The Third Wave – Coffee
If you are a coffee connoisseur, you’ll appreciate the third wave of coffee. It is a wave that brought in a greater appreciation of all things coffee and brings coffee lovers together. In essence, for many, coffee has become the center of social interactions.
Image Source: Nathan Dumlao: Unsplash
One event that has taken the industry to greater heights is the annual World Barista Championship. Not that it is needed as coffee is the second most valuable commodity. It is black gold. This much anticipated annual event produces champions from all over the world. It’s the Coffee Olympics. Past and present champions are highly revered and respected in the community.
Indeed, this third wave has started a whole coffee culture and benefited many coffee brands and coffee-related businesses to thrive on it.
The Third Wave – Pandemic
Image Source: Edwin Hooper: Unsplash
In contrast, the latest third wave that’s been on the news is anything but desired. Unlike the Coffee Third Wave, this third wave brought with it nothing but despair and a sense of hopelessness. I don’t want to write too much on this as it is quite depressing.
I’ll just say that this pandemic third wave has caused more alienation, heartaches and destroyed more businesses and livelihood in modern history.
What has this got to do with anything like Upland?
Let’s cut to the chase. As you are already aware, humans are social creatures. We want to interact. We want to belong. We want to feel appreciated and wanted. We have a need to create. We have a yearning to share. There must be a goal, an activity, and social events to keep our minds from wandering.
I don’t know about you, but Upland does help me somewhat to cope with isolation due to the pandemic.
Social Connections
The Upland Game has plenty to offer in terms of connection with players. If you are a player and have not discovered the richness that the community offers, you need to get plugged in.
Here are the different channels that offer you a connection with the game developer and other players:
Resources – Players Produced
Would you invest your time in a project that has no future? That’s right. You won’t. Going by the amount of time invested by some fans and players in generating content related to the game, you can tell that this game has great potential.
Here are a few examples of resources from fans/players.
Events
If you are getting bored from the lockdowns, you can be assured that the Upland team will keep you occupied. If you take a peek at the #live-events discord channel, you’ll see the many past events held in the Upland Metaverse.
Past events included a Mother’s Day Poem with the best ones winning rewards. The latest event is the Memorial Day Tour in Manhattan on 31 May 2021. It is a stress-free no-mask, no social distancing tour that you can participate with fellow players and your friends. The Upland Team was so engaging that they did a Youtube “let’s do the tour together” live broadcast. You can watch the recordedMemorial Day Tour Clip.
For a taste of what an Upland Travel and Tour is like, you can also read ‘A Day in the life of UplandDood’ where I invited readers to join me on a tour in San Francisco.
An Income – for some
In fact, I have noticed somewhat mentioned in the Upland discord that playing Upland has provided him a second income stream.
If you are in the Upland discord, do a search and you’ll see that in the early stages of the game, many players keep telling newbie that “This is a Game” for fear that the tag “A Virtual Property Trading Game” and the “Play. Earn. Connect” give a different idea to the players.
However, this tune has changed to it being an “investment”. (NOTE: Needless to say but still a good reminder – This is not investment advice. Do your own research). Investopedia has this definition for Investment –
An investment is an asset or item acquired with the goal of generating income or appreciation.
In my opinion, buying virtual properties in Upland fits the definition. Many players were able to purchase virtual properties and as a result, generating some earnings from each of these purchased virtual properties. Furthermore, those who flip properties make upwards of 200% (depending on property type and location) from the appreciation of the property value.
To understand some of these collection property earnings, I recommend you read the following articles:
- Christmas Came Early: Close to 70,000 UPX bonus & up to 2.8x earnings
- Diamond District Collection: 19,750 UPX one-time bonus + 2.68 earning boost
- Wall St Collection: 50,000 UPX one-time award + 2.8x earning boost
- The 10 Richest Uplanders in 2020
Note: Being able to sell your property for US$ has been rolled out so there is an option to Fiat-Out your income.
Ponder on This
In the real world, a return of 5% is generally considered a very good rental yield. Bear in mind that in the real world, to benefit from this yield, you’d have invested a substantial amount in a property and if it’s not fully paid, much of your rental income goes to the bank.
Compare this to Upland where you can get a property for less than 1000 UPX (UPX is the in-game currency and 1000 UPX is equivalent to $1). With that one property, you automatically generate earnings of 17%. If you have properties that belong to a designated collection, the earnings boost could be up to 3 times or more.
Okay, let’s be realistic. Don’t expect 17% earnings from $1 to generate the same amount of income as 5% from a $1,000,000 or $100,000 property.
The great news is you decide on how much you want to spend to purchase these virtual properties. To give you some perspective, some of the more sought-after properties, especially landmarks are changing hands at 5-figure US$.
The Upland Dream
I am grateful to have found out about this game. It has offered me hours of fun and a keen interest in many cities that I never thought I would spend so much exploring.
My virtual property portfolio is growing though I have scaled back a little and diversified to other potential projects.
Upland is still my top game and I look forward to the day where the income generated can be the primary source. This is not a far-fetched dream. With the rollout of Spark, a Token that drives the business aspect of the game, the reality of a primary income may become a reality in the not too distant future. This is the Upland Dream.
If you are not already a player, do consider using this referral link – Take me to Upland!
You will get an additional 50% UPX on your first UPX purchase and I’ll get rewarded too at no extra cost to you. Thank you for reading.
Header Image Source: Clark Tibss: Unsplash (edited)
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