Three-Minute Overview of Coinbase's Newly Launched Web3 Gaming Infrastructure Layer Karrat

Written by: 1912212.eth, Foresight News

Recently, Coinbase suddenly launched Karrat, a previously lesser-known Web3 gaming project, which has, to some extent, reignited market interest in Karrat and the Web3 gaming sector behind it.

As we all know, Web3 gaming has not seen the emergence of any follow-up phenomenon-level projects since the peak of the last bull market, and discussions about games have remained on the fringes of the industry. However, both capital and project teams are still actively laying out plans for gaming, as games have always been one of the most engaging and easily mainstreamed directions in Crypto. In the "Foreseeing 2024: Web3 Surfers 'New Year's Speech'" hosted by Foresight News, Andrei Grachev, co-founder of DWF Labs, stated that the biggest hotspot in 2024 will be GameFi, and what GameFi needs to do most is to make games feel like games.

The so-called "games feel like games" refers to the shift from "pure profit-making" to "both making money and enjoying the fun of gaming." This article aims to explore Karrat, the Web3 gaming project favored by Coinbase.

Karrat: The Infrastructure of Gaming and AI Ecosystems

Karrat is a decentralized gaming infrastructure layer, with its main positioning not only in gaming but also in the hottest AI category. This sets it apart from many categories; the most well-known AI gaming product in the previous cycle was Parallel, and what Karrat aims to do is to build the infrastructure for the AI gaming sector.

Unlike previous conceptual Web3 games, most games and infrastructures cannot integrate many external elements. Karrat consists of a toolkit that allows players to import NFTs and their metadata into the game engine and enables the assembly of such assets (including 3D game assets) to be integrated into any given game or other experiences. This way, players can experience different gaming experiences through various combinations, including visual styles, accessory elements, and more. Although the actual effects remain to be seen, it opens up a significant experiential space.

Additionally, the governance token KARRAT truly empowers gamers and users. Most gaming governance tokens claim to be decentralized, but their initial distribution is often not decentralized enough. Karrat allocates 50% of its total token supply to the community and foundation, which is relatively reasonable in terms of token distribution.

Karrat's community players and consumers can also use KARRAT to decide how to integrate the KARRAT Protocol into games and products. It introduces community decision-making through on-chain governance design, thereby breaking the closed traditional paths found in Web2 gaming.

The total supply of KARRAT is 1 billion tokens with no inflation. Of this total, 20% is allocated to early contributors, 15% to the team, advisors, and service providers, 15% for expansion and development, and 50% for the community and foundation (including airdrops). Of this portion, 6% is allocated for airdrops to NFT holders, 30% for the on-chain governance treasury, and 14% is allocated to the foundation.

The foundation is registered in the Cayman Islands and focuses on developing and nurturing the KARRAT ecosystem, operating as a neutral manager to support the continuous innovation of KARRAT technology and the development and education of KARRATco. KARRATco is a new collective with decision-making power.

The team and advisor tokens have a 4-year lock-up period, with the first unlock occurring one year after the TGE, followed by monthly unlocks over the remaining three years. After the TGE, service providers can unlock 1.5%. The lock-up period for early contributors is up to 2.5 years, with the first unlock occurring six months after the TGE. Tokens allocated for "future development" have a lock-up period of up to 4.5 years, with 3% unlocking at TGE and the remainder unlocking six months later, with a maximum lock-up period of 4 years. According to the KARRATco charter, the on-chain governance treasury will reside in a smart contract, with tokens being immediately unlocked but not circulating.

In addition to the relatively reasonable token distribution mentioned above, the ecosystem has already seen the launch of a high-quality AI game, My Pet Hooligan, which is worth noting.

After the infrastructure is improved and built, without truly popular applications, it is akin to having a wide road with no traffic. Therefore, cultivating or introducing attractive games is quite important. When a game successfully attracts players, it can trigger a demonstration effect, drawing more interesting and high-quality games to follow, thereby achieving a good virtuous cycle.

My Pet Hooligan is Karrat's first game, featuring simple gameplay where players control AI-driven cartoon characters to score points. In December 2023, the game won the Best Action Game award from GAM3S.GG.

It is worth mentioning that the game is published by the well-known game studio AMGI Studios, which consists of over 60 artists, game developers, AI developers, animators, and Web3 creatives. The team has extensive experience in AI, gaming, and animation, having held senior positions at Disney Pixar, Warner Bros, Industrial Light & Magic, and EA, with partners including Epic Games, Nvidia, Polygon, Yield Guild Games, Delphi Digital, Bitkraft, and Arca.

Gaming infrastructure, whether layer two or L1, has become increasingly refined, and the competitive landscape is one where each player takes turns to shine, with competitors continuously working on their ecosystems and development. If Karrat can produce a truly popular game, the gears of the flywheel effect may begin to turn.