Welcome to our 139th newsletter on Star Atlas! This weekly newsletter, published by Aephia Industries, focuses entirely on the development of this ambitious game. Here, we try to aggregate all the newsworthy tidbits revealed [mainly by the team] throughout the past week.

After the news frenzy surrounding the Town Hall and, to a lesser extent, the launch of the DAO Governance, this past week was pretty light on news. That said, the big news last week was some community research into the token sell pressure that the ATLAS and POLIS tokens are experiencing. In addition, Santi (Community Director) raised the curtains a little regarding the upcoming Hackathon.

Short but sweet. Let’s dive in!

Governance

Voting on PIP-1 and PIP-2 closes on Tuesday, July 23rd (tomorrow) at 16:00 UTC. At the time of writing, both PIPs are slated to pass:

PIP-1 (32.69% voted):

  • For: 71.07%
  • Against: 22.66%
  • Abstain: 6.27%

PIP-2 (32.54% voted):

  • For: 61.09%
  • Against: 34.30%
  • Abstain: 4.61%

If you have POLIS locked and you haven’t already, make sure to make your vote heard!

Meanwhile, both Michael (CEO) and Dan Park (Legal Council) have provided no further comment (after last week) to alleviate the remaining pushback against the PIPs being voted on.

Star Atlas – Calico Maxhog [finished, in-engine]

Star Atlas – Calico Maxhog [finished, in-engine]

Token Sell Pressure

People have been wondering why the Star Atlas tokens seem to be less affected by market upside these past few weeks (or even months), and

Last week, a Star Atlas community member named CowboyYoda replied on X.com to a Star Atlas-related tweet, wondering why the ATLAS selling pressure is so immense and increasing. This got picked up by other community members on the Star Atlas Discord, in its Economics channel, after which well-known community member Siggy dove deeper into it. He shared the result of his deep dive on the SA Discord, X.com, and the Hologram News Network. It’s well worth the read!

In short, it looks like the former ATLAS & POLIS holdings on FTX have been sold off in small increments since April 1st. A few days ago, the size of these increments has substantially increased. There are many millions of tokens left, but if the new pace is being maintained, these tokens may sell out in a little over 15-60 days (dependent on the pace going forward). In the interim, the selling pressure is immense and blows the DCA’ing by the team out of the water. The FTX liquidator/VC sells up to 20 times more tokens daily (on average) than the team does with their constant DCA process.

Below, we included some charts by our Data Runners showing the tokens leaving the wallets that hold the FTX ATLAS & POLIS tokens.

Aephia Data Runners - ATLAS sold by holding wallet (FTX)

Aephia Data Runners – ATLAS sold by holding wallet (FTX)

Aephia Data Runners - POLIS sold by holding wallet(FTX)

Aephia Data Runners – POLIS sold by holding wallet(FTX)

Hackathon

Last week, the team organized the 2nd Developer Hour (recording), during which Santi shed some light on the hackathon. An official announcement should be forthcoming soon, but we’ll share the details here!

The hackathon will likely start this week and run until September 14th. After that, the judges –half ATMTA and half sponsors– will review and score the submissions. The winners will be announced during the Star Atlas Impact Summit on September 21st in Singapore.

Tracks

  • SAGE – Create an application that interacts with the on-chain SAGE program
  • Galactic Marketplace – Create an application that interacts with the Marketplace
  • Resources – Create an application that uses any of the Star Atlas ecosystem consumable resources
  • Data – Create an application that will display meaningful live data for the Star Atlas ecosystem & products
  • DeFi – Create an application that uses Star Atlas tokens (ATLAS and/or Polis)
  • Game – Create a game that uses Star Atlas IP, tokens, and/or resources

You can qualify for multiple tracks, though you can only win in one.

Prizes

The team has earmarked around 25k in VWAP ship prices for the winners, “sponsored” by Ogrika. The big prize for the Hackathon’s winner is an Ogrika Sunpaa ship. Meanwhile, the winner of every track will find an Ogrika Tursic in their wallet.

Interview Michael Wagner

As part of our 3rd-anniversary celebrations, Metaverse Explorer interviewed Michael Wagner last week. It’s an insightful interview with some alpha dropped regarding target dates and the order of things, especially toward the end. It’s well worth the watch!

Play Video: Michael Wagner - Development and Challenges of Star Atlas

You’ve reached the end of this issue! See you next week!