NFT games might be the hottest trend in the whole gaming industry right now. If you consider joining it, read our guide, where we summarized their creation step by step. Check out experts’ insight on NFT game development.

NFT games - why does it make sense?

What sounded unbelievable just a few years ago, is slowly becoming a mainstream reality today. Blockchain games have gained significant popularity. They revolutionize popular gaming genres by redefining the way we think about gaming assets and in-game purchases.

But besides hype, what exactly does make NFT a good choice for the gaming business?

NFT - what are they?

NFT stands for Non Fungible Tokens. But what does it mean? Among various blockchain token types, we differentiate between fungible and non-fungible tokens. (You can read here more about token types)

Examples of the first kind are Bitcoin or Ether. Fungible means that a single token is indistinguishable from others in the same ecosystem. Just like in regular currency. Thus, they can be used for payment transactions.

NFT’s non-fungibility means that every token in the system is unique. NFTs don’t have a common value and often do not allow for an equal exchange (NFT for NFT). Each token represents unique information of ownership or identity.

In the blockchain world, NFTs are digital assets that represent a unique digital or real item. How can we use them in the game ecosystem?

NFT and game assets

The gaming industry is a powerful branch fueled by its consumers’ passion. When gamers launch their favorite title, they immerse themselves in a new, alternative world. A quick look at the most popular games of the last decade, like League of Legends, Fortnite, or Counter-Strike, should be enough to see how modern gamers care about their characters, skins, and other in-game items. They treat them as an extension of their creative self. And what’s important, they can pay a lot for it.

The will to build a collection of unique items is nothing new. The games have shown us how far beyond the real world this phenomenon could extend. But do the purchased gaming collectibles become their property? Do these items differ somehow from the ones possessed by others? What is the true asset value? Often the answer is not so simple. During the last few months, NFTs showed us that they might change that.

Everywhere where users collect and trade virtual gaming assets, NFTs can highly improve their gaming experience. Essentially, they assure players about the authenticity and scarcity of gaming assets and allow them to keep full ownership of the purchased assets.

Collectible games seem to be a perfect environment for NFTs. That’s why we have seen a rapid growth of projects of such type during the last year. Yet, the potential of NFT gaming solutions goes far beyond them. Just think about online board games or PVP battle games.

As an example, let’s take multiplayer games like the aforementioned LOL or Fortnite. Possessed skins and champions are of great importance to the players. Saving such virtual assets as NFTs would bring tremendous new possibilities. What if the players had complete control over the ownership rights to their game assets?

NFTs’ most important characteristics for gaming platform

Scarcity
Verifiability
Transparency
Immutability

Advantages of NFT gaming platform

Launching an NFT game can offer significant revenue-generating opportunities.
Demand for in-game assets increases its native token value.
Players can sell their virtual assets on a free market.
Players are assured about the scarcity of their virtual assets.
Thanks to NFT, implementing a play-to-earn model is possible.
Earning possibilities attract many players to NFT game platforms.
The current hype around NFT may be used as a driving force for your marketing campaigns.

NFT gaming platform development step by step

Design

Define your idea

What type of game do you want to build? Will it be a card game or maybe an RPG? Besides the genre, you have to decide its topic. Those will be the first steps of your own NFT gaming platform development.

When you determine these factors, try to find similar non-blockchain games. They will be a great starting point. Examine what worked in their cases and use them as an inspiration.

In which games NFTs may be useful?

You would be surprised how varied NFT games can be. Below, in brief, we summarized games’ genres where NFT usage would make sense:

Action Games
Adventure Games
PvP Battle Games
Arcade Games
Online Board Games
Casino Games
Card Games
Fantasy Sports
Racing Games
Sports Games
Simulations Games

Bring creatives to your team

It sounds a bit obvious, but in the NFT industry design seems to be everything. The same goes for the NFT gaming platform. Without interesting graphics, your game probably won’t attract many players.

Do you think that creating appealing pixel art shouldn’t be difficult? You couldn’t be more wrong. Even a simple design requires skills and experience, without which your project will be simply dull and unsightly. Hence, don’t forget about artists that will bring your game to a new level.

Development

Decide between a mobile app and a web app

This is one of the first questions you will have to answer approaching NFT gaming platform development. Both options have several pros and cons.

Firstly, web apps are highly available and more accessible for a broader audience. On the other hand, mobile apps offer more features and are usually faster than web apps. Yet, the process of their creation is more time-consuming.

If you decide on a mobile app, you will have to choose between native and non-native apps. While the first type is designed for a specific operating system, the second works on all of them. But at the same time, it doesn’t have access to functionalities, such as camera access or notifications.

Choose your game environment

To which blockchain will you connect your NFT game? While most of the NFT games use Ethereum Blockchain, there are alternatives worth considering. Check, for example, Solana Blockchain, which offers promising possibilities for NFT development.

Also, even within just Ethereum, you have numerous different Layer 2 solutions that may increase the speed and accessibility of your NFT game. One that is definitely worth considering in the case of NFT games is Immutable X, designed specifically to support projects of this type.

Frontend

Most NFT games have their frontend done in Javascript or Typescript. As for the framework, the choice is between React and Vue. The majority of game developers use the first one. Angular is also an option, yet for most projects, it’s simply too heavy considering their needs.

Connection with wallets

Your NFT game should be connected with at least one of the available crypto wallets to allow players to safely store their NFTs. Most projects during NFT game development choose MetaMask.

MetaMask offers certain advantages: it’s non-custodial and can store NFTs. Therefore it's extremely popular among NFT holders.

Backend

For NFT game development Node.js is one of the most popular options as a backend language of NFT gaming platform solutions.

Testing

Rinkeby or Ropsten Testnet are reasonable options for testing NFT games. Yet, they’re definitely not the only ones.

Launching and distribution

After testing your app on a testnet you will want to deploy it to the main Blockchain network (mainnet). Don’t rush here, as there are several threats that may disturb this process. Give yourself time to properly test everything before. Here you can find a useful guide for the Ethereum network.

But the success of your NFT game requires far more than just completing NFT game development. You mustn’t forget about a strong marketing strategy. Consider starting users’ engagement before you will eventually launch your game. Think about creating content, discord channels, Reddit groups. In the end community, you build may turn out to be extremely useful for further development.

NFT game development company - Nextrope

Above we briefly summarize tools and programming languages that can be used during NFT gaming platform development. Yet, every project is unique and has its own requirement. Therefore, your development team should be able to adjust to those needs, as well as be prepared to overcome unpredicted obstacles that may emerge.

Furthermore, if you consider launching your own NFT game, you should be aware that its success requires skills and knowledge regarding both the technical and business sides of the Blockchain industry. That’s why many projects decide to hire an external blockchain company as a technological partner.

At Nextrope, we can call ourselves pioneers of Blockchain technology in CEE. We conducted one of the first tokenization in the world and since that we keep up to date with the industry. NFT games aren’t an exception.

Do you want to know how Nextrope’s team can boost your NFT game on a new level? Feel free to contact our specialists who will gladly answer all your questions.

Token Engineering Process

Kajetan Olas

13 Apr 2024

Token Engineering is an emerging field that addresses the systematic design and engineering of blockchain-based tokens. It applies rigorous mathematical methods from the Complex Systems Engineering discipline to tokenomics design.

In this article, we will walk through the Token Engineering Process and break it down into three key stages. Discovery Phase, Design Phase, and Deployment Phase.

Table of Contents

Discovery Phase of Token Engineering Process
Design Phase of Token Engineering Process
- Objective Function
Deployment Phase of Token Engineering Process
Time Duration
Required Skills for Token Engineering
Summary
FAQ

Discovery Phase of Token Engineering Process

The first stage of the token engineering process is the Discovery Phase. It focuses on constructing high-level business plans, defining objectives, and identifying problems to be solved. That phase is also the time when token engineers first define key stakeholders in the project.

Defining the Problem

This may seem counterintuitive. Why would we start with the problem when designing tokenomics? Shouldn’t we start with more down-to-earth matters like token supply? The answer is No. Tokens are a medium for creating and exchanging value within a project’s ecosystem. Since crypto projects draw their value from solving problems that can’t be solved through TradFi mechanisms, their tokenomics should reflect that.

The industry standard, developed by McKinsey & Co. and adapted to token engineering purposes by Outlier Ventures, is structuring the problem through a logic tree, following MECE.
MECE stands for Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive. Mutually Exclusive means that problems in the tree should not overlap. Collectively Exhaustive means that the tree should cover all issues.

In practice, the “Problem” should be replaced by a whole problem statement worksheet. The same will hold for some of the boxes.
A commonly used tool for designing these kinds of diagrams is the Miro whiteboard.

Identifying Stakeholders and Value Flows in Token Engineering

This part is about identifying all relevant actors in the ecosystem and how value flows between them. To illustrate what we mean let’s consider an example of NFT marketplace. In its case, relevant actors might be sellers, buyers, NFT creators, and a marketplace owner. Possible value flow when conducting a transaction might be: buyer gets rid of his tokens, seller gets some of them, marketplace owner gets some of them as fees, and NFT creators get some of them as royalties.

Incentive Mechanisms Canvas

The last part of what we consider to be in the Discovery Phase is filling the Incentive Mechanisms Canvas. After successfully identifying value flows in the previous stage, token engineers search for frictions to desired behaviors and point out the undesired behaviors. For example, friction to activity on an NFT marketplace might be respecting royalty fees by marketplace owners since it reduces value flowing to the seller.

_{source: https://www.canva.com/design/DAFDTNKsIJs/8Ky9EoJJI7p98qKLIu2XNw/view#7}

Design Phase of Token Engineering Process

The second stage of the Token Engineering Process is the Design Phase in which you make use of high-level descriptions from the previous step to come up with a specific design of the project. This will include everything that can be usually found in crypto whitepapers (e.g. governance mechanisms, incentive mechanisms, token supply, etc). After finishing the design, token engineers should represent the whole value flow and transactional logic on detailed visual diagrams. These diagrams will be a basis for creating mathematical models in the Deployment Phase.

Token Engineering Artonomous Design Diagram — _{Artonomous design diagram, source: Artonomous GitHub}

Objective Function

Every crypto project has some objective. The objective can consist of many goals, such as decentralization or token price. The objective function is a mathematical function assigning weights to different factors that influence the main objective in the order of their importance. This function will be a reference for machine learning algorithms in the next steps. They will try to find quantitative parameters (e.g. network fees) that maximize the output of this function.
Modified Metcalfe’s Law can serve as an inspiration during that step. It’s a framework for valuing crypto projects, but we believe that after adjustments it can also be used in this context.

Deployment Phase of Token Engineering Process

The Deployment Phase is final, but also the most demanding step in the process. It involves the implementation of machine learning algorithms that test our assumptions and optimize quantitative parameters. Token Engineering draws from Nassim Taleb’s concept of Antifragility and extensively uses feedback loops to make a system that gains from arising shocks.

Agent-based Modelling

In agent-based modeling, we describe a set of behaviors and goals displayed by each agent participating in the system (this is why previous steps focused so much on describing stakeholders). Each agent is controlled by an autonomous AI and continuously optimizes his strategy. He learns from his experience and can mimic the behavior of other agents if he finds it effective (Reinforced Learning). This approach allows for mimicking real users, who adapt their strategies with time. An example adaptive agent would be a cryptocurrency trader, who changes his trading strategy in response to experiencing a loss of money.

Monte Carlo Simulations

Token Engineers use the Monte Carlo method to simulate the consequences of various possible interactions while taking into account the probability of their occurrence. By running a large number of simulations it’s possible to stress-test the project in multiple scenarios and identify emergent risks.

Testnet Deployment

If possible, it's highly beneficial for projects to extend the testing phase even further by letting real users use the network. Idea is the same as in agent-based testing - continuous optimization based on provided metrics. Furthermore, in case the project considers airdropping its tokens, giving them to early users is a great strategy. Even though part of the activity will be disingenuine and airdrop-oriented, such strategy still works better than most.

Time Duration

Token engineering process may take from as little as 2 weeks to as much as 5 months. It depends on the project category (Layer 1 protocol will require more time, than a simple DApp), and security requirements. For example, a bank issuing its digital token will have a very low risk tolerance.

Required Skills for Token Engineering

Token engineering is a multidisciplinary field and requires a great amount of specialized knowledge. Key knowledge areas are:

Systems Engineering
Machine Learning
Market Research
Capital Markets
Current trends in Web3
Blockchain Engineering
Statistics

Summary

The token engineering process consists of 3 steps: Discovery Phase, Design Phase, and Deployment Phase. It’s utilized mostly by established blockchain projects, and financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund. Even though it’s a very resource-consuming process, we believe it’s worth it. Projects that went through scrupulous design and testing before launch are much more likely to receive VC funding and be in the 10% of crypto projects that survive the bear market. Going through that process also has a symbolic meaning - it shows that the project is long-term oriented.

If you're looking to create a robust tokenomics model and go through institutional-grade testing please reach out to contact@nextrope.com. Our team is ready to help you with the token engineering process and ensure your project’s resilience in the long term.

FAQ

What does token engineering process look like?

Token engineering process is conducted in a 3-step methodical fashion. This includes Discovery Phase, Design Phase, and Deployment Phase. Each of these stages should be tailored to the specific needs of a project.

Is token engineering meant only for big projects?

We recommend that even small projects go through a simplified design and optimization process. This increases community's trust and makes sure that the tokenomics doesn't have any obvious flaws.

How long does the token engineering process take?

It depends on the project and may range from 2 weeks to 5 months.

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What is Berachain? 🐻 ⛓️ + Proof-of-Liquidity Explained

Karolina

18 Mar 2024

What is Berachain? 🐻 ⛓️ + Proof-of-Liquidity Explained

Enter Berachain: a high-performance, EVM-compatible blockchain that is set to redefine the landscape of decentralized applications (dApps) and blockchain services. Built on the innovative Proof-of-Liquidity consensus and leveraging the robust Polaris framework alongside the CometBFT consensus engine, Berachain is poised to offer an unprecedented blend of efficiency, security, and user-centric benefits. Let's dive into what makes it a groundbreaking development in the blockchain ecosystem.

Table of Contents

What is Berachain?
- Overview
- Key Features
EVM-Compatible vs EVM-Equivalent
Berachain Modular First Approach
Proof Of Liquidity Overview
- High-Level Model Objectives
Proof-of-Liquidity vs Proof-of-Stake
Berachain EVM and Modular Approach
- Polaris EVM
- CometBFT
Conclusion
Resources
FAQ

What is Berachain?

Overview

Berachain is an EVM-compatible Layer 1 (L1) blockchain that stands out through its adoption of the Proof-of-Liquidity (PoL) consensus mechanism. Designed to address the critical challenges faced by decentralized networks. It introduces a cutting-edge approach to blockchain governance and operations.

Key Features

High-performance Capabilities. Berachain is engineered for speed and scalability, catering to the growing demand for efficient blockchain solutions.
EVM Compatibility. It supports all Ethereum tooling, operations, and smart contract languages, making it a seamless transition for developers and projects from the Ethereum ecosystem.
Proof-of-Liquidity.This novel consensus mechanism focuses on building liquidity, decentralizing stake, and aligning the interests of validators and protocol developers.

MUST READ: Docs

EVM-Compatible vs EVM-Equivalent

EVM-Compatible

EVM compatibility means a blockchain can interact with Ethereum's ecosystem to some extent. It can interact supporting its smart contracts and tools but not replicating the entire EVM environment.

EVM-Equivalent

An EVM-equivalent blockchain, on the other hand, aims to fully replicate Ethereum's environment. It ensures complete compatibility and a smooth transition for developers and users alike.

Berachain's Position

Berachain can be considered an "EVM-equivalent-plus" blockchain. It supports all Ethereum operations, tooling, and additional functionalities that optimize for its unique Proof-of-Liquidity and abstracted use cases.

Berachain Modular First Approach

At the heart of Berachain's development philosophy is the Polaris EVM framework. It's a testament to the blockchain's commitment to modularity and flexibility. This approach allows for the easy separation of the EVM runtime layer, ensuring that Berachain can adapt and evolve without compromising on performance or security.

Proof Of Liquidity Overview

High-Level Model Objectives

Systemically Build Liquidity. By enhancing trading efficiency, price stability, and network growth, Berachain aims to foster a thriving ecosystem of decentralized applications.
Solve Stake Centralization. The PoL consensus works to distribute stake more evenly across the network, preventing monopolization and ensuring a decentralized, secure blockchain.
Align Protocols and Validators. Berachain encourages a symbiotic relationship between validators and the broader protocol ecosystem.

Proof-of-Liquidity vs Proof-of-Stake

Unlike traditional Proof of Stake (PoS), which often leads to stake centralization and reduced liquidity, Proof of Liquidity (PoL) introduces mechanisms to incentivize liquidity provision and ensure a fairer, more decentralized network. Berachain separates the governance token (BGT) from the chain's gas token (BERA) and incentives liquidity through BEX pools. Berachain's PoL aims to overcome the limitations of PoS, fostering a more secure and user-centric blockchain.

Berachain EVM and Modular Approach

Polaris EVM

Polaris EVM is the cornerstone of Berachain's EVM compatibility, offering developers an enhanced environment for smart contract execution that includes stateful precompiles and custom modules. This framework ensures that Berachain not only meets but exceeds the capabilities of the traditional Ethereum Virtual Machine.

CometBFT

The CometBFT consensus engine underpins Berachain's network, providing a secure and efficient mechanism for transaction verification and block production. By leveraging the principles of Byzantine fault tolerance (BFT), CometBFT ensures the integrity and resilience of the Berachain blockchain.

Conclusion

Berachain represents a significant leap forward in blockchain technology, combining the best of Ethereum's ecosystem with innovative consensus mechanisms and a modular development approach. As the blockchain landscape continues to evolve, Berachain stands out as a promising platform for developers, users, and validators alike, offering a scalable, efficient, and inclusive environment for decentralized applications and services.

Resources

For those interested in exploring further, a wealth of resources is available, including the Berachain documentation, GitHub repository, and community forums. It offers a compelling vision for the future of blockchain technology, marked by efficiency, security, and community-driven innovation.

FAQ

How is Berachain different?

It integrates Proof-of-Liquidity to address stake centralization and enhance liquidity, setting it apart from other blockchains.

Is Berachain EVM-compatible?

Yes, it supports Ethereum's tooling and smart contract languages, facilitating easy migration of dApps.

Can it handle high transaction volumes?

Yes, thanks to the Polaris framework and CometBFT consensus engine, it's built for scalability and high throughput.