Am I just too stupid to play crypto browser games? Or just too poor?

I don’t hate cryptocurrency and blockchains. They do use resources to mine that could be better used doing something useful, but that ship has sailed, and it’s pretty clear crypto, in some form, is here to stay. To that end, I bought some crypto on CoinBase – a mix of BitCoin, Ethereum, and DogeCoin, just to dip my toes into the water. I’ve made about a buck so far.

I didn’t buy the coins to get rich – not really sure that’s possible for someone who is not already rich. I bought the coins to learn more about crypto, and maybe have a little fun.

Dragonereum marketplace. The prices are in Ethereum.

The first game I tried was Dragonereum. This is a browser-based dragon breeding and fighting game, similar to many others out there (for an instance: Flight Rising). The difference here is that the dragons in Dragonereum are purchased for Ethereum. Once purchased, you can breed them with others you purchase to generate new dragons that you can then continue to breed or sell, or fight them with other dragons to increase their value, perhaps at the expense of your opponent, whose dragon could lose value.

The dragons in the image above cost Ethereum that, as of this writing, correspond to these dollar amounts:

Dragon #1090Genesis (from a Genesis Egg)0.2 ETH ($773)Dragon #859Gen 1 (from two Genesis parents)0.4 ETH ($1,546)Dragon #2541Gen 13 (product of intensive breeding for desirable traits)280 ETH ($1,082,483)Dragon #1994Gen 3 (probably some desirable traits)1 ETH ($3,866)Dragonereum marketplace prices, in ETH and USD

Some dragons can be purchased with Dragonereum’s own currency, which they call Gold, that tracks the price of Ethereum.

Most browser games have some sort of monetization to them, but there is usually a free tier to get you invested in the game. In Dragonereum, after a tutorial where they give you a couple of eggs to hatch and breed (only to then take them away), you are dropped into the marketplace to buy your official starting egg or dragon. The very cheapest dragon I found was listed for 0.14 ETH – a little over $540.

The goal of Dragonereum, and from what I have seen, crypto games in general, is to buy some sort of asset, increase its value somehow, then sell that asset. Since once you have two dragons in Dragonereum, you can breed them for free, once you have taken that initial plunge, you’re just printing Ethereum, as long as you can continue to find people willing to pay.

I only bought $50 in Ethereum, so clearly I was never going to be able to afford to play this browser game, not even once. (I did, however, create a dragon in Flight Rising).

Flight Rising. Both these dragons together cost a total of ETH 0.0

Okay, turns out I suddenly have $773 in Ethereum ready to spend on that starter dragon with the unimpressive pedigree. You can’t make money without spending money, after all. So, after linking my Dragonereum account to an empty Ethereum wallet (I need to not accidentally make a purchase), how much will it cost to bring my baby blue dragon home with me?

MetaMask connects crypto wallets to vendors

Wow. $7,138.90 for the price of the dragon, and the maximum price of the transaction on the Ethereum blockchain. All Ethereum blockchain transactions charge “gas”, which is a tip to the Ethereum miner to encourage them to process your transaction. This tip is never going to be $7,000 – as far as I can tell, usual gas fees are less than a buck if you’re willing to wait or take the risk of the transaction never going through (in which case, your Ethereum is burned – lost forever).

That’s one of the cool things about Ethereum; unlike BTC, Ethereum is destroyed at a steady pace through burning to help it hold its value.

While the “gas” probably wouldn’t be $7,000, it could be. MetaMask lets you adjust the maximum amount of gas you want to bet on the transaction, but it would not let me adjust it to a reasonable amount (where reasonable means, I don’t want to risk my $773 dragon on a transaction that is never mined onto the blockchain, but I am not about to put $10,000 of Ethereum into a wallet so that I can play a browser game).

So that’s where I’m at. I checked out CryptoKitties, just for fun, and while the kitties are a little more affordable, I’m still stuck at the whole gas issue.

I’m going to cryptogame, though. I just have to find one cheap enough for me to play. I was given some suggestions to try out…

Meanwhile, I can look at my CoinBase account slowly accruing value as more people like me begin to investigate the crypto world.