We’re excited to report that Lunar Token had a successful launch yesterday. Since our announcement less than 24 hours ago, over 35% of available plots have already been claimed! In this post, we’ll recap the launch, address community concerns, and discuss future improvements & governance.

Launch Details

The Near side of the moon experienced an early land rush, but as the day went on, the Far side saw a noticeable uptick in interest. Somewhat surprisingly, early explorers also claimed the northern and southern poles amid speculation that valuable lunar water is present there.

Notable statistics:

The average price of a lunar plot increased from 0.02 to 135 ETH.

of a lunar plot increased from 0.02 to 135 ETH. The median price of a lunar token is still 0.02 ETH. This represents the initial fee to claim a plot.

of a lunar token is still 0.02 ETH. This represents the initial fee to claim a plot. The total price of the moon is now 53,999 ETH, or approximately $16.2M.

147 plots are claimed, 21 of which were purchased from prior owners.

We have some theories as to why the average price increased so dramatically:

The dApp currently requires users to choose a price, so high asking prices are an easy way to say “not for sale.” While we work on implementing this feature, you can choose to manually de-list your plot via the contract by calling the setPrice(uint priceInWei, bool forSale) method. Lunar tokens are extremely limited in supply. Like all scarce resources, market forces can drive the price up to the point of irrationality. Future subdivision of property (discussed below) will allow smaller pieces of land to be traded and should work to decrease the average price.

Accordingly, we expect the average price to decrease over time while the median price increases. We’ll post a more detailed analysis in the coming days, and we welcome your thoughts and input!

Clarifications

We’ve also seen some concerns over the purpose and intent of the platform, and we’d like to clarify and correct these misperceptions.

The contract and Lunar dApp establish a real, decentralized exchange for the Lunar token. For complete transparency, our contract code has already been published and verified by Etherscan, and we’ve linked to it throughout our website and elsewhere.

The Lunar token is a real, non-fungible blockchain asset. However, as we state in our FAQ and earlier blog posts, the token should be considered a virtual trading card rather than a legally enforceable deed for lunar land, and as stated earlier, the platform intends to “demonstrate how smart contracts could be used to manage real estate.”

In response to this initial confusion, we’ve updated some of our messaging to better reflect the intended purpose of the product and amended some tongue-in-cheek statements for clarity.

Planned Improvements

Metadata

The contract supports adding custom metadata for each plot, e.g. a custom description or IPFS/Swarm link to more information, as outlined in this EIP proposal. While we build support for this feature, you can set your own metadata using the setMetadata(uint id, string data) method.

Subdivisions

While currently disabled, the contract supports subdivision of plots into smaller plots, each of which can have independent owners, prices, and metadata. The allowed level of subdivision can also be raised and lowered to control the supply of new plots.

Governance

Our goal is to develop a democratic governance system for the Lunar token and transfer ownership of the contract to the community as soon as possible. This will allow Lunar owners to vote on resolutions, control the level of subdivision, and set or eliminate exchange fees.

UI Improvements

In addition to building support for the features above, we’ll also be working to improve the current UI—fixing various minor bugs, improving performance, and adding better indicators for pending/rejected transactions.

That’s all for now! Join our newsletter below and explore the Moon!