Category: Blockchains

BNB Smart Chain (BSC) is a layer-1 blockchain launched by Binance in September 2020 as a parallel blockchain to Binance Chain. While Binance Chain prioritized fast and straightforward transactions, it lacked advanced programmability for smart contracts. BSC was created to address this gap, enabling decentralized applications (dApps) and offering compatibility with Ethereum’s ecosystem via the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).
BSC is widely adopted in Web3 gaming due to its efficiency, low transaction fees, fast processing and wide ecosystem support.

How BSC Works

BSC operates as a blockchain that supports smart contracts and dApps. It uses a consensus mechanism called Proof of Staked Authority (PoSA), a hybrid of Proof of Stake (PoS) and Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS). Here’s a simplified breakdown:

1. Validators stake BNB to become eligible for validating transactions.
2. A limited number of validators (usually 21) produce blocks, ensuring high throughput and low latency.
3. Validators earn transaction fees as rewards for maintaining the network.

BSC achieves compatibility with Ethereum through its support for the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), enabling developers to port their Ethereum-based projects to BSC with minimal modifications.

Uses in Web3-Supported Games

BSC is widely adopted in Web3 gaming due to its efficiency and ecosystem support. Its low transaction fees and fast processing make it ideal for games requiring frequent interactions, such as asset trades and in-game rewards. Use cases include:

• Tokenized Game Economies: BSC enables the creation of in-game currencies using BEP-20 tokens. Players can earn, trade, and use these tokens across games.
• NFT Integration: Using BEP-721 or BEP-1155, developers can tokenize characters, weapons, and skins as NFTs, ensuring true player ownership and cross-game interoperability.
• DeFi Features: Games on BSC often integrate DeFi mechanics, such as staking game tokens for rewards or participating in liquidity pools.
• Interoperability: BSC’s compatibility with Ethereum tools and wallets (e.g., MetaMask) simplifies onboarding for players and developers alike.

Token Standards on BSC

BSC supports various token standards, each designed for specific purposes:

• BEP-20: Analogous to Ethereum’s ERC-20, this is the most widely used standard for fungible tokens on BSC. It facilitates token creation for DeFi, Web3 games, and governance.
• BEP-721: A token standard for non-fungible tokens (NFTs), ideal for digital collectibles and gaming assets.
• BEP-1155: A multi-token standard allowing the creation of both fungible and non-fungible tokens in a single smart contract, making it suitable for games with diverse asset types.

Popular Web3 Games on BSC

• CryptoBlades: An RPG game where players earn BNB and in-game NFTs.
• My DeFi Pet: A virtual pet game combining DeFi elements with collectibles.
• MOBOX: A platform blending DeFi and NFT-based gaming experiences.

Sui is a Layer 1 blockchain designed and launched by Mysten Labs (former Meta engineers) in 2023 to overcome the limitations of earlier blockchains in terms of speed, scalability, cost efficiency, and the flexibility of asset management. Its unique architecture makes it an excellent platform for decentralized applications, particularly Web3 games, which require fast and cost-effective transactions. Sui is powered by its native token (SUI) and supports decentralized applications (dApps) and governance (DAOs), token creation and customization, and more.

1. How Sui Works

Sui is a decentralized, peer-to-peer network based on blockchain technology. Like Bitcoin and Ethereum, it operates on a network of nodes that store the entire blockchain, which is a ledger of all transactions.

• Object-Centric Design: On Sui, everything is an object—and each object is inherently a non-fungible token (NFT). This unique model contrasts with traditional blockchains that require specific standards like Ethereum’s ERC-721 to manage NFTs. In those blockchains, each NFT relies on a pairing of a smart contract address and token ID to define its uniqueness. In Sui, every object, whether it’s a fungible token or an NFT with distinct characteristics, comes with a unique ID. Smart contracts interact directly with these objects, eliminating the need for complex mappings. This makes the creation and management of NFTs far more efficient, benefiting games that rely on complex in-game assets.
• Move Programming Language: Sui uses the Move language to implement its object-based logic, giving developers the flexibility to define attributes and behaviors for in-game objects and assets with greater control, like trading weapons or transferring ownership of land between players.

2. Sui’s Main Uses in Web3 Games

• Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs): Sui allows efficient, low cost minting, trading, and ownership of highly customizable and upgradeable NFTs, be it in-game utility characters, items, land or purely collectible assets.
• Cryptocurrencies: Fungible tokens can easily be created or minted on the Sui blockchain, allowing games to introduce their own in-game or governance tokens or coins.
• DeFi Applications: Sui’s Delegated Proof-of-Stake (DPoS) supports decentralized finance protocols, including staking, trading, and lending.
• Decentralized Governance: Sui’s DPoS allows decentralized decision-making, including governance of game economies and protocol upgrades.

3. Fungible and Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs)

• Fungible Tokens: SUI, the blockchain’s native fungible token, is crucial for transactions and governance. Additionally, other fungible tokens can easily be created or minted on the Sui blockchain, allowing games to introduce their own coins and tokens.
• Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs): Sui’s architecture makes it well-suited for handling NFTs, which represent unique in-game assets like characters, skins, or digital land. NFTs on Sui are particularly efficient due to the object-based model, and they can easily be traded or transferred between players, as well as evolved or upgraded as they are used by players. Sui’s design also supports instant transactions with minimal fees, improving the overall gaming experience for players and developers.

4. Layer 1 and Layer 2 Interaction

While Sui itself is a Layer 1 blockchain, it shares a similar role to Ethereum, where Layer 2 solutions like Polygon provide scalability. However, Sui was designed to scale natively without the need for Layer 2 solutions. Its parallel transaction processing and DPoS consensus ensure high throughput and low latency for decentralized applications, including Web3 games.

Sui website: https://sui.io

Solana is a layer-1 blockchain created and launched in 2020 by Anatoly Yakovenko to address blockchain scalability while maintaining decentralization and security. Like the Sui blockchain, Solana focuses on high throughput and low transaction costs, making it ideal for decentralized applications (dApps), decentralized finance (DeFi), and Web3 gaming. The network’s unique Proof of History (PoH) consensus mechanism enables faster transaction processing, which is critical for gaming environments that require quick, real-time interactions.

1. How Solana Works

Solana is a Layer 1 blockchain that introduces several innovative technologies, most notably Proof of History (PoH), which timestamps transactions before they are included in blocks. This allows for efficient verification and ordering of transactions without relying on traditional time-based protocols. The core components of Solana include:

• Proof of History (PoH): A cryptographic clock that helps order transactions and provides a historical record.
• Tower BFT: A Byzantine Fault Tolerance system that helps validators reach consensus on the state of the blockchain.
• Gulf Stream: A system that forwards transactions to validators before they are included in blocks, reducing confirmation times.
• Sealevel: Solana’s parallel smart contract runtime, which allows multiple smart contracts to run simultaneously, significantly increasing throughput.
• Turbine: A block propagation protocol that ensures efficient communication among validators.

These technologies allow Solana to process tens of thousands of transactions per second, with minimal fees, making it highly suitable for Web3 gaming, where fast and cost-efficient transactions are essential.

2. Solana’s Main Uses in Web3 Games

• Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs): Solana allows efficient, low cost minting, trading, and ownership of highly customizable and upgradeable NFTs, be it in-game utility characters, items, land or purely collectible assets.
• Cryptocurrencies: Fungible tokens can easily be created or minted on the Solana blockchain, allowing games to introduce their own in-game or governance tokens or coins.
• DeFi Applications: Solana’s Proof of History (PoH) supports decentralized finance protocols, including staking, trading, and lending.
• Decentralized Governance: Solana’s PoH allows decentralized decision-making, including governance of game economies and protocol upgrades.

3. Types of Tokens on Solana

• Fungible Tokens:
  Solana’s native token, SOL, is used for transaction fees, staking, and governance. SOL can also be treated like traditional fungible tokens in the network, and other fungible tokens can be easily minted for specific game ecosystems. For example, Web3 games on Solana often create in-game currencies or assets, allowing players to earn or trade them within the game economy.
• Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs):
  Solana supports NFTs, often used in gaming to represent unique in-game assets such as characters, weapons, skins, and land plots. Unlike Ethereum, Solana does not rely on token standards like ERC-721 or ERC-1155. Instead, it uses the Metaplex standard to manage NFTs, which is more efficient in terms of speed and cost. For example, in Web3 games, NFTs on Solana can represent unique game items that players can trade or use across different platforms, with minimal transaction costs compared to other blockchains.

4. Solana’s Advantages in Gaming

As a Layer 1 blockchain, Solana performs its own validation and consensus without relying on other blockchains. This provides several advantages for Web3 gaming:

• High Throughput: Solana can handle thousands of transactions per second, ensuring that in-game actions like trading items or executing combat mechanics happen instantly.
• Low Transaction Fees: Solana’s transaction costs are consistently low, making it viable for micro-transactions, which are common in games.
• Scalability: Solana’s architecture supports the massive scale required by multiplayer games with thousands of players interacting simultaneously.

These features make Solana an attractive platform for Web3 games that need fast, scalable, and affordable blockchain infrastructure.

Ethereum is a layer-1 blockchain proposed in 2013 by Vitalik Buterin and launched in July 2015. While Bitcoin was primarily designed to be a decentralized currency, Ethereum was created to be a more versatile platform, supporting not only cryptocurrency but also decentralized applications (dApps) through smart contracts. The key motivation behind Ethereum was to enable programmable, self-executing code on the blockchain, allowing developers to build applications that run exactly as programmed without downtime, fraud, or third-party interference.

1. How Ethereum Works

Ethereum is a decentralized, peer-to-peer network based on blockchain technology. Like Bitcoin, it operates on a network of nodes that store the entire blockchain, which is a ledger of all transactions.

Key Technical Elements:

• Blockchain: A chain of blocks, where each block contains a group of transactions. Once verified, each block is linked to the previous one, making it immutable.
• Consensus Mechanism: Ethereum initially used Proof of Work (PoW), where miners competed to solve complex cryptographic puzzles. However, with the Ethereum 2.0 upgrade, it shifted to Proof of Stake (PoS), where validators are chosen based on the amount of cryptocurrency they “stake” as collateral.
• Smart Contracts: Programs stored on the blockchain that automatically execute when certain conditions are met. These contracts power most of Ethereum’s decentralized applications (dApps).
• Gas Fees: Transactions and smart contract executions on Ethereum require users to pay a fee in “gas,” a small amount of Ether, the network’s native cryptocurrency. Gas limits prevent network abuse, while gas prices reflect network demand.

2. Ethereum’s Main Uses in Web3-Supported Games

• Decentralized Finance (DeFi): Applications that provide financial services without intermediaries. This includes game-related economies where players can trade, stake, or lend tokens (e.g. cryptocurrency, NFTs), and utilizing transparent and more accessible funding mechanisms for game development.
• Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs): Represent unique in-game assets like characters, items, or land. NFTs can be traded and may be used across games that support them, offering players ownership and the ability to transfer value between games.
• Decentralized Decision-Making: Transparent blockchain-powered governance structures meant to empower players (token holders) to vote on key decisions’ including game (e.g. game updates, treasury allocation).
• Play-to-Earn (P2E): Players earn tokens or rewards for completing in-game activities or achievements. These tokens can be traded for real-world value or used across other blockchain-based games, offering income opportunities through gameplay.

3. Types of Ethereum Tokens: ERC-20, ERC-721, and Beyond

Ethereum allows developers to create tokens on top of its blockchain. ERC tokens are published through the Ethereum community’s peer-review process, and follow standardized rules, enabling seamless integration with wallets and decentralized exchanges. There are many Ethereum-based tokens (full list). The most common ones used in web3 games are:

• ERC-20 (Fungible Tokens): These are tokens that are identical and interchangeable, much like Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. They are primarily used for cryptocurrencies and utility tokens in decentralized applications. An example in Web3 games is $AXS from Axie Infinity, a fungible token used for governance and in-game rewards.
• ERC-721 (Non-Fungible Tokens, NFTs): ERC-721 tokens are unique and cannot be exchanged on a one-to-one basis like ERC-20 tokens. NFTs are commonly used in gaming and digital art. For example, in Web3 games like The Sandbox, ERC-721 NFTs represent unique in-game assets, such as land parcels or rare items.
• ERC-1155 (Multi-token Standard): This standard supports both fungible and non-fungible tokens within the same contract. It is often used in Web3 gaming. For example, Gods Unchained uses ERC-1155 to handle both in-game assets (NFTs) and fungible tokens (currency).

How These Tokens Relate to Ethereum: All these tokens are built using smart contracts deployed on Ethereum’s core blockchain. Ethereum provides the underlying infrastructure and security, while developers create custom functionalities by writing smart contracts. These tokens are integral to Ethereum’s ecosystem, as they can interact with decentralized applications, marketplaces, and wallets, all running on the same Ethereum infrastructure.

4. Layer 1 and Layer 2 Chains: How They Interact and Why

Ethereum is a Layer 1 blockchain, meaning it is the foundational layer that processes transactions, executes smart contracts, and secures the network. However, Ethereum’s success has led to scalability issues, including high gas fees and slower transaction speeds during periods of congestion.

To address this, Layer 2 solutions were developed to offload some of Ethereum’s transactional burden while still leveraging Ethereum’s security and decentralization.

Layer 2 Solutions (e.g., Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism): These are separate blockchains that sit on top of Ethereum, interacting with the main Ethereum chain but handling transactions independently to reduce congestion. Layer 2s use various techniques, such as rollups (batching multiple transactions into a single one) or sidechains (parallel blockchains that can communicate with Ethereum).

Benefits of Layer 2 Chains: For example, Polygon is a Layer 2 solution frequently used in Web3 gaming to reduce costs associated with minting NFTs or executing in-game transactions. It interacts with Ethereum by periodically submitting a batch of transactions back to the Ethereum mainnet for final validation, preserving the security of Ethereum while offering a more scalable solution.

Ethereum website: https://ethereum.org/

Immutable X (IMX) is a layer 2 blockchain launched in 2021 by Immutable, an Australian blockchain gaming company. It was designed to solve Ethereum’s limitations, such as high gas fees and scalability issues, while maintaining the security and decentralization of Ethereum. Immutable X is specifically tailored for applications requiring seamless NFT creation and trading, like gaming and digital collectibles. It facilitates high-speed NFT minting and trading with zero gas fees, supports scalable and carbon-neutral infrastructure for blockchain-supported games.

1. How Immutable X Works

Immutable X operates as a Layer 2 (L2) scaling solution for Ethereum, built using StarkWare’s ZK-rollup technology. Here’s how it functions:

1. ZK-Rollups: Immutable X aggregates hundreds or thousands of transactions off-chain, processes them, and generates a cryptographic proof (a “zero-knowledge proof”) to validate these transactions on Ethereum.
   • This drastically reduces the computational load on Ethereum, minimizing gas fees.
   • The proofs ensure transactions are secure and verifiable without revealing sensitive details.
2. Carbon Neutral: The network offsets any carbon emissions from its operations, making it a sustainable choice for developers.
3. Instant Finality: Immutable X provides near-instant transaction confirmation, which is crucial for gaming and trading NFTs.

2. Uses in Web3-Supported Games

Immutable X has become a favorite for Web3 games, offering scalability, affordability, and developer tools specifically designed for gaming use cases. Its focus on NFTs makes it ideal for games with tokenized assets and economies. Use cases include:

• NFT-Based Economies: Games on Immutable X leverage NFTs for player-owned assets like characters, weapons, skins, and land.
• Gas-Free Trading: Players can buy, sell, and trade in-game NFTs without worrying about high gas fees, ensuring a smooth gaming experience.
• Interoperability: Since it’s built on Ethereum, assets on Immutable X can be easily transferred to other Ethereum-based platforms.
• Scalability for Microtransactions: The platform’s infrastructure supports frequent, low-cost in-game transactions like upgrades or resource purchases.

3. Token Standards on Immutable X

Immutable X supports Ethereum-compatible tokens, focusing primarily on NFTs:

• ERC-721: The standard for non-fungible tokens, used for unique in-game items, collectibles, and art.
• ERC-20: The fungible token standard, often used for in-game currencies or governance tokens.

The platform is fully compatible with Ethereum’s standards, allowing seamless migration of assets between Immutable X and Ethereum’s mainnet.

IMX Token:
The native token of Immutable X, IMX, is used for governance, staking, and paying protocol fees, further enhancing the ecosystem’s utility.

4. Popular Web3 Games on Immutable X

• Gods Unchained: A trading card game where players own and trade cards as NFTs.
• Illuvium: An open-world RPG with NFT creatures to capture and trade.
• Guild of Guardians: A mobile RPG where players own in-game assets and earn rewards.