Hi, I’m EKCO, Co-Founder of Miinded Studio and Lead Developer.
The idea with this series of article is to share some behind-the-scenes content about the genesis of ChainZoku
ChainZoku… There’s so much to say that it was hard for me to know where to start…
We dedicated 2 years of work into this project, which makes it quite a challenge to recap its in a single article. Hence why there will be several episodes!
In this one, I’ll be giving you a brief overview of how it all began and what ChainZoku means to me, and all of us.
Let’s start with a bit of history
It was late October 2021, MekaVerse had just been released, the whole team was exhausted from the drop, and we had taken a few days off in Europe. The NFT market was nearly at its peak, and the bull run was turning heads.
The ChainZoku team reached out to us at that moment to pitch their new ground-breaking project.
We took their first call in the back of a rental car in a parking lot in Malta (Miinded is never really on vacation). “Wow,” was the first thing we thought when we hung up. Our brains were bubbling with ideas (maybe also because of the scorching heat in the car).
Back in the cooler weather in France, we looked further into their pitch deck (a 30-page PDF).
Customizable 3D NFTs? That’s really something!
Over here at Miinded, we do love challenges — the harder the better! Obviously, we were beyond excited.
On top of the technical innovation and long-term vision, we loved the quality of the visuals and the strong, determined team.
We know customizable NFTs well; we’ve been doing them since our beginnings, and we absolutely love it! ERC721 makes it possible, so why not use it to our advantage?
Thus began our collaboration
After completing the necessary formalities and clearing our schedules, we started work in February 2022.
I remember the meetings with the ChainZoku team, most of them lasting over 6 hours within the same day, going over every detail, testing solutions live. I’ve lost count of my monologues lasting several minutes trying to explain complex technical points as simply as possible (or not).
Each meeting was an opportunity to further improve the project and bring new ideas to the table. For example, the real-time 3D viewer on OpenSea or the Questing System were not in the initial brief — we added them along the way. We tend to like making things even more difficult for ourselves.
But damn, what a beautiful human adventure!
Over time, ChainZoku team has become more than just clients; they’re friends.
Organization is key
Such a project needs to be well organized, so we divided the tasks into several points:
- Front-end: chainzoku.io website, myzoku.chainzoku.io
- Back-end: API api.chainzoku.io
- Smart contract: 13 smart contracts currently deployed
- Render farm: Real-time generation of Zokus
For all the Front-end part, we called on our friends at Antinomy Studio, who did a really good job. It took no less than 6 months of work, nearly 50 hours of meetings (with 10 people) to achieve these 2 amazing websites. A big thank you to all of them.
Meanwhile, at Miinded, we worked on all the submerged parts of the iceberg: the back-end, the render farm, and the smart contracts.
ChainZoku key figures:
- 3,000 hours of work,
- up to 8 developers working on the project simultaneously,
- 13 smart contracts (at the moment)
- 9 servers running continuously, including 1 Render Farm
- 2 NuxtJS projects, 3 NestJS projects, 1 Hardhat project
- over 100,000 lines of code (all projects combined)
- over 400 assets with over 1000 4k textures
- 140 GB of files (images, 3D objects, textures, blender files, …), of which 58 GB is publicly accessible.
- 150 liters of coffee and about 10 sleepless nights
What’s next?
Speaking in the past, you might think the adventure is over; but ChainZoku is constantly evolving, and we continue to deliver features. The purpose of these articles is to talk to you, in my words, about the behind-the-scenes of ChainZoku development. Showcase technical issues and our solutions.
In the next episodes, we’ll explore together:
- What a Zoku is, how it’s technically built
- 3D rendering
- Real-time 3D on Opensea
- Render Farm
- Gas fees
- Off-chain/On-chain operations
- Smart Contracts
- and a lot more!
Stay tuned for the next episode.
EKCO
-Every simple solution has its limits-
About Miinded
Miinded is a French-based multi-disciplinary web3 studio founded in 2021. We focus on creating unique experiences for creators and guide brands in their transition to web3. We offer a range of services to assist you develop, launch and scale your innovative projects, with our team providing expertise and guidance needed to make it a sucess.
We believe that blockchain lies at the core of this new era of data interaction and digital experience creation. Web3 represents the future of web development, going beyond apps to create a comprehensive ecosystem that supports our digital world.
Our services include custom smart contracts developed using the latest blockchain technologies, UX/UI design focused on intuitive user experiences, webdesign and development tailored to individual project needs, strategic consulting to ensure effective planning, and hosting services that meet specific requirements.
Our last collaborations include Pudgy Penguins, The Sandbox, Snoop Dogg, MekaVerse, and ChainZoku, which highlight the fusion of blockchain technology, digital tokens, and creative concepts to offer immersive digital experiences.
Get in touch to build with us: bonjour@miinded.com
X and Instagram accounts: @MiindedStudio
