Cronics — Breeding and Supply

Toniq Labs
5 min readAug 20, 2021

We are in an odd predicament — on one hand we want Cronics to be widely adopted and used with a relatively low cost to enter, but at the same time we want to value our early adopters and their investment into our the Cronic project. That is why we came up with a unique set of breeding and supply mechanics which we believe will achieve both of these goals.

Firstly — Gen0 Supply

Gen0 Cronics are those minted, not bred by two parent Cronics. Initially we gifted 5000 Gen0 Cronics to those that donated 0.2ICP — at the time, enough for a couple of cups of coffee. We had an amazing response, selling out in 48 hours and growing an awesome community from it. We also minted 1000 “Team” Cronics, some of which were distributed to early supporters of ToniqLabs.

Our plan was then to sell a further 18,000 Gen0 Cronics in October and mint another 1000 to be used by the team for marketing and growth. This would have made the initial supply of Gen0 Cronics as 25,000.

Today we are announcing our revised initial supply— there will only be an additional 5000 Gen0 Cronics minted and sold in October, and no more “Team” Cronics. This sets our initial Gen0 supply of Cronics as 11,000. More details regarding the sales will be released next month (e.g. dates and how it will work), with all proceeds being used to compensate current and future work being done on the Cronic’s platform (e.g. development of our battle game and future minigames).

Breeding Mechanics

One thing we wanted to do with Cronics was breeding — the ability to use on-chain randomness to help determine offspring traits based on the traits of two parents. Breeding will allow for the growth in supply to match user adoption as the Cronics project continues to grow. To control the supply and maintain value for early adopters we are implementing the following Mechanics:

  • Generation Sterility
  • Breeding Costs & Cooldowns
  • Recycle Mechanic

Generation Sterility

All Gen0 Cronics have evenly distributed genes as they are all created using random data. However, selective breeding allows us to breed superior offspring, making the genes of future generations more skewed, and can result in the ability to breed super-Cronics. To help restrict this and control supply, we have added a Sterility mechanic.

Future generations will become sterile and at a faster rate than the previous generation, until we reach the final generation of Cronics that are born sterile. Gen0 Cronics will be the only generation that can always breed, making them the most valuable from a breeding perspective.

  • Gen0 — Can always breed (Eternal Breeders)
  • Gen1 — Can breed 7 times
  • Gen2 — Can breed 4 times
  • Gen3 — Can breed 2 times
  • Gen4 — Can breed 1 time
  • Gen5 — Are born sterile

Due to the genes of Gen0 Cronics being evenly distributed, it is very unlikely to breed a super-Cronic using two Gen0s.

Breeding Costs & Cooldowns

To ensure supply is kept under control, we are enforcing a cost and cooldown when breeding. After a breeding session, the two parents will be unable to breed for a set time — this is the breeding cooldown. This cooldown increases for every consecutive breed (leveling off toward a max cooldown). This forces a time constraint on the supply of Cronics.

Breeders will also need to use PETRI, our in-game token currency that can be earned by playing Cronic minigames. There is a cost that increases for every consecutive breed (and similar to breeding cooldown, this will level off toward a max cost). This provides two things — an economic constraint on the supply of Cronics, but more importantly, a play-to-earn economy, where tokens won through playing the minigames can be used to breed Cronics (which can be sold via the marketplace).

Recycle Mechanic

Our final control on supply is via our Recycle Mechanic. Breeders can opt to “recycle” unwanted Cronics to reduce the breeding cooldown by 33%*. You can recycle multiple Cronics to further reduce the cooldown, but the reduction does not stack. That means that recycling 3 Cronics will not reduce the cooldown by 100%, but by around 72%. This will cause instances of deflationary supply.

*The figure of 33% is subject to change prior to launch

But what happens to the recycled Cronics?

Recycled Cronics can be considered “burnt”, but we plan to launch a Cronic Tutorial, which will help new users to understand the Cronics project and our various minigames. Completing the tutorial will reward the user with a non-transferable “egg” which can be used to claim a free “recycled” Cronic (if one is available).

The tutorial reward would be one per person, and if no Cronic is available users can hold their “egg” for use in future.

We will ensure that the tutorial is time-consuming enough that it would not be economically viable to abuse this system. The recycled Cronic will most likely be low value and sterile, but will allow new users to join the Cronic ecosystem at no cost. This will greatly assist in user growth, and because token earning is directly related to the quality of a Cronic, users would be more likely to buy higher quality Cronics as they slowly earn PETRI in the minigames.

Cronic Breeding— swiping right!

We will also launch a Siring program, where owners can list their highly desirable Cronics to be bred with for a fee. A user would search the database, pay a fee and provide a mate. The fee would go to the owner of the Sire, and the offspring will belong to the user. Any breeding costs would also need to be paid by the user. This provides another way for breeders to earn tokens using their Cronics.

Users can also use the Siring program to mate two listed Sires, pay each owner their respective fee, cover the breeding costs, and keeping the offspring. This means you can breed a Cronic without even owning one.

In summary:

  • Initial supply has been reduced from 25,000 Gen0 to 11,000 Gen0 Cronics
  • Remaining 5000 Gen0 Cronics to be sold in October (no more team Cronics)
  • Gen0 are the only Cronics that can always breed, making Gen0 Cronics the most valuable from a breeding perspective
  • Future generations will go sterile, to control selective breeding and supply (adding a supply cap to “breed-able Cronics”)
  • Breeding cost and cooldown mechanics are implemented to slow down supply
  • Breeding cost provides a clear play-to-earn economy
  • Recycle Mechanic is used to reduce cooldown by recycling Cronics, which can lead to instances of deflationary supply
  • Cronic Tutorial, using recycled Cronics as a method to attract new players to the ecosystem

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Toniq Labs

Building the decentralized future on The Internet Computer