Categories
Crypto Daily Topic Cryptocurrencies

What’s Sandbox (SAND): A Beginner Guide

Online gaming is a favorite pastime for millions of players around the world. However, the current structure is beset with problems such as fraud, lack of guaranteed security, and game creators not getting their fair share of the revenue. In an extremely skewed version of events, it’s powerful entities that own the rights to games and not the actual owners. 

What if this changed? What if game creators owned their content and could generate revenue from them in a decentralized, secure, and safe environment? What if players explored their favorite games in that environment and earned from simply participating? 

This is what Sandbox, a blockchain-powered gaming project, wants to achieve. This article explores the protocol as well as its native cryptocurrency, SAND. We’ll also look at the brilliant team behind the project. 

Understanding Sandbox 

Sandbox is a platform where players worldwide can experiment with games – including building, owning, and earning from them. The Sandbox team wants to disrupt the current centralized gaming environment and create one in which content creators can truly own their work. Ownership will be in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and participants will be rewarded in the network’s native SAND tokens. 

In the existing gaming environment, game developers’ give up nearly all control of their rights to ownership. This, in turn, means they don’t get the fair value of their creation. On top of that, it can be challenging to prove the original owner of a creation, especially after being modified, copied, or built upon. 

Sandbox says its vision is “to offer a deeply immersive metaverse in which players will create virtual worlds and games collaboratively and without a central authority.” 

It aims to do this by promoting the concept of blockchain in the gaming world in general and providing a voxel gaming platform for players to build, share, play, and trade in games without centralized control. Game creators will also have complete ownership of their content, and they also get to earn crypto tokens for simply participating. Copyright ownership will be accomplished through non-fungible tokens, with in-game items having a unique and fraud-prone identity on the blockchain. 

With that, let’s explore

How exactly the Sandbox environment works. 

A User-generated Content Ecosystem

The Sandbox environment comprises three core products that work together to provide a conducive environment for content creators and players. Let’s take a look at them: 

#1. VOXEDIT – This is a 3D voxel tool that allows users to create and animate objects such as animals, buildings, people, etc. and then relay them to the Sandbox marketplace as assets.

#2. MARKETPLACE – This is an internet-based marketplace where users can export, publish, and offer their creation (assets) for sale.

#3. GAME MAKER – This is a tool that asset owners – either by creating them in VOXEDIT or purchasing them, can place and use them in a ‘land’ in a virtual world.

Non-fungible Tokens (NFTs) in the Sandbox 

The Sandbox ecosystem utilizes blockchain tech and non-fungible tokens to provide an empowered gaming experience to participants. Each token is unique, indivisible, and not interchangeable. Through NFTs, Sandbox users will benefit in the following ways: 

#1. True Ownership of Creations – Developers and gamers are the true owners of gaming content. Sandbox will operate in a blockchain-powered environment where every digital item is tokenized in an immutable and fraud-free way. Game owners can then do with their game items as they wish – trade, sell, or gift people.

#2. Security and Immutability – On Sandbox, game owners can tokenize and trade/sell their creations in both primary and secondary markets. This would attract fraud and theft in a centralized environment, but such risks are stamped out thanks to the distributed and cryptographically secured nature of the blockchain. 

#3. Trading – Thanks to the blockchain-powered ecosystem, users can buy and sell game items in a secure way and without concern that they might be defrauded.

#4. Cross-application InteroperabilityBlockchain enables an app to share assets such as LANDS, avatars, and other game elements compatible with it. In short, game elements are not constrained in just one digital environment. 

What’s the SAND Token? 

SAND is the native cryptocurrency and an essential part of the Sandbox platform. The token is based on Ethereum, and it plays the following roles: 

  • Accessing the platform: To participate in the Sandbox platform, i.e., playing games, buying game tools, customizing their avatar, and so on, players must spend SAND tokens. Creators stake in SAND to acquire assets and LANDS, while artists spend SAND to upload export assets to the marketplace.
  • Governance: SAND token holders can take part in governance decisions by voting for proposals. Such proposals may include how the foundation grant will be allocated, how the roadmap will be prioritized, and so on. Token holders can vote themselves or for any other participant of their choice.
  • Staking: SAND token holders can stake in the crypto and get more revenue on LAND
  • As an incentive: A percentage of the total transaction fee shall be channeled to reward SAND token holders. Token holders contribute to the resilience of a blockchain network. 

SAND Stakeholders

The Sandbox team has come up with a stakeholders’ approach to work towards a model where the value of the ecosystem, in general, accrues value to the SAND token. Revenues generated will be distributed among four stakeholders. The goal is to support high-value gaming experiences and provide growth resources to expand Sandbox’s reach. 

The stakeholders will be as follows: 

#1. Foundation pool: for making sure revenue generated through the ecosystem accrues value to SAND

#2. Staking pool: for providing yield and value to participants who stake in SAND. Token holders who are also active gamers get to generate extra yield.

#3. Company treasury: these are tokens owned by the company and are proceeds from the sale of assets. Tokens generated this way will be sold back to the market to cater for operational expenses.

$4. Company reserve: this is the company reserve of 20% of the total token supply. It will be funded with the proceeds of the sale of assets with a six-month lock-up

The Sandbox Team 

Sandbox has assembled a team of 42 to execute its vision. 28 of these are in Argentina, while 11, 2, and 1 are in France, Korea, and Japan, respectively. That said, let’s look at the core team: 

Director Arthur Madrid is the co-founder and CEO of Pixowl and has years of experience in social gaming. He’s also an advisor to gaming and social media startups.

COO and Director Sebastian Borget is also the COO and co-founder of Animoca Brands. He’s very passionate about blockchain tech and is one of the most visible evangelists of non-fungible tokens’ potential. Borget is the president of the Blockchain Game Alliance as of 2020. 

CFO Marcelo Santurio is co-founder of the first-ever online payment company in Latin America and has over 20 years of finance, tech, and gaming experience. Santurio has an MBA with a focus on finance from the London School of Business. 

The inventor of the Sandbox idea, Pablo Iglesias, has 10+ years of research and development experience in emerging procedural systems.

CTO Lucas Shrewsbury is the ex-CTO of Gameloft, a gaming company, where he managed a team of 200 people and has 10+ years of experience in mobile gaming. 

SAND: Tokenomics

As of Oct 8, 2020, the SAND token is trading at $0.046725, with a market cap of $27,952,641, which puts it at #274. It has a 24-hour volume of $4,085,734, a circulating supply of 598,238,245, and has a total and maximum supply of 3 million. The token’s all-time high and all-time low was $0.086577 (Aug 14, 2020) and $0.033405 (Sep 06, 2020). 

Buying and Storing SAND 

SAND tokens can be exchanged for BTC, USDT, BNB, WETH, EUR, and HT on various exchanges, including Huobi, Binance, Upbit, CoinTiger, BKEX, 50x, Poloniex, BitAsset, Dcoin, WazirX, Binance.KR, and more. 

SAND tokens are Ethereum-based, meaning they can be stored in any Ethereum-compatible wallet. Great choices include Trust Wallet, Atomic Wallet, MyEtherWallet, MetaMask, Guarda, Exodus, Mist, Exodus, Edge, Trezor, and Ledger Nano. 

Closing Thoughts 

Sandbox wants to change how things are done in the online gaming world by injecting more transparency, fairness, and creativity. Let’s see how the team continues to innovate in the future.

Categories
Cryptocurrencies

What’s WINk (WIN) All About? 

Gaming has been a favorite pastime for millions of people across the world. And with the blockchain, online gamers are set for an even more phenomenal experience – honest payouts, transparency, cryptographically-secured infrastructure, and more. 

Multiple blockchain-based gaming platforms have emerged in recent years, seeking to offer gamers a fundamentally different experience. WINk (formerly TRONbet), a project based on the Tron blockchain, is one such platform. 

The WINk team has created an entire ecosystem to provide users with high-level gaming experiences. On the platform, developers can also build decentralized applications (DApps) with a raft of available tools.

In this article, we’ll explore the WINk platform as well as its utility token, WIN. 

How WINk Works, and Participants 

#1. Developers 

WINk features a set of development tools for developers to create high-performance DApps while the network handles the rest. Developers then pay a small fee out of their DApp income back to the system. 

#2. Community

These are users of the platform. The more a user plays, the more tokens they can earn. Users can choose their favorite DApps and stay loyal to them in exchange for rewards, promotions, and special access.

#3. Token HODLers 

Token holders are the backbone of the WINk network. DApps on the platform will share their wins with WIN holders through the “WinDrop” program, whereby users are incentivized through TRX tokens. The amount of TRX tokens awarded to a user depends on how much Win Power they hold. 

The WINk Ecosystem

The WINk team believes the future of blockchain is made of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), cryptographic voting systems, and up-to-date collaboration interfaces. This is a responsibility that WINk intends to tackle head-on by providing high-performance DApp creation tools. 

On the platform, users can choose the most premium games, with the certainty that their money is safe in a rigorously tested environment. The user community will be actively involved in projects and have a say on what updates to be made. 

With that, the WINk ecosystem will support the following features.

#1. Developer Portal

WINk will enable the latest software development kits, application programming interfaces, and the latest technology to seamlessly connect everything. This photo will also feature tools for developers to use the blockchain, join mining pools, use social tools, and more. With these, both experienced and beginner developers can enjoy the creative process – for the benefit of the whole network. 

#2. DApp Store

The DApp store is where developers will deploy their DApps distribution. If a DApp passes the approval, it will be listed in the store. The editorial team at WINk will also review DApps and provide feedback to users from time to time. 

Developers can also pay for ads on the DApps to attract new users to their games. Part of the payment will go to WIN holders based on how much Win Power they have. 

#3. Payment Services

Developers can deploy WINk’s payment service into their applications, making for easy and frictionless payments. And users can make payments with crypto, as well as with their credit and debit cards. They can also withdraw their crypto to Fiat money at any time. 

#4. Wallet 

The WINk team will create first-class wallet services that are optimized for the WINk ecosystem and community. There’s also plans to expand access for the platform so that any crypto holder, no matter which crypto it is, can take part in the ecosystem. 

#5. Regulatory Compliance

The WINk team will play by the regulations for different jurisdictions and obtain the requisite licenses to operate in these jurisdictions. This is geared towards preventing the platform from being shut down by authorities and so that the platform continues to provide value to gaming fans all over the world. 

Some of WINk’s Key Products

As a gaming platform, WINK has already on-boarded a variety of super fun products for users. Some of these include the following: 

#1. Dice 

Dice fans can be assured of a good time on the WINk platform. The game was the platform’s flagship product when it started in 2018. 

#2. Moon

Care to experience some of that exhilaration of the crypto market? Then Moon is the game for you. You get paid by a multiplier that begins at 1x and can go all the way to 250x. The multiplier increases slowly but can come crashing down to the lows of zero at any point. You can cash out at any multiplier level, depending on your appetite risk.

#3. Ring and Duel 

This game lets you “cross your fingers and go for the gold.” The game is pretty simple, but you stand a chance to reap a 50x payday. The game involves choosing which color you think the wheel will land on. Grey rewards you two times the wager, red three times, blue five times, and gold 50 times. 

#4. Slots

WINk has teamed up with first-rate slots machine developers to give users a genuine casino experience. Games like Bison Trail are a ubiquitous feature in the casino world, and now you can enjoy it, together with over 30 more slot games. 

#5. Table Games 

If you’re a table game fan, you find all your favorites, including sic bo, blackjack, roulette, baccarat, and Russian poker. 

#6. Poker 

WINk also features poker, and the platform helps to add more exciting features like tournaments to its already vibrant poker atmosphere. WINk hopes to become the go-to blockchain poker hub, injecting decentralization, transparency, and affordability to the game. 

#7. Hyper snakes 

Developed by MixMarvel, the acclaimed creator of Hyper dragons, Hyper snakes is a thrilling and competitive game that allows you to win crypto just for participating. You can also stake TRX and gain access to compete for massive prizes. The Hyper snakes game’s mechanics go like this: control your avatar, connect dots to become the biggest snake in the arena, and defeat other snakes to walk away alive – but only if you’re good enough. 

The WINk Token 

WIN is the native cryptocurrency of the WINk platform. It’s based on Tron’s blockchain, which the team picked due to its high scalability and free transactions. WIN holders are the core users of the platform and are rewarded for their support of the token. The token has the following uses: 

  •  As a staking and governance mechanism
  • When users HODL WIN, they help preserve resources by decreasing the cost of transactions
  • Much like in gaming establishments in the real world, WIN token holders will gain access to exclusive experiences and treats
  • WIN holders will get the benefit of gameplay discounts in various forms

WIN’s Distribution

WIN’s distribution was done in the following fashion: 

  • 3.75% to the project’s reserve account
  • 5% to the launchpad sale
  • 7% to future platform development
  • 9% to gaming partnerships
  • 6.25% to strategic partnerships
  • 5% to the airdrop program
  • 12% to the initial community
  • 15% to the seed sale
  • 10% to the team
  • 27% to the ecosystem reserve

Tokenomics of WIN

As of September 2020, WIN traded at $0.000106, with a market cap of $33,356,866 that placed it at #187 in market rank. The token’s 24-hour volume was $2,628,280, its circulating supply was 313,607,571,387, and its total supply was 999 billion. WIN’s all-time high and all-time low was $0. 000472 (Aug 01, 2019) and $0.000041 (March 13, 2020) respectively. 

Buying and Storing WIN 

You can find WIN tokens in a variety of reputable exchanges, including Binance, Poloniex, PoloniDEX, DigiFinex, BitHumb, DragonEX, KuCoin, JustSwap, HitBTC, and more. The token can be found paired with USDT, TRX, and BNB. 

WIN is based on Tron, meaning it can be stored on any wallet that supports TRX. Examples include TronLink, imToken, Trust Wallet, Ledger, Huobi, and Cobo Wallet. 

Final Thoughts

Gaming fans are guaranteed a ton of fun in the safe, secure, decentralized environment that is WINk. Not only does it feature your favorite games, but you also get to earn crypto for simply participating. The WINk platform is worth keeping an eye on.

Categories
Crypto Daily Topic

Here’s How Blockchain is Redefining the Gaming Industry

Revenue from the gaming industry is projected to increase from $135 billion to over $300 billion by 2025. As has always been the case, the industry relies heavily on new technologies to propel its growth. With blockchain technology finding use across various industries, the gaming sector is banking on this technology not just to increase the industry’s revenue but also to improve gamers’ experience. Besides, with the rise of eGaming, this is the best time to integrate blockchain in the gaming industry in anticipation of the crypto-market maturation.

Advantages blockchain has in store for the gaming industry

i) Improved Transparency and Decentralisation

Though fairness is of utmost importance with any kind of game, it matters, even more when you’re playing for money in games such as online casinos and sports betting. As a player, you need to be certain that the results of the game aren’t manipulated in any way. 

Thanks to blockchain’s immutable nature, crypto-based sports betting sites and online casinos boast high integrity since all game proceedings are made public for players to verify. Most importantly, the technology itself isn’t controlled by any central authority. This goes a long way into ensuring that gaming companies cannot know game results, for example, the dealing of a particular card. 

It should be noted that these advantages aren’t confined to online gambling only. Online multiplayer games such as multiplayer online battle area (MOBA) and War Riders have also benefited from blockchain technology. These games usually award prize money to the best team of players. In such cases, blockchain can be used to guarantee fair-play.     

ii) Regulate Gaming Economies

For quite a long time now, virtual gaming assets in battle royale games have been under the control of game developers. The players are only allowed to purchase the assets and use them to advance their play, while the developers have the power to change or remove these items as they wish.

Blockchain is, however, shifting game-asset ownership from the developers to players. The technology has successfully been employed in games such as Gods Unchained, where ownership of the gaming assets is transferred to a gamer through smart contracts. Of course, certain conditions have to be met first before a player can take up ownership. These conditions include purchasing assets or completing certain levels. 

As a result, players now have the freedom to auction, rent, or sell their gaming assets for fiat currencies. This new form of liquidity attracts more players, increasing revenue for game developers while rewarding players at the same time. 

iii) Secures game assets

For most online gamers, there is a constant concern about privacy and the safety of personal details, especially when purchasing game assets or funding your online casino wallet. The same can be said about game developers whereby lack of online security means that fraudsters can easily counterfeit gaming assets and sell them off – decreasing the value of all other assets.

These problems can be mitigated by blockchain-based games that offer high security and privacy protection. As such, all payment details made by the players are encoded by the cryptographic protocol, protecting players’ privacy. Equally, the gaming items are secured, meaning their value is protected since fraudsters can’t counterfeit any item. 

iv) Explore New Gaming Universes

By linking in-game data to the distributed ledger, gamers can trade their items between different games. Also, they can recycle their gaming assets while experimenting with their characters on different games. Of course, this can only happen on games sharing the same blockchain network where the gaming items are represented by similar digital tokens. 

Problems Facing Blockchain Gaming

The exciting world of blockchain gaming has a lot to offer, but it faces several obstacles, most of which are related to the underlying protocol. 

Cost: There are transactional costs that come with completing certain functions in a blockchain-based game. For instance, buying gaming items or upgrading a character. However, negligible these costs may seem, they do compound to significant amounts over time. 

Speed: Most of the blockchain games in the market right now focus on using the technology primarily for asset creation and regulating asset trading. If a game was to incorporate the technology in all its functionalities, it would be too slow for any quality gaming experience. Even the few games that run completely on the blockchain may not be appealing to players who value high-quality graphics and elaborate gaming experience. 

Scalability: Irrespective of the industry, scalability has always been the biggest problem facing blockchain. In the gaming industry where numerous transactions take place all at once, the current blockchains don’t have the capacity to support such a load. This explains why blockchain games are inherently slow and even expensive to run. If blockchain games are to achieve mass adoption, the technology needs to be enhanced to handle the increased transactions. 

Competition: Judging from the current landscape of the industry, blockchain games are mostly developed by small independent groups, usually known as indie games. These groups face stiff competition from well-established gaming companies who haven’t shown any interest in adopting blockchain. 

The big companies control a wide share of the market, so it’s hard for indie games to penetrate the market and pioneer the adoption of blockchain gaming. Hopefully, with blue-chip gaming companies such as Ubisoft, who are planning on experimenting with the technology, blockchain gaming has a shot at going mainstream. 

Conclusion

Blockchain is an ideal solution to some of the challenges facing the gaming industry. From ensuring fairness, improving gaming economies, to decentralizing the gaming experience, the technology is set to revolutionize the industry. With time, some of the hindrances standing in the way of blockchain gaming systems might be solved as the technology matures. Besides, it was developed about a decade ago, meaning it still has a lot of time to evolve and solve its own problems.