Melbourne-based zkTube Labs- the best scaling solution on Ethereum Layer-2, has recently announced the completion of a $15 million financing round. zkTube is a big supporter of the GameFi industry and has set up a seed fund with ONEUNI to help startups in the GameFi industry and promote large-scale adoption of zk-Rollup technology. zkTube is to be listed on various large exchanges.
GameFi is a blockchain-based gaming sector that supports initiatives built on DeFi. It brings blockchain gamers, game development companies, and traders together. One can understand GameFi as Game + DeFi. It allows you to search for the finest games on the market. Users can participate in any game listed on the platform, and developers can publish their games. New games in the GameFi market are coming out, as there is a craze for GameFi and NFTs. Developers have open ground to turn their imaginations into codes to create an innovative and colorful universe.
The primary purpose of GameFi is to integrate financial elements into the game. The Play-to-earn part of the GameFi is the most attractive that allows players to make money while playing. An asset records the yield from play-to-earn. Players can collect rare items from NFT and use them to stake, farm, or sell later. It also allows real-world users to look into the metaverse. GameFi enables the creation of IGOs (Initial Game Offerings) for multiple projects through its gaming launchpad. GameFi is meant to solve difficulties in game studios and is emphasized on launching games with high playability.
Current GameFi Market Situation
GameFi has combined NFTs and DeFi, bringing a potential change in the gaming industry with rapidly increasing users, volume, and token prices. The GameFi market is thriving in the second half of 2021, with its daily active wallets rising 700% from March to July. More than 2.7 billion gamers are already familiar with the notion of scarce digital items, tokenization, and in-game currencies globally. Crypto games have earned recognition as among the most profitable blockchain products. These games are one of the best ways to enter the mainstream world.
NFTs and GameFi markets are experiencing a continuous surge in trading volume and the number of users. OpenSea is the leading peer-to-peer NFT marketplace with a more than $6.5 billion trading volume on September 20, 2021. It offers NFTs of everything such as in-game items, collectibles, music, artwork, etc.
There are several major GameFi projects with excellent stats. For example, Axie Infinity generated $220 million in revenue in July 2021, with a 600% surge in one month. It was higher than Ethereum and Bitcoin and the highest among all GameFi projects, proving blockchain games have vast potential. According to Dappradar, the total active users on Axie Infinity have grown exponentially, with more than a million daily active users in August 2021 and more than 1.4 million individual transactions within 30 days.
Similarly, in another project, CryptoBlades transactions were tracked and turned out to be $9.23 million in 7 days on September 17, 2021. According to CoinDesk, the daily transactions on CryptoBlades were more than daily Ethereum blockchain transactions.
GameFi and NFTs markets are seen as the future of the gaming sector, with an increasing number of players continuously joining the ecosystems. The Founder of Tron, Justin Sun, says, “GameFi is going to be the next big thing that makes the DeFi, NFT and larger crypto space easy to understand and be involved in.”
How do ordinary users participate in GameFi and profit from it?
GameFi adoption enormously increased in the COVID-19 pandemic when millions of people lost their jobs and were looking for ways to earn without being affected by Covid.
Axie infinity’s massive rise is due to Yield Guild Games (YGG) that allows players to play and earn with no experience of on-chain games. YGG gathered a large number of gamers and introduced the concept of Play -to-Earn model when the unemployment rate increased significantly in the Philippines due to COVID-19. Axie Infinity implemented the concept of Play to Earn, providing services such as training, recruitment, rental, etc. Now some of the players are earning more than an average local salary. It has become a tool for supporting families for some Filipinos. 60% of Axie Infinity’s daily active users are from the Philippines. Axie Infinity allows players to earn 70% of the revenue generated, the community manager receives 20%, and the remaining 10% is allocated to the guild. YGG also provides Axie Scholarships for the development and training of newbies.
However, in the YGG model, ordinary players who lack expertise obtain poor outcomes or lose when competing with professional players. It becomes difficult for them to make profits.
GameFi Protocol (GFP) is the world’s first game mining protocol that has introduced several innovative models to generate revenues, providing users with diverse opportunities. GFP can help ordinary players who lack expertise and time to gain maximum profits by allocating digital assets of users and cooperating with professional players.
The GFP acts as an open fund in which users have a choice. They can either invest time by participating in these GameFi projects. They can earn revenue in the form of tokens rewards. Users can also invest money to share in GameFi revenues with professional players. User’s investment automatically traces the GameFi project allowing them to maximize earnings. This is how GameFi is different and unique compared to traditional games by allowing you to earn by playing games.
The shortcoming in NFTs & GameFi Industries
Although GameFi and NFTs have achieved great success and have become increasingly prominent, some problems need to be addressed, such as high gas fees, delayed transactions, network congestion, etc.
The broke out of Crypto Kitties in 2017 showed the technology’s immaturity, hindering the further development of the technology. Network capacity, poor performance, and high gas costs have always been fatal. The rate of transactions per second on Ethereum is very low, and to prioritize a transaction for a quick confirmation; users have to pay high gas fees. Interaction with Ethereum is a must for online blockchain applications, but this is very expensive.
A person on Twitter complained about high transaction fees on Ethereum. The tweet says, “How ETH is not going to get pulverized on NFTs by other chains is beyond my comprehension. $79 fee for a $3 item.”
The scaling problem is the primary concern resulting in delayed transactions on Ethereum as the network gets busier. This not only affects the performance but also users have to make multiple attempts for single transaction completion. Therefore, users have to pay a high gas fee to attain normal workability on the network.
zkTube can bring convenience to GameFi Industry
In recent years several protocols stepped forward to solve the problem of Ethereum for providing a healthy GameFi ecosystem.
zkTube Labs is the first Layer 2 protocol based on ZK-Rollup technology, providing the best scaling solution on Ethereum Layer 2. This protocol is working to solve the growing problems of the Ethereum network.
zkTube can potentially enhance the scalability of Ethereum. It uses zero-knowledge proof to transfer the batch transmission to a single transaction. To avoid overloading of the network, it transfers some of the workloads to off-chain. Delayed transactions are no more a challenge with zkTube. The network ensures 3,000+ Transactions per second (TPS) which is 200 times higher than on Layer 1. Transactions are quickly verified using SNARK proof. zkTube is providing 100% security at Ethereum mainnet level and preferably chosen by developers and users for security. Users can enjoy excellent network performance without any hindrance.
In August 2021, zkTube established a seed fund of $10 million in cooperation with ONEUNI Capital and ten other investment institutions. The purpose was to empower GameFi developers to bring more creative projects into the industry, ultimately promoting the adoption of ZK-Rollup.
The Mainnet of zkTube is launched, and now the team of zkTube is working on establishing the PayTube Wallet as the most suitable DeFi and GameFi channel in Layer 2. This will help PayTube Wallet incorporate more NFT, card, blind box, mining, DEX, and other related elements. It is also focused on the enrichment of ecological construction.
ZKT is the native token of zkTube. zkTube is also working on its goal of listing ZKT tokens and is about to be listed on one of the largest exchanges. It will significantly improve liquidity, making trading more convenient for crypto enthusiasts. It will enable miners to buy and stake ZKT preferably. Considering its features for providing ease to users, the ZKT token will quickly attract investors’ attention; thereby, its value will increase.
The GameFi industry has a bright future with its accelerating innovations in the crypto world. zkTube believes that GameFi will be the next central scenario for DeFi, NFT, and more extensive cryptography. Considering this, it has aimed to build a GameFi Layer 2 ecosystem that is easily accessible worldwide. zkTube is famous among developers because of its large network throughput, swift and cost-efficient transactions, and high security. They consider it as among the best infrastructure for developing Metaverse projects. zkTube is also providing seed funds in the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance (EEA) to support the development of startups, creating GameFi unicorns.
This funding round of $15 million will help zkTube expand its team, achieving its other technical milestones. Many new GameFi projects are coming into the market with unique features, and zkTube will support these projects financially and technically to ultimately fuel the current booming craze of GameFi.
