GalaChain in-depth analysis: An innovative blockchain born for Web3 games and entertainment

Author: Stella L (stella@footprint.network)

Originally published on CoinGecko Footprint Analytics Column.

What is GalaChain?

GalaChain is a Layer 1 blockchain specifically designed for the entertainment sector but with broad applicability, built by Gala to support its expanding entertainment ecosystem. GalaChain is based on Hyperledger Fabric (HLF) and is powered by a network of Founder's Nodes.

Key Points of This Article

• GalaChain is a Layer 1 blockchain developed by Gala, aimed at becoming the backbone of its Web3 entertainment ecosystem, covering gaming, music, and film.

• GalaChain is built on a solid foundation of Hyperledger Fabric (HLF) and supported by a network of Founder's Nodes.

• The $GALA token serves as the foundational functional token within the Gala ecosystem, distributed daily to active Founder's Node operators.

• After the successful application of GalaChain to Gala's core entertainment brands, a publicly available SDK and creator toolkit will be launched in early 2024, extending the development scope of GalaChain to creators and innovators outside the entertainment industry.

Introduction to GalaChain

GalaChain was initially built by Gala Games, a leading Web3 gaming platform and publisher, to meet the rapid expansion demands of the 21st-century gaming market. With its exceptional speed, security, and scalability, GalaChain has become the backbone of Gala's core brand series, with both Gala Music and Gala Film built on this network. The blockchain ensures that all components of the Gala ecosystem can operate seamlessly, effectively avoiding the common high latency and cost issues seen in other blockchains.

The core power of GalaChain comes from the Founder's Node network. The central token $GALA plays a crucial role, acting as both Gas Fee for transactions and rewarding those node operators who support the ecosystem. As a Layer 1 blockchain, GalaChain also facilitates the creation of other tokens, the establishment of channels, and more specialized node networks, such as game-specific nodes designed for games like Common Ground World and Last Expedition, as well as Theater nodes hosting decentralized film content on the Gala Film platform.

The design intent of GalaChain is very clear: to strongly support the demands of Web2 gaming while integrating Web3 functionalities (such as ownership and rewards) and extending these capabilities to other industries. At the same time, the design philosophy of GalaChain is straightforward yet ambitious: if it can smoothly handle the rigorous demands of gaming, it can adapt to almost any application or industry need. This strategy positions GalaChain as a notably scalable blockchain solution, gaining a competitive edge in meeting the technical demands of multiple industries.

Source: Footprint Analytics GalaChain Dashboard

The Team Behind GalaChain

Gala was founded in 2018 by social gaming innovator and Zynga co-founder Eric Schiermeyer. The founding team includes creators of social gaming giants like Farmville 2, Words with Friends, and Zynga Poker. Zynga is known as a global leader in interactive entertainment, famous for its social video game services. Farmville 2, as its standout agricultural simulation social network game, continues to influence Gala's Common Ground World, adding ownership, rewards, and unique farming simulation mechanics to this popular game genre.

Gala's partner network spans multiple well-known companies and individuals in the gaming and entertainment industries, including DreamWorks Animation under Universal Pictures, entertainment company AMC Networks, and multinational mass media and entertainment group NBCUniversal. Gala has also collaborated with legendary game developers like Peter Molyneux and Will Wright, and partnered with music heavyweights like Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, Brray, and Kings of Leon.

Since its inception, Gala has gradually become a leading player in the Web3 entertainment space. The development of GalaChain showcases its relentless pursuit of innovation, providing a robust and multifunctional blockchain platform to support its growing ecosystem.

How Does GalaChain Work?

GalaChain combines advanced blockchain technology with a solid network infrastructure to create a multifunctional and high-performance platform for the Gala ecosystem.

Hyperledger Fabric (HLF)

GalaChain is built on the powerful foundation of Hyperledger Fabric (HLF), which provides a modular architecture with interchangeable components such as consensus and membership services. This plug-and-play environment allows GalaChain to be customized according to the specific needs of the Gala ecosystem. HLF is a project initiated by the Linux Foundation in 2015, promoting cross-industry blockchain technology development through collaboration and community-driven efforts.

A key feature of HLF is its private and permissioned nature, making it very suitable for enterprise use. Companies like Honeywell, Walmart, and Bosch utilize HLF to build secure, scalable, and customizable private blockchains. For GalaChain, this means it has a stable and adaptable chain that supports all components of the Gala entertainment ecosystem.

Unlike other blockchains that rely on permissionless, probabilistic consensus algorithms and are prone to ledger forks (such as Ethereum and Bitcoin), GalaChain uses a deterministic consensus algorithm and has a specific type of node called Orderer as part of its ordering service. This asynchronous and multi-step process ensures that any block validated by peer nodes is final and accurate, eliminating the risk of ledger forks. By separating the execution of chaincode from the ordering process, GalaChain avoids bottlenecks, enhancing performance and scalability. The blockchain is designed to seamlessly integrate with the Gala platform and Gala node network.

Founder's Nodes

The Founder's Node ecosystem is another cornerstone of the GalaChain architecture. Limited to only 50,000 nodes, these operators play a key role in providing players with true asset and content ownership. By running Founder's Nodes, operators help maintain a decentralized infrastructure that supports complex, decentralized tasks customized for specific project needs. The daily allocation of these Founder's Nodes is the only way to generate $GALA tokens.

In addition to Founder's Nodes, many projects within the Gala ecosystem run individual nodes with specialized workloads. The Gala node network supports customized tasks and provides a unique method for project monetization, bypassing the complexities of traditional ICOs and reducing centralized costs. Their effectiveness has been proven as a backbone for existing applications and top games.

These nodes are developed by experts who have built some of the largest gaming networks globally, providing unparalleled experience and scalability. This allows projects to scale their node networks as needed, potentially eliminating the need for data centers and cloud hosting costs.

The operational scope of Founder's Nodes is expected to expand significantly in the near future. They are anticipated to take on key responsibilities such as bridging transactions and chain security. Their versatility and ability to adapt to various roles ensure the robustness and agility of the ecosystem, enabling it to effectively tackle current and future challenges.

Features of GalaChain

The following features make GalaChain a sustainable and accessible platform, supporting a wide range of applications for both developers and users within the Gala ecosystem.

Environmentally Friendly

GalaChain is designed with environmental protection in mind, with energy consumption significantly lower than that of other blockchain platforms while providing excellent computational power. This design philosophy ensures the sustainability and efficiency of GalaChain, aligning with global initiatives to reduce technological energy consumption.

Developer Friendly

GalaChain places a strong emphasis on developer experience, providing a wealth of resources that make the platform more approachable and usable. Utilizing TypeScript, developers can efficiently create contracts and tokens, lowering the entry barrier for those unfamiliar with specialized languages like Solidity. GalaChain offers developers an easily accessible open-source SDK, which includes custom chaincode templates to simplify the development process. Additionally, the extremely simplified design of the Gala Creator Portal allows innovators and developers to easily turn their ideas into reality, facilitating the creation of more possibilities on-chain.

GalaChain Ecosystem

The GalaChain ecosystem integrates various platforms and applications, leveraging blockchain technology to enhance user experiences in gaming, music, film, and more.

Gala Games

As the cornerstone of the GalaChain ecosystem, Gala Games boasts a portfolio of 17 games, including 6 early access games and 3 upcoming titles. These games support multiple platforms, including browser, mobile (Android and iOS), Windows, and Mac.

Currently, 12 games have launched on GalaChain, including Champions Arena, Legacy, and The Walking Dead: Empires, which leverage GalaChain's robust infrastructure to provide players with a seamless and enhanced gaming experience. Gala's carefully curated game lineup recently welcomed Voyager: Ascension—the first third-party game to launch on the Gala platform. The integration of GalaChain ensures better performance, lower transaction costs, and higher security, becoming a key factor in the continued success and expansion of Gala Games.

Gala Music

Gala Music is a decentralized music streaming platform supported by GalaChain and IPFS. Artists can convert their songs into NFTs and sell them directly on Gala Music without sharing revenue with traditional producers. The digital signatures of the songs are uploaded to GalaChain as NFTs. The $MUSIC token is the native token of the platform, and Gala Music boasts over 20,000 Jukebox nodes, making it one of the largest DePIN networks. Jukebox node operators earn MUSIC token rewards for supporting the ecosystem, benefiting artists, track owners, and listeners alike.

Gala Music allows artists to retain ownership of their intellectual property, providing transparency and improved monetization pathways. Fans can interact directly with musicians through the platform and gain access to exclusive content and merchandise. With the support of iconic artists like Snoop Dogg and Jordin Sparks, Gala Music has registered over 200 music creators.

Gala Film

Gala Film is a decentralized platform that allows filmmakers to tokenize their works as NFTs. This ensures transparency, security, and enhanced monetization, giving creators greater control over their intellectual property. By interacting directly with audiences, filmmakers can offer exclusive content access and merchandise purchasing rights.

Theater nodes are the backbone of Gala's decentralized film ecosystem. By owning and operating Theater nodes, users can contribute computing power to host film content and receive daily rewards. Additionally, users can own Moments—unique scenes from movies or series that generate rewards whenever the content is viewed. These Moments vary in rarity, providing a unique and rewarding experience for creators and audiences within the community.

Furthermore, the upcoming $FILM token will serve as the functional token within the Gala Film ecosystem.

NFTs

The GalaChain ecosystem includes a variety of popular NFT series, covering in-game NFTs from Gala Games, music NFTs from Gala Music, and film NFTs from Gala Film. These NFTs provide unique digital assets, enhancing user engagement and offering new monetization opportunities for creators. NFT enthusiasts can mint and transfer NFTs on GalaChain Inventory or through third-party markets like NFTHarbor.io.

Source: Footprint Analytics GalaChain NFT Dashboard

DeFi

GalaSwap supports direct token swaps on GalaChain, allowing users to seamlessly trade $GALA and other bridgeable tokens. The GalaSwap project token creation tool enables the creation of custom tokens on GalaChain and allows creators to distribute minting quotas to on-chain addresses as desired.

$GALA Token

The $GALA token serves as the foundational functional token within the Gala ecosystem, designed to facilitate seamless and secure payments and incentive mechanisms among network participants.

$GALA

$GALA is designed to provide seamless and secure payment and incentive models for participants in the network.

$GALA is the primary reward mechanism for Founder's Nodes, accumulating daily based on uptime benchmarks to support network workloads. Founder's Nodes also receive allocations of other tokens within the ecosystem, as well as a small proportion of NFTs minted on GalaChain.

$GALA utilizes a Gnosis multi-signature vault, ensuring that no single team member has unilateral access, reinforcing the principle of collective oversight and enhancing operational security.

The total supply cap of $GALA is 50 billion tokens. The daily issuance rate is dynamically adjusted based on circulating supply. When $GALA is used as fees or burned to support activities within the Gala ecosystem, the supply decreases. At launch, $GALA had no pre-mined or initial allocation, with all tokens earned through operating Founder's Nodes within the Gala ecosystem, with 100% of $GALA allocated to Founder's Nodes.

GalaChain Allowance

GalaChain Allowance is a system that grants rewards through running nodes or other various incentive mechanisms, allowing users to convert these rewards into on-chain tokens in their wallets at their convenience. Once granted GalaChain Allowance, users can choose to convert or realize the allowance, transferring tokens to their GalaChain wallets.

This system ensures that rewards or tokens are reserved for users until they are ready to mint them, providing a flexible and cost-free way to manage rewards and in-game assets. It is an evolution of the previous Treasure Chest system used by Gala before the launch of GalaChain, when tokens were minted on Ethereum. It allows users to control any costs or tax implications of minting.

Future Plans for GalaChain

According to the Gala Ecosystem Blueprint, the roadmap for GalaChain in the third quarter of 2024 covers several key developments aimed at enhancing its ecosystem. The upcoming node workload development SDK will support the creation of nodes for specific games and events, while the chaincode template reward program will encourage innovation among community developers.

GalaChain plans to create more open-source options around leveraging its platform, alongside the GalaChain SDK already used by developers, to establish their own channels and deploy their own chaincode on GalaChain. Additionally, SDKs for Android and iOS will be developed to expand mobile development within the Gala ecosystem, as well as an SDK for Unreal Engine to support advanced game development.

Looking ahead to the fourth quarter of 2024 and beyond, GalaChain aims to establish bridges (cross-chain bridges) with other prominent blockchain ecosystems, enhancing interoperability and the utility of the Gala ecosystem. Plans also include providing developers with the opportunity to deploy Isochain on Founder's Nodes, selecting the desired number of nodes to achieve the required level of resilience. This will incentivize and reward node operators, ensuring they continue to contribute to the network.

Conclusion

GalaChain, as the infrastructure of the Gala ecosystem, combines advanced blockchain technology with a robust node network. With significant influence in Web3 game development, GalaChain plays a key role in innovation within the gaming industry. With its innovative features, developer-friendly tools, and decentralized structure, GalaChain not only meets the diverse needs of the Gala ecosystem but also lays a solid foundation for future development.