Beloved for its smart contract composability and battle-tested security, Ethereum has cemented itself as the de-facto blockchain for many (dApps) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Now, due in part to the rise of Web3 gaming, Ethereum network usage has become more popular than ever.
Despite this uptick in demand, Ethereum still faces many scalability issues preventing it from reaching its full potential. Even with Ethereum's recent switch to proof-of-stake, the network can only handle 30 transactions per second. This puts game creators in a tough position: Sacrifice user experience with slow transaction speeds and high gas fees or build their games on more powerful but less-secure blockchains.
Ultimately, this is a lose-lose for gamers, developers, and the entire Web3 community.
Our team believes developers shouldn’t need to choose between security and scalability. And that’s exactly why Immutable was born.
Using the power of StarkEx zero-knowledge rollups (ZK rollups), Immutable offers gas-free NFT minting and transaction speeds of up to 9,000 TPS, all while still leveraging the security of the Ethereum blockchain.
With a mission of powering the next generation of Web3 games, Immutable offers easy-to-implement back-end Web3 infrastructure, cost-effective for both gaming studios and gamers alike. With a full roster of simple APIs and SDKs, development teams can spend less time engineering and more time building games that players want to play.
More importantly, Immutable delivers seamless gaming experiences and true digital ownership to players across the globe. By tokenizing all in-game assets as fully-carbon neutral NFTs, players can buy, sell, and trade their assets gas-free on the Immutable marketplace, earning real-world value from their in-game performance. With the implementation of the global protocol-level shared order book, all Immutable assets are spread far and wide to top NFT marketplaces like TokenTrove, Rarible, and GameStop Marketplace, adding additional liquidity and awareness to the Web3 gaming ecosystem.
Through these endeavors, we’ve created a powerful collaborative community of gamers, developers, and studios, collectively aligned in pushing the crypto space forward.
At the heart of it all sits the $IMX crypto token.
To understand the full impact of the $IMX crypto token, we must first familiarize ourselves with the utility token concept.
What is a Utility Token?
Utility tokens are a type of crypto token designed for a particular use case within a specific decentralized application, game, or blockchain network. Unlike Bitcoin or other proof-of-work currencies, utility tokens are pre-mined and distributed by the team of the underlying project.
On Ethereum, most utility tokens are built on the ERC-20 token standard, a set of rules that allow developers to create their own tokens on the network. While the use cases of ERC-20 tokens can vary, each ERC20 has three things in common: Fungibility, transferability, and a fixed supply.
In Web3 games specifically, utility tokens are often used to purchase in-game assets and access game features. Some utility tokens, like $IMX, may also serve as governance tokens, allowing holders to vote on key decisions surrounding the game or protocol’s future.
What is the $IMX Crypto Token?
The $IMX crypto token, also known as $IMX, is an ERC-20 utility token that powers the Immutable ecosystem and rewards the builders, traders, and marketplaces that support the network. At the time of writing, the $IMX price is 42 cents per token, with a total market cap of nearly $300 million and a circulating supply of around 680 million tokens.
Issued in partnership with Digital Worlds NFT ltd., a total supply of two billion tokens will be distributed to the following areas for 54 months, as outlined in our whitepaper:
51.74% Ecosystem Development (e.g., user rewards and developer grants)
25% Project Development
5% Public Sale
14.26% Private Sale
4% Foundation Reserve
More than half of the total $IMX token supply has been allocated to ecosystem development to incentivize builders and users who contribute to liquidity provision, trading, and building applications on the Immutable protocol.
This allocation is used to fund programs like trading and staking rewards and numerous grant programs designed to attract more developers to build on the platform.
As Immutable’s utility token, $IMX has three main use cases:
Fees
Although Immutable does not charge gas fees for NFT trading and minting, a 2% protocol fee is applied to every transaction settled through the Immutable global shared orderbook. From there, 20% of the protocol fee is converted to $IMX and transferred to the staking rewards pool.
Staking
Staking lets $IMX holders partake in the success and future growth of the Immutable ecosystem. Using the 20% protocol fee allocation, $IMX is distributed to qualified stakers after each 14-day staking cycle. At the end of each staking cycle, users may opt to re-stake their coins to compound their tokens.
Governance
All $IMX owners hold the right to vote on token-related proposals, including allocating token reserves, awarding developer grants, activating daily rewards, and changes in token supply. Following the typically decentralized governance structure, individual voting power is determined by the number of coins a user holds.
Where to Buy $IMX
$IMX is available on many centralized and decentralized exchanges such as Binance, Coinbase, Crypto.com, Uniswap, and SushiSwap. Decentralized and centralized exchanges offer unique advantages, but the key difference lies in who truly controls a user's coins. While decentralized exchanges give users full control over their coins, they are often more clunky and sometimes less liquid. Ultimately, how you choose to buy and store your $IMX is a personal decision.
In addition to buying $IMX, users can also earn $IMX through the $IMX Trading Rewards program. Immutable pays out 100,000 $$IMX to traders across all NFT marketplaces integrated with the Immutable global shared order book. These earnings can be staked to earn even more $IMX.
