A Detailed Explanation of the Enjin/Efinity Ecosystem and Development Direction
Why is it said that the Enjin ecosystem will inject vitality into Gamefi?Source: Distributed Capital
Written by: Youfei
2021 is the year of the Metaverse, with significant growth in NFT and Gamefi-related sectors, and ecosystems like BSC, Solana, and Flow have experienced rapid development. So, are there other Metaverse ecosystems that might emerge? The Enjin ecosystem, based on the token standard ERC1155 and Polkadot's cross-chain capabilities, will inject vitality into the Metaverse ecosystem and may even lead a paradigm revolution in NFTs and Gamefi. This article will explore the technological innovations, layout, and development of the Enjin/Efinity ecosystem.
Token Standard ERC1155
Why does the Enjin ecosystem inject vitality into Gamefi? One of the main reasons is the token standard ERC1155. The well-known ERC20 and ERC721 token standards are limited to supporting a specific type of token in smart contracts. ERC20 only supports the trading of fungible tokens, while ERC721 only supports one-to-one trading of non-fungible tokens, making their use in GameFi quite limited. For example, when users face a dazzling array of vending machines, each coin operation can only purchase one type of product. While interacting with the vending machine, users not only have to wait for the transaction to occur but also need to calculate fuel costs.
In contrast, ERC1155 is inherently suited for blockchain games. When ERC1155 is embedded in the smart contracts of blockchain games, it includes items in both NFT and FT forms, such as potions, armor, bows, and arrows. Here, FT refers not only to divisible tokens but also to stackable identical items, such as a bundle of arrows that match a bow. When users trade these items, they only need to pay a single fuel fee to buy and sell multiple game items.
The benefits of ERC1155 for the Gamefi ecosystem are evident; it allows users to trade items with minimal loss. Besides the Enjin team, developers from Horizon Game (Skyweaver is developed by Horizon Game) and Sandbox have also adopted the ERC1155 token standard.
Overview of Enjin Ecosystem Layout
Efinity
1. Cross-Chain Interoperability
Efinity is built on Polkadot, allowing the transfer of any on-chain NFTs (from Ethereum, Enjin, and Polkadot networks) to Efinity. While Efinity may not become the central hub for all digital assets in the Metaverse, it can serve as a transit station within the Metaverse. The team describes Efinity using the term "babel fish," which comes from "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," suggesting that inserting it in your ear allows you to understand alien languages.
2. High Performance and Low Energy Consumption
In its current testing phase, Efinity can achieve billions of token minting and transfers per block. This means that once Efinity becomes a parachain, it will support large-scale games with many users. The known games running on BSC are all high-frequency mini-games, which seem more suited for P2E players but have short project lifecycles and weak user retention. Efinity's high performance will make large-scale and complex blockchain games possible. The blockchain games referred to here can be compared to large MMORPGs like "Fantasy Westward Journey," which balance social attributes, playability, and the profit-making effect of gold farming. Additionally, the Enjin team has been committed to creating a low-carbon gaming ecosystem. Efinity's annual electricity consumption is approximately 4,060,000,000,000 watts, about 0.15 times that of Ethereum. Moreover, due to its use of the POS mechanism, Efinity's carbon footprint will not increase even as network usage becomes more frequent.
3. Lossless Experience, Supporting Large-Scale Use
It is well known that using blockchain has barriers: games on different chains require different wallets, and participating in games requires purchasing corresponding tokens. Ultimately, games are created for playability rather than for investment and profit, and playability is the ultimate form of a game. Therefore, for games to achieve large-scale use, they must attract mainstream players focused on experience. Thus, games must be easy to get started with, automatically eliminating the barriers to blockchain use. To this end, Efinity supports a lossless experience with the following features:
1) Discrete Accounts: Efinity's fees are retained in the background, and end users do not need a blockchain wallet, achieving a quick response time of 6 seconds.
2) Fuel Pool: A special discrete account specifically for collecting transaction fees, allowing companies to subsidize customer costs by depositing EFI tokens into a controlled fuel pool.
Jump Net
Before Efinity, Enjin ecosystem users used Jump Net for transferring NFTs across games and other platforms. Jump Net is a centralized Ethereum scaling solution that incurs no gas fees and is low-carbon. Currently, 75 developers and partners have deployed on it, with known games including Kingdom Karnage, Space Misfits, and Six Dragons. As the Efinity chain is completed, many projects on Jump Net will migrate to the new platform. Overall, Jump Net serves as a transitional solution for Enjin.
Future development progress includes:
The ERC20 asset bridge has been completed, and the ERC1155 asset bridge is currently being deployed.
Cross-chain bridges between Ethereum, Jumpnet, and Efinity are under development, allowing for cross-chain compatibility of NFT assets, including Enjin's native NFTs.
As Efinity is currently under development, the EFI token is already compatible with Jump Net.
Beam
Creators can use Beam to obtain NFTs embedded with QR codes (including quantity and type) and publish them on any medium, allowing audiences to conveniently receive NFT rewards by scanning the QR codes with their wallets. This can attract more fans to the gaming community and assist in marketing for the game community.
Enjin Wallet 2.0
The Enjin Wallet 2.0 version has made two main changes in addition to UI and basic functionality upgrades:
1) Added NFT-related features, including support for NFT-related token standards ERC-721 and ERC-1155, and deployed trading markets such as Opensea, Rariable, and NFT.io, enabling users to purchase NFTs directly within the wallet.
2) Added governance features. The wallet includes functions for staking ENJ tokens for collector node nominations and other governance of the Efinity public chain.
As of September, approximately 700,000 users have downloaded Enjin Wallet, with a small goal of reaching 1 million downloads by the end of the year not far off. The number of active users is 325,000, with a user retention rate of 60%.
NFT.io
NFT.io is a platform for individual and enterprise-level NFT minting, showcasing, searching, and selling within the Enjin ecosystem, which will be integrated into the Efinity chain in the future. Some unique features include:
Reward Function: Users can stake EFI to generate rewards for creators.
Price Discovery Mechanism: Minting NFTs on Efinity will consider real-time price discovery, as the request order function exists at the protocol level. This allows NFT owners to set hidden real-time prices and accept bids instead of listing NFTs on the market from the start.
Buyers can also make offers on NFTs that are not listed for sale on the market.
Enjin/Efinity Ecosystem Development Direction
Internally, Enjin recently established a $100 million Enjin Metaverse Ecosystem Fund, primarily for the following purposes: " 1. To assist Enjin Wallet, NFT.io, and other Enjin ecosystem projects in integrating with the Efinity chain.
To help partnered NFT projects build on Efinity and Polkadot, especially projects whose assets cannot be transferred across chains.
The team will support games on various platforms, including AR/VR, immersive entertainment, and virtual events that integrate with blockchain technology.
NFT dapps: Such as collectibles, digital art, music, data tokenization, and Web3.0 cloud projects.
Decentralized Infrastructure: Building cross-chain and multi-chain infrastructure.
Forward-thinking projects: Projects related to the Metaverse that have not yet been explored in the field. "
Additionally, the Enjin team has established the Enjin Adopter Program, intending to participate in early project seed round financing by purchasing tokens.
For example, Enjin recently invested in the incubation platform EnjinStarter to assist in the development of blockchain games based on the Enjin infrastructure, including but not limited to providing integrated Enjin infrastructure, designing economic models, and building communities. EnjinStarter primarily provides IDO services for games based on the Enjin infrastructure, but in October of this year, it also assisted Defina and Gaia with their IDOs. The strategic significance of EnjinStarter in expanding Enjin's Gamefi and NFT market is evident. Besides EnjinStarter, Forest Knight, Kingdom Karnage, and Spinterland are also projects within the Enjin Adopter Program.
Externally, Enjin is currently collaborating with Ludena Protocol to expand the blockchain gaming market in South Korea (reportedly, South Korea is one of the main users in the global P2E market). Ludena Protocol has so far helped 15 blockchain game teams expand into the South Korean market, including the blockchain game Six Dragons under the Enjin ecosystem. Additionally, Ludena Protocol aims to expand into markets outside of Korea, including Asia, the United States, and Europe, through its gaming social software Game TalkTalk (which has reached three million users).
Roadmap of the Enjin Ecosystem
As of now, Efinity has developed support for NFT/FT assets (i.e., ERC1155 standard), achieving performance for minting and transferring NFTs at a rate of hundreds of millions per second. The most important task remaining this year is to secure a Polkadot parachain slot. Other products in the Enjin ecosystem have been updated and iterated, and more features will be added based on this foundation. With the gradual increase in Efinity's functionalities and the growing number of games built on it, the Enjin ecosystem is set to experience rapid development in 2022.
In summary, as one of the earliest teams to engage in blockchain gaming and one of the creators of the ERC1155 standard, Enjin's technical strength is beyond doubt. In terms of products, Enjin follows two paths: independent research and development and external collaboration. In terms of independent research and development, the products may not be numerous but are refined, significantly enhancing functionality and performance compared to similar products (for example, NFT.io compared to Opensea); in terms of external collaboration, both the Enjin Adopter Program and the Enjin Metaverse Fund will encourage games and related projects to develop and integrate on Efinity and Jump Net. Over time, the entire ecosystem will become more prosperous. It should be noted that most games on Efinity are large-scale games with longer production cycles, so users need to pay attention and wait for the long term. However, the future form of blockchain games will not be limited to mini-games on BSC but will gradually extend to high-quality, medium to large-scale blockchain games that accommodate a certain number of users.
In terms of market expansion, the Enjin team is primarily focused on expanding into the South Korean market, hoping to radiate into the blockchain gaming markets of Asia, Europe, and the United States (referencing the development path of Game Talktalk). However, strong competitors like BSC, Solana, and Flow (which all target the U.S. market) surround Enjin, and significant progress is still needed in market expansion. Finally, securing a parachain slot for Efinity is a milestone, marking a firm step forward in the development of the ecosystem!
