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Showing posts from July, 2020

Daiquiri 2 Update, Development Begins and so much more

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Today  Upland  rolled out a big update.  They have put in place the  Daiquiri 2  update.  This update has a number of back end work that will enable all the described features to come out.  What it also does is add a few other unexpected fun things, including the beginning of construction of City Hall.  As in the real world, construction will happen over time, so for now only the the frame is visible.   (Click here for tweet) This is very exciting as it shows the next major evolution in the game is ready to roll out.  So what does all this mean?  Well lets take each point really quickly. Prep for NYC opening, Air Travel, and "Heist" This is a pretty big deal an encompasses a number of things.  The NYC opening is more than just NYC.  It will formalize and deploy the mechanics for air travel.  It will set up "the heist" the winners of which will win the first flights in Upland and be given the opportunity to have the genesis mint in NYC (aside from the airports which

Upland - Was it hacked?

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The short answer is NO, absolutely it was not.  An individual used emails and passwords found on the internet and used a brute force attack to log into peoples accounts that have used the same emails and passwords for multiple online services.  Though none of Uplands servers were compromised the event has given the Upland team an opportunity to evaluate ways they can help protect users who may re-use passwords.  Please see the announcement made on the Upland Official Discord Server today.   Compromised accounts via scripted access using publicly available account database , Jul 21st 2020 What happened: On July 21st, an Upland player has committed a malicious abuse of Upland’s authentication API. This method involved taking publicly available combinations of emails and passwords from accounts (outside of Upland) who have been compromised in the past and trying to log into Upland with those combinations. Out of millions of attempts made, the perpetrator seems to have gained access to a

Daily Uplander - The power of blockchain in gaming

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It's clear by now that my interests in Upland are driven heavily by the utilization of blockchain in the game.  It's also driven by the fact that they have been able to do that integration in a way that is pretty seamless to the average user.  You can read more about that in this article that I previously wrote.  The beauty of the blockchain is that it's simply put, data.  For those that know how to use it, data is power.  Blockchain is not only data, but it's a distributed ledger that is widely a available, censorship resistant, and immutable .  What this means in simple terms is it's data that is available to everyone and cannot be easily blocked, obfuscated or hoarded by a central authority.  To be fair, that data when stored on the blockchain is very techy, it's stored in computer code and languages that do need a special set of skills to manipulate.  That's exactly why people build interfaces that present the data in human readable form that's ea

Upland - How to balance true ownership and compliance

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If you have read any of my other writing you should know by now that I am a believer in blockchain and it's ability to level the playing field.  From banking the unbanked, to providing paths of ownership without red tape, to privacy on the blockchain if you desire, censorship resistance, all the way up to breaking the deathgrip of the rich and powerful over the less fortunate masses.  I believe strongly in the power of an open, public, immutable ledger.  I also believe very strongly in the old crypto moniker of 'not your keys, not your coins'.  I think that Upland can play a pivotal role in the world in this regard, hence my immense interest. I wrote a fairly lengthy piece on how Upland can provide a path to mass adoption . The way to do this is by making the path to crypto as friction-less as possible.  To do this you often have to make some concessions on the technical and security aspects.  Upland is trying to do the right thing here but is dealing with two fairly oppo

Upland - A road to crypto mass adoption

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I have been into the game Upland for a little while now and only just recently started to blog about it.  I originally was checking it out as a distraction or just something to have a little fun, then after a bit realized I was onto something really amazing, but wasn't sure how to put it into words.  After a few discussions with some other players on the Upland discord it really clicked for me.   Fair warning, this post is aimed a little more at the crypto guys then at the games guys.  But I do think there are good take-aways regardless of which of those categories you more comfortably feel applies to you.  I am going to get a little techy and it's going to be long.  I really think it's going to be worth your time to read it if you are interested in understanding the gamification to crypto world parallels.  Go grab a coffee, or a beer, or whatever suits you and settle in for a couple minutes. So being a bit of a cryptophile the last few years what always seems to be a hot

Property Development in Upland - It's just the beginning.

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If you are not yet up to date on Upland I suggest you go check out my initial post which you can find right here.   Upland is a game based on NFTs which are things on blockchain rather than currency.  Up until now the main NFTs available in the game have been lots.  These lots are based on actual lots in San Francisco.  The promise has been that players would be able to develop on those lots.  You can develop houses, parks, businesses, whatever you like. You can find all the juicy details on their property development roadmap that was posted in this article .  If you want to understand all the cool things that are on the horizon you should definitely give it a read.   The reason I am writing today is one of the co-founders dropped the first teaser of what the property development will look like when he showed off the upcoming city hall in 3D. (Click for link) This is obviously a big deal and shows just a hint of the coming property development.  Many of the players are really looking f

Upland - Much more than just another crypto game

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In the last few weeks I have been getting into a crypto game called  Upland . Now calling it a crypto game is a little misleading as visions of gambling sites and other games of chance are often associated with that moniker.  What Upland is really in a way is a real estate and property development game.  They do this by making the gameplay surround the idea of collecting and improving NFTs.  If you don't know what an NFT is you can find a fairly in depth article here , but the most basic explanation is it's things on blockchain rather than a currency.  Some examples might be digital playing cards, or digital pieces of art.  They can also be used to represent real life items held in escrow and the NFT being used as a title for the real world item.     So in this game real estate lots are NFTs which can be bought and sold and traded.  Just like real world real estate speculation you can own the lots and earn income from them.  The in-game currency used is UPX.  UPX is only availa