Category: GameFi

Layer-1 vs. Layer-2 Blockchains: What You Must Know

Posted on by Pastel Network

Bitcoin did the heavy lifting of creating a peer-to-peer decentralized and tokenized financial network. One person can send another person halfway around the world $1,000,000 in BTC for a paltry $20, sometimes even as low as a dollar and change. 

The problem is that microtransactions, such as sending a friend $4 for a cup of coffee, cost the same. 

Similarly, Ethereum created an entire galaxy of possibilities for DeFi, NFTs, and other decentralized applications. However, the breadth of its value has also been one of its detractions– as network gas fees skyrocket in times of extremely high traffic, making using the network ludicrously expensive for users and developers alike. 

CryptoKitties, an early sensational NFT game, nearly ground Ethereum’s network activity to a halt in 2018 due to the throng of transactions. Even today, gas fees can be hundreds or thousands of dollars to mint a new Ethereum-based NFT. 

However, problems are usually followed by problem solvers. Hundreds of developers have dedicated their professional lives of late to either building decentralized apps to help scale projects like Bitcoin or Ethereum or creating more scalable networks from the ground up. 

Layer-1: The underlying blockchain architecture. For example, Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Layer-2: A network that sits on top of Layer-1, which facilities network activity. For example, the Lightning Network and Raiden Network.

The following Layer-1 vs. Layer-2 blockchain guide explores both approaches and how they contrast. 

Layer-1 vs. Layer-2 Blockchains: The Basics

Layer-1 updates usually involve consensus protocol changes or sharding. 

As you may know, Bitcoin and Ethereum use a gawky but effective consensus protocol called Proof-of-Work (PoW). It’s good at what it does because it works. However, as network activity grows, its limitations become unbearable for many. 

PoW requires miners to solve cryptographically-difficult equations via computational power– hence Bitcoin mining facilities that are just warehouses with specifically designed computers running 24/7/365

At times, transactions can take way too long for convenience’s sake and become very expensive. Bitcoin can manage about seven transactions per second, whereas Ethereum can do 15-20. 

Proof-of-Stake (PoS) is a relatively newer protocol; rather than computation power, it relies on people (validators) staking a certain quantity of holdings to validate transactions.

Changing consensus algorithms can be a divisive ordeal, and switching from PoW to PoS on a network as large as that of Bitcoin or Ethereum would require achieving agreement among the majority of participants, which can be extremely difficult. 

Sharding is another Layer-1 scaling strategy. Sharding breaks transaction sets into smaller chunks called shards, which the network can process at a much faster rate. Think of cutting a PBJ sandwich into small pieces (shards) versus eating it bite by bite. Each small piece you eat is a finalized transaction, whereas the latter approach would require the whole sandwich to be eaten before the transactions are final. 

Attempting to implement scalability measures on a Layer-1 blockchain would require a full or partial network update, which is a slow and contentious process; if things go sideways, the entire network could face enormous damages. 

Many projects have been launched to provide users the scalability that the more legacy cryptocurrency projects have struggled to do. 

For example, chains like Solana, Cosmos, and Cardano (yet to launch anything) have emerged in attempts to unseat Ethereum as the most popular blockchain network for dApps, primarily targeting its scalability issues and low-hanging fruit. 

The user experience tends to be much faster and cheaper on the newer Layer-1s– transactions on Osmosis, a decentralized exchange built on Cosmos, cost around a penny. In contrast, the Ethereum DEX UniSwap can cost dozens or hundreds of dollars. 

However, the opportunity to scale the world’s most popular Layer-1s instead of launch new ones from the ground up is an admirable and lucrative challenge accepted by many. 

They do so through Layer-2 blockchain innovation. 

Layer-2: Attempts at Scalability

Layer-2s are essentially sandboxes for creativity with minimal or zero disruption to the underlying network.

There are two types of Layer-2 blockchains: state channels and nested blockchains.

A state channel allows for two participants who would otherwise interact on the blockchain to interact off the blockchain, limiting the congestion of the network. 

Imagine Bitcoin’s or Ethereum’s blockchain as a 10-lane superhighway with bumper-to-bumper traffic. A state channel would be the back-road approach you could take to avoid driving into a slow, expensive network and get to your end destination at a fraction of the time and cost. 

Here’s how state channels work: 

  1. A blockchain segment is sealed off through a smart contract or multi-signature means, where all participants agree on the conditions. Lightning Network and Raiden Network used Hashed Timelock Contracts (HTLCs) for their state channels. 
  2. The transaction participants can then directly interact without needing to submit their request to the miners on the Layer-1. 
  3. When all the transaction sets on the state channel are complete, the final state is added to the blockchain. 

So, while a transaction is technically not “final” until added to the blockchain, state channel projects like Bitcoin’s Lightning Network and Ethereum’s Raiden Network effectively carry out the role of policing and verifying transactions. 

The idea is that these “batched” transaction blocks can effectively internally settle; when they do, the entire batch is added to the blockchain. As such, Lightning Network enables fast microtransactions (low fees, fast settlement), and Raiden does the same thing for Ethereum’s broader functionality. 

However, state channels have some limitations. 

Nested blockchains aim to increase scalability exponentially, whereas state channels are more linear. 

Ethereum is a popular breeding ground for decentralized apps to solve scalability issues. OmiseGO, for example, is experimenting with a nested blockchain scaling solution called Plasma. 

In Plasma, multiple levels of specific-use blockchains sit on top of the leading blockchains in parent-child connections. The parent chain then dedicates specific work to child chains, such as a social network or decentralized exchange.

The root chain still calls all the shots and sets the ground rules, but nested blockchains relieve some load. 

Final Thoughts: What You Should Know About Blockchain Scalability

While the differences between Layer-1 and Layer-2 solutions might seem exclusively technical, it’s worth considering that by collecting NFTs, holding tokens, and using dApps, you’re the direct stakeholder in the whole ordeal. 

While Ethereum enjoys a considerable first-mover advantage for NFTs (and DeFi), boasting multi-billion-dollar dApps like OpenSea, competitors are gaining on its tail. 

As an NFT investor or creator, being aware of broader industry trends like scalability is an excellent way to keep your ear to the ground, whether that be for the purpose of finding the next BAYC (on another chain) or creating the next homerun NFT brand for a diehard layer-1 alternative. 

Top NFT-Based Games: Play-to-Earn Meets the Blockchain

Posted on by Pastel Network

Backed by blockchain technology, NFT-based games incorporate player-owned economies, providing gamers monetary incentives to play.  

Most of these games offer much more than just one single gameplay. They’re actually social metaverses where players are encouraged to actively participate in future game development. These economies are built around games’ native currencies. 

The following guide goes over the most popular NFT-based games. 

As you’ll learn, the explosive growth behind NFT-based games is due to the increasingly more robust and versatile functionality of the games. 

 Axie Infinity: Battle, Collect, and Breed Axie Characters

The Pokémon-style blockchain game Axie Infinity became very popular because players can actually make a notable income simply just by playing it. Around 50% of its users come from the Philippines and Venezuela where, due to pandemic-related lockdowns, many people were forced to find alternative income sources. Today, Axie Infinity’s total market cap is around $6.2B, and its price gravitates under $100. 

Axies are fantasy pets that players can battle, collect, and breed, and each Axie is an NFT. The entirety of the game’s play-to-earn model is based on these three aspects. You can earn in-game tokens by winning battles, collecting and selling Axies. Players can create new Axies by breeding the existing ones; because these newly born (“minted”) Axies are also NFTs, the player can sell and trade them in the Axie Infinity marketplace.

AXS is the in-game token that can be bought and sold on third-party exchanges, such as Binance and Coinbase. It’s also a governance token, meaning its owners can influence the game policies.

The disadvantage of Axie Infinity is that at least three Axies are required to start playing. This initial investment can cost more than $1,500, depending on market prices. As a remedy, there are Axie Infinity scholarships programs where Axie owners, who are called managers, loan their Axies to scholars who actually play the game. 

Axie Infinity plans to launch a free-to-play version that will allow players to familiarize themselves with the game by removing what may be too high an entry barrier for some. 

Alien Worlds: Mine the Land to Receive Trillium (TLM)

With more than a million monthly users, Alien Worlds is the number one game on the Wax blockchain. It’s a social metaverse that consists of seven planets, and it uses an in-game currency called Trillium (TLM).

Players can enjoy play-to-earn opportunities while exploring these planets. The gameplay revolves around mining TLM. There are several types of NFTs in Alien Worlds. Owners of Land NFTs can mine the land themselves or receive commissions by letting others mine their Land. A player starts with selecting a Land in one of the seven planets.

To mine the Land, you need Tool NFTs. After mining, you receive a share from the planet’s TLM pool. Another type of in-game NFT is Mission NFTs, which players get by going on missions. These NFTS have utilities in the games created by the members of the community. 

The TLM token comes with governance rights; holders can cast a vote in elections for council candidates and submit proposals on how to distribute the incentives.

The Sandbox Game: Create Your Own NFT Game Assets and Experiences

Sandbox is a voxel-based project, similar to Minecraft. A voxel is a 3D pixel. Users can design and launch their own NFT assets and game experiences in the Sandbox metaverse using the intuitive tools provided by Sandbox which are Voxedit and Game Maker.

Voxedit is a voxel art generation program. It’s even possible to create Minecraft assets using it. Asset creators don’t have to use Voxedit for Sandbox assets, other voxel art programs also work. But they need to export assets created in other programs to Voxedit to turn them into NFTs. It’ll be possible to upload these NFT assets to the Marketplace.  Learning VoxEdit 9: Importing and Exporting Different Formats

Game Maker is the platform Sandbox uses to launch and play the game experiences. Players integrate the assets they created in Voxedit into Game Maker. These experiences can be built on LANDs owned by players, which are digital pieces of real estate in the Sandbox metaverse.  

Platform’s native currency is SAND, which functions as both a utility and a governance token.  It’s possible to stake SAND tokens on LANDs. SAND is also used to buy and sell NFT assets from the Sandbox marketplace.

Mines of Dalarnia: Discover the Rarest Resources

Mines of Dalarnia is a free-to-play action-adventure game. The Dalarnia universe consists of minerals, rare relics, and artifacts. A player’s success depends on their ability to mine these in-game items.

The gameplay resembles the concepts of NFT scarcity and bitcoin mining. The stronger your skills, the rarer resources you can acquire. Dig deeper to collect rarer minerals, use minerals to upgrade the equipment of your character. To do that, travel through four different mine types with increasing difficulty.

By participating in Mines of Dalarnia competitions, it’s possible to earn in-game currency DAR that you can stake for rewards or use to buy and rent in-game assets from the game’s marketplace. The Mines of Dalarnia team also plans to build governance functionality into the DAR token, so players can vote on the game’s developmental direction.  

Blockchain Monster Hunt: Catch the Monster in the Block

Blockchain Monster Hunt is a multichain hunting game where valuable NFT monsters are born in blocks. You can either catch the monsters in the game or buy them from the Marketplace. To earn Blockchain Monster Coin (BCMC) tokens, you need to battle the monsters you possess. 

Players must command catch and battle mechanisms to succeed. There are some rules to take into consideration while playing. For example, you’re allowed to catch only one monster from the same block, but you get multiple tries to do so. 

Blockchain Monster Hunt’s play-to-earn model is based mainly on the BCMC token’s utility; BCMC carries in-game benefits like increasing the hunt’s success rate and helping prevent monsters from dying, and token holder benefits like voting rights on proposals for the game development, staking, and farming.

Cryptoblades: Defeat your Enemies and Earn SKILL

Cryptoblades is an NFT role-playing game launched on Binance Smart Chain.

By leveraging in-game currency SKILL and using characters and weapons, players enter into combat. Character and weapon NFTS can be traded in the game’s native marketplace. Players need SKILL tokens to recruit their first character.

SKILL can be swapped on ApeSwap when pairing with BNB.

Players earn character experience and SKILL tokens when defeating enemies in combat. Experience allows the related character to level up. Weapons can be forged to increase their combat power. Skill reward depends on the power of the enemy defeated. 

Outside of in-game token benefits, SKILL can also be staked. 

Town Star: Build Your Farm 

Town Star is a farming-style-strategy game where players with limited resources and space produce goods to sell to nearby cities so as to make money and grow their farms. Whoever develops the necessary skills to manage the limited resources can play more strategically, and as a result, rise on the leaderboard.

Town Star’s buildings and characters are NFTs with several utilities. They give the players unique benefits while they’re growing their farms. For example, some character NFTs help finish certain tasks very fast and some resource NFTs provide crop supply continuously.

These NFTs are also the way to reach more play-to-earn rewards throughout the game. Players receive TOWN tokens, which are tradable on third-party exchanges, such as Okex and Bitrue, with a 24-hour trading volume of $1.8M.

Final Thoughts: Ready Player One

Town Star and other NFT gaming ecosystems enable earning rewards while having a good time. Perhaps their greatest benefit for the crypto ecosystem is that they help increase cryptocurrency and blockchain literacy, gamifying an experience that facilitates widespread blockchain adoption.

Contrary to conventional online games, players own their assets, and the blockchain allows for asset authenticity to be proven. Besides utility, in-game currencies offer governance rights, which enables community members to vote on proposals and decide on the game’s future. 

By combining the benefits of tokenization and a fun gaming environment, these early GameFi iterations may serve as landmark innovations for games to come. 

Axie Infinity: Pokémon Inspired Blockchain Game Explained

Posted on by Pastel Network

Axie Infinity is a community-driven blockchain-based digital pet game that enables players to earn money while playing the game. Think of Axie as a hybrid between Pokemon, Tamagotchi, and CryptoKitties.

It is one of the most popular NFT token-based games, with over 19,000 monthly active on-chain users. One of the most notable characteristics of Axie Infinity and other NFT-based games is that users are able to bridge the in-game economy with real-world currency.

Over 25,000 ETH (over $45M) has been traded in the in-house marketplace, with the most expensive Axie being sold for 300 ETH ($540,000.)

About Axie Infinity:

Axie Infinity is a product of Sky Mavis, a game study based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

The Sky Mavis and Axie Infinity team includes:

Trung Nguyen, Founder of Sky Mavis and Axie Infinity. He is a serial entrepreneur behind an E-commerce delivery startup called Loship.

Alexander L. Larsen is the Co-Founder of Sky Mavis and Axie Infinity game and is the current Chief Operating Officer of the venture.  He is the business head behind the venture and handles the day-to-day operation of the company.  He comes with a background in e-sport development and is a gamer, gaming competition organizer, and video journalist.

Viet Anh Ho is the Chief Technology Officer at Sky Mavis.  He was previously a full-stack developer and an intern at both Google and Paypal.

  • Tu Doan, art director and game director of Axie Infinity. He is a competitive Pokemon player and created the entire suite of Axie game characters. He also worked on Loship with Trung.
  • Duy Trinh, Lead Animator Axie Infinity. He’s a graduate of a professional Hollywood Animation Studio and works as a freelancer.
  • Quy Dau, Primary Software Engineer. He won the 2016 React Hackathon. He started his first company at the age of 21.
  • Nam Nguyen, Chief Graphic Artist and Designer. 

Launched in 2018, Axie Infinity has quickly grown alongside the rising popularity of NFTs and blockchain-based gaming. 

The Cast of Axie Characters:

Axie Infinity is a decentralized game ecosystem built on the Ethereum blockchain, featuring a cast of digital characters. Per the game’s narrative, Axies are creatures that “love to battle, build, and hunt for treasure.” 

Dubbed a “digital nation,” Axie Infinity presents a landscape in which users can collect, battle, or breed their characters. 

The Axie secondary marketplace

Users can also build a collection of Axies and use them in a wide variety of games within the Axie Infinity world, called the “Terrarium.” 

Axies gain experience points and level up by completing daily activities or through battle with other Axies. They come with specific traits that help determine battle outcomes; some characteristics make them more competitive than others. 

There are over 500 body parts that can be acquired and traded, and each body part enables Axies to perform specific battle moves or receive an overall combat advantage. 

There are four stats that determine a battle outcome: Health (HP), Skill, Speed, and Morale.

  1. Health (HP): How much of a beating your Axie can withstand before it’s knocked down.
  2. Skill: A skill stat determines the amount of damage you do; you can do more damage if you use multiple cards on your opponent during battle.
  3. Speed: Speed is critical because it determines the attack order in a battle. The faster the Axie, the quicker the attack. Speed also comes in handy in defense; faster speeds mean your Axie has a greater chance of avoiding a critical or lethal strike. 
    1. If two battling Axies have the same speed, attack order is determined by the following stat priority: High speed > Low HP > High Skill > High Morale > Low Fighter ID.
  4. Morale: The morale score of Axie decides whether an Axie gets to make a critical strike on an opposing Axie.  It also determines when an Axies is losing whether the losing Axie gets to make a last stand.

The above stats are influenced by an Axies’ class and body parts. 

Axie Classes:

Axie classes are reminiscent of Pokemon types– each class has certain advantages and disadvantages in combat. Think Rock, Paper, Scissors. There are six common classes in Axies and three secret classes. 

Common Classes: Aquatic, Beast, Bird, Bug, Plant, Reptile.

Secret classes:

  • A “Mech” is a hybrid offspring of a purebred Beast with a purebred Bug Axie.
  • A “Dawn” is a hybrid offspring of a purebred Plant with a purebred Bird.
  • A “Dusk” which is a hybrid offspring of a purebred Reptile with a purebred Aquatic

Axie Advantage and Disadvantage Breakdown: 

Each class has an advantage over two other classes. Similarly, it has a disadvantage against two classes. 

Aquatic class:

  • Advantage: Bugs and Beast Axies. 
  • Disadvantage: Plant and the Reptile Axies.

Beast class: 

  • Advantage: Plant and Reptile Axies
  • Disadvantage: Aquatic and the Bird Axies.

Bird class 

  • Advantage: Bug and Beast Axies
  • Disadvantage: Plant and the Reptile Axies.

Bug class: 

  • Advantage: Plant and Reptile Axies
  • Disadvantage: Aquatic and the Bird Axies.

Plant class: 

  • Advantage: Aquatic and the Bird Axies
  • Disadvantage: Beast and the Bug Axies.

Reptile class: 

  • Advantage: Aquatic and Bird Axies
  • Disadvantage: Beast and Bug Axies.

Axie Body Parts:

Each Axie has six body parts: horns, back, tail, eyes, ears, and mouth. Each body part has the ability to play a role during battle.  Each ability is represented by a card. Only horns, mouths, backs, and tails determine what kinds of cards an Axie can use in battle.

A body part’s “class” also improves the four stats listed above: Health, Skill, Speed, and Morale. 

Axies have around 500 different body parts options, each of which look different and provide relatively unique advantages. 

The Battle is the Game Plan:

There are two ways an Axie can battle: PvE (E stands for environment) in an adventure or in 3v3 (3-on-3) battle against other Axies in an arena.

The goal for each sort of battle is to learn experience (EXP.) 

PvE adventures: For example, one PvE battle takes place in the Lunacia Ruins in the Axie Terrarium. During the PvE, an Axie will face 36 levels of monsters. Successfully navigating each level gives the Axie some experience, allowing it to perform better in the next. The Axie will have to defeat three waves of monsters (on average) in each level to advance to the next stage.

Axies can earn anywhere between 50 EXP points to over 1200 EXP points per level. The EXP varies per level and doesn’t necessarily increase or decrease: for example, Level 30 pays 1209 in EXP points, and Level 36 pays 820 points to clear.

Here is a breakdown of how many EXP points are gained for winning each level:

3v3 (3-on-3) Battles: two teams of 3 Axies each face each other in a 3×3 battlefield. 

The battle strategy generally determines the victor. An excellent plan considers the specific suitable Axies in each team, placement on the battlefield, what moves are utilized, and the order of those moves. 

The Axie with the fastest speed gets to attack first, followed by the opposing side. Each team then takes turns until all three members of one team are defeated.

The victorious party’s members each earn 60 EXPs and the defeated get 20 EXPs each. If all three opposing Axies have been defeated, their rewarded EXPs go to the winning team.

Axie Infinity & the Blockchain: How Does Axie Infinity Work?

Axie Infinity leverages the blockchain to reward and incentivize players for engagement, as well as to provide access to a secondary market in which users can sell their Axies and other in-game objects. Axis and their body parts NFTs, specifically ERC9721 tokens. The Small Love Potion (SLP) is an item used to feed Axies is an ERC-20 token. 

A token introduced at the end of 2020, the Axie Infinity Shard (AXS) is an ERC-20 token that acts as both a governance token, as well as an in-game currency that can be bought, traded, or earned by playing the game. 

Final Thoughts

 One of the most significant driving forces of Axie Infinity’s growth is its community, as dozens of reviews attest.

The community is mostly on Discord, which serves as a chat interface uniting the thousands of monthly users. As one of the most popular blockchain-based games to date, Axie Infinity has earned a first-mover advantage and dozens of long-time users.  If you’re interested in playing Axie Infinity or researching it further, check it out at https://axieinfinity.com/.

Sorare: Fantasy Football on the Blockchain Explained

Posted on by Pastel Network

Sorare is a French blockchain startup building an NFT collectible game revolving around fantasy soccer (football)– not to be confused with American fantasy football.

The game consists of unique digital tradable cards of football players, some of which have attracted considerable market value. One such card of Christiano Ronaldo recently sold for $102,000, making it one of the top-selling digital collectible cards so far. 

Sorare’s packs

Sorare currently has partnerships with 130 soccer clubs, blowing its initial goal of 20 clubs out of the water; the partnership list currently includes marquee names like Real Madrid, Liverpool, Paris Saint-Germain, Bayern Munich, and Juventus. A platform like Sorare enables football clubs to better engage with a global fanbase of fans and collectors, who wish to purchase and collect Sorare Cards. 

Sorare Cards are officially licensed digital collectibles of soccer players in a particular soccer season. The cards are freely tradeable and usable. There are three levels of scarcity for each Sorare Card: Unique, Super Rare (10 copies) and Rare (100 copies).

About Sorare: The Team

Sorare was founded by Nicolas Julia (Co-founder & CEO) and Adrien Montfort (Co-Founder & CTO.) 

“Sorare was born from our love for football​. We’re building a gaming experience fueled by passion where fans can connect with football and a global community,” said Sorare CEO Nicolas Julia. “On Sorare, they can truly own the game.” 

The company distinguishes itself in the rapidly-growing NFT collectible space with its prestigious roster of investors, counting participants such as Benchmark, Accel, Alexis Ohanian (Founder of Reddit), Gary Vaynerchuk, and Barcelona striker Antoine Griezmann.

Sorare on Crunchbase

Sorare has raised $59.2M to date, with the lion’s share (€40M, or $47.4M) coming in its Series A round led by Benchmark in February 2021. Early raises included a 2019 $500k pre-seed, which included Brooklyn-based Ethereum development studio ConsenSys, and a July 2020 $4 million seed round (later extended to $10 million) led by e.ventures. 

The Sorare team announced that it has experienced its most rapid growth in late-2020 and early-2021, noting 52% month-over-month growth in early-2021. For example, about $4.2 million worth of cards were traded in January 2021, compared to just $60,000 of cards traded January 2020.

How Does Sorare Compare with Other Blockchain-based Collectibles?

Founded in December 2018, Sorare isn’t necessarily a new project on the block. It owes much of its recent rapid growth and attention to the cryptocurrency bull market and NFT boom of late-2020 and early-2021, but it is still rooted in a few more months of innovation than the average NFT collectible project. 

It’s worth comparing Sorare to NBA Top Shot, a project by Dapper Labs, which also made the viral hit CryptoKitties. Similarly, NBA Top Shot is an NFT collectible platform, but with a partnership with the NBA. NBA Top Shot generated over $200 million in transactions in 2021, and has a bustling secondary marketplace. 

Although Sorare’s $4.2 million January sales might pale in comparison to NBA Top Shot’s numbers, it’s worth noting that Sorare has been comparatively significantly undercovered. Of NBA Top Shot’s $200 million, nearly $150 million was within a one-week span following a barrage of media hype and coverage. 

It also seems that NBA Top Shot has a bit more thoughtful approach to monetization– it takes 5% of every market sales, including the high-volume high-value secondary market. Sorare currently only makes money on card auctions, and not on secondary sales. 

Although NBA Top Shot is a bit more mature than Sorare (it had already signed the NBA as a partner before Sorare raised its pre-seed,) there is no need to force a zero-sum comparison between the two projects. 

Sorare Competition

Sorare is a Parisian startup, and is the leading blockchain company working on a NFT solution for soccer collectibles. We’ll gently remind our readers that soccer is the most popular sport in the world; it has an estimated 4 billion fans worldwide, in comparison to an estimated 825 million basketball fans– basketball is also behind table tennis, at 875 million fans.

Sorare’s partnerships (source: Sorare home page)

Optimistically, Sorare is positioned favorably in the market: the bulk of the world’s most valuable and notable clubs based in Europe, and many of which are already partners with Sorare. 

However, Sorare does have some competition:

  1. Socios.com, a platform that primarily focuses on token trading token trading. It has partnerships with many of the same companies as Sorare, but it doesn’t offer NFT-based collectibles. 
  2. Animoca, a gaming studio, which scored a partnership with Manchester City teams. Animoca is also the creator of F1 Delta Time through a partnership with Formula 1.
  3. Fantastec, a collectibles app. 

Sorare’s competition has signed many of the same teams, and there doesn’t appear to be any exclusivity in its partnerships. This may drastically affects the perceived value of an NFT on Sorare, 

Sorare Tech Stack

Sorare is currently using Ethereum, which has been experiencing frustratingly high transaction (gas) fees for the bulk of 2021. 

Dapper labs learned the limitations of Ethereum’s scalability in 2017 and 2018, when its CryptoKitties game slowed the Ethereum network down to an extremely slow grind. It has since moved to Flow, a new blockchain that seems to be better for NFTs. 

How to Buy NFTs on Sorare

Sorare has a partnership with Ramp, a cryptocurrency startup that facilitates KYC and payments. Ramp processes users’ KYC using open-banking APIs, removing some of the complexity and hurdles of signing up for the end-user. 

Users can buy cards on Sorare either directly from Sorare or on the secondary marketplace from other users. 

Final Thoughts

Sorare is attempting to tap into one of the most lucrative sports marketplaces by building an NFT-marketplace. As seen with NBA Top Shot, there is plenty of room and opportunity for a project like Sorare to take off, branding itself into the popular lexicon of digital sports collectibles. 

It’s worth re-emphasizing that a firm like Benchmark not only invested in but led a funding round for Sorare. Benchmark is gilded in the venture capital community for its early investment in eBay in the first dot com boom, and later investments in companies like Instagram, Dropbox, Twitter, Uber, Zillow, Snapchat, and Discord. 

However, NFTs still present an incredible risk, both for their customers and for their investors. As with most projects at the tip of the cryptocurrency innovation spear, time will tell how this story will be told in retrospect. If Sorare is able to solidify its leadership, make its roster of partners happy, and maintain card value over long horizons, it may be onto something big. 

Street Fighter Cards: Fighters on the Blockchain Explained 

Posted on by Pastel Network

Street Fighter cards are glorious reminders of the nineties; they’re a passport to the age of arcade gaming.

The first Street Fighter was released in 1987, a simpler time when Internet gaming was still over a decade away. Street Fighter trading cards entered the scene in 1991, bringing the hype of sports cards into the digital realm.

Capcom, the legacy video game developer headquartered in San Francisco, CA, recently launched a suite of Street Fighter II-inspired cards as Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) on the WAX blockchain. 

The Street Fighter NFT cards are tradeable digital cards with recreations of Street Fighter characters. The packs come in Standard and Ultimate sizes, with 10 cards and 60 cards per respective category.

The first series of Street Fighter cards was released in February 2021 and quickly sold out. Users were able to purchase the packs via credit card. 

All of the 65,000 packs sold in the 24-hour period, generating over $2 million in sales; there was also an additional $1 million in secondary market trading. 

Upon purchase, the cards can be digitally “opened”– an experience reminiscent of opening up a physical pack of cards in the real world. 

Moreover, you can craft them to form other NFTs. By crafting, you can choose to power up the non-build cards you received by adding one more build card and combining them together. 

Street Fighter Card Founders

Capcom started its journey as a game machine manufacturer in 1979 and has since matured into a video game industry behemoth with offices in Japan, the United States, England, Germany, and Hong Kong. 

Capcom released the first arcade video game version of Street Fighter in 1987, followed up with Street Fighter II four years later. It wasn’t until this game that the Street Fighter craze took off, quickly growing into a cult classic video game and penetrating mainstream culture. 

In 1994, the Hollywood-produced Street Fighter movie was released in theatres, and the TV animation version of the game started broadcasting the next year.

It wasn’t until 2021 that Street Fighters made their appearance into the blockchain as tradeable NFT cards.

Enter WAX: the Worldwide Asset Exchange

The Street Fighter NFTs are listed on WAX, short for the Worldwide Asset Exchange. By hosting the cards, the WAX blockchain allows the collectors to enter a marketplace where they can purchase the digital Street Fighters, propose and execute trades, showcase their inventory on social media, and search the wishlist of other traders.

On February 16, 2021, the news about the partnership between the WAX blockchain and Capcom was made public. As per the terms of the partnership, Capcom and WAX teamed up to bring Street Fighter as digital blockchain collectibles to fans.  

WAX was founded by William E. Quigley and Jonathan Yantis in 2015 to primarily help content creators tokenize their products and offer them to the global collector community. To date, WAX has raised a funding of 42 million USD from a total of five investors: Node Capital, Asian Cowboy, Andreas Schwartz, Distributed Global, and Hashed. 

What Does WAX Do?

The WAX platform has established itself as an early pioneer of NFT hosting, allowing anyone anywhere to trade digital or physical items instantly and securely. Users can use WAX to buy and sell gift cards and build online stores for their products. 

In addition to Capcom, WAX has been used by the likes of deadmau5, Atari, Topps, and William Shatner to host their NFTs. 

WAX consists of a cloud wallet that makes it easy to buy the native WAX token, store NFTs, stake tokens, and participate in the WAX DeFi ecosystem. 

The platform has been used by several gaming industry stalwarts because by participating in WAX brands gain access to a global community of collectors, traders, buyers, sellers, creators, gamers, merchants, dAPP creators, and game developers.

WAX offers lucrative monetization opportunities to its users. Anyone who participates in the WAX network qualifies for rewards in ETH tokens or WAXG governance tokens. Those who deposit a combination of WAXE and ETH into the Liquidity Pool qualify to earn Liquidity Pool Rewards (WAXE-ETH). WAXG is given to those who stake their WAXE-ETH Tokens in the WAX Economic Activity Pool.

Street Fighter II on WAX: How It Works

The Street Fighter II card sale started on February 18th, 2021, and was scheduled to last 24 hours. The first series of Street Fighter on WAX comes with 262 unique trading cards in eight rarities. 

As the new crafting system of the card set dictates, the buyer has to start by opening packs of Build Cards, then combine two matching Build Cards to unlock a new card in one of six rarities. 

Street Fighter NFTs Explained

A buyer of a Street Fighter Build Card pack opened the pack, and then combined two matching build cards to reveal a new card. The Build Cards are burned in the process, increasing the scarcity and value of the standalone Build Cards. 

The buyer can continue upgrading that card’s power score by adding additional build cards. Once it reaches a power score of five, the user gets to unlock a special Class Card in one of six rarities. Build cards are burned when used, which increases card scarcity and value.

WAX’s blockchain technology has multiple roles. 

Street Fighter blockchain

Because these cards are powered by WAX Blockchain technology, users can not only buy and sell digital Street Fighter trading cards on several marketplaces – they can also instantly trade cards from their collection with anyone owning a WAX Blockchain account.

The WAX Blockchain also ensures that the Street Fighter collectible is 100% verifiable as authentic and can never be changed or duplicated.

It’s worth noting that in February 2021– the month Capcom launched its Street Fighter NFT sale– saw over $255 million in NFT sales, the bulk of which came from Dapper Labs’ NBA Top Shot. 

The Street Fighter NFT secondary marketplace on WAX

Users with WAX wallets and funds were eligible to participate in the Street Fighter sale. A few reports of the sale noted glitches with the sale in the first hour, largely due to the web traffic overload of people attempting to buy a Street Fighter NFT. 

Buyers of the initial card sale received “build” cards, which could be combined to form “character” cards, or NFTs of famous Street Fighter characters like Ryu, Chun-Li, Ken, and Blanka. 

The cards that you create with the ‘build’ cards come in varying rarities. 

The Collectors’ Edition contained the game’s classic characters, and users had a 1% chance of getting them. 

The Action, Weld, Battle, Foil, and Base categories come with 5%, 10%, 15%, 25%, and 44% rarities. 

The card minting happens simultaneously with the sale, and the participants keep combining their build cards to level up. The platform displayed the mint number and other details of the asset profile such as the asset name, the offer, and template-id, the product price, etc. 

The WAX platform also offered a few unique incentives for buyers. On WAX, Buyers could propose trades, showcase their inventory on social media, and search wishlists of other traders. 

Although the original sale only lasted for a day, Street Fighter card owners could instantly trade their collectibles on the secondary market to anyone in the world. 

The Popularity of the NFT Marketplace

While explaining the rise in demand, Lee Jenkins, Product Manager at WAX, compared the digital ownership of these collectibles with the physical ownership of an item. 

“[Blockchain technology] is the first time that digital ownership is truly comparable to physical ownership of an item,” says Jenkins. 

The verifiable authenticity and scarcity of the products are also sources for the long-term demand of NFTs. 

Final Thoughts: Street Fighter on the Blockchain Packs a Punch

The success of the initial Season 1 sale of Street Fighter cards may lead Capcom to launch Series 2 and 3.  NFT launches such as these serve as an excellent example that legacy brands can tap into entirely new marketplaces of digital collectors to generate revenue and connect with their fans.

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