Introduction

Cheelee is a GameFi short video platform with a team from Russia that initially raised funds in the UAE. The COO of the team is currently based in LA.

The predecessor of this app was NUTSon, launched in 2020. At that time, NUTSon was a short video platform that encouraged users to participate in “TikTok challenges.” The main feature was that users could vote for challenge videos, and the creators with the most votes would receive monetary rewards. However, the team found it difficult to expand the app to international markets due to currency restrictions.

In their roadmap, the team renamed the app to Cheelee in 2023. They have decided to incorporate cryptocurrency payments and integrate the Watch-to-Earn mechanism with the short video platform.

Comparison with StepN

In addition to supporting mailbox login, Cheelee extends StepN’s multiple mechanisms in Watch-to-Earn gameplay.

StepN vs Cheelee GameFi Mechanical Comparison Table (Source: by author)

Compared to StepN, the differences lie in the attributes of Attention and Power. Attention is similar to the concept of hearts or fatigue in typical mobile games, and it will naturally recover over time. This mechanism coexists with the daily earning limit. On the other hand, the longer you spend earning money, the more Power your glasses will consume. To continue earning, you need at least 70% Power, which requires users to use a portion of the platform’s token $LEE to restore Power.

It is worth mentioning that the team has renamed the NFT asset page, which is related to the core gameplay of the app, from the “NFT” tab to the “Play” tab. This may be due to two reasons: (1) Similar to Reddit’s strategy in promoting mainstream adoption of Web3 (Reddit avoided the term “NFT Wallet” and used “Web 3 Vault” to reduce public concerns about digital assets), Cheelee may believe that avoiding this term can make users feel more at ease in the current declining NFT market. (2) The project team wants to emphasize the To-Earn aspect and the attributes of GameFi, and they believe that the term “Play” is more suitable.

VC Analysis

Cheelee is currently in its Series A phase. Since Q1 2023, Cheelee’s platform and governance tokens have completed Token Listing. Large market maker GotBit and other partners have participated in this project through ICO. During the seed round, the project has raised over $30 million (raised $22.45 million in December 2022; and raised $10 million from VC SILA in June 2023).

In this press release, Cheelee stated that the current revenue has reached $1 million. However, it should be noted that this is the cost of users purchasing NFT glasses in the primary market. Since the glasses currently have durability limitations and cannot be resold, the project will not have long-term NFT royalty income. Moreover, this revenue is also needed to support the project and maintain token price stability.

Token Analysis

Cheelee’s platform and governance tokens are deployed on the BNB chain. The team’s roadmap is updated until Q4 2024. The team holds 10% of the tokens, locked for three years and then unlocked monthly for the following three years. The platform token $LEE was $1.86 at the time of the draft (2/13); the governance token $CHEEL is ranked 211th in terms of market capitalization on CoinMarketCap, with a price of $17.38.

In terms of marketing, in May 2023, Cheelee conducted a $CHEEL token airdrop worth $5 million. Participants in the event could also receive a free “Starting NFT,” which is similar to the initial glasses NFT that new users receive upon registration. Once the durability is depleted, users need to purchase NFTs to continue earning platform tokens. After the airdrop, the token price remained at a high point between $15 and $17 from June to August. With the recent market entering a bull phase, $CHEEL has reached similar high points again.

In terms of centralized exchanges, besides Gate.io (#10), $CHEEL can also be traded on CoinW (#32) and XT.COM (#23); the platform token $LEE is mainly traded on PancakeSwap V2. In August 2023, Gate.io launched an airdrop event for VIP users, but the article also emphasized that Gate.io Labs did not participate in investing in Cheelee.

What is the Community Discussing?

Bot Recognition Criteria

Similar to StepN, cheating prevention is also one of the topics that the community is concerned about. On February 8th, Cheelee officially published “Anti-Guide: How to Behave Like a Bot (and Get Banned)” on Telegram, listing four points: Withdraw earnings every day; Spend up all your Attention many days in a row (meaning that users exhaust their hearts every day); User feed autoview apps; Never like, comment, or share any videos.

Anti-Guide ”How to behave like a bot and get banned?” (Source: Cheelee Telegram)

“Anti-Guide” has received a lot of backlash from users, stating, “Why can’t I consume my attention bar to maximize my earnings?” and “We have the right to withdraw our earnings every day, disregarding BNB Gas Fee, because we need to lock in our profits.” The next day (February 9th), the project team quickly stated to put out the fire, saying that users will only be banned if they simultaneously met all or multiple criteria.

From this, it can be inferred that the project team is currently unable to effectively identify whether users are using automated browsing apps to cheat and earn profits. The current countermeasure is the Attention, which represents the daily profit cap, and the increased cost of logging in via email to deter users with multiple accounts. However, many accounts with Russian names still like Chinese videos in the feed, and the proportion of bots among active users on the platform remains unknown.

Creators’ Concern

In the PR article, Cheelee constantly mentions that in the past, only advertisers and content creators could make money, but they have defined a new attention economy where users can now earn money based on their attention. This “not only… but also” statement implies that advertisers, content creators, and users who watch short videos all have sources of income. However, in the current product design, we cannot observe any advertisements or any source of income for content creators.

The roadmap promises the launch of the “advertising cabinet” feature in 2023, but there is no mention of this feature in any tweet from the official Twitter account, and the feature cannot be found in the app at the moment. In discussions on the Telegram community, the project moderator explicitly stated that the only source of income for creators comes from tips from other users.

The whitepaper mentions that the governance token $CHEEL is used to reward well-performing creators, and advertisers can also use $CHEEL to purchase ads. However, it seems that the platform currently lacks a publicly transparent standard to define who is a good creator and how much they can earn in revenue sharing.

Do Creators Make Money? (Source: Cheelee Telegram)

Conclusion

It is interesting to note that, unlike FindSatoshiLab’s previous approach (StepN and Gas Hero development team), Cheelee currently does not require users to purchase expensive NFTs to enter and make money. In the past, this barrier prevented many novice blockchain players or cryptocurrency newcomers from participating.

Currently, Cheelee’s strategy resembles a trial version of the software. Users are initially provided with free glasses, but once their durability is depleted, users must purchase them with real money. The lowest and cheapest glasses currently cost around $10. Unlike StepN, Cheelee’s glasses are consumable and cannot be traded or speculated on, which also reduces the individual price of glasses. From this perspective, this tokenomic model has greater sustainability.

However, in the case of a blockchain game like StepN, the game’s design remains the most crucial aspect. While short video platforms are currently highly competitive, it is important to consider that platforms like TikTok and Spotify have succeeded through “bootstrapped” methods of manually curating creators. These platforms recognize that creators play a vital role in their business models. Therefore, Cheelee’s current weakness may lie in its inability to attract sufficient high-quality content creators. This is similar to the situation where a blockchain game’s design fails to provide an enjoyable experience. If Cheelee lags behind TikTok regarding the diversity and quality of creators, how can it attract enough users from TikTok who are looking for a new platform to engage with?