Gm!
I want to thank everyone who joined the WASD Republic last week, whether you subscribed to this newsletter, collected our content, followed us on Twitter, or hopped in our our Discord!
I also want to shout out everyone who minted our free Genesis NFT – You still have a few hours to do so if you haven’t already!
Week 1 of WASD is officially in the books!
To start our second one, I want to talk about how onchain games are like fortune tellers.
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Yes, I’m being serious.
Due to the requirements needed to create a cohesive, fun, and immersive experience, onchain games are leading the industry in embracing innovation in scaling and onboarding.
They are alpha, leading indicators as to the future of crypto UX.
Let’s see why this is the case.
Scaling
Games have among the highest scaling requirements of any blockchain use case.
To create a smooth, enjoyable, complex game that can appeal to more than just whales, they will have to facilitate dozens, if not hundreds or thousands, of transactions per second at near-zero cost.
Onchain games are tackling this challenge by embracing L2s and roll-apps.
Most projects are launching on these solutions, whether they be generalized L2s like StarkNet or Arbitrum Nova, or via custom, use-case-specific rollups like those built using OP Stack.
Although, L2s are now a far more consensus bet than in the past, this was not always the case. If you turn back the clock, you can actually see that onchain games were among their earliest adopters.
For example, Lattice’s OPCraft was one of the first projects to launch on an OP Stack rollup back in October 2022.
We’re also seeing several projects innovating at the protocol level by building L2s optimized specifically for gaming.
A prime example of this is with game engines (frameworks for building onchain games) like Curio’s Keystone and Argus Labs World Engine, which are creating custom rollups using OP Stack and a sharded L2 infrastructure respectively.
Onboarding & UX
It’s difficult, stressful, and risky to operate onchain.
Bridging between different networks sucks, smashing your mouse or hardware wallet to confirm transactions is annoying, and accidentally losing funds or getting rugged from being phished is terrible.
Thankfully, onchain games are leading the charge in addressing these perennial UX issues.
A prime example of this is Burner Wallets. These are wallets that are automatically generated for you when you go to a game’s site. They’re stored locally in your browser and can sign transactions on your behalf.
This means that you can start playing without having to download and connect a wallet while removing the need to sign transactions throughout the game.
Various projects are using this in action today, including Sky Strife, Primodium, and Rhascau.
A similar technique is being used in the StarkNet ecosystem with Arcade Accounts.
Like Burner Wallets, these are stored in the browser and utilize Account Abstraction to sign transactions on behalf of users. Arcade Accounts can be controlled by another wallet known as a Master Account, and have permissions such as withdrawal limits to help protect user funds.
Where Onchain Gaming Goes, Crypto Follows
As you can see, onchain games push the boundaries in scaling, onboarding, and UX.
I believe the experience of using all dapps will follow the trail blazed by onchain games.
Transactions will be near-zero and you won’t have to sign a million of them.
Onboarding will be as easy as opening a website.
If you want to predict where the future of crypto UX is headed, look to onchain games for the answers.
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The TLDR
The hottest news and developments from the last week in onchain gaming.
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Doomsday completes its Season 1 with the winning settlement raking in 295 ETH
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Mithraeum launches its Iron Age I tournament on Gnosis Chain
Plays of the Week
Three onchain games to try out this week.
Words from Frens
The best non-WASD articles, videos, and conversations from the past week.
Game Spotlight: EthXY
The TLDR:
EthXY is an onchain, gamified version of the “Million Dollar Homepage”.
Created by the team behind ETH.id at the recent ETHGlobal Paris Hackathon, in EthXY users can purchase plots on a giant 100 x 100 grid that they can then use to display an image and message.
After each purchase, the price of a plot doubles, and players will receive 100 EXY tokens. EXY can be redeemed for a pro-rata share of the games treasury, which accrues a 25% cut of all plot sales.
EthXY has managed to generate a significant amount of interest (and a fervent community in its Discord) since launch. Players have spent more than 2813 ETH (~$5.1 million) on plots, with most of this volume coming between July 29-30.
As of writing, there is ~362 ETH in the treasury, with the most expensive plot, (0,0) which sits in the exact middle of the grid, trading at a price of 20.48 ETH.
The team is introducing new mechanics to deepen the game experience such as a secondary token, SEXY, which is emitted to plot holders each block.
Plot holders can receive a greater share of these emissions by holding multiple adjacent plots, as well as from ETH.id NFTs and EthXY NFTs, a new collection released by the team that shows a snapshot of the grid at a given point in time.
The WASD Take:
While the hype has died down a bit over the past week, I could see EthXY having legs, particularly if projects choose to use it to get the word out about themselves and advertise for big announcements.
I know that’s something I’m thinking about doing for WASD. 👀
With that said, while I like the idea of adding more depth to EthXY, I do think there is a risk that all the new assets could complicate and take away from the novelty of the experience.
All in all, I think EthXY is interesting and unique. I’ll be watching it closely, and will keep you all posted on if WASD decides to buy a plot!
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Thanks for reading!
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See you all on Thursday, when we’ll be exploring Starknet’s onchain gaming ecosystem!