Week in GameFi: Sony Enters Web3 - PS Exclusives on Blockchain Incoming?

Week in GameFi: Top 20 Crypto Games Bounce Back 

Newbie Catchup: The A-Z of NFTs

Binance

Chromia

Trust Wallet

MetaMask

Binance Chain Wallet

Atomic wallet

Ethereum

Shiba Inu

Chainlink

UNUS SED LEO

Uniswap

SKALE

SushiSwap

Audius

Creditcoin

Yield Guild Games

Vanar Chain

Destra Network

Baby Doge Coin

Gomining

MAGA

WadzPay Token

I love puppies

HitBTC Token

Sommelier

FUTUREXCRYPTO

My Neighbor Alice is a fully on-chain multiplayer game built on Chromia with a strong focus on self-expression, collaboration and communities. Players can explore, gather resources, craft unique NFTs, and shape their own virtual world in the Lummelunda Archipelago.

MyNeighborAlice

WAX (WAXP) is a purpose-built blockchain, released in 2017, that is designed to make e-commerce transactions faster, simpler and safer for every party involved. The WAX blockchain uses delegated proof-of-stake (DPoS) as its consensus mechanism. It is fully compatible with EOS.

The custom features and the incentive mechanisms developed by WAX are intended to optimize the blockchain’s utility specifically for use in e-commerce, with the goal of encouraging voting on proposals.

To make this possible, WAX created a suite of blockchain-based tools which decentralized application (DApp) marketplaces and non-fungible tokens can be built upon.

Services such as WAX Cloud Wallet, SSO and OAUTH support e-commerce operations, the latter being a native RNG service and a developer portal. WAX’s blockchain architecture supports 500-millisecond block time and zero-fee transactions for customers. It also makes use of voting rewards to incentivize participation in the selection of block producers and improvement proposals.

Enjin Coin is a project of Enjin, a company that provides an ecosystem of interconnected, blockchain-based gaming products. Enjin's flagship offering is the Enjin Network, a social gaming platform through which users can create websites and clans, chat, and host virtual item stores.

Enjin allows game developers to tokenize in-game items on the Ethereum blockchain. It uses Enjin Coin, an ERC-20 token, to back the digital assets issued using its platform, meaning that items can be bought, sold and traded with real-world value.

Enjin Coin was first announced in July 2017, and it launched on the Ethereum mainnet in June 2018.

Enjin Coin (ENJ) is a digital store of value used to back the value of blockchain assets like non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
Every asset minted with the Enjin Platform contains ENJ, a minting resource which is locked inside NFTs and removed from circulation. Minting blockchain assets with ENJ provides a variety of benefits to creators and users:

Infuses them with a reserve value

Ensures their transparency and scarcity

Gives them instant liquidity

Provides utility in games and apps

Anti-inflationary

Enjin's "melting" functionality allows users to destroy their blockchain assets at any time to retrieve the ENJ value from within.

The Enjin blockchain ecosystem aims to offer software products that make it easy for everyone to develop, trade, monetize, and market with blockchain.

Founded in 2009, Enjin has roots in the gaming industry, with the company’s first product, a gaming community platform called the Enjin Network, growing to 20 million users over the course of a decade.

In 2017 following an ICO, Enjin established itself as a leading blockchain ecosystem developer, building a suite of software products that enable anyone to easily mint, manage, trade, distribute, and integrate blockchain assets.

Enjin’s co-founder Witek Radomski wrote the code for one of the first ever non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and is also the co-author of the ERC-1155 Ethereum token standard.

Built on top of an on-chain infrastructure, the Enjin ecosystem enables game developers and businesses of all sizes to use tokenized digital assets as part of their acquisition, retention, engagement, and monetization strategies. The Enjin ecosystem is fueled by Enjin Coin (ENJ), a cryptocurrency used to back the value of blockchain assets.

Enjin Coin

Celer is a blockchain interoperability
protocol enabling a one-click user experience accessing tokens, DeFi, GameFi, NFTs, governance, and more across multiple chains. Developers can build inter-chain-native Dapps using the Celer Inter-chain Messaging Framework to gain access to efficient liquidity utilization, coherent application logic, and shared states. Users of Celer-enabled dApps will enjoy the benefits of a diverse multi-blockchain ecosystem with the simplicity of a single-transaction UX, all from a single chain.

Celer Network

Ontology is a project designed to bring trust, privacy, and security to Web3 through decentralized identity and data solutions. It is building the infrastructure to provide trusted access to Web3, allowing individuals and enterprises to rest assured that through regulatory compliant digital identity solutions, users and their privacy come first.

The Ontology blockchain is a high speed, low cost public blockchain. It is designed to bring decentralized identity and data solutions to Web3, with the goal of increasing privacy, transparency, and trust. To achieve this, users and enterprises are provided with the flexibility to build blockchain-based solutions that suit their needs, while also ensuring regulatory compliance. Through Ontology’s Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), Ontology ensures frictionless compatibility with Ethereum, the first step in the creation of the Ontology Multi-Virtual Machine and further interoperability for the chain.

At its launch, Ontology chose to forego the popular initial coin offering (ICO) model in favor of a series of community distributions and airdrops of its ONT cryptocurrency.

This helped to quickly establish both organic price discovery and a passionate community and helped the project to avoid subsequent regulatory scrutiny.

For example, for a brief period any person who signed up for the Ontology newsletter received an airdrop of free 1,000 ONT, which reached a value of $10 per token soon after the token became listed on major exchanges like Binance.

Ontology launched its own MainNet on June 30, 2018 and has been up and running smoothly since.

Ontology

Harmony is a blockchain platform designed to facilitate the creation and use of decentralized applications (DApps). The network aims to innovate the way decentralized applications work by focusing on random state sharding, which allows creating blocks in seconds.

According to the project’s website, Harmony is expected to introduce cross-shard contracts and a cross-chain infrastructure by the end of 2021.

Harmony

Alien Worlds (TLM) is a decentralized, non-fungible token (NFT) metaverse, where players compete for scarce resources, Trilium (TLM), in a stimulated economy centered around planetary worlds. Due to this, Alien Worlds also has a decentralized finance (DeFi) element to the game, as players advance by staking TLM and using TLM to vote in Planet Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs).

Play-to-earn (P2E) NFT games have seen an exponential rise in popularity and value this year. Alien Worlds allow the players, called “explorers” to earn monetary rewards through gameplay or participation in Planet DAOs. By mining in Alien Worlds, a user is rewarded with the native, in-game currency — Trilium (TLM) or NFT packs. Players can stake TLM to boost their rewards or battle with other users for NFTs.

To date, Alien Worlds has established a fair amount of its roadmap, having TLM on Binance launchpad and farming period of TLM on Binance Launchpool. A large portion of game developments have been forged as well. Moving forward, Alien Worlds aims to automate the claiming process of daily allocation to landowners in the game. Artifacts NFTs are soon to be released, and future plans include NFT interoperability.

Alien Worlds

SKALE, described as a modular blockchain network, is designed to bring scalability to Ethereum. SKALE is the only blockchain network capable of running an unlimited number of fast, on-demand, pooled-security Blockchains with zero gas fees to end users. These individual chains are known as SKALE chains and can be dapp-specific or shared.

The project’s website says it wants to enable people to build and run DApps in a “decentralized modular cloud built for real-world needs and configured for your requirements.” This emphasis on decentralization isn’t at the expense of security.

According to SKALE, those who build on this platform can run Solidity smart contracts “thousands of times faster at a fraction of the mainnet cost” — with games and content streaming services among the projects that already take advantage of its infrastructure.

Chiliz is the leading digital currency for sports and entertainment by the eponymous Malta-based FinTech provider. It operates the blockchain-based sports entertainment platform Socios, which enables users to participate in the governance of their favorite sports brands. Multiple fan tokens by Socios.com are an example of that. For sports clubs and associations, fan tokens offer a way of connecting with their fans and unlocking new revenue streams.

For instance, fans can participate and influence club-related decisions through surveys and polls, such as messages the captain should wear on his armband. The company aims to bridge the gap between being an active and a passive fan. Chiliz has developed partnerships with some of the biggest sporting institutions in the world: FC Barcelona, Manchester City, Juventus Turin, and Paris Saint-Germain. It also boasts partnerships with the UFC and gaming organizations. By purchasing CHZ, fans get access to various fan tokens and literally have a stake in their club.

Chiliz

Zilliqa is a public, permissionless blockchain that is designed to offer high throughput with the ability to complete thousands of transactions per second. It seeks to solve the issue of blockchain scalability and speed by employing sharding as a second-layer scaling solution. The platform is home to many decentralized applications, and as of October 2020, it also allows for staking and yield farming.

Development work officially started on Zilliqa in June 2017, and its testnet went live in March 2018. A little over a year later, in June 2019, the platform launched its mainnet.

The native utility token of Zilliqa, ZIL, is used to process transactions on the network and execute smart contracts.

Zilliqa

Audius is a decentralized music streaming protocol initially built on POA network, but now living on Solana. Audius was launched to remedy the inefficiencies of the music industry, which is plagued by intransparent music rights ownership and intermediaries standing between artists and their audience.

Audius aims to align the interests of artists, fans, and node operators through its platform powered by its native AUDIO token. Artists can upload music, stored and distributed by content and discovery nodes, that fans can listen to for free. Currently, Audius rewards content creators through rewards like featuring in the weekly trending lists. In the future, it plans to integrate stablecoins for artists to offer paid content, as well as artist tokens that give fans the ability to access exclusive content, potentially cooperating with platforms like Rally.

Origin Protocol is one of Ethereum’s longest-standing DeFi projects, featuring a multichain feature set that unlocks vast opportunities for yield generation across the space. Origin’s products are built to be permissionless and composable, allowing for deep integration with novel primitives. All of Origin’s products streamline rewards to OGN stakers, cultivating a sustainable, user-first offering.

At its core proposition, Origin features:

Capital efficiency: Origin’s liquid staking products, Origin Ether and Origin Dollar, empower users to earn yield while retaining full capital control. The protocol’s unique Automated Redemption Manager (ARM) serves as a key liquidity hub for LST redemptions.

Vast composability: OETH’s robust peg and interoperability makes it an ideal building block for innovative DeFi strategies.

Broad access: Origin’s diverse integrations with partners such as EigenLayer and Pendle Finance, cater to power users and new entrants alike. Origin is built on core principles of seamless usability, cultivating one of the smoothest user experiences in the space.

Some of Origin Protocol’s key elements include:

Origin Ether (OETH): OETH is a leading liquid staking token that harnesses battle-tested mechanics to maintain a strong peg and vast composability for users. Users can mint OETH by depositing reserves of ETH. This ETH is staked to the Beacon Chain, with staking rewards distributed to users. OETH boasts broad DeFi integrations on ETH and leading Layer-2 networks.

Origin Dollar (OUSD): OUSD is a yield bearing stablecoin fully collateralized by reserves of USDT, USDC, and DAI. Users can deposit these stablecoins to mint OUSD, which generates yield. OUSD’s rebasing model automatically distributes rewards to holders’ wallets, removing the need for lockups and claiming rewards.

Automated Redemption Manager (ARM): The ARM is a groundbreaking platform that bolsters liquidity for redeemable assets, such as LSTs and LRTs. Users can take advantage of rapid redemptions for seamless swaps between leading LSTs and ETH with zero slippage.

Some of its key highlights include:

Versatile Utility: Origin’s product suite is deeply integrated across DeFi, allowing users to harness innovative instruments and opportunities. Origin Ether, for instance, is deeply integrated with the likes of Pendle and EigenLayer. Users can also take advantage of wOETH on leading L2 networks to explore more platforms and yield generating positions.

Transparent, best-in-class security: Both OUSD and OETH boast battle-tested, open-source codebases. Origin’s products have been rigorously audited by leading firms, including OpenZeppelin. Origin’s yield-generating products deliver yields without compromising on security, and feature rich analytics dashboards for users to monitor treasury flows and allocations.

Protocol Governance: Users can stake OGN for up to a year in exchange for non-transferable xOGN. xOGN accrues yield from a share of protocol fees earned by Origin’s products. xOGN holders can submit proposals, vote on active submissions, and vote on treasury allocations. This symbiotic structure creates a sustainable, rewarding governance system that upholds the core principles of decentralization.

World class team and investors: The project is led by serial entrepreneurs Matthew Liu and Josh Fraser, and seasoned team members from leading tech firms including PayPal, YouTube, Google, DropBox, etc. Origin has received backing from top investors such as Pantera Capital and Foundation Capital, as well as from individuals like Steve Chen, the founder of YouTube, and Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit.

Origin Protocol

What Is Ankr (ANKR)?

Ankr is a decentralized blockchain infrastructure provider that operates an array of nodes globally distributed across over 50 Proof-of-Stake networks. This infrastructure helps drive the growth of the crypto economy while powering a full suite of multi-chain tools for Web3 users:

Ankr Build
Ankr provides comprehensive blockchain developer solutions, including traditional APIs, a decentralized multi-chain network of public RPC nodes used to access blockchain data and execute code, and tools like Ankr Scan to view on-chain information across blockchains.

Ankr Earn
Ankr Earn makes staking, liquid staking, and other yield-earning opportunities easy and accessible to any crypto investor. Ankr creates the most scalable and decentralized staking infrastructure solution that aims to solve the capital inefficiency of Proof-of-Stake networks and similar blockchain consensus mechanisms.

Ankr Learn
Through Ankr’s learning tools, tutorials, and docs, anyone can become a better user or developer of blockchain-based systems.

Ankr

LRC is the Ethereum-based cryptocurrency token of Loopring, an open protocol designed for the building of decentralized crypto exchanges.

In 2020, the average daily trading volume of the entire cryptocurrency market fluctuated in the approximate range of $50-$200 million. Most of that trading is conducted on centralized cryptocurrency exchanges — online platforms operated by private companies that store users’ funds and facilitate the matching of buy and sell orders.

Such platforms have a number of downsides common to all of them, so a new type of exchange — decentralized— has emerged to try to alleviate these disadvantages. However, fully decentralized exchanges are not without their own flaws.

Loopring’s purported goal is to combine centralized order matching with decentralized on-blockchain order settlement into a hybridized product that will take the best aspects of both centralized and decentralized exchanges.

LRC tokens became available to the public during an initial coin offering (ICO) in August 2017, while the Loopring protocol was first deployed on Ethereum mainnet in December 2019.

Loopring

Band Protocol is a cross-chain data oracle platform that is able to take real-world data and supply it to on-chain applications, while also connecting APIs to smart-contracts to facilitate the exchange of information between on-chain and off-chain data sources.

By supplying reputable, verifiable real-world data to blockchains, Band Protocol unlocks a range of new use cases for developers to explore — since they can now use any type of real-world data as part of their decentralized application (DApp) logic, including sports, weather, random numbers, price feed data and more.

Band Protocol initially launched as an ERC-20 project on the Ethereum blockchain in September 2019, but transitioned to the Cosmos network in June 2020 with the release of Band Protocol 2.0. The new protocol is built on BandChain using the Cosmos SDK. Oracle nodes on BandChain not only relay data but are also involved in block production/validation, giving them a dual role.

BAND is the native token of the Band Protocol ecosystem and is used as collateral by validators involved in fulfilling data requests, as well as the main medium of exchange on BandChain — being used to paying for private data.

Band Protocol

COTI is a fast and light confidentiality layer on Ethereum. Powered by the breakthrough cryptographic protocol Garbled Circuits and secured by Ethereum, COTI introduces the most advanced and compliant solution for data protection on the public blockchain. Paving the way for the next wave of Web3 innovation and adoption, COTI unlocks a whole new world of use cases, including confidential transactions, Artificial Intelligence, DeFi, decentralized identification, and more.

COTI

Starting as an open-source project in 2017, IoTeX has built a decentralized platform whose aim is to empower the open economics for machines — an open ecosystem where people and machines can interact with guaranteed trust, free will, and under properly designed economic incentives.

With a global team of over 40 research scientists and engineers, IoTeX has built their EVM-compatible blockchain from scratch using the innovative Roll-DPoS consensus and launched in 2019 April, which has been running by 100+ delegates worldwide and has processed more than 10 million transactions already. On top of the IoTeX blockchain, the team has built the essential blocks of infrastructures to connect with Ethereum, BSC, and Heco blockchains such as ioPay wallet (https://iopay.me/) and ioTube bridge (https://iotube.org/), which serve ten thousands of users. IoTeX helps EVM-based DApps scale without concerning expensive gas fees!

Besides, middleware such as Decentralized Identity, Confidential Computing, and Secure Hardware has been built on top of the IoTeX blockchain. This has enabled the creation of self-sovereign devices such as Ucam, and real-world data oracles like Pebble. Ucam (https://ucam.iotex.io/) has been deployed to over 3000 households (http://iott.network/). Meanwhile, Pebble has been launched to more than 300 developers initially, and enables innovative Dapps to connect the physical world with the crypto world, such as real-world NFTs, weather derivatives and machine learning-as-mining.

IoTeX

Reef is a Reliable Extensible Efficient Fast Layer-1 Blockchain for DeFi, NFT & Gaming. Built using Substrate Framework, it provides high scalability, enabling almost instant low-cost transactions, and supports Solidity and EVM, allowing developers to seamlessly migrate their DApps from Ethereum without any change in the codebase.

Reef Chain is the most advanced EVM-compatible blockchain. It's self-upgradable and has on-chain governance. Its infrastructure also allows for EVM extensions which allows for native token bridge, scheduled calls (ie. recurring payments), and smart contract in-place code upgrades. In the near future, it will support additional VMs which will allow developers to write code in multiple programming languages. The network runs on a Nominated Proof-of-Stake (NPoS) consensus mechanism, which offers scalability and low fees.

REEF is the native token that is used for:

Fees for processing transactions and storing data.

Running validator nodes by staking REEF tokens.

Nominating which validator nodes should be part of the network.

Reef is backed by multiple leading funds and venture capitalists including NGC, QCP, Bitcoin.com, Kenetic Capital, LD Capital, TRG Capital, Krypital Group, Genesis Block, Woodstock Fund and others.

Reef Chain development tools include:

Remix and EVM integrated development environments for uploading and deploying smart contracts.

Reefscan blockchain explorer to assist with deploying validators, bonding and nominating validators, debugging contracts, and understanding network performance.

Reef command line tools that allow developers deploy applications from local environments.

Reef wallet for accessing and interacting with the blockchain

Reef

Holo is a peer-to-peer distributed platform for hosting decentralized applications built using Holochain, a framework for developing DApps that does not require the use of blockchain technology. The goal of Holo is to serve as a bridge between the broader internet and apps built using Holochain, offering an ecosystem and marketplace in which DApps are easily accessible, as they are hosted on the internet by Holo network participants.

The Holo network will be facilitated using a token called HoloFuel, which is actively being tested and will act as an accounting system to pay hosts for their services. In 2018, the project minted an ERC-20 token, HOT — also known as HoloToken — as an "IOU" that will be redeemable for HoloFuel upon launch.

Holo is still in development and is expected to launch for open alpha and beta testing by 2021.

Holo

Storj, pronounced as “stor-jay,” is an open-source cloud storage platform. Basically, it uses a decentralized network of nodes to host user data. The platform also secures hosted data using advanced encryption.

In a white paper published in December,2014, Storj was first introduced to the world as a concept. It was to be a decentralized peer-to-peer encrypted cloud storage platform.

Two years later, an updated white paper was published. Here, a decentralized network  — connecting users who need cloud storage space with those who have hard drive space to sell — was described. The platform was launched in late 2018.

People with hard drive space and good internet connectivity can participate in the network. They become a unit in the network, called a node. Space providers are rewarded by Storj tokens.