Play to Earn crypto games

Maciej Zieliński

17 May 2022
Play to Earn crypto games

The gaming industry has gained tremendous popularity both among children and adults. Seeing the potential in digitizing reality, technology companies are constantly trying to come up with new ideas and offers for their customers. An interesting idea is the concept of introducing games that allow us to earn money while we play. It's an even more interesting idea to earn money on games that are connected with blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies. Is it possible? How do Play to Earn games work and which of them are worth your attention? We're writing about it below!

​What are Play to Earn crypto games?

These special and original games have tokens that support the economics of the title. You buy, trade, sell and play for these currencies in the game. Some games need to be paid for and require an initial investment, while others can be played for free from the outset. It should be noted that a large number of Play to Earn titles are not as advanced as the most popular PC or console games. Cryptocurrency-based games that allow you to earn capital will not blow the minds of people looking for sophisticated graphic, for example. It is an interesting concept, however, to make money from having fun.

Play to Earn

What traits does a Play to Earn game have?

Play to Earn crypto games are the initial phase of gaming connected with crypto. As such, both good and bad projects are being released. The bad ones can be focused on obtaining as much capital as possible from us. The good ones will help us multiply it. So it's a good idea to see who is behind the creation of a title before we start playing it. What should you look out for? Definitely tokenomics – that is, the complete supply of tokens, the cycle of dispensing them, forms that encourage token ownership, and the ways you can use them. It is better to avoid of (or pay special attention to) titles that have tokens without any limit. The unlimited supply of tokens makes them less valuable. In addition, in order to stake or sell tokens, they must have some value. There is no single solution that will make it possible to evaluate a game in a complex manner. The additional advice that comes to mind is that, during the game (especially at the beginning), you should avoid making larger purchases, as if they were not there, as it is a form of investment that could lead to a loss of capital. But if you're doing it responsibly and enjoy having fun, check out the titles we've described below!

Play to Earn

​Axie Infinity

Axie Infinity is one of the most popular Play to Earn crypto games. It enjoys considerable trust and interest because it allows households that are in difficult geopolitical situations, such as those in the Philippines, Venezuela, etc to obtain income. The game requires owning three virtual creatures that can be purchased on the market. You can also buy eggs in the Axies labs and wait for the creatures to hatch. Animals can also be bred and sold on the market. This is a form of NFT. The animals serve as merchandise. They can fight against other pets and earn the Axie Infinity Shards (AXS) token as a result. This is a token that can also be redeemed for real cash. In addition to AXS, the game offers another ERC-20 token, the Smooth Love Potions (SLP), which is used for Axies breeding. Like AXS, SLP can be converted into fiat currencies on the most popular crypto exchanges.

​Plant Vs. Undead

This is a tower defense game. Moreover, it is a multiplayer game. The story itself is about a planet that was destroyed by a meteorite and due to this, the animals living on it turned into zombies. These animals want to destroy trees, but after the disaster, plants have mutated as well. As such, trees can defend themselves. Playing as the flora, you fight the animals. In this game you earn a PVU token that has been placed on the Binance Smart Chain. In the game, the currency is Light Energy (LE). You can earn tokens during the game by making progress, or simply purchase tokens for cash. You don't have to invest any capital at the start of the game. Each player receives a certain amount of NFT and trees used to fight zombies from the outset. The combat gives you plant seeds that you can later sell.

The Sandbox

The Sandbox game allows you to earn cryptocurrencies in a variety of ways. You can be an artist, a game developer, or a landowner to earn SAND, a metaverse cryptocurrency. This is an extremely original form of financing and raising capital. As an artist, you can create useful resources with the help of the VoxEdit tool. Such a solution has a catch - first you need to get permission from the creators of the platform to put the earned NFT tokens on your marketplace. Another concept is to buy land for rent in the game or create mini-games. This is not easy as in this case you should have programming skills. If you have a knack for it, then as a land creator you can charge other players for it. The SAND token can be staked, bought, or sold on major cryptocurrency platforms.

Pegaxy

Who hasn't wanted to race in horse racing? Pegaxy gives you that opportunity. You can race against the best players for NFT tokens. You can buy or rent your horse at the beginning and earn VIS tokens. Unfortunately, the problem is that players have little control over the race. They can only check the elements of the track, choose the right horse and select the equipment. The rest of the activities are random. You can create breeding of horses and then sell them for tokens and buy them for USDT. Earning cryptocurrencies takes place in races, renting, or selling horses. A system to earn from staking is also being implemented.

Decentraland

Decentraland is one of the most popular cryptocurrency-related games. The main form of earning is buying land and then subletting or selling it. You can also organize events and mini-games to target the general public for a fee. To construct the game world and earn on it we need a tool, which is free. Nevertheless, we need to buy the plot for MANA - the game's token, which is its currency. Another possibility to earn money is offering to oversee the land of other participants in exchange for tokens. An additional source of income is designing wearable clothes and items that require community approval.

Blankos Block Party

Blankos Block Party involves playing with small, toy-looking blankos. We earn money here based on collecting blankos, gaining levels, and selling them. The value of the character depends on its abilities and uniqueness. The cheapest creatures cost about ten dollars. The most expensive - even 5 million dollars. The vast majority of animals are valued at thousands of dollars. In the game, you can also create pages and mini-games for other players, but this phase is recently at the beta stage.

Thetan Arena

Thetan Arena is a free Play to Earn game that lets you earn cryptocurrencies. With it, you get three free characters that you can develop. As part of your human development, you get a Thetan Coin (THC) token. With this currency, you can unlock advanced characters, or you can buy them already converted on the market. Advanced characters develop quickly and can be traded as NFT. Additionally, our folk can take part in organized events. Funding is based on THG (Thetan Gem), a utility and management token that supports in-game settlement. It can also be staked. You can also convert crypto into fiat through the most popular exchanges.

Summary Play to Earn games

Play to Earn games are great for people who want to make money from cryptocurrencies and have fun at the same time. However, remember to check at the beginning of the platform is free and has not been constructed to get as much capital from us as possible. It is worth being interested in whether the supply of tokens is unlimited, as this may cause a situation in which their value will be negligible. Nevertheless, we hope that after reading this article many people will consider this form of entertainment which is not only enjoyable but also profitable.

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Token Engineering Process

Kajetan Olas

13 Apr 2024
Token Engineering Process

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.

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.

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.

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.