Gaming is diverse and growing. Recent developments show that blockchain-powered gaming can be just as successful. According to the most recent estimates, gaming-related crypto wallets saw an astonishing increase of 29563, to 754,000 by the end of the third quarter 2021. It is not surprising that crypto-savvy investors now focus their attention on the next great thing: playing to earn gaming.
Axie Infinity for instance, reached a staggering market value of $7.8B, leading to experts claiming that this led to a frenzy in the world for P2E games. The Sandbox and other P2E games saw a surge in traffic, with millions of people worldwide. These popular P2E games are all based on Ethereum, the standard for smart contracts.
However, similarly to the DeFi space, users and investors alike have started to voice their concerns about Ethereum’s limitations, namely scalability and high transaction fees. P2E game designers turned their focus to Ethereum alternatives, which can support this industry’s growth.
Algorand ($ALGO), with a market capitalization of multi-billion dollars, is certain to be one of the top Ethereum competitors in 2022. Since its launch in 2019, the ecosystem has seen plenty of migrations from both existing and new projects – including various P2E developers. Thus, without further ado, let’s take a look at everything Algorand has to offer to the P2E industry right now.
Algorand vs. Ethereum: Why?
Algorand fans often describe the blockchain as one of the world’s most decentralized, scalable, and secure DLT infrastructures. The blockchain has many different projects. It includes cutting-edge NFT Marketplaces and some of the most popular crypto tools and resources.
Technologically, Algorand comes with all the Layer-1 features and capabilities that crypto enthusiasts know since Ethereum – including its smart contracts, Algorand Virtual Machine (AVM), atomic transfers, and rekeying features. AVM is among its standout features.
AVM is able to interpret TEAL programs (Transaction Execution Approval Language), to execute the logic of Smart Contracts. It makes it easier to scale, faster and more secure, lower-cost and quicker, as well as less risky. Algorand currently ranks amongst the best Layer 1 solutions, boasting a block-time of less than 5 seconds and a transaction cost of under $0.0013.
Complex transfers can be made smoother and faster thanks to Algorand’s atomic transfer capabilities. These transfers can be executed at a very low cost thanks to a small transaction fee. This atomic transfer is compatible with any Algorand asset and multi-party transfers. It’s a significant advantage for P2E players and developers.
Algorand’s rekeying function helps to solve operational bottlenecks. It entrusts users with the ability to modify their private spending keys without having them change their public addresses. Rekeying not only increases efficiency but also provides flexibility while maintaining continuity.
Algorand’s and P2E
The Algorand ecosystem is growing, and it’s growing fast. The official statistics show that more than 500 organisations worldwide are using blockchain technology. The blockchain is used to generate play-to earn. Algo Gaming GuildThere are 40 current projects on Algorand that could be verified. It includes Algo Clash trading cards, Drone Racing League racing games and real-time strategy game like zCircuit, Cosmic Champs, as well as Algo Clash trading card games.
Sayan Mukherjee is the Head of Business Development at Zone. Algorand’s P2E games platform has many utility advantages.
The first is speed, scaleability and low transaction fees. “The Algorand blockchain is really fast with immediate transaction finality. It enables us to give a near web2 experience to gamers globally with respect to speed,” Mukherjee says.
Mukherjee also stated that Algorand has carbon-negative properties. “Zone has a massive NFT ecosystem with the AFK Elephants (afkelephants.com), which also act as P2E rewards. The GameFi ecosystem was built on Algorand to address global ESG issues and provide a great user experience. It gives the popular gaming term “gg” a new meaning altogether – green gaming!”
Earn vs. Earn vs.
Experts have identified a problem that may limit the growth of P2E. While gamers usually appreciate economic rewards for their playing time, many have pointed out that contemporary P2E titles are more “earn” than “play.” In other words, they just aren’t fun to play.
It’s not surprising that the Algorand community holds high expectations for Cosmic Champs. The project, which was already named as one of this year’s top NFT games by CoinMarketCap, and praised by the media as Algorand’s “most technically advanced game design,” is on a mission to become a contender for the top P2E release across all blockchains in 2022.
Cosmic Champs was developed by Mad Shapes gaming studio and is the first real-time three-dimensional P2E real-time game. This studio is well-versed in developing 3D mobile games, and was involved in creating several successful titles before entering P2E.
Additionally, unlike most P2E projects, Cosmic Champs is frictionless and immensely user-friendly – players aren’t even required to have a wallet or prior crypto-knowledge. Matt Blanchard is a co-founder and CEO of Cosmic Champs. “our game will be free to download and free to play. It’s important that the P2E economy has a level playing field that welcomes everybody, anywhere in the world. That’s the key to mass adoption.”
Cosmic Champs offers significant economic incentives, even though its main focus is on gameplay. Because of the improved gameplay mechanics, Cosmic Champs expects players to remain loyal and user rewards will be competitive. This could allow them to earn more than most of their peers. To reinforce this notion, the developers have added a native token to the game’s NFT rewards, which is scheduled to launch on April 21, 2022.
Blanchard says that the use of $COSG tokens and a future DAO, will make players feel more involved in game governance. It will also allow them to help grow the Cosmic Champions game to an entire gaming universe. Among $COSG’s use cases are staking rewards, purchases on an NFT marketplace, minting new NFTs, and benefits for the gameplay.
Cosmic Champs offers fractional NFTs. These NFTs help keep the character aesthetics high quality and allow the game to be successful over time. They also provide a substantial amount of NFTs to create a strong user base.
Cosmic Champs will soon be taking over #GameFiAlgorand at a new level
💥Graphics in 3D are of high quality
💥With their P2E $COSG token
💥NFT Marketplace
💥Multiverse modelling for multi-games
💥Constructed to be used as a transitional DAO in a community.Read more in their Medium article👇 https://t.co/EC5i8sZI7K
— DA̷REN.Algo (@Bmorecmore) April 4, 2022
The game’s appeal is both for novice and experienced gamers alike. The game is democratic and anyone can play, even those without the Cosmic Champs NFTs. In the future, by utilizing and expanding on successful DeFi concepts like staking and earning, the project could grow exponentially – and this, of course, also foreshadows a bright future for the whole Algorand ecosystem.