TL;DR: The $SIPHER token at $5.4m MC / $40m FDV presents a hugely asymmetric risk/reward given the following facts:

• Ather Labs, the fully doxxed 140 ppl strong team behind Sipher Odyssey, has worked nearly 4 years for 6 days a week to deliver an immensely polished and fun AAA game for mobile & PC

• Nearby Catalyst: Global launch on the App Store, Google Play Store, Steam and Epic Games is expected to happen in a few weeks, once the D1 retention metric hits 30%, after a successful Open Alpha that reached 110k MAU and solid D1/D7 retention last year

• There are currently no CEX listings but the team has purchased the SIPHER ticker on Hyperliquid.

• The team raised over $50m in 2021 and still has a long run way left, showcasing a type of disciplined financial management that is rare in the Web3 gaming space. Currently there is at least $13m in the treasury accounts on-chain, good for approximately 4 years of runway

• So far the team has been focussed on building a sticky and fun product, before doing significant marketing. Now that global launch is near, the team will go all-in on marketing and start capturing mindshare on CT and Web2 channels

• The token hit ATH of $1.45 just after the ICO and is down 97% since then, as the team has literally said they don’t do marketing now and rather have bears sell now than later.

• The team has stated that ALL profits generated by the game and subsequent products will flow back to the tokenholders through buybacks

• Apart from the ICO, $SIPHER was sold to seed investors like Alex Svanevik, Arthur from Defiance, Merit Circle, Gaby of YGG, Delphi Digital and Hashed at $0.06, with vesting having started recently. The current price of $0.04 gives an exciting opportunity for retail investors to get in at better prices as top crypto VC's!

• Unlike most Web3 gaming vaporware, you can actually play Sipher Odyssey and experience the quality yourself

The Game: Sipher Odyssey

Sipher Odyssey is a roguelite looter-shooter RPG set in a futuristic world called Sipheria. Built in Unreal Engine, the game is currently available on iOS & Android and will also go live on Epic games and Steam, with even a PS5 version being in the works 👀

You can already play the game yourself or watch one of the many YouTube gameplay videos.

The first playable prototype was released 2 years ago and since then we’ve gone through a closed alpha, open alpha, P2A campaign and a ‘soft-launch’, with new builds being tested monthly. The community is lively, with real-life events in Vietnam & Philippines, and provides tons of feedback, with the quality bar being held high by the management team.

The Team: Ather Labs

Ather Labs is founded by Tin Nguyen, a serial entrepreneur from Vietnam with an impressive career in entertainment and tech. Through his ownership of popular night clubs and a chain of tech hubs, he became well-connected and well-known, which will play a significant but underappreciated role in bringing Sipher to market in Vietnam.

Note that Vietnam is also the birthplace of $AXS & $RON and is in the top 3 crypto adoption worldwide, with 101m residents crazy about mobile games - something those familiar with the Flappy Bird story would understand.

Through Tin’s connections he was able to build Ather Labs into a 140 people strong team, with key hires from the most known AAA gaming outsourcing hubs in VN. Currently the fully doxed team practically works 6 days a week in 3 offices located Saigon, Da Nang and Hanoi - a size and dedication unseen for tokens that trade at $5.4m circulating marketcap.

Another thing that sets Ather Labs apart, is that you can actually visit the office if you are an active community member or holder and pick up some cool merch while meeting the team.

The day to day operations and game R&D are led by Tin's brother Nghia, known as Uncle Peek. He host AMA's in the Discord twice a week, sharing latest developments and addressing community concerns.

As an aside, another interesting fact and testament to Tin's marketing power, is that Barack Obama paid a visit to Tin's tech hub Dreamplex during his trip to Vietnam, as captured in the photo below:

The Opportunity

Catalyst 1: Global Launch

The current extreme undervaluation is explained by the team having made explicit that they’re solely focused on making the best product, without any hype. This is contrarian to most Web3 games (that are going bankrupt left and right) and for the holders this has been a painful ride.

However, the team has been transparent on what the criteria are for global launch, namely a D1 retention of 30% for first time users. Two months ago this was at 20%, and as the team really wants to get the most out of their marketing budget, they’re pushing to improve the product first.

Global Launch will be the moment when the marketing engines will turn on and the team will seek a profitable ROI on ad spend vs. in-game spend (that accrues back to $SIPHER)

Catalyst 2: CEX Listings & Hyperliquid listing

Earlier this year the team acquired the $SIPHER ticker on Hyperliquid and currently has NO listings on even Tier3 CEXs. This has been absolutely detrimental to the token price, with some day total trading volumes of less than $5.000. Along with Global Launch, the team is planning to do CEX Listings, and on-chain there’s recent $100k+ USDT transfers going from the team wallet to Binance and Kucoin.

Catalyst 3: Web2 marketing + Play 2 Airdrop

The plan is to attract real gamers, not just P2A farmers. So they’re fishing in a much bigger pond than the traditional Web3 game. Onboarding these players and getting them to buy SIPHER token or in-game items with a credit card will create strong buying pressure for the token, along with a strong negotiating position with CEX like Binance and Coinbase, as they’re always looking to onboard more non-crypto natives.

Catalyst 4: Token rebrand

Similar to the Merit Circle —> Beam relaunch, the Sipher token might change into $ATHER in the future, as the team has already ventured further than just a game. The current chart looks absolutely hideous so just a rebrand and a fresh launch can drive more interest from traders, along with the core message that you’re not just buying a gaming token, but a share of a next-gen gaming platform.

Additional upside

Next to the Sipher Odyssey game, the Ather Labs team has created the following ventures, of which all profits will accrue to the SIPHER token:

• Funkichain, part of the Optimism superchain network. All Sipher Odyssey players will create an account on this L2 and hold their digital assets there

• SipherAGI, similar to Colony by $PRIME/Parallels. This is the agentic AI infrastructure that will enhance gameplay and create new experiences

• GAIA, a generative AI toolkit for gaming studios to rapidly create artworks, in-game characters, 3d meshes and so on. It’s already used by a couple of other gaming studios and was recently featured at the Web3 Builders Summit in Da Nang.

Peer Valuation

As the Sipher token will accrue value both from the flagship game and the supporting platform/L2, it makes sense to both do a peer comparison for both Web3 games and infrastructure:

It’s tough to nail down a solid valuation without actual cash flow data, so the best way to gauge it is by looking at similar games and how they’ve done. Sipher hit 110k monthly active users during its Open Alpha last year, which sets pretty high expectations for the Global Launch and a full marketing push. Honestly, it’s not hard to see the game doing better than Myria, which is currently trading at a 10x premium compared to Sipher.

The all-time high was $1.45, meaning the price would need to jump about 36x from where it is now to get back there. But keep in mind, that peak was mostly hype since there wasn’t even a real game back then. Now, after almost four years and a dedicated team of 140 people working hard on it, I wouldn’t be surprised if Sipher breaks a new ATH in 2025 once the Global Launch and P2A really kick into gear.

As there are no CEX listings yet, liquidity on-chain is thin.