ICO ON SPOTLIGHT: GameChain
Website: https://www.gamechain.world
Telegram: https://t.me/gamechainworld
Twitter: https://twitter.com/GameChainWorld
GameChain is a “lightning fast EOS-fork customized specifically to the needs of the gaming community.” They claim to be the first blockchain-agnostic gaming blockchain, with atomic swaps and on-chain developer tools to build games.
The team has a history of working on games (PC and mobile), and they have an interesting partnership with EOS Gravity which has probably the largest EOS community in the world behind them. The team is largely based out of China but also has an office in Singapore and has a presence in the Isle of Man.
Perhaps the most interesting goal of GameChain is to allow game developers to crowdfund new games on their platform by taking contributions of various cryptocurrencies. In order to avoid the volatility of crypto prices, the platform will immediately convert contributions to Tether. Kickstarter would be the main competition here, and if like me, you believe in a decentralized future, I’m sure you’d like an alternative to kickstarter where up to 8% of your contribution doesn’t reach the developer.
Use Case
There are a broad set of features that the GCC token will be applied to. From paying for distributed computing and storage, to trading decentralized virtual items in-game. They also plan to launch a Twitch-like service where streamers can be tipped using the token, and developers can pay beta testers in GCC tokens.
Competition
Anyone who’s been in crypto for a while has heard of GameCredits, but you may have missed the recent alarming news regarding the management of that project. While the community intends to persist and rebuild, they have many hurdles ahead of them.
In terms of other upcoming competitors there is Yumerium, although they focus more on VR games than GameChain. From an investment point of view, I have some concerns with them.
First, they plan to use ethereum for their smart contracts (at least initially). Ethereum has struggled with scalability due to events like Cryptokitties and the Fcoin exchange voting competition. Second, even in the recent bear market, fees (and confirmation times) spiked to ridiculous levels not seen since the height of the last bull run. Also, I own a VR headset and I’m sad to say I’m not willing to bet on VR going mainstream anytime soon.
With a hardcap of $9 million, the GameChain token has more than double the upside compared to Yumerium’s $20 million hardcap.
Token Info
The tokenomics for GameChain take some time to wrap your head around, but it looks designed to restrict supply initially, similar to what PundiX did with their monthly airdrops. Anyone who holds GCC will get more tokens every month in the first 2 years, proportional to how many tokens they have.
This is combined with a separate ‘Last Man Standing’ reward where ICO buyers are rewarded for not moving a single token out of their wallet. Rewards increase as more people are disqualified, making this one of the strongest holder incentives I’ve seen.
Roadmap
The roadmap shows a steady progression from testnet to mainnet in the first 3 months after the sale. The timing of the mainnet and crowdsale features in early 2019 could line up with the bull market we usually see at the start of each year in crypto.
Team
The leadership seem strong and they each have some relevant prior experience. Oliver, the CEO, is a game producer and has run other gaming companies in the past. The Operations Director worked on the MMO ‘Star Wars: The Old Republic’.
They have 35 full-time employees working out of Shanghai. That’s quite a lot of manpower for an ICO starting off.
Advisors
The advisors are solid in my opinion. Having the co-founder of EOS Gravity as an advisor will open doors for them; moreover, the co-founder of PPTV (Chinese Youtube) surely has amazing connections as well.
Conclusion
Overall I’ve been impressed by GameChain. The choice to use a proven, scalable architecture instead of relying on slow ethereum smart contracts is encouraging. The team and their connections seem solid, and the tokenomics seem to be focused on restricting circulating supply, similar to one of the few ICOs that performed well in 2018 such as PundiX.
Usually in this market I would wait on the sidelines to see what happens after distribution, but with these metrics the reward for buying in ICO is potentially very high. Further, due of their strong holding incentives which has similarities to Storm and PundiX’s strategy, I was finally compelled to follow their Telegram channel. I highly recommend you do the same so that you won’t miss the latest updates.
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