passed, allowing GHST to be listed as new collateral on Aave’s Polygon Market along with BAL, CRV, DPI, LINK, and SUSHI.

The Aavegotchi Protocol stands out as one of the few truly DAO owned protocols. The AavegotchiDAO is the world’s most active DAO, and it oversees every aspect of the protocol.

How Many Aavegotchi (GHST) Coins Are There in Circulation?

Notably, the token doesn’t have a maximum supply. The platform uses the bancor bonding curve model to dynamically adjust the token supply through a continued GHST distribution. Bonding curves use a pricing algorithm to serve as an automated market maker and provide an always available source of liquidity. Users can interact with a bonding curve by staking tokens into the bonding curve’s reserve pool. When they do so, the bonding curve mints the corresponding tokens for the user based on the pricing algorithm. The newly minted tokens are always exchanged back through the bonding curve for tokens in the bonding curve’s reserve pool. This model ensures that a higher utility positively impacts the price over a given period of time, while reducing the volatility by roughly 1/3rd.

GHST tokens were distributed in two initial rounds, with each round having different amounts. The private round involved 5 million tokens, while the presale saw 500,000 tokens sold. Governance rewards and rarity farming are some of the other ways that the token made its way into investors’ hands.

The vesting period for tokens distributed during the private and presale rounds was fixed at 365 days and has been fully unlocked. Other beneficiaries in the distribution of tokens include the team and ecosystem fund that received 1,000,000 GHST.

How Is the Aavegotchi Protocol Secured?

Being powered by the Polygon blockchain, the project is secured by a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. Validators on the network will stake their MATIC tokens as collateral to become part of the network’s PoS consensus mechanism and will receive MATIC tokens in return. In addition to the proof-of-stake checkpointing, Polygon uses block producers at the block producer layer to achieve a higher degree of decentralization. These block producers give finality to the main chains using checkpoints and fraud-proof mechanisms. The Aavegotchi smart contracts themselves are open source to ensure individual access and review for any errors and/or hidden backdoors. All of the contracts have undergone multiple audits by reputable industry leaders and have never experienced any exploits since launch.

Where Can You Buy Aavegotchi (GHST)?

The protocol’s native token is listed on major cryptocurrency exchanges. GHST is paired with different tokens on centralized platforms like Binance, Crypto.com, Kraken, OKEx, MXC, and Bilaxy. It is also available on decentralized exchanges like Quickswap and Uniswap. Furthermore, it can be purchased directly from the Aavegotchi Bonding Curve on Ethereum Mainnet.

GHST has been listed on a number of crypto exchanges, unlike other main cryptocurrencies, it cannot be directly purchased with fiats money. However, You can still easily buy this coin by first buying Bitcoin from any fiat-to-crypto exchanges and then transfer to the exchange that offers to trade this coin, in this guide article we will walk you through in detail the steps to buy GHST.