TOKENOMICS

Details of the $AMBR token

We believe that fundamental community-driven change can take place when stakeholders are incentivized and rewarded with their own token. The Artists & Creatives Foundation will be issuing the $AMBR token, a new cryptocurrency with a detailed tokenomics roadmap. It was designed in part by top executives of the well-regarded UK-based Index Coop and will be finalized and then voted upon by a vote by the community in our Discord.

The Artists & Creatives Foundation has set aside 1 billion tokens for this token generation event (TGE), with the release date determined by a vote of the community. Of that amount, 61.5% goes to the community through community airdrops (5%), trading rewards (5%) and the Community Ecosystem Growth Fund (51.5%). Some 15% goes to investors, 14% goes to project team members and advisors, 5.5% is set aside for exchanges and liquidity management to sustain the price of the token, and 4% goes into staking pools.

Those familiar with token launches will recognize three major differentiators between our project and the approach taken by others:

1. We are in the process of contacting the founders or community managers of dozens of different top DAOs, Discords, collector and creator communities, arts organizations, nonprofits and others to invite their members into an allowlist for the “Origins: Genesis” NFT project launch.


2. Second, the $AMBR token rewards community members for participating in the Creator Economy. Unlike some projects, where the bulk of the project’s proceeds go to the founders or to the project team, the majority of the $AMBR token issuance is earmarked for the community. The token’s Community Ecosystem Growth Fund and other community-focused efforts will receive 61.5% of the total $AMBR supply. Most of the remainder will go to cover development and operational costs.


3. A third major differentiator from most NFT projects is that there is a solid business model behind the $AMBR token. Amberfi builds trusted NFT marketplaces for brands, and it already has a number of business clients, including Blackdove, the Caribbean Free Trade Zone and a number of other project builds still in stealth mode. Revenues generated from these marketplaces through transaction fees will be used to stake $AMBR, reinforcing the floor price and benefiting all $AMBR stakeholders, from investors to casual holders.

Governance

Rather than set up yet another DAO, we realized that we already have the perfect legal entity in the form of the Artists & Creatives Foundation, which will be issuing the token. The Foundation not only has a charter to serve the public good but, unlike DAOs, it is legally required to do so under its fiduciary obligations. So we will use that legal structure to serve the public interest and to forge partnerships with public-spirited, forward-looking organizations in the Web3 space. In that sense, we’ll aspire to be a convener of thought leaders and projects that support the underpinnings of the Creator Economy. If you’d like to be one of our partners so that your members receive an allotment of free $AMBR tokens, please contact us.

Upon the token’s release, holders will be able to buy NFTs with $AMBR and we anticipate being listed on one or more major exchanges that offer documented evidence of proof of reserves—but not to pool our assets there. The foundation commits to never putting its assets at risk and to manage the release and distribution of $AMBR tokens in a transparent and conservative manner.

Where the funds go

Revenues raised on the Expressions marketplace will be funneled back into the community. The project team’s current intent is to allocate revenues toward:

• Curators – Expressions is an open marketplace, meaning anyone can upload their works without gatekeeper approval. But we also know people have limited time and don’t want a firehose of undifferentiated content. All works are discoverable through search and on the Discover page. We’re adding value by helping to spotlight some of the best new works by emerging or underrepresented voices and bringing in a constant flow of guest curators with different tastes and cultural aesthetics. 
• Additional features – We are already hearing ideas from community members about features and functionalities they’d like to see. Let’s add it to the project’s development roadmap – and build it!
• Communal pot – We like the idea of pooling funds in the community coffers and having the community vote on how to invest or deploy – say, by buying NFTs in a project or supporting an artist’s work.

Community as the wellspring of our project

As a fairly small team, we don’t have all the answers. Let’s share ideas and collaborate so that we can support each other and turn this into one of the major NFT projects. Your ideas are more than welcome – they’re the lifeblood of this project.

Some ideas we’re considering:

• How to incentivize long-term holders with certain privileges or utilities that become unlocked at the six- or 12-month mark after purchase.

• How to reward early collectors in our project drops.

• How to generate a staking program that is rock-solid and trustworthy in light of the sector’s shortcomings in this area.

See the Warranties and Limitations section of nftlicenses.org for details about our disclaimers.

Our value propositions

The $AMBR token, through its technology platform Amberfi and resulting marketplaces—chief among them Expressions—is here to help power the Creator Economy for brands, artists, photographers, musicians, and any creatives who want to participate in Web3. We use the term Creator Economy in the broadest sense as the means by which companies, creatives, and collectors are empowered to manage and monetize digital content in Web3. While there exists a multiplicity of NFT marketplaces and accompanying blockchains that now give anyone the ability to sell and trade NFTs, there has been a missing ingredient in nearly all of these first-generation platforms: trust. 

The team behind this project is building the missing trust layer in Web3. We are working to expand the functionalities of marketplaces and NFTs (with NFTs 2.0), bringing NFTs to the masses by democratizing NFT marketplaces themselves and by introducing trust to the equation whenever an NFT is minted, sold, bought, or traded.

A token with a business model behind it

We’ve decided to name our token $AMBR after the technology solution that Amberfi is building for the community and its brand clients, given that adoption by the business community will help spur adoption by the public at large. Our value propositions center on three core offerings: 

• Trusted NFTs, marketplaces, and sellers
• Easy entry into Web3 for brands, customers, and the public
• Protected content that resides natively on chain—as opposed to most NFTs today, where a blockchain ledger points to assets that reside on Web2 servers. 

Our $AMBR tokenomics model underpins all three. The companies we’ve spoken with are excited about a solution that provides a unified brand experience, enabling them to maintain traffic on-site, reduce fiction, and engage directly with NFT enthusiasts under their own umbrella. We are providing different use cases of the $AMBR token for different brand clients depending on their needs.

Main components of $AMBR tokenomics model

Strong tokenomics design is critical to the success of any Web3 project. $AMBR is a multifaceted utility token with some governance rights and a tokenomics and incentive model focused on three core pillars:

1. Value generation
   • How do we create value for $AMBR?
2. Marketplace launches program
   • How do we incentivize and support world-leading partners, businesses, and brands to launch with Amberfi? 
3. Ecosystem growth
   • How do we best support the long-term growth of the Amberfi and Expressions joint ecosystem?

We’ll detail each of these elements in the following pages. We have strived to be pragmatic with our token distribution, as many new projects have seen their native token “flood the market” on launch. For this reason, we are keeping the initial $AMBR distribution modest and targeted, and we are using time locks and staggered token releases to spread $AMBR allocation over a multi-year period.

Value generation

Our tokenomics model is designed to support sustainable value accrual to $AMBR.

Upon launch, 100% of platform trading fees will be converted into $AMBR and streamed into the Community Ecosystem Growth Fund. This will reduce circulating supply and ensure the fund remains well-capitalized while also creating a steady source of market buy-demand for $AMBR. 

These $AMBR buy-backs will be complemented by further “buy demand” created by increasing the utility of $AMBR. 

Business utility will be created through the introduction of a tiered system that will unlock additional perks and benefits based on the organization’s $AMBR holding. 

Customer utility will be created by enabling the use of $AMBR to transact on our client marketplaces. Moreover, we will provide $AMBR holders who opt into staking with access to artists, events, NFT drops, and special releases.

Initially, the token will have advisory components but will not have direct governance. We will explore the possibility of moving to a DAO model once $AMBR is well established in the marketplace.

White Label Marketplace Launch Program (B2B)

To encourage collaboration with high-value businesses and brands, and to build awareness, media attention and user engagement we are introducing our White Label Marketplace Launch Program. 

Select partners may also be eligible for a $AMBR loan that will unlock the benefits outlined in the “$AMBR utility for our B2B clients” section below. This gives the opportunity for new customers to benefit from the many rewards outlined above without the need to buy $AMBR on market, or wait until they receive $AMBR through achieving the volume milestones outlined above. (We use the terms “clients” and “customers” interchangeably in this document, but ultimately it is the users of each brand’s marketplace who are the end customers.)

Community Ecosystem Growth Fund (B2B & B2C)

The Community Ecosystem Growth Fund will be used to support the long-term development, growth, and sustainability of the Amberfi-Expressions ecosystem with support for new marketplaces and serving as an onboarding platform for new customers and new and emerging creatives. This fund will initially be managed by the Artists & Creatives Foundation team and could be used to support activities such as:

• $AMBR Grants Program for emerging artists and marketplace collaborations
• Community engagement & events
• Referrals programs 
• Artist and creative rewards
• Targeted Airdrops to users of NFT marketplaces 
• Staking rewards for individual $AMBR owners  
• Special promotion events with associated Trading Rewards

We have intentionally not been prescriptive on how $AMBR will be used within the Community Ecosystem Growth Fund. This provides Amberfi with the flexibility to experiment with different community, business development, and growth initiatives. 

By carefully balancing mechanisms that create “sell pressure” with those that create “buy demand” (i.e., platform trading fees being converted to $AMBR), we believe we can support sustainable price appreciation of $AMBR.

Together, this tokenomics model will enable Amberfi to build traction leading up to launch while maintaining the capital to fund ecosystem development for years to come.

Enhancing value for $AMBR holders

How do we create value for $AMBR holders?

Without a robust model for generating value for their native token, many projects struggle with a decaying token price caused by the sustained sell pressure of tokens distributed through launch incentives, promotions and airdrops. 

We address this challenge through the use of the following mechanisms to generate buy-demand and to support the positive price appreciation of $AMBR.

• $AMBR Buyback
• $AMBR Utility
  • marketplace
  • community
  • business

• $AMBR staking for special promotional access

$AMBR Buyback

Initially in our client marketplaces, trading fees will be set at 2.9% for buyers, 1% for sellers and can be paid in $AMBR, ETH, USDC, or the native blockchain token (e.g., $MATIC). We will delay the rollout of $AMBR, however, until it is listed on a trusted CEX (see below).  

To create a positive underpinning of token utility, for the first six months after launch, 100% of trading fees (say, paid in $MATIC) will be converted into $AMBR. This means all trading fees generated in MATIC will then be exchanged for the Amberfi native token. 

This mechanism has the same outcome as 100% of customers buying and selling NFTs using $AMBR. This is because either:

• The user buys the NFT in $AMBR by purchasing this $AMBR on the open market. Trading fees are thus paid in $AMBR and transferred to the Community Ecosystem Growth Fund, OR 
• The user buys the NFT in $MATIC (or ETH or any native currency); this $MATIC is then converted by Amberfi into $AMBR on the market and fees are transferred to the Community Ecosystem Growth Fund. 

Under either scenario, $AMBR receives volume support for transactions and 100% of trade fees would be added to the Community Ecosystem Growth Fund in $AMBR to support the further development of the Amberfi platform.

These repurchases of $AMBR will not be done at the point of sale but on a semi-regular basis (i.e., on a floating schedule or once accumulated trading rewards exceed a predetermined threshold that fluctuates). We will not convey the exact timing of this sale ahead of time and will seek to avoid a predictable timetable in order to mitigate the risk of front-running.

These regular repurchases of $AMBR on the open market will generate consistent buy-demand and support positive token price appreciation.

$AMBR community utility

We will seek to emulate the success of social DAOs such as Friends With Benefits by creating Discord or similar forms of gating based on $AMBR holdings. This tiered Discord means $AMBR holders will gain access to exclusive live performances, demos, interviews, and classes with our featured artists. This utility can also become a benefit to marketplaces that either maintain a certain staking level of $AMBR or sales volume by co-branding events and access to favored token holder customers. 

Brands and creatives may also use $AMBR to support the growth of their own communities directly. As an example, the brand or creative could determine that holding a certain number of the $AMBR token, or transacting in a certain volume of $AMBR grants their fans a role that unlocks additional channels, perquisites such as early access to the artists’ NFT drops, or even whitelist access to future sales.

Over time, users may be incentivized to use $AMBR for new marketplace functionalities or benefits that we roll out, such as access to early drops, special events, Discord, and other perks we will generate with our customers’ support. 

$AMBR utility for users of our marketplaces

At the launch of our token, all NFTs can be bought and sold for $AMBR on supported marketplaces and blockchains. 

As the Amberfi-Expressions ecosystem grows, we will seek to continually expand the marketplace utility of $AMBR. Use cases for $AMBR include the token as payment for the cost of minting NFTs and to enable additional optional functionality at the time of minting. In addition, costs associated with launching/maintaining bespoke storefronts, and application capabilities can be paid in $AMBR.

$AMBR utility for B2B clients

Similar to how we create utility for $AMBR by providing community members benefits based on their $AMBR holdings, we plan to extend this model to metaverses, brands, and creatives (eg., crypto artists with a large following) who stand up their own marketplace using our platform.

We offer the following benefits based on our B2B clients’ $AMBR holdings

*Amberfi may make changes to the $AMBR holdings required for each tier over time

** Amberfi will cover full minting fees on blockchains other than Ethereum that have reasonable gas fees and will supplement fees for Ethereum with a rebate.  

This will encourage partners to buy $AMBR on the market to receive a number of additional benefits unlocked across the following tiers (we will name the tiers at a later date). This tiering system, and the benefits unlocked at each level will evolve over time.

It is worth highlighting that while over time we are keen to encourage brands to buy and hold $AMBR to unlock benefits — as part of our White Label Marketplace Launch Program, we will be “lending” $AMBR to new marketplace — allowing them to unlock the benefits shown below without any additional spend.

We’ve worked with major brands in the past and their rewards programs vary widely, so we intend to support brands in a flexible and dynamic manner. We anticipate formulating several templated tier-based incentive programs for our brand clients — specifically, those that don’t have their own token or go-to-market incentive strategies — for use in their marketplaces, varying by vertical or sector. We are open to further recommendations from our marketplace clients around additional benefits they think would be valuable.

Partner benefits description

Free NFT mints

Partner organizations with a certain level of $AMBR holdings will be able to unlock a limited number of free mints to be awarded to artists and creatives looking to launch NFTs on their marketplaces.

We have already recognized that our partners consider free minting to be a valuable perk for participating artists. We have agreed to provide free minting for 10 artworks apiece for the first 500 artists and merchants who enroll in a soon-to-be-announced major white-label marketplace. Vetted creators will be participating through an easy-to-use registration form and minting screen.

VIP access

Stakeholders who hold significant $AMBR can provide VIP access to staff, collaborators, business partners, and others, with the token giving them entry to a variety of live events, virtual events, NFT drops, and special releases. You can read more about the engagement activity we have planned in the Community Ecosystem Growth Fund section below. 

NFT drops

Amberfi will work with brand clients on co-promotions featuring special NFT drops. Special access to these drops can be gated via $AMBR holdings and transaction volumes on their marketplace. These drops, perhaps of limited-edition NFTs commissioned by the brand, would take place in client marketplaces using the Amberfi platform.

Seller KYC Reward

To foster increased public trust and to screen out bad actors, we will offer $AMBR tokens to sellers who agree to undergo the KYC (Know Your Customer) screening process. NFTs for sale will indicate whether the seller has been “Verified by Amberfi” or is an unverified seller. 

These authentication mechanisms provide a strong incentive for our clients to invest in $AMBR as a means to benefit from the many perks this unlocks. As more marketplaces launch with Amberfi, we imagine these program will drive significant demand for $AMBR  from businesses that don’t have their own token.

White Label Marketplace Launch Program

How do we incentivize and support world-leading partners, businesses, and brands to launch with Amberfi? 

Our White Label Marketplace Launch Program is targeted toward businesses, brands, and Web3 metaverse organizations such as VR & gaming platforms as well as DAOs that focus on supporting creatives. We intend to use $AMBR to reward early marketplace clients—including the aforementioned major white-label marketplace and metaverse client—and to support the growth and success of new brand marketplaces.

Affiliated marketplace clients will be eligible for an $AMBR growth grant on launch. Following that, partners will be eligible for further $AMBR as their exchange net volume reaches certain thresholds. 

Allocations of $AMBR that are granted upon launch and after key thresholds are achieved will be custodied with the Amberfi team on behalf of partners. However, our partners have the discretion to use this $AMBR to support a variety of engagement and incentive programs — with the Amberfi team supporting each partner to determine how best to use the $AMBR grant to support growth. The terms of vesting require the use of $AMBR for promotion of the site and it is not a cash-out reward for the customer.

For example, $AMBR from the Marketplace Program could be used to:

• Support NFT purchases from artists and creatives in the Amberfi-Expressions ecosystem, including artworks in the white label marketplaces, metaverse platforms, and in the fine art galleries we are supporting and helping to stand up. 
• Reward brand ambassadors recommended by brands for minting user-generated content as NFTs on their NFT marketplace as a brand-supported asset. 
• Reward superfans, brand advocates, and past collectors of their physical art who are crypto-savvy or willing to set up crypto wallets.
• Reward fans for attending virtual brand-sponsored events as a way to onboard them into crypto and to support marketplace engagement.
• Connect brands with artists and subsidize them to create NFT artworks and media and to spread the word in venues outside Web3, including social media, as part of an NFT education program for the public.
• Incentivize artists who are just entering Web3 to join and support the Amberfi ecosystem for white-label marketplaces. 
• Other programs will be accepted that are approved by the Amberfi team, after discussion in our community channels, as supportive of our client marketplace and of the Creator Economy. 
• Select partners may also be eligible for an $AMBR loan.

Lending

Select partners may also be eligible for an $AMBR loan for an agreed period of time. Increasing their $AMBR holdings will unlock a range of additional benefits such as free mints and reduced selling fees as outlined in the “$AMBR utility for our B2B clients” section. This gives us the opportunity to reward early partners and marketplaces with a variety of benefits without the need to buy $AMBR at market prices or wait until they receive $AMBR through achieving the volume milestones outlined above.

Community Ecosystem Growth Fund 

How do we best support the long-term growth of the Expressions & Amberfi ecosystem?

The Community Ecosystem Growth Fund will receive 51.5% of the total $AMBR supply. Moreover, the fund will be replenished and possibly grow at times as trading fees generated from buyers and sellers transacting on the Amberfi marketplaces are deposited into the fund.

This $AMBR will be used to support the long-term growth and development of the Amberfi-Expressions ecosystem and community. We have intentionally not been prescriptive on every possible way that $AMBR will be used — and we will likely see $AMBR allocated to support a variety of impactful growth, community building, and business development initiatives.

Initially, the Artists & Creatives Foundation or Amberfi core team will determine the initiatives funded by the Community Ecosystem Growth Fund. To support the funding of high-impact initiatives, we plan to launch a Grants Program. Initially, this will be coordinated by the Artists & Creatives Foundation or Amberfi core team with major input from participation by our community members in helping to define the parameters, including eligibility requirements.

The following sections will highlight some areas and ideas for projects that the Community Ecosystem Growth Fund could support beyond the ongoing Customer Marketplace support already defined.

Community engagement

Community is a vital component of any Web3 organization. While our initial support is focused specifically in how to directly support our marketplace clients, we also hope to form a broader community of creatives and customers who form around our core value propositions of creating themed marketplaces for brands and creatives — and doing so in a way that brings authentication and trust to the NFT space. To support a self-sustaining and engaged community that spans the diverse marketplaces and creative communities that $AMBR wants to support, $AMBR will be also be offered to community members who support ecosystem growth in some of the following ways:

• Moderation
  • While we have every confidence that KYC will greatly reduce the impact of copy-minting and fraud, there are likely to be circumstances where efforts will be made to create fraudulent content using a trusted platform. We intend to reward $AMBR holders who actively assist our community in flagging items that plagiarize others’ work, that violate copyright, or otherwise violate our site’s terms of service.

• Curation 
  • In support of white label marketplaces, and Expressions’s mission to support new artists, we will work with those marketplace clients to offer the community the ability to drive the selection of works showcased on our site, resulting in galleries and major sections of our site that will reflect the tastes and aesthetics of different cohorts within our community. We can offer curation support to white-label marketplaces as an additional fee.

• Content
  • We are also keen to coordinate between our marketplace clients, creatives, designers, and community members to generate a variety of high-quality works. This could include artwork, cutting-edge videos, educational materials, articles, and educational webinars. 
  • As part of this, we could run content competitions and support winners to mint their NFTs and have brands support winning entries across social media. Support of charitable causes is another option.  

Events

We will seek to support a growing awareness and engagement with Amberfi and Expressions by partners, customers, and businesses by hosting a variety of in-person, virtual, and hybrid events.

• Live events
  • We see the opportunity to stage a series of co-branded, co-promoted live events in major cities, including Miami, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, London, Toronto, Mexico City, etc. They’re an effective way to expand awareness of and participation in Web3 to the broader public and to generate earned media (free publicity).
  • We will work with the community and partners to co-host these special events, but with an interesting twist. Instead of charging them $AMBR to attend, we can give attendees $AMBR or marketplace client sponsored NFTs as a thank you for attending. We also envision prize giveaways during the event requiring winners to visit a given marketplace to collect.  These could be live video concert clips, brand-focused collectibles, or other promotional items envisioned by participating sponsors.

• Metaverse and online events
  • We plan to frequently host events for our community members, artists, and other creatives in our Discord and elsewhere. Amberfi could reward artists and creatives who participate in online shows or in-person events with $AMBR or appealing NFTs that can be co-sponsored.
  • Events could include exclusive live performances, demos, and classes, with some events gated by $AMBR holdings and others made fully public with rewards that involved engaging with a marketplace client. 
  • We are also excited to draw on our partnership with a major metaverse to support our events approach, including hosting of live concerts, art exhibit openings, and fashion show premieres.  
  • Finally, there are intriguing marketing opportunities to have large holders of $AMBR or influential NFT collectors gain VIP access to special events within an event.

Growth

The Community Ecosystem Growth Fund will also support a variety of growth activities and campaigns. For example:

• Referral bounties
  • Users can generate a unique referral code that they can share, entitling them to a small amount of $AMBR as a reward whenever a new user uses a referral code and completes a transaction such as an NFT purchase.
  • Referral codes can be used to spread the word online about specific artists/creatives a user likes or wants to support in our clients’ marketplaces or in ours. This can be shared with or become part of our marketplace clients’ vested rewards budget to support their marketplace growth as well.

• Invitation bounties
  • In addition to user adoption of the token, we believe it is equally important to incentivize brands and creatives to list on the platform. Invitation bounties will be used to incentivize our community to encourage artists and other creatives to list on our clients’ marketplaces or on our site. So a KYC creator or brand who stands up an approved marketplace as part of a referral could trigger a vesting on the part of the referrer’s marketplace, or a direct reward if they don’t have a marketplace.
  • $AMBR will be awarded to the issuer of the invitation if the recipient creates a legitimate listing on a white label Amberfi marketplace or Expressions.

• Homesteading bounty
  • A grant of $AMBR tokens will be awarded to the artist or creative if they create a legitimate listing on an Amberfi white-label marketplace or the discovery hub Expressions.
    • Legitimate is defined as a listing on our client marketplaces or on Expressions whose owner submits KYC/AML documentation to verify their identity.
    • Such marketplaces will benefit from the trust attached to verified provenance of the NFTs and the identity of the seller. A checkmark that denotes “Verified by Amberfi” or “Amberfi Verified Seller” will connote an extra level of authentication.
    • While sellers are not required to go through the KYC verification process in all of our client marketplaces, the lack of a verification checkmark may give buyers pause at the point of purchase, spurring more sellers to undergo the verification process and in turn minimizing bad actors’ behavior.
  • The Homesteading bounty grant is designed to incentivize the brands/creatives to list their items for sale on the platform. The $AMBR allotted to them could appear as a credit against which they can deduct the minting fees when listing items.  
  • Functionally, this is akin to providing our early storefronts with a relatively fixed number of free mints depending on gas price fluctuation in order to populate the marketplace with items so that the above-cited purchasers have digital assets to bid on and purchase.  
  • The grant is only for a “free” mint and would have no impact on fees on any listing for sale of a previously minted item.

B2B2C tokenomic incentives 

Our white-label client marketplaces and the Expressions discovery hub for emerging artists have a role to play in creating new brands, new creative works, and new customers. A reputable starting point to find trusted original works — whether for first-time or secondary sales — is, we believe, a massively deficient need in the NFT space, and a big opportunity for us. We see the combination of brand-specific client marketplaces, more niche white-label marketplaces for creatives and organizations, and the Expressions discovery hub as filling that role, all coming together to create a more vibrant, trustworthy ecosystem for NFT collectors.

Once brands can offer trusted content that can be bought on their marketplaces and either resold on the same stores or through secondary marketplaces that support these new NFT standards in a trusted fashion, we believe this alignment will improve customer trust and introduce greater engagement between brands, creatives, and collectors.

While growth hacking is best implemented at a later phase of customer growth, we wanted to define a vision for how we see this unfolding.

We plan to offer every marketplace client a metrics dashboard that provides insights into customer and collector behaviors in a way that doesn’t violate users’ trust. We can work with our marketplace clients to support their campaigns to reach not only existing customers but users who, based on their overall purchase history and holdings, we perceive to be “warm leads” who would welcome hearing about offers that align with their tastes. They might own in-game assets, or particular art collections, or other criteria that create a potential match. We can also incentivize the greater community to hold $AMBR for a brand’s early drops or for similar rewards. We can offer rewards based on purchases at a particular store or combined across stores to gain access to new listings and new content to be minted.

Some of the ways in which $AMBR can be used to support our brand clients’ customers include:

• Trading Rewards
  • Similar to Staking Pools, whales could receive special access to brand content and special events based on their trading volume.
  • We want to steer clear of a percentage return or other gimmicky contest approaches and instead reward loyal customers with premium benefits and access to special content and events.

• Brand-specific airdrops
  • Rather than carpet-bombing brands’ customers, we will use airdrops surgically by providing opt-in opportunities that support brands’ marketing campaigns in which specific benefits are awarded for users performing certain tasks, undertaking certain actions, or achieving a certain level of loyalty. We do not intend to just airdrop free tokens.  
  • Airdrops would be narrowly tailored to specific drops or marketing programs with marketplace clients to showcase specific works or curated collections.

B2C tokenomics incentives

After testing and deploying in a variety of solo B2B settings, we plan to support our client marketplaces by allowing them to opt into a curated “best of” NFT showcase that brings millions of new eyeballs to brands’ digital assets in an inventive new way through our discovery hub Expressions. As we outlined above and in our accompanying backgrounder, we can’t simply stand up marketplaces for clients, wish them well, and hope for the best. We have to support them through rewards and incentives that spur their fans to take action and to introduce compelling brand NFTs to new cohorts of customers and collectors. In addition, we need to support not just large brands with millions of existing customers but small and medium-size brands as well as individual creatives who wouldn’t be able to draw mass attention to their NFTs through a solo marketplace on their own.

When we are ready to have the eyes of the world on us — for example, after the launch of several large marketplaces and announcements of several major partnerships — our B2C tokenomics incentives could further turbocharge expansion by drawing media attention, viral social media pick-up, customer engagement, and user activity. All of these efforts would be in furtherance of supporting our primary focus, our brand client marketplaces, and brands would only participate if they see that it aligns with their business interests. 

This strategy is split into three core elements.  

• Staking pools
  • Staking is a well-known incentive mechanism in DeFi. We believe that elements of this mechanism can be leveraged to great effect with Amberfi.
  • When users stake or deposit $AMBR into a staking pool, they will also earn additional $AMBR. This aligns the incentives of the community, provides upside for speculators, and rewards those who invest in Amberfi’s future. 
  • As individuals must purchase $AMBR to stake into the pools, this program will also create buy-demand and help absorb tokens distributed through Launch Engagement activity.
  • We are in discussions with a partner Web3 provider about rolling out an inventive form of “soft staking” that enables token holders to hold onto their tokens in self-storage rather than placing them in a vault.

• Trading rewards
  • Generating volume and trading activity is a crucial part of Amberfi’s growth strategy. 
  • We are open to distributing $AMBR as a reward to users who trade eligible NFTs on the Amberfi platform, chiefly through our clients’ marketplaces and partners’ sites. 
  • This would incentivize activity and volume to move to the Amberfi-Expressions ecosystem as both buyer and the seller of an item will earn rewards based on their trading volume.

• Targeted airdrops
  • Our planis to provide targeted, limited airdrops to existing members and users of:
    • DAO communities that support the creator economy (such as Flamingo DAO, PleasrDAO, et. al.)
    • Select Discords
    • Select arts and social good communities
    • Select NFT communities
    • Select NFT marketplaces
  • This approach emulates airdrops targeting OpenSea or Blur users—that is, active spenders—but seeks to identify a narrower set of more engaged users who want to support the Creator Economy. We will offer targeted airdrops to those who opt in rather than blanket airdrops. 
  • We believe that a carefully timed airdrop will help create media attention and attract many new customers to the Amberfi-Expressions ecosystem.  We may decide to dispense with an airdrop altogether if we’re able to build momentum for $AMBR through B2B partnerships alone. We will discuss with our advisors, investors and our community members before moving forward.

Public sales, exchanges and liquidity

To maximize the availability and accessibility of $AMBR, we will support buying and selling across both centralized and decentralized exchanges.

As part of this, we will also allocate 0.5% of the total supply towards public sales on one or more centralized or decentralized exchanges and 5% for liquidity to support decentralized exchange $AMBR pairs. This 5% is included as part of the total 51.5% of $AMBR allocated to Community Ecosystem Growth Fund.

Centralized exchanges

Our advisors recommend that we consider getting the $AMBR token accepted and traded on a handful of centralized exchanges. We recognize that this is a lengthy process and can take as long as six months. The initial exchanges we may consider include Kraken Ventures and possibly Binance, Huobi, and Kucoin. At the same time, we will explore decetralized exchanges as well.

Decentralized exchanges

If we decide to list the token on a centralized exchange, after a sufficient period of time elapses, we also plan to support an $AMBR trading pair on a major Decentralized Exchange (DEX), most likely Uniswap. Listing on DEXs is permissionless and free. However, ensuring enough liquidity to enable low-cost trading can be challenging. As such, an additional 5% of the total circulating supply will be ring-fenced for Protocol Controlled Liquidity (PCL). 

At launch, we plan to TGE on Ethereum and bridge to different blockchains to support AMBR directly on them.  Within the exchanges, we will support converting to the native tokens where we deploy our first client marketplace capabilities, such as an AMBR<>ETH, AMBR<>AVAX and AMBR <> Matic on Polygon with the opportunity in the future to bridge to new tokens and networks. 

We will actively monitor our liquidity position to ensure an excellent user experience for those interacting with $AMBR and our marketplace.

Timing of token release

Given that any token launch is dependent on market conditions, we intend to launch at the point where we believe market conditions are most supportive of a successful launch as well as a time frame backed by our community members. We will deploy the early client marketplaces we’re building with native token support and add $AMBR as an additional option for purchasing NFTs once the market conditions support an $AMBR TGE and public sale. We intend to consult our community members, investors, advisors, and marketplace clients to identify an ideal time for our token’s release. In the meantime, we will use the token raise to hire team members and support our growing list of clients and partners.

Conclusion

The $AMBR tokenomics model is designed to turbocharge a high launch engagement by incentivizing partners and brands, their customers, creatives, NFT artists, whales, and holders to engage with the Amberfi-Expressions ecosystem and the marketplaces we are standing up. 

With the Community Ecosystem Growth Fund safeguarding 51.5% of the $AMBR supply and integrating a strategy to repurchase supply to refresh the treasury, we ensure Amberfi is sufficiently well capitalized to support our long-term growth. Over time, our community of creatives and clients increasingly will be empowered to take a greater role in governance and in directing how these funds are used.

By combining aspects of the most successful tokenomics models across DeFi and the metaverse, by carefully considering our token emission schedule, and integrating a variety of incentive mechanisms, we feel confident our tokenomics model will support Amberfi’s and Expressions’s rapid expansion and success in the space.

We believe the $AMBR token has the potential to gain considerable traction and enable a more secure, trusted, and brand-friendly onboarding experience into the Web3 ecosystem. $AMBR will attract large cohorts of valuable assets to be minted as NFTs and create new supporters, advocates, and participants invested in the growth and success of Web3 as the future of digital assets. We have an exciting story to tell, not just about the token but about the Amberfi platform–about why it contributes mightily to the trust layer of Web3’s architecture and why a project that enables the democratization of NFT marketplaces is a cause worth supporting.