With the recent listing of projects such as PIXEL and RONIN on Binance, many currencies under the GameFi concept seem to be showing signs of rebound. Judging from CMC platform data, the recent overall growth performance of the GameFi sector is quite good. As shown below.
I just took another look at the P2E (Play To Earn) related currencies today (in the past 24 hours), and the increases of some coins are also exaggerated. As shown below.
In Hua Li Huawai’s previous articles, we have actually shared many potential GameFi-related projects. Moreover, in the previous series of articles on the topic of GameFi (in December last year), we also made an expectation based on some on-chain data. It is expected that GameFi will have a larger narrative in 24-25 years. As shown below.
In today’s article, we continue the topic of GameFi. Below we will mainly do a new review of Ronin Network.
1. What is Ronin(RON)
Ronin Network is a side chain based on Ethereum, built by Axie Infinity's development team Sky Mavis (a chain game studio in Vietnam), aiming to meet the needs of Axie Infinity game players and solve the congestion and high gas fees they face. question.
Simply put, Ronin can be understood as a blockchain network developed specifically for games. It supports EVM-compatible smart contracts and protocols so that developers can build high-performance and feature-rich blockchain games (chain games) project.
Judging from on-chain data, the number of active users of several popular projects on the Ronin blockchain is still relatively high. For example, Carv has 400,000 active users (Carv is a popular sign-in airdrop project recently), and Pixels also has 400,000 active users. 160,000. As shown below.
As a side chain of Ethereum, Ronin uses a hybrid consensus mechanism of PoA (Proof of Authority) + DPoS (Delegated Proof of Equity). Among them, PoA is responsible for producing blocks by the verification node designated by Sky Mavis, and DPoS is open to users, allowing Users who hold enough RON tokens become validators by staking tokens and can vote for interested verification nodes to achieve further decentralization.
For ordinary users, through the Ronin Bridge, users can transfer crypto assets such as ETH on the Ethereum main network to the Ronin network, and native tokens and NFT assets issued on Ronin can also be transferred back to the Ethereum main network.
Supplementary knowledge 1: What is a side chain?
The side chain is another independent blockchain relative to the main chain. It is parallel to the main chain and has its own consensus mechanism. It is connected to the main chain through two-way anchoring (generally supervised by a trusted third party). Realize the interoperability of assets and information, but can also communicate with each other. The main goal of the side chain is to divert the traffic of the main chain and improve the overall transaction processing capability. For example, users can achieve fast transactions through the side chain while maintaining contact with the assets of the main chain. Moreover, side chains are relatively easier to develop and can be optimized for specific scenarios. Generally speaking, side chains actually transfer general calculations (transactions) from the Ethereum main chain to run on independent sub-chains, thereby achieving the so-called expansion purpose. As an analogy, we can think of the main chain as a highway. When the traffic volume is too large, the traffic flow needs to be diverted through the branch road next to the highway exit. This branch road is the side chain.
Supplementary knowledge 2: What is PoA (proof of authority)?
The POA consensus mechanism is a group of professional and well-known validators responsible for verifying and packaging transactions. These validators are generally designated by the project party. Compared with the POW consensus we are familiar with, POA does not need to waste a lot of computing power to verify transactions. It only needs to be verified by a small number of validators to form a new block. Therefore, its energy efficiency will be much higher, so it can be achieved faster than POW. transaction speed and lower transaction fees, thus improving the gaming experience. But it is precisely because its verification only relies on a small number of validators, so it is not decentralized enough.
Supplementary knowledge 3: What is DPoS (Delegated Proof of Stake)?
In the DPoS model, token holders can delegate their voting rights to candidate validators. The more validators are delegated, the higher the chance of being selected. This is also a way to become a candidate validator by staking a certain amount of RON tokens. Staking at least 250,000 RON can entrust or select the network's validators. At the same time, users who stake the tokens can also receive certain rewards. Compared with the pure PoA model above, Ronin under the DPoS model can further improve its decentralization through the design of open elections and punishment mechanisms.
Currently, validators of the Ronin network include Nansen, Google Cloud, Animoca Brands, Binance, Ubisoft, etc.
2. Ronin ecological project
Next, we will mainly share several game projects in the Ronin ecosystem.
The first project is Axie Infinity (AXS)
Axie Infinity is a project that everyone should be familiar with. It is also the most representative and eye-catching chain game project in the last bull market.
AXS is Axie Infinity’s governance token, and SLP (Smooth Love Potion) is Axie Infinity’s in-game currency and rewards earned by playing games. At the beginning of this year (2024), Sky Mavis announced a redesign of SLP, including a limited chip supply and a stable fund (which will automatically purchase SLP at a specific time).
It can be said that this old chain game project does not seem to have stopped moving forward. They are also trying to return to the peak in the original bull market cycle.
The 2nd project is Pixels (PIXEL)
Pixels is a free Web3 farming game. In the pixel style game, in addition to engaging in some agricultural activities such as planting, food preparation and goods trading, players can also own and develop individual farmland plots.
As a P2E game, players can obtain token rewards through various actions in the game. At the same time, the game also allows players to use some NFTs already in their wallets as personal avatars, which allows users to connect their Metamask wallets. And use the NFTs in your wallet to roam the world of Pixels. As of the time of writing this article, judging from the NFT Collection list displayed on the official website, they have currently integrated 83 well-known NFTs, including Timeless, Bored Ape Yacht Club, Lazy Lions, etc.
PIXEL is the native token and governance token in the Pixels system, with a total supply of 5 billion. The project has previously raised $4.8 million through 3 rounds of private sales at prices of $0.005, $0.009, and $0.012. It is currently on Binance Launchpad and can be mined until February 19th. As shown below.
After it is officially listed on Binance, the price of PIXEL may remain between US$0.4–0.6 in the short term.
The third project is Zoids Wild Arena
Zoids Wild Arena is a TCG game (trading card game) where players can collect Zoids series of mechanical creature cards and engage in 1vs1 or 3vs3 battles.
The game is developed by ACT Games, a well-known Korean gaming company that promotes card games such as TCG. In November last year, ACT Games reached a cooperation with Sky Mavis and planned to migrate Zoids Wild Arena (originally launched based on the Polygon network) and all future games to the Ronin ecosystem. After the migration, Zoids Wild Arena players can use Ronin Wallet for various activities. Related activities, such as in-game transactions, etc.
The fourth project is The Machines Arena
The Machines Arena is a 4v4 multiplayer online shooting game. The game uses a third-person perspective and provides two single-player and multiplayer modes. Players will fight as tanks or auxiliary heroes on the sci-fi battlefield.
The game is developed by Directive Games, a game development team based in Hong Kong, China that specializes in the development of AR games. The game is currently in closed beta, as shown in the picture below.
In addition to the four game projects introduced above, there are currently Apeiron, Tribesters, Bowled, Battle Bears Heroes, Wild Forest and other games in the Ronin ecosystem. Interested friends can learn more by themselves. As shown below.
In addition to game projects, the Ronin ecosystem also includes some non-game Dapp projects, such as Ronin Wallet, Ronin Name Service (RNS domain name service launched in November last year), Katana (the decentralized exchange of the Ronin network), etc. As shown below.
3. Development of Ronin chain
As a public chain dedicated to games, the success of Axie Infinity has promoted Ronin’s fame and development to a certain extent.
From a development perspective:
The Ronin mainnet was launched in February 2021, and the RON token was launched in January 2022. However, a serious hacker attack occurred on the Ronin cross-chain bridge in March 2022, resulting in a loss of US$625 million (reportedly by North Korea). The hacker said so (but later I heard that some funds were recovered), and the market gradually began to shift from a bull market to a bear market cycle at that time, and the project seemed to have faded out of many people’s sights since then.
But Ronin did not seem to be depressed by the hacker attack. They released the tabletop game aggregation platform Mavis Hub 2 in January 2023, launched the RON staking function in March of the same year, and switched to the delegated stakestake (DPoS) mechanism in April of the same year. , and upgraded the functions of Ronin Wallet. In May of the same year, the NFT market Mavis Market was launched (and integrated with Ronin Wallet). In September of the same year, the chain game project Pixels migrated from the Polygon network to the Ronin network (also heralding the further development of the Ronin partnership plan expansion), announced the launch of Lucas upgrade and Shillin hard fork on the mainnet in October of the same year, and launched Ronin Name Service in November of the same year.
On February 2 this year, Coinbase included RON in the currency listing roadmap. On February 5, Binance listed RONIN (Note: Binance uses RONIN instead of RON, which is said to be mainly to avoid confusion with the Romanian currency). On February 6, Ronin New bridge functions are online, supporting the transfer of ERC20 and ERC721 tokens, and supporting the use of RNS domain names for bridging... There should be some new upgrades and new games coming soon.
Overall, it seems that Ronin is developing relatively smoothly to prepare for the GameFi game year that may come this year (third quarter?).
From a data perspective:
Based on the statistics of the on-chain platform, there are currently about 70 blockchains (public chains) that have deployed chain games. Whether in terms of the number of transactions or the volume of transactions, Ronin seems to be developing well. As shown below.
And if we look at daily active user data alone, Ronin has maintained its leading position in the last 90 days. There are currently almost 600,000 active users every day. As shown below.
Of course, the active users here should be mainly attributed to Carv and Pixels we mentioned above. The combined number of active users of these two projects is almost 560,000.
Judging from the number of ecological projects:
Currently, there are not many games in the Ronin ecosystem. As of the time of writing this article, there are only 10 game projects displayed on the official website (we basically mentioned them in the project introduction section above). BNB Chain, Ethereum, Polygon and Wax still account for the majority of the number of game projects. As shown below.
However, the current development focus of each chain seems to be different. For example, the BSC and WAX chains mainly attract more games to join their ecology through resources, while the Ronin chain mainly attracts more games through improved and enhanced game performance support. Game added. Therefore, Ronin’s development goal is definitely not to surpass the top public chain above. Its goal may be more focused. Therefore, from the perspective of ecological project competition, its competitors should also mainly be those that focus on blockchain. Chain performance improvement projects, such as Immutable X.
Although the Ronin project is not a new project in terms of its birth time, it seems to have been making progress since last year. Until the recent launch of Binance and the popularity of Pixels games, more people have begun to pay attention to this project again. As for which public chain can exert greater potential and advantages in the GameFi track in the future, this will take time to verify, so let us continue to wait and see.
Well, we will share the content of this issue here for the time being. This is also the 408th article updated by Hua Li Huawai. We will continue to bring you more related sharing later. Interested friends can contact us through Hua Li Hua Wai. Check out Li Huawai to learn more.
Finally, we need to remind you again that none of the projects mentioned in this article have any interest relationship with Hua Li Hua. Any investment behavior is risky. Please be sure to DYOR (Do Your Own Research) before making decisions.
