ISLAND: Everything You Need to Know About the ‘Nifty Island’ Ethereum Token and Airdrop

Ethereum gaming platform Nifty Island has launched its ISLAND token. Here’s what you need to know about the airdrop, tokenomics, and more.

By Logan Hitchcock

6 min read

Nifty Island embraced a wide array of established communities in Web3 to help expand its Roblox-style metaverse game. 

Now it’s rewarding them.

The project, which pioneered the now-popular “play-to-airdrop” campaign, just launched ISLAND, an Ethereum-based utility token that serves as the ecosystem token for its in-game economy.

Below, learn everything you need to know about ISLAND now that it's live.

What is ISLAND?

ISLAND is the native token of the Nifty Island ecosystem, offering holders “in-game utility and demand drivers” to help power its creator-focused gaming metaverse.

ISLAND has a total supply of one billion tokens and launched on the Ethereum blockchain as an ERC-20 token.

The token will make use of LayerZero's omnichain technology, which will enable it to be utilized on Ethereum layer-2 network Base, in addition to Solana down the road. 

When did ISLAND launch?

The token generation event for ISLAND took place on Tuesday, December 17. The launch was delayed into the afternoon due to the game's official account on X (formerly known as Twitter) being hijacked in the morning.

Who gets the airdrop?

ISLAND will be primarily distributed to five separate groups of ecosystem participants. 

Community

The community receives the largest supply of ISLAND tokens, getting 38.6% in total.

The bucket of more than 400 million tokens is broken up into three separate community groups, allocating ISLAND tokens for the Nifty Island rewards pool, ecosystem incentives, and the play-to-airdrop campaign. 

Play-to-Airdrop Campaign

Those who participated in the nine-month play-to-airdrop campaign will split 12.6% of the ISLAND supply, all of which was liquid and tradable upon the token generation event. This bucket is aimed at rewarding “genuine gameplay and engagement” within Nifty Island. 

A player’s ISLAND airdrop is primarily based on the airdrop points they accrued by collecting Blooms, an in-game resource, and their respective collector tier, which is determined by the on-chain holdings of their connected Nifty Island accounts.

A snapshot was taken at 11am ET on December 16 to finalize a player’s collector tier ahead of the airdrop. 

Users who held at least one of more than 170 eligible partner community NFTs during a March 25 snapshot may also be eligible for ISLAND tokens as part of Nifty Island’s “Wave 3” addition to the play-to-airdrop campaign. Eligible communities are listed in the airdrop section on the Nifty Island website. 

Rewards pool 

An additional 175 million tokens—or 17.5% of the ISLAND supply—has been set aside in a Nifty Island rewards pool for real-time earnings through future gameplay.

Ecosystem incentives

Lastly, 85 million ISLAND, or 8.5% of the supply, is set aside for attracting developers and creators to Nifty Island. 

The first installment is being provided to Animoca Brands’ flagship NFT community, Mocaverse, offering 10 million ISLAND to its community via the MocaDrop at token generation. 

Investors and advisors

More than 300 million ISLAND tokes were set aside for investors and advisors to Nifty Island. 

Described as “exceptionally long-termist,” Nifty Island’s backers will have 71% of their tokens locked for two years, linearly unlocking over the course of the next two years thereafter. Meanwhile, the additional 29% of their tokens will be locked for three years, and then linearly unlocked over the following three years.

Nifty Island team

The Nifty Island team has been allocated 19.5% of the ISLAND supply, or 195 million tokens. Like the advisors and investors, team members will not be able to sell their tokens on day one. Instead, 66% of team member tokens will be locked for two years from the token generation event, unlocking linearly for the following two years. And the remaining 34% will be locked for one year from the token generation event, unlocking linearly over the course of the following year. 

Project Treasury 

Managed initially by the Nifty Island team, the project treasury will house 9.2% of the supply, or 92 million ISLAND tokens. These tokens are designed to be used to fund project expansion and promotion of Nifty Island. 

Exchange Liquidity

Finally, 2.5% of the ISLAND supply is set aside for centralized exchange liquidity. This was increased from 1% just before the token was generated, with the additional amount shaved from the "Ecosystem incentives" bucket.

How can I claim ISLAND?

ISLAND is claimable directly from the Nifty Island website

What can you do with ISLAND?

Nifty Island has already announced that the biggest utility benefits will be awarded to holders of the ISLAND token that stake their tokens on Ethereum or Base. 

Those that stake ISLAND will be eligible for the following benefits:

Enhanced rewards rate

Staking ISLAND will offer those that play in Nifty Island a higher rate of rewards, earning them additional ISLAND tokens faster than those who are not staking the ecosystem’s native token.

Access to exclusive resources

Players that stake the ISLAND token will gain access to greater platform resources, allowing them to make their in-game islands larger and more immersive. 

Consumables 

Consumables that boost content and earnings inside Nifty Island will be provided to stakers based on the amount of ISLAND tokens they lock in a staking contract. 

Exclusive prizes

Exclusive prizes and Bloom rewards will be offered by Nifty Island and its partners on occasion to those who have staked the token. 

Governance

Last but not least, staking ISLAND offers users the opportunity to vote on governance proposals that can directly shape the future of Nifty Island. Voting power will scale proportionally according to the amount of ISLAND tokens that a player stakes. 

In addition to these utilities, Nifty Island’s developers indicated that more benefits will be extended to ISLAND holders as the platform expands.

Edited by Andrew Hayward

Editor's note: This story was originally published on December 16, 2024. It was updated with new details after the token generation event on December 17.

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