Three Minutes to Understand Koi Labs: Building a Low-Threshold Metaverse Ecosystem from Infrastructure to Games

Author: Groot

Facebook's rebranding to Meta has heated up the concept of the metaverse to new heights within the crypto space and the entire tech industry. The inherent advantages of blockchain technology in creating a new virtual world have been further amplified with the large-scale emergence of NFT use cases. Previously stagnant blockchain games have also been revitalized by the "play-to-earn" concept proposed by GameFi, and have already accumulated a substantial user base.

However, for NFT assets that play a crucial role in the metaverse, the current foundational infrastructure trading market remains unsatisfactory. Issues such as slow transaction speeds, fragmentation due to the lack of unified issuance standards compared to homogeneous assets, suboptimal market liquidity, and the absence of basic financial tools have become "stumbling blocks" in the rapid development of the industry.

Is it possible to launch a universal NFT trading market solution to aggregate liquidity scattered across various corners of the blockchain and simplify user participation? This is precisely the "breakthrough" that Koi Labs, a multi-chain game infrastructure developer that recently completed a $2.6 million Pre-A funding round, has identified.

"Play-to-Earn" Game Koi Metaverse

Koi Metaverse is the first game launched by Koi Labs based on its GameFi platform. The game features a "play-to-earn" token economy design, where all assets within the game belong to the players. Players can mine for profits using NFT fish in the game, and they can also explore the "underwater world" to gather more resources.

The NFT fish in Koi Metaverse consist of 14 different genes, categorized into various families. The fish have different characteristics, such as eye and tail features, which not only determine their appearance but also affect mining efficiency. Fish that meet specific conditions can receive a certain percentage of mining speed bonuses, directly impacting players' earnings in the game.

In addition to the officially issued NFT fish, players can also spend tokens in the game to mint fish tanks. Through these tanks, players can feed and breed more fish to enhance mining efficiency and earn more rewards. The game will utilize a dual-token model of KOI and SHELL to further liberate the game's economic system.

"Full-Function" NFT Infrastructure Koi Network

Koi Labs' Koi Network provides a one-stop solution for the issuance, trading, and liquidity creation of NFT assets, supporting aggregation across different blockchains, including Ethereum and BSC, as well as various standards such as ERC721, ERC1155, and BEP721. It aims to offer a more user-friendly professional trading platform for all GameFi NFT assets in the future metaverse.

Koi Network also offers lending services, allowing users to borrow assets like Ethereum or USDT to enhance market liquidity, and to earn additional income by lending their NFT assets on the platform. In simple terms, Koi Network adds DeFi-enabled financial functions to NFT assets and traditional NFT market platforms, and will also provide users with GameFi index tools.

To enable users to achieve faster transaction confirmation speeds and avoid high interaction fees on the network, Koi Network is built on a dedicated Ethereum sidechain, Koi Sidechain. The overall experience for users minting and trading NFTs on the platform will be significantly better than on NFT platforms on public chains like Ethereum and BSC. To facilitate the smooth transfer of users' NFT assets across Koi's dedicated sidechain and other blockchain networks, Koi has also developed a dedicated cross-chain gateway. With the exclusive toolkit provided by Koi Network, developers can more easily complete game development and deployment.

In the future, Koi Network will create a GameFi aggregator platform that brings together all game enthusiasts and developers, allowing higher-quality games to gain funding and user support on this GameFi aggregator, while all participating community members can share in the profits once the project launches.

Token KOI Economic Model

Koi Network has launched the token KOI, with a total issuance of 1 billion tokens.

KOI holders can participate in governance voting on the platform. Additionally, KOI serves as a universal asset within the ecosystem, and users need to pay necessary costs in KOI to use the platform's index products or NFT asset management tools. Furthermore, KOI supports staking for mining, allowing users to share in the platform's profits by staking KOI. Users can obtain KOI tokens by participating in games or using the lending and GameFi index products provided by the platform.

The token distribution ratios are as follows:

• Seed round financing sale: 4%, locked for 3 months after token issuance, then unlocked quarterly over 15 months;
• First round private sale: 6%, unlocked 5% at token issuance, then unlocked quarterly over 1 year;
• Second round private sale: 6%, unlocked 10% at token issuance, then unlocked quarterly over 1 year;
• Public sale: 3%, unlocked 25% at token issuance, then unlocked quarterly over 9 months;
• Staking rewards reserved: 15%, planned to unlock monthly over the next 36-48 months;
• In-game mining rewards reserved: 30%, planned to unlock monthly over the next 36-48 months;
• Founding team allocation: 12%, locked for 1 year after token issuance, then unlocked monthly over 3 years;
• Partner and advisor allocation: 2%, locked for 6 months after token issuance, then unlocked monthly over 18 months;
• Foundation reserve: 10%, unlocked 10% at token issuance, then unlocked monthly over 2 years;
• Community airdrop allocation: 3%, unlocked monthly over 2 years, with unallocated portions reserved for future sales;
• Marketing reserve: 5%, unlocked 10% at token issuance, then unlocked monthly over 2 years;
• GameFi ecosystem incentives reserved: 4%, unlocked monthly over 2 years, with unallocated portions reserved for future sales.

Team

The core members of the Koi Metaverse team have over 10 years of game development experience and more than 3 years of blockchain development experience. The team has been developing blockchain games since 2017, and the total user base of the games they previously developed exceeds 50 million.

Overview of Metaverse Track Development

In the metaverse track, participating projects mainly focus on underlying publishing chain development, game and collectible publishing, and market building. Popular projects in this field include Axie Infinity, Chiliz, Flow, and OpenSea, covering several major categories such as blockchain games, underlying public chains for specific fields, NFT issuance public chains, and comprehensive market platforms. Compared to these leading projects with certain first-mover advantages, Koi Network's innovative integration and layout of DeFi financial tools have become key points for its differentiated competition.

Conclusion

Compared to the current mainstream NFT market platforms and leading projects in the GameFi field, Koi Labs provides users with a more comprehensive "one-stop" platform. Users can both play games and earn profits, while also conveniently using DeFi applications for lending, leasing, and index products, maximizing the efficiency of NFT assets. This one-stop experience significantly reduces the previous sense of fragmentation in the GameFi field. With the launch of Koi Metaverse, a new "game metaverse" is slowly unfolding.