Categories
Crypto Guides

What Should You Know About Non-Fungible Tokens?

Introduction 

The word tokens mostly bring the concept of currency in our minds, i.e., something that we can exchange for something else. However, this isn’t entirely correct. Rather than just being a currency, a token represents any fact, feeling, quality, etc. visibly and tangibly. A few common examples of a token can be:

Voters ID: It is a token of the fact that you are eligible to vote.

Driving License: It is a token that shows you have undergone the process of proving that you can dive responsibly.

Coins: These are the tokens that show the value of something like a pair of glasses is $10 worth.

There can be several such things that can be considered as tokens. Now, these tokens can be divided into two categories: Fungible and Non-Fungible. You must be aware of the concept of fungible tokens that can be exchanged for something. Let’s now learn what Non-Fungible Tokens are.

What Are Non-Fungible Tokens?

If we dive into the cryptocurrency market, you will see that the most prominent tokens are fungible. For instance, you can exchange a Bitcoin for another Bitcoin without affecting its price. On the other hand, Non-Fungible Tokens are the ones that don’t hold this property of being exchangeable. Each of them has its own value, like your car and watch has its own.

In simple words, fungible tokens can be replaced by something identical to it, while Non-Fungible Tokens can’t be. Another difference between the two is divisibility. Like you can divide a Bitcoin into two parts, you can’t split a non-fungible token due to its uniqueness.

Where Did The Concept Of Non-Fungible Tokens Arise?

Many people still don’t know how Non-Fungible Tokens came into the market. If you are one of them, then it is time to get aware of this factor. Non-Fungible Tokens’ concept came into notice when a blockchain-based platform, CryptoKitties, made $12 million worth of transactions of virtual kittens. As each cat has its own features and traits, it was sold and bought at different prices.

Therefore, these kittens followed with the two essential qualities of Non-Fungible Tokens:

  • One kitten can’t get exchanged with another one as their price differs.
  • One kitten can’t get divided into two or more parts.

And all these transactions took place in Ethereum. After CryptoKitten came into the limelight, several gaming platforms seem to opt for this method of transaction.

What Is The Future Of Non-Fungible Tokens?

Non-Fungible Tokens or NFTs hold a significant market in the gaming industry. Plus, more and more gaming platforms are now incorporating cryptocurrencies, giving more space for the use of NFTs. Players can make in-game purchases conveniently with the help of these NFTs, just like the kittens were sold on CrytoKitten. For example, buying and selling game skins, armours, and other similar assets will become even more accessible. But this isn’t the only use case of NFTs. With their advancements, they indeed will find a place of their own in the world.

We hope all this information will make the Non-Fungible Token’s concept clear to you. So now you can see how you can benefit from them and use them wherever possible.

Categories
Crypto Daily Topic

Games to Play and Earn Cryptocurrency

In our real-world, fun and making money don’t always go together. What if that changed? How amazing would it be if you could earn money just playing games in the comfort of your couch? 

Well, that’s now possible thanks to blockchain tech. Blockchain and gaming is the near-perfect combination of amazing gaming experience. If you are a cryptocurrency and gaming enthusiast, you probably won’t need to spend thousands of dollars on ridiculously expensive mining rigs to earn crypto.

We made a list of some of the best games to play and earn cryptocurrency. 

#1.Worldopoly

In 2018, Qubit AG released the first blockchain-driven mobile augmented reality game, Worldopoly. This is a multiplayer strategy board game that resembles Monopoly, but with its in-game economy. It is a real estate simulation game that utilizes DAG (Direct Acyclic Graph), MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer online crypto-coin Game), augmented reality, and geopositioning for a frictionless gaming experience.

Worldopoly turns the whole world into a game of Monopoly. Players can buy cities, streets, build buildings, restaurants, and hotels. The players can equally sell part of their empire, rent out shop fronts to advertisers, and earn crypto-tokens worth real money. Every structure bought can be improved and sold to bring additional income. Gamers can raid or even torch down competing players’ properties. Similarly, players can cooperate with other players to build or buy large projects together. The game uses data from Google Maps and open street maps to give players access to every city and other places of interest across the globe. 

Worldopoly’s game concept uses three currencies; Worldopoly Tokens (WTP), gold, and coins. Gold and coins can only be used in the game. Gold helps players quicken the completion of their projects while coins are used to buy and renovate buildings. Players can earn WTP from selling or leasing their properties. Similar to the real world, the more property a player has, the more profit generated. These tokens can be withdrawn from the game directly to the users’ wallet. One WTP has a per-token value of around $0.12.

#2.Cryptokitties

Cryptokitties is a game that was created as an attempt to deploy blockchain technology for recreation; Cryptokitties was created. Developed by Axiom Zen, the game was launched in 2017. It is one of the earliest blockchain-based games, and it comes packed with impressive animation, huge rewards, and great graphics for an exciting gaming experience. 

Cryptokitties involveS collecting, purchasing, breeding, and selling virtual cats. There are more than 3 million cats to choose from, each with a unique avatar. Users get to create their Cryptokitties and put them up for sale. Players can interact with their kitties either by selling, buying, or breeding them. Different breeds of kitties have different market valuations. 

These breedable cats have unique numbers and different attributes called ‘cattributes’. Cattributes can be passed on to their offsprings after breeding. In total, there are 12 cattributes for any given kitty. Some of these include fur color, eye color, mouth shape, and pattern. A rare breed cat is worth more tokens than the others. 

Trading and breeding cryptokitties unlocks rare cat traits that can be traded for higher earnings. Players can further crack puzzles, create their own cat collections, and play games to earn extra rewards. Until November 2018, developers created a new supply of cats, but since then, new cats were created through breeding by the users.

Gamers earn various rewards, including ETH tokens. The rewards go directly to the players’ wallets and can be later withdrawn for real money.

#3.Splinterlands

Splinterlands is a popular multiplayer, digital collectible trading card game. With over 2,500 users daily, this blockchain-based game is integrated with the Wax blockchain platform. In the game, players can easily sell, buy, and trade digital cards. 

Splinterlands is an epic fantasy card game where gamers battle with monsters to gain control of a world in disarray. Players are expected to collect cards and come up with strategies that will strengthen their deck against their opponents. If a user plays their cards right and scores a win, they will be awarded crypto-tokens. 

Every card in the game is individually owned – not even creators of the game can take a card away from any player. The game enables players to see how many of each card exists in the game. Additionally, different cards in the game possess different elements. Therefore, players are free to buy and sell their cards, depending on what their deck needs.

By trading cards, winning tournaments, quests, and ranked plays, gamers are rewarded in cryptocurrency. A high-level tournament winner is rewarded with Steem tokens. Gamers earn more cryptocurrency trading in cards than winning tournaments.

#4.Privateers Life

The creators of Privateers life developed this game in an attempt to mirror the world’s actual economy. The game is based on the life of a pirate in the 17th century who uses tactics and strategy to survive in harsh conditions. The ultimate goal of this game is to survive by using the resources in the game. 

A player needs to constantly monitor the pirate to ensure his survival – he must be fed regularly. Food can be acquired through hunting, collecting wild plants, fishing, or cultivating their own land. Food gained can alternatively be sold in exchange for cryptotokens worth real money. To earn more, players can manufacture or process products and put them for sale in the premium store. Similar to the real world, raw materials are obtained through harvesting, mining, or foraging on their territories. Alternatively, players can purchase raw materials from the premium store.

A player can buy goods from other players or the premium store using Ludum tokens (LDM), the in-game currency. The goods in the premium store are crafted by other players in the game. Players earn Ludum crypto-tokens from selling their products and ceding their territories.

5.Alien Run

Alien run is another crypto-based mobile game available on Android and iOS which utilizes Bitcoin technology.

Remember those arcade games back in the day? Alien run is built using that same concept. If you enjoyed these classic games, then you should check this one out. A player assumes the role of an alien that needs to run to safety, avoiding obstacles on its path. 

The game is simple and easy to play, but quite addictive. As the player makes progress through the levels, the alien develops new skills. These skills are useful in maneuvering through the game as the difficulty increases as one levels up.

Players receive rewards in the form of cryptotokens after completing each level. The cryptocurrency earned is in Bitcoins, and it goes directly into the players’ eWallet. With the increase in the game’s difficulty, there is an increase in the amount of Bitcoin rewards. 

Final Thoughts

Games like these allow players to interact with the crypto and blockchain world. It’s one of the many shining points about blockchain – the ability to allow people to have fun while earning real money.

Categories
Crypto Guides

‘Cryptokitties’ – The Innovative Blockchain Based Recreational System

Introduction

Cryptokitties is a first blockchain-based leisure game created for entertainment. It is developed by Vancouver based blockchain company Axiom Zen on the Ethereum platform. The game was widely recognized by the people in 2017 when it congested the entire Ethereum network due to its popularity. The game uses the concepts of Ethereum smart contracts to track the ownership of kitties on the platform.

The gaming platform allows people to purchase, collect, and breed against each other to produce new virtual kitties and sell them as per their traits. People have spent millions of dollars on virtual kitties on the gaming platform. The most expensive crypto kitty sold was for around $1,70,000, which was equivalent to 600 ETH in September 2018.

How does it work?

Cryptokitties was the first-ever commercial application to be introduced on Ethereum. The platform uses the non-fungible token (NFT) or nifty, which is unique to each kitty. NFT’s are unlike cryptocurrencies, which can be exchanged in any way. NFT’s represent the uniqueness of the product associated with it. NFT’s were used in the field of art to secure their uniqueness in the blockchain platform. No one can transfer cryptokitties from one user to another without the owners’ permission, not the creators of the game as well.

People make money by buying the virtual kitties, and as they are allowed to breed them, they breed them with other kitties to gain unique characteristics for the offspring. This is achieved because each virtual kitty carries a unique number and 256-bit distinct genome and different cattributes (attributes for cats, hence cattributes) that can be passed to the next generation, just as we humans do. Any cat has 12 cattributes, eye shape, base color, mouth shape, fur, eye color, optional wild, pattern, environment, purrstige, and secret. These are passable cattributes.

Other cattributes like cool downtime, i.e., time taken to rest after giving birth to the virtual kitty, are not passable and depend on the parents’ maximum generation time. It is generally one higher than the maximum generation time of parents. It is not that easy to breed your kitties, it requires time and patience, and hence the price of the kitty is determined by the best characters it holds.

How to buy Cryptokitties?

Well, it is pretty much straightforward. One should have a browser; chrome works better. A Metamask wallet, and since the platform is based on the Ethereum platform, we should have Ether in our wallet to adopt/buy virtual kitties.

Hence, a user should go to cryptokitties market place and search for the kitty that they may like. If they don’t like any of them that they see, they can go to the Gen0 tab and buy them. Gen0 are the kitties directly created by the smart contracts but not the offspring of any kitties available in the market place. People generally prefer the Gen0 kitties thinking they might have unique characteristics. The breeding of two Gen0 kitties will give birth to the Gen1 kitty.

Once you bought a kitty, you can go to the siring tab for choosing a mate to your kitty and start breeding your kitty to have more virtual kitties. This is how you adapt and sire your kitties.

Gas Consumption

Cryptokitties smart contracts are very gas hungry smart contracts due to the popular demand. At a certain point in time, the demand was so high that a lot of transactions in the Ethereum platform remained unverified for a more extended period due to which Ethereum forced the company to increase the gas prices to confirm the transactions quickly.

Conclusion

While cryptokitties are the first significant leisure and gaming DAPP developed not only in the Ethereum platform but also in the first time, people adopted it pretty quickly. The DAPP also pointed out a significant scalability issue in the Ethereum platform, which should be addressed by the blockchain platform for the adoption of many mainstream platforms.

Categories
Cryptocurrencies

What are CryptoKitties?

-When Satoshi Nakamoto created the blockchain, he had far more far-reaching goals in mind: a secure technology that would power the world’s first cryptocurrency. And indeed, cryptocurrencies are the biggest adoption of blockchain today.

But then came Ethereum, the blockchain that showed us that blockchain was capable of more. On the platform, users can create smart contracts and build decentralized applications (DApps) – which are applications that cannot be censored or controlled by anyone.

Then one team came and utilized DApps in a way that was completely unprecedented – by creating a game that allows people to buy, breed, and trade cats. The game has taken the world, not just the blockchain world, by storm. Enthusiastic players have poured millions of dollars into the game. Several articles have been published about “kitty phenomena.” Even Ethereum’s Vitalik Buterin himself has given it a shout out – and that is saying something.

So what’s CryptoKitties? This article sets to exploring the intriguing blockchain-powered “kitty verse.”

The Team behind CryptoKitties

Crypto Kitties is the brainchild of a company called Axiom Zen. This company creates many sorts of projects using novel technologies like virtual reality and blockchain.  

Based in both San Francisco and Vancouver, the “award-winning venture studio” CryptoKitties wants you to “Collect and trade CryptoKitties in one of the world’s first blockchain games. Breed your rarest cats to create the purrfect furry friend. The future is meow!”

What is a Genetic Algorithm? 

A genetic algorithm is a computer science optimization technique that’s inspired by the natural selection process. It works by generating ‘kids’ from a pool of parent solutions that uses bio-inspired operators such as selection, crossover, and mutation. The genetic algorithm represents the genes in the form of numbers. The numbers represent the proteins and other elements that we humans have in our bodies.   

  • Selection: Selection means retaining the best parents with the best genes from one generation to the other. 
  • Crossover: This means taking the two common variables of the two parents and retaining them in the child, just like how real-life people retain features from both parents. 
  • Mutation: This involves taking a parent and randomly mutating some of their ‘genes’ to create a child. 

Why are we talking about the Genetic Algorithm? Because it’s the technology that CryptoKitties uses to create new kitties. By using a crossover mechanism, a child genome is “sired” from the gene pool of two-parent kitties. This child genome is what grows up to be a new kitty. 

The CryptoKitty Smart Contract 

The entire cryptokitty smart contract is broken down into smaller and more manageable contracts. The ‘inheritance tree’ of the contracts is like this: 

  • contract KittyAccessControl 
  • contract KittyBase is KittyAccessControl 
  • contract KityyOwnership is KittyBase  
  • contract KittyBreeding is KityyOwnership  
  • contract KittyAuction is KittyBreeding
  • contract KittyMinting is KittyAuction
  • contract KittyCore is KittyMinting

The KittyCore here is the contract that tracks ownership and transfer of kitties. It’s The one that greenlights the siring of new kitties 

Where Do New Kitties Come From? 

The first cat was adopted on December 2, 2017. Since then, a new cat was born every 15 minutes until November 2018 when the first generation kitties no longer existed. 

The white pa-purr (what the developers really, truly call the white paper) states that only 50, 000 generation-0 kitties will ever exist. 

Of course, CryptoKitties can breed with each other to birth newborn kitties. Any kitty can be a ‘sire’ or a ‘dame’ for a breeding pair. After breeding takes place, the owner of the dame will be given the baby kitty – who will have ‘cattributes’ of their parents, as well as random cattributes. In rare cases, a ‘fancy cat’ with custom cattributes will be born. 

There’s no limit to how many CryptoKitties can exist. On the CryptoKitties market, you can also pay to breed your kitty with another person’s kitty – if you like that kitty’s cattributes. 

How to Buy and Store CryptoKitties?

Before you get started with anything, there are three things that you need:

Before you can begin to buy CryptoKitties, you need to have the following: 

  • Chrome or Firefox Browser 
  • The Metamask Wallet 
  • Ether in the Metamask Wallet. You can exchange fiat currency for Ether from any of several exchanges, including Coinbase, Kraken, Bitfinex, GDAX, Gemini, and so on. 

Once you have those, it’s pretty straightforward. Go to the CryptoKitties website and choose the kitty of your preference. Don’t you like any? No problem. Simply search for a ‘Gen 0’ kitty under the ‘Gen 0’ tab. 

To sire new kitties, go to the ‘Siring’ tab. On there, you’ll see all the kitties that have been put up for siring. Go ahead and choose the kitty that you’d like to have mated with yours. 

Now, how do you store your kitties? You can keep them in the MetasMask wallet if you’d like to be viewing and also trading them. But if you’d like to HODL your kitties, you can store them in a cold storage wallet that supports ERC-721 tokens e.g., Ledger Nano S.

Gas Consumption of CryptoKitties

CryptoKitties are one of the reasons scalability of the Ethereum blockchain has come into sharp focus. This is because the game became so popular that it clogged up the Ethereum network such that transactions would take days before confirmation. Due to this, the creators of the game had to increase ‘birthing’ fees.

Axiom, the company behind the game, said this in a Medium article:

“The excitement and adoption we’ve seen this week has been overwhelming, and we couldn’t be happier! However, the Ethereum network is completely full. The only way to keep CryptoKitties from lagging is to increase the gas prices so that all transactions can complete quickly. We know that increased gas prices will mean that some of you will need to slow down your breeding regimen, and we are incredibly disappointed by that. But who knows? Maybe this slowdown will just mean that you’ll love the Kitties you already have that much more.”

From this episode, it was clearer than ever that the Ethereum blockchain and, indeed, the current entire blockchain setup is not really capable of handling mainstream demands. That means that they have to work on the scalability issue before they can play the role of a decentralized, peer-to-peer future.

Built on Ethereum 

As of early 2020, CryptoKitties runs on the Ethereum network. Smart contracts oversee every aspect of the buying and selling of kitties. As such, no one can change, remove, or change a kitty once it has been birthed. The person that holds a CryptoKitty can hold it, let it mate with another kitty, or trade it if they feel like. 

The game also uses Ether as the medium for transactions. It’s still not possible to buy CryptoKitties with fiat currency as of now. However, the developing team hopes to make this option available in the future.

Final Musings (Meowsings!)

Whether you’re a cat lover or not, CryptoKitties allows you to immerse yourself in a unique gaming experience of Kitty verse and make lucrative profits while at it. The game is an illustration of what blockchain is capable of. 

Who would have thought that Satoshi’s technology would one day be used for purely recreational purposes? CryptoKitties’ wild popularity just shows that blockchain games can be a hit, as long as they provide some form of value to the masses. More than industry applications, this could be the very pathway to taking blockchain mainstream.