Upland - Much more than just another crypto game

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 available in the game and is not a tradable currency on external exchanges. This decision was purposeful by the developers as it allows the game to be 50 state legal in the US and other municipalities that have difficult crypto laws. Since people aren't speculating on the cryto itself it drives the focus to the in game properties. All the lots are based on actual real life lot sizes and locations in San Francisco, California. Real estate values and incomes are also heavily impacted by the neighborhoods they are in, and these relate to the real world as well. The game is in open beta and has been out a little more than a month at the time of this writing. They will be adding New York City soon and will also be adding property development features that let you build things on your lots. As time goes on the game world will continue to expand to different cities in the US and internationally.

Some people will build houses, others will build business locations, others might erect billboards. The interesting thing is it's a real second life. The properties will be interactive, so once you visit a built up property you can "go inside". The vision is that cafe's will become digital meeting places where you can chat with other players in the game. A merchandise store will allow you to buy branded clothing that you can then have sent to you in real life. There are planned nurseries to have digital plants and pets stores for digital pets like crypto kitties. They will have real estate brokerages to help you buy and sell property. There will be banks to help you get mortgages for more property. There will be ways as well to leverage your property to a third party and have them pay to use it in game. There will be mechanisms to do all the things you can do in the real world, but in the game. Just like in real life you will be able to build and develop and garner more UPX for everything you do. You can set up your side hussle in the game.

Since UPX is an in game currency it can be stabilized as there isn't going to be speculative trading for UPX. You start out the game with a free 4,000 UPX balance, but you can buy more UPX at a rate of 1,000 UPX for 1 USD. In the mobile app the purchases are tied to your mobile app store, so for example if you are on Android you buy it in the app and it's processed through the play store. If you are playing the desktop version in browser you can buy with a credit/debit card, using PayPal or with a number of different cryptos. Regardless of how you buy it the price is the same and related to USD. They already have plans in place to allow for cashing out to Fiat as well. So you can buy in, play the game, get properties, flip them for profit and cash out whatever portion you like. You can also make in game income in any number of ways and cash that out as well.

The 4,000 UPX starting is admittedly a little tough to become a real estate mogul upon. But it is enough to buy a property and get a little income going. Base income is roughly 17% annually on the properties. You also get check in bonuses daily for the first 7 days, these add up to be enough to maybe get a second property after a period of time and depending how lucky you are with finding unminted properties on the cheap. There are also treasure hunts and other potential income sources. While you remain below 10,000 UPX of total net worth between properties and games you are a visitor. If you decide the game isn't for you and walk away you will eventually lose the properties and income. You have to renew your visa from time to time to make sure you are still around. This is so that a bunch of properties don't get stuck in limbo if someone doesn't continue to play the game. Once you have a total property and UPX net worth of 10,000 you become an Uplander. At this point those properties are permanently yours on chain and nobody but you can impact what happens with them. There are also additional "level ups" at 100,000 UPX and 1,000,000 UPX.

It's tough to get big in the game with just a free account, so if you try it out and decide to buy some UPX you can become an uplander and really get moving. If you use a referral link, like this one, you get a 50% bonus on your first purchase that puts you over the 10,000 UPX level. The person who referred you gets that bonus as well. Just remember it's a one time deal. You only get one chance at the bonus, and it's the first purchase that puts you over 10,000 UPX. The minimum purchase is 5,000 UPX for $5. If you are below 5,000 UPX when you do this you won't end up as an Uplander. There are a bunch of other amounts from $10 up to the thousands in predetermined increments. If you make that purchase for say 10,000 UPX you would get the 50% bons for a total of 15,000 UPX. If you buy 20,000 you would get 30,000 and so on. This is the easiest and fastest way to get a bunch of UPX as the bonus. Any subsequent purchases you will just get the purchased amount. You can also make income on getting collections of properties, the easiest starts with one property and you get a bonus. Then having 3 on the same street. Having 5 in total, plus a whole bunch of other bonuses. Those bonuses also come with income multipliers to boost your property income. Becoming an Uplander not only gives you true ownership of the properties and the ability to develop them, you also get some other new actions. You can now buy previously purchased properties that others have listed for sale, or you can list your property to flip for a profit. You get additional avatar selections as well. The game really opens up as an Uplander.

A couple tips, figure out early what the discovery trail is, how the explorer and property discovery works and how to jump around the map. Also learn how to use the POI (Point of Interest) button on the lower right. This shows all the neighborhood lines and some other key information. This will help you properly fill your collections and figure out neighborhood values. Focus on buying unminted properties first, these appear only very near to your explorer and are light green. Dark green properties are those being flipped by others and are usually more expensive than their initial minting. Read up and understand the tutorials that are available and pay attention. Treasure hunts can be fun, but are much easier once you have properties spread around the map and you can use them for free jumps. Your best first resource is the Official Upland Discord. There are a huge amount of friendly people there that love new players and want to help you get into the game. There are also a bunch of other Discord links to other fan groups that you will find there. I suggest you check those out as well as they have neighborhood discussions and a lot of other tips. People are already setting up a bunch of community resources to help. One of the most helpful is a website that collects all the rest of them together to serve as sort of a one stop resource shop for Upland. This is called the Upland Guru site and is run by one of the big dogs in the Upland community named Thankmelater. He has a great Upland 101 site for beginners. You definitely want to check that out here.

I know referrals can be a little taboo, so I will say one thing on the subject. Even if you don't want to use my referral link, if you do plan to put any money at all into the game, go find somebody's referral link that you will be willing to use. That link and the associated bonus is your easiest and fastest way to increase your profit. If you are going to put in $10 you would have 10,000 UPX, plus the 4,000 you start with, plus the 5,000 bonus, plus all the daily check ins. You will easily have well over 20,000 UPX and if in a couple months you decide it's not for you, just sell your properties and cash out to fiat and you will almost certainly be ahead. Go find someone's referral and use it.

If you want to use it, my referral is right here.

To learn more about the team behind Upland go here.

Check out the main discord here.

Check out the Upland guru site right here

Go and have a blast, enjoy becoming a real estate mogul!

I hope you find my posts informative, helpful, or amusing. Whatever the case thanks for your time.

Please comment with your thoughts.

You can follow me on the following platforms:

Publish0x: https://www.publish0x.com/recourier & https://www.publish0x.com/upland-uncovered

Twitter: https://twitter.com/recourier

Blogger: https://www.recouriercrypto.com/

To learn more about me or support my blogging efforts check me out here:

https://www.recouriercrypto.com/p/about.html