Amitt Mahajan—founder and CEO of Proof of Play, the developer of crypto sport Pirate Nation—predicts that ultimately there will likely be hundreds of devoted blockchains that every assist particular person purposes.
This comes after his expertise constructing the viral Fb sport Farmville. Throughout his time growing the informal farming simulator, Zynga operated roughly 64 databases merely to stop the sport from crashing. To Mahajan, the blockchain is simply a complicated database.
“At peak, [Farmville] was at about 30 million each day lively customers. So to be able to scale a sport to that, we had like 64 databases,” Mahajan advised Decrypt‘s GG. “On this world, the blockchain is our database. We’re primarily utilizing the chain as our information retailer. So to be able to scale to any variety of precise utilization, we have to cut up transactions throughout chains.”
Beforehand, Pirate Nation was constructing on Ethereum scaling community Polygon, however moved to Arbitrum Nova resulting from rising Polygon fuel charges. Nevertheless, the undertaking noticed a difficulty in counting on shared networks as a brand new undertaking launching might increase fuel charges for everybody on the chain.
In February, Pirate Nation eyed up the potential for launching chains for itself and different builders utilizing Arbitrum—in a undertaking known as Multichain.
The on-chain role-playing sport Pirate Nation is now crusing by itself application-specific chain, Apex, and the founder believes that that is the one logical future for different apps too.
“As quickly as you are an software with any stage of scale, you want to have the ability to predictably management your fuel prices,” Mahajan advised Decrypt. “My prediction is that there is going to be hundreds and hundreds of chains, as individuals cut up off from these shared layer-2s to application-specific chains.”
A screenshot from Pirate Nation. Picture: Proof of Play
We have already seen this development throughout a number of blockchain networks. A number of video games constructing on Avalanche are utilizing their very own devoted subnets, for instance, resembling Shrapnel and the upcoming Off the Grid with its GUNZ community. In one other instance, Treasure is constructing its personal Arbitrum-based Treasure Chain that can characteristic an online of “Infinity Chains,” or devoted gaming networks.
Since launching by itself app-specific chain, Mahajan stated that Pirate Nation has began to refill the chain with transactions—with the workforce already eyeing up a second chain for assist.
“We’ve primarily reached the capability of Apex,” Mahajan defined. “Now, to be able to proceed to scale the sport, we have to add the B-chain, the C-chain, the D-chain,” he added. “We will be including extra chains sooner or later in order that we are able to proceed so as to add and scale the variety of customers within the sport.”
The Proof of Play Apex chain is now reside w/ Pirate Nation!
Pirate Nation is now the primary absolutely onchain sport deployed to its personal Mainnet chain.
That is the beginning of the Multichain: an infinitely scalable constellation of chains that permits us ship onchain gaming to tens of millions. pic.twitter.com/tlVFPWlAeS
— Proof of Play (@ProofOfPlay) February 29, 2024
Needing a number of chains would possibly sound odd or regarding. However for Mahajan, who has expertise constructing video games on this planet of Web2, this isn’t something new. It’s only a new riff on the identical premise of needing scalable structure to assist rising video games.
Mahajan labored for Zynga from 2009 to 2011, throughout this time he headed the event of Farmville. Within the Web3 house, slightly than worrying about widespread blockchain video games crashing, builders fear about rising charges resulting from community congestion.
Again when Pirate Nation was on Polygon, the agency stated it was paying as much as $4,000 a day in fuel charges to summary them away from gamers—however that wasn’t sustainable for a startup. Though launching 4 or extra chains simply to run one crypto sport would possibly look like a giant trouble, Mahajan sees an upside to the added muscle.
“It was inconvenient to should run 64 databases for Farmville,” he stated. “It is inconvenient for us, as a result of we are the first individuals doing it. However then it turns into a product.”
Welcome to Pirate Nation, an on-chain RPG by @ProofOfPlay, constructed on the intersection of informal gaming, web3 expertise, and shared possession & incentives.
A thread
overlaying what it’s good to find out about our sport, ecosystem, & workforce.
Let’s bounce in.
1/many pic.twitter.com/aS9e4OvAuJ
— Pirate Nation (@PirateNation) July 5, 2023
Mahajan once more makes use of Web2 to place this into perspective. Ideas like load balancing and caching needed to be invented, the founder defined, to ensure that a product like Fb to be constructed.
If we are able to make a sport that reaches one million each day lively customers (DAU), which means that you could construct one other dapp or a photo-sharing web site or one thing else that may attain one million DAU as properly.
—Amitt Mahajan, founder and CEO of Pirate Nation
That is a part of Pirate Nation’s multichain providing, wherein Apex is the primary community to be launched. Multichain plans to open up for different sport and dapp builders to launch their very own networks powered by Arbitrum Orbit, an Ethereum scaling expertise.
“It is coming. There’s undoubtedly been curiosity,” Mahajan stated. “We have to clear up our personal capability [points earlier than we tackle others.”
Devoted gamers
Pirate Nation’s growth plans come after the sport launched its PIRATE token in June. Its itemizing on Coinbase noticed the Ethereum token’s worth bounce, however worth isn’t what the founder is worried about in terms of the token launch.
As a substitute, he needed to deal with the 80% of claimed PIRATE tokens at present staked by customers, in response to a Dune dashboard. By staking these tokens, customers earn Proof of Play (PoP) Factors which promise to unlock further advantages inside the ecosystem. Partially, this excessive share is because of PIRATE tokens not being locked when staked, and permitting customers to nonetheless spend with none penalties.
To the founder, the excessive share of staked tokens is a guess of confidence by the neighborhood and an indication that the sport isn’t attracting farmers who simply wish to dump the token.
“Staking is absolutely an opportunity for folk to re-affirm that they are in it for the long-term,” Mahajan defined, “so the truth that so many individuals, in such a excessive quantity, have completed it’s encouraging.”
And for these devoted avid gamers, the biggest on-chain occasion is simply across the nook.
Within the coming month, the second World Boss occasion will happen. This may see gamers be part of arms to defeat bosses collectively, but additionally compete for his or her transaction to be the kill shot. Gamers can be rewarded for his or her injury dealt and given a 1-of-1 NFT in the event that they landed the kill shot.
This occasion would be the greatest in-game occasion that Pirate Nation has ever seen. With this, the community is prone to be strained, particularly with the builders already eyeing up a second chain to separate transactions. Will it stretch the Apex chain to its limits?
“We’ll see,” Mahajan replied with a smile.
Edited by Andrew Hayward