Earth 2: four years of promises and a cryptocurrency that never arrives

Earth 2: four years of promises and a cryptocurrency that never arrives

In 2021, with the metaverse booming and cryptocurrencies soaring, a project called Earth 2 promised to sell virtual land plots on a 1:1 scale map of the world. Four years later, its buyers are still waiting for the cryptocurrency that was supposed to give liquidity to the venture. Phase II of the project, which was meant to deliver the token and the playable world, has turned into a string of delays, course changes and a growing sense of weariness among those who put in real money.

The latest milestone on the official calendar placed the cryptocurrency launch in the third quarter of the year. The reality is that, as of this discussion, the token is still not operational and the team has kept pushing the dates back without giving concrete explanations. "The roadmap says Q3 (maybe earlier)" summed up the initial expectation. Months later, the same source admitted the app would arrive "in Q2 possibly Q3 but not promises", with luck by the fourth quarter.

A metaverse that is a video game and a crypto that isn't crypto

The original proposal was to buy digital land with fiat money and receive in return the promise of a future currency, Essence, which could be extracted from the game and exchanged for other currencies. That mechanism made Earth 2 an unclassifiable hybrid: neither a complete video game nor a conventional cryptocurrency. "Essence is not a crypto yet, but I guess we're in the process, and virtual land is still a digital asset," one buyer noted.

The problem is that Essence has been piling up with no real market to convert it in. Users claim it every day to avoid losing production, but they can't sell it. "At $0.015 it's probably not happening, but I'll leave the million ESS in there along with the land, and whatever else I generate I'll leave in the wallet ready to sell," another investor explained, making clear his position is now purely speculative.

The dark side of the metaverse: bugs, resources that appear and disappear

Phase II has also brought technical problems that have undermined confidence. Properties that produced a resource and suddenly stop doing so, or start generating a different one with no explanation. "I have 750-tile properties at 100% producing one resource, and I logged the property's essence a while ago, and at the same time the essence keeps going up.... Wasn't nothing supposed to be produced?" one affected user recounted. Support responded with a generic message about the resource heat map, with no concrete solution.

The gold and oil episode is a case in point. The company activated a heat map showing underground resources, but the positions changed from one post to another. "Those eggs are from the initial post they made with the arrows, which lasted a few minutes. They deleted it and uploaded another image with the eggs in a different position," one observer explained. The uncertainty about what is actually under each plot has become a legal security problem for buyers.

The jewel system and the game economy

To generate Essence, players must place jewels on their properties. The jewel fusion system is a maze of probabilities that has spawned its own parallel economy. "Common 46.80% Uncommon 25.21% Rare 17.18% Epic 7.62% Legendary 3.19%," one player detailed. High-level jewels have become an object of speculation: "T1 luminous jewels are selling like hotcakes right now."

The arrival of T3 jewels and the votes to decide their location added another layer of complexity. Some see them as a recoverable investment once the voted area opens; others see them as a shot in the dark. "Many are proposing the Fool's gold of pyrite as gold," one participant quipped about the whales' proposals.

The video that was supposed to change everything

At one point in the discussion, the release of a promotional video sparked a spike in expectations. "I think it's a kick-ass video, it's going to create a lot of hype, a lot of interest and attract a lot of people. I think we're at the start of the party," one enthusiast wrote. The reality is the hype didn't last. The new homepage, with a ship moving across it, was met with skepticism: "I think it sucks; the ship's movement and all that at least gives it the look of a shitcoin page."

The arrival of Japanese players was celebrated as a lifeline: "Japan is taking off. Japs keep coming in." But the volume of new users did not translate into a liquid market for Essence.

The weariness of the veterans

Four years on, the tone of the buyers has changed. "I've already lost all my excitement. I wouldn't even feel like playing if the world were fully launched by now. The weariness that Shane's continued inaction, ignored messages and lies have caused me has brought me to the extreme of being fed up," confessed an investor holding a million Essence.

Others have scaled their expectations down to the bare minimum: "In 10 years I'll come back and check whether they're worth money or not." The feeling of having witnessed a missed opportunity keeps coming up: "The guy could have made a fortune launching the crypto in 2021 (like he said he would), and we'd have made some good money along the way too."

The open question: is this a scam or a project that got stuck halfway?

Accusations of a pyramid scheme hang over the discussion. "The problem is when the bearded guy asks you for good cash in euros, but pays you back in ESS drop by drop, and on top of that another user has to buy your ESS with more money — the pure definition of a pyramid scheme," one participant argued. From another angle, it is defended that the project never promised a crypto and that the delay is due to technical and regulatory complexity.

Meanwhile, Essence still has no free market and the playable world remains in closed beta. The question hanging in the air is whether Earth 2 will ever become what it promised, or whether, as another buyer puts it, "this has all come down to waiting for the token to go up so I can sell."