Enjin x Binance Russia AMA
In our second AMA hosted by Binance, Enjin CTO Witek Radomski and CMO Ilija Rolović answered questions for thousands of Binance Russia community members.
After participating in a successful AMA earlier this year with more than 7,000 Binance community members, we were happy to receive a second invitation from Binance to answer questions for their Russian community.
With nearly 3,000 people tuned in, this was another excellent opportunity for us to increase awareness of the Enjin ecosystem in a new corner of the globe.
Here’s what our CTO Witek Radomski and CMO Ilija Rolović had to say.
Can you tell us about Enjin Coin? I understand that Enjin Coin gets staked into all of the blockchain assets minted using your blockchain game development platform. How does this work?
Ilija: There’s a bit of a problem with digital gaming assets of today: game developers can create them into infinity, from thin air. Our solution to this problem is simple: require some ENJ as a “crafting” material for each and every blockchain asset created with our platform. That way, every asset has a very, very real cost, and the possibility of virtual asset value tanking due to hyperinflation is zero. (This actually happened with Team Fortress 2 quite recently, and their game economy crashed).
Enjin Coin is basically… a digital resource. In one game, that resource could be used to back the value of trillions of mana-infused gems; in another, it can provide the floor value for player-made cities or spacecraft.
Every ERC-1155 blockchain asset or item minted with the Enjin Platform must have some amount of Enjin Coin (can be a large or small amount) infused into it. For example, an item called the Monolith has 1,155,777 ENJ (about US $85,000) backing it, while other items are backed by smaller amounts, like 1 or 10 ENJ.
The creator of an item (usually the game developer) decides how much ENJ an item should be worth, and the amount is staked in a smart contract during minting. Any person that holds that item in the future can “melt” it at any time to collect the ENJ backing. But melting the item will destroy it, as well as its utility in games.
Over 1% of ENJ total supply (more than 10.5 million ENJ) has already been locked into 66 million+ items, but this is just the beginning of the adoption journey for us. ;)
Witek, your ERC-1155 token standard was recently adopted by Ethereum as an official token standard. Can you tell us more about ERC-1155 and why it’s important?
Witek: When we started building our blockchain ecosystem for game developers, the existing ERC-20 and ERC-721 token standards were not flexible enough for most real games. With many games having thousands of item types, we needed a way to create new tokens on Ethereum without needing to deploy a smart contract for each item.
We realized a new token standard would be needed. Standardizing this meant that the Ethereum community would all be able to utilize these tokens, and it would pave the way for quicker adoption in wallets, exchanges, games, and new blockchain projects.
ERC-1155 enables developers to issue both fungible and non-fungible tokens in one smart contract. You can think of this like a vending machine with a variety of snacks and drinks — similarly, developers can mint and manage a wide variety of different tokens in the same smart contract with ERC-1155.
ERC-1155 also allows multiple tokens to be sent in a single transaction, which offers significant savings on gas costs (by up to 90%!) and prevents the need to wait for each block in single transfers.
Finally, the token standard has many great features like support for multiple languages in metadata, guaranteed execution for smart contracts that receive tokens, and a guaranteed log format that describes every operation including minting and burning tokens.
ERC-1155 is a powerful standard that can be used to certify all forms of ownership, tangible or digital, from currency and real estate to digital art and gaming items.
The Enjin Wallet was one of the first wallets to add BNB support and will feature Binance DEX integration in the future. Could you both tell us about your other favorite features?
Ilija: It’s not exactly a feature, and it’s just an old, tiny user experience quirk, but I love it. Might be tricky to explain, and you need to see it to get it, but let me try.
In the early versions of the Enjin Wallet app, every time you’d create a new wallet, you’d have to back up your 12 word recovery phrase before you could use it. While it might not be that big of a deal for seasoned blockchain enthusiasts, this is a big (and annoying) roadblock for people that are unfamiliar with cryptocurrency wallets.
So… we took that entire “12 word backup” and moved it to a screen that appears AFTER you create your wallet (there’s just a red notification urging you to back up your wallet; you can make it go away if you want), meaning that the user experience became way, way more streamlined.
Now, all you have to do to create a new wallet is to click a button, pick a password, and bam: you’ve got instant access to one of (if not, the) most powerful piece of blockchain tech of today. And if you’ve got valuable assets in your wallet, you can easily back it up by writing down 12 words on a piece of paper; the important thing is that you don’t need immediate access to a pen and paper in case you want to get started with blockchain.
Witek: I have 2 favorites. First, the Enjin Wallet can communicate with blockchain games you are playing in real-time and show you a notification to confirm a trade or make a purchase in the game. This is pretty unique to Enjin and makes gameplay safe and secure.
I like this feature because it’s a step towards total integration of blockchain and gaming, and makes transactions really simple: just a tap on your phone, the game engine is notified, and the blockchain transaction executes. Here’s a video that showcases this via EnjinCraft, our blockchain Minecraft server:
Second is Enjin Beam, which you’ll get to experience at the end of our AMA. Enjin Beam is a QR-powered blockchain asset distribution service. By simply scanning a QR code, you can receive blockchain assets straight to your Enjin Wallet.
Game developers and businesses can use Beam to distribute tons of different items, such as game items, digital currency, trophies, coupons, gift cards, event tickets, membership cards, certificates of authenticity, and more. And these QR codes can be posted anywhere — websites, live streams, social media, packaging, posters, receipts, presentations, etc.
Your blockchain game development platform (the Enjin Platform), including the Enjin Blockchain SDK for Unity, will soon be released publicly to Ethereum Mainnet. What does this mean for the Enjin ecosystem, and why are developers choosing to adopt these tools?
Witek: We’re very excited to finally release the full Enjin Platform on Ethereum Mainnet! This will open the doors for game developers to begin releasing their games to the public using real Enjin Coin. Dozens of games have been in development on our platform over the last year, and we can’t wait to see even more developers begin using these tools and super-charging their projects with blockchain.
So far, we’ve seen quite a few early games using our platform receive the funding they needed for their development costs, which has allowed them to bring their ideas into reality. Gamers have started playing some of the early alpha releases from some of these developers and giving them great feedback. Now that the Mainnet platform is on the verge of going live, every game developer can take their game all the way from idea to release, and to monetization. They will be able to stake real Enjin Coin into their gaming items and view these items on the EnjinX blockchain explorer.
Game item ownership is a transformative concept for the game industry. Players will feel more connected to their favorite games since their actions carry more weight, and they have more power over their characters and items. Blockchain also allows communities and mods to form around games in ways that weren’t possible before with closed databases.
Forward-thinking game developers can see the massive potential this holds, and they will be creating the next generation of games using blockchain technology.
EnjinX has been referred to as the blockchain explorer for mainstream adopters. Can you tell us more about it?
Ilija: Well… At Enjin, we are not big fans of ads, tracking codes and stuff like that—basically anything that interrupts the user or violates their privacy.
To give you an example, the Enjin Wallet is completely private, there’s zero ads and no trackers.
We are also big fans of simplicity. In fact, one could argue that our mission is to simplify blockchain, as complexity is one of the main barriers to worldwide adoption.
So, if you know this about us (that we don’t like ads and trackers, and we love simplicity), the fact that we built EnjinX shouldn’t come as a surprise.
EnjinX is basically Google for blockchain assets. It’s clean, fast, minimal. It features no ads. It was built to overcome the limitations we saw presented by the complexity and ad-focused nature of Etherscan and other blockchain explorers.
It’s universal chain ready, which creates an amazing user experience that will propel mainstream adoption. It currently supports Ethereum, ERC-20, and ERC-1155 blockchain assets, with Binance Chain, Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dogecoin, and ERC-721 support to come in the future.
It is mobile-friendly and available in over 15 languages, including Russian, with local currencies, night mode, and custom themes. :D
EnjinX is also highly adaptable.
Check out this custom Binance version: https://binance.enjinx.io
Are there any updates planned on the EnjinCraft server? When will the new quests be available?
Witek: The EnjinCraft server is an ongoing experiment and test environment to showcase our Minecraft blockchain plugin. We’ve relaunched it recently to the community, and as we add new features to the Enjin Platform, we’ll probably be testing and showing them off in EnjinCraft.
But in the end, it’s a demo. We want real Minecraft servers to use the Minecraft Plugin, which will be released very soon :)
Is the exact Enjin MFT lock date known?
Witek: The Enjin MFT lock date isn’t set in stone yet, we’re waiting until the ERC-1155 Marketplace is live so they can be securely traded before determining the lock date.
On your blog, the latest news about entering the Japanese market. How do you plan to attract new players in Japan and what results do you want to achieve?
Ilija: There’s a golden rule if you want to get into Japan as a business — you need a local partner, and there’s no way around it. We’ve partnered with HashPort, a brilliant company with many valuable connections, so they will help us to attract Japanese game developers and gamers.
This question is of interest to many gamers and game developers. Are large or large-scale online games being developed with rare and unique items?
Witek: The majority of games in development right now (around 30 games) are indie developers — these are the guys willing to take risks and explore a new technology like blockchain.
But we’ve seen interest from larger and medium-size games at the last GDC, and we’ve talked to a few that are very interested in adding collectibles, tokenization, and ownership of characters into their game experience.
I think once a handful of indie games show success, the larger game developers and publishers are going to take serious notice. We’ve already seen a few larger game developers show interest in blockchain recently.
Will there be a universal store platform where you can buy or sell items for ENJIN for any of the games that will be connected to your system?
Ilija: There is going to be a place to trade and sell millions of ENJ-backed ERC-1155 blockchain assets — and it’s actually on EnjinX, which will get it’s long-awaited Marketplace update, and in the Enjin Wallet. Here’s a sneak-peek:
I need to add that I believe that UX/UI for the marketplace is beyond amazing.
Who are your competitors, and why do you consider yourself better than them?
Witek: There are a number of blockchain projects wanting to be a part of the gaming space, for sure.
I don’t really consider any of them a direct competitor to Enjin, everyone’s trying different approaches right now. Loom’s focused on sidechains and an API, WAX is doing skin marketplace, and there are many others.
But I think Enjin is extremely unique because of our vision and approach. We want to make all sides of the blockchain gaming ecosystem much easier to understand and use, by both developers and gamers. We also want to remove as many barriers as possible, and remain a neutral platform, which every single game in the world could technically use.
We appeal to many different users:
- End-users with our wallet and blockchain explorer
- Game developers with our SDK and platform
- Enterprises with Beam and our powerful API and tools
What foreign community development is the most important for you besides the English-speaking?
Ilija: Currently, Korea. We opened an office there last year, and we have an amazing Korean community. We’ve attended and spoken at numerous events there (for example, Unite Seoul in May this year).
Much like Japan, Korea is a specific market, so again, there is no way to market unless you have “boots on the ground,” so to speak. In terms of both blockchain and gaming, it’s one of the biggest markets in the world.
For gaming specifically, it’s the 4th largest in the world, with over 28 million players and $5.6 billion in gaming revenues. It’s also peculiar, as almost all Korean game developers are also blockchain enthusiasts, which is not the case in the West, for example.
Are you planning to update the roadmap? What areas of development are a priority?
Witek: We’ve been maintaining a very detailed roadmap internally — so yes, we should definitely update the public one1 :) Things move fast in the blockchain space, so we’ve added various new projects and moved a few priorities around since 2 years ago.
Right now, we’re heavily focused on Efinity, our scaling platform for gaming. We’re also putting the final touches on the ERC-1155 Marketplace... and we have a few very cool new features that we’ve spec’ed out that we will be developing in the coming few months! I can’t wait for these.
We’re also building a very user-friendly web admin panel for all our tools, so users and businesses will be able to mint tokens online, send them out using Enjin Beam, and all that. It will be really powerful.
Do you plan to add support for other types of tokens, such as trc-10, for example?
Witek: We haven’t planned to integrate tokens like TRC-10 right now. But we’re planning to add support for the most popular blockchains into EnjinX and the wallet.
Game items are created for trade, that is, prices for items will often rise. Then what’s the point in the function of “destroying” a game item and returning ENJ tokens? Who agrees to delete an item knowing that will receive tokens for a much smaller amount?
Ilija: So there’s two types of value when it comes to a blockchain gaming asset. One is the value that’s backed in Enjin Coin (“ENJ-backed value”). The other is the perceived value of an asset, which is basically its market price.
A sword that is backed by 1 ENJ could be sold for 1,000 ENJ on the market, if that sword is unique/was created by a famous twitcher/has great stats/was modified in some way/etc.
So, the “point” of an asset (a gaming character, a weapon, a dragon, or an entire planet; anything in-game, or even the game itself) is that there’s a “floor” value that you can be 100% certain you’ll get. In other words, melting an asset is the absolute worst-case scenario — it likely means that the game is dead, with no players left or with servers gone. In most cases, a player would just sell their assets for market value.
Now, there’s one thing I’ve got to add to this: besides the ENJ-backed value, for some items, there’s also an added layer of security, so to speak, which is interoperability. We have dozens of games now that have shared “Multiverse” items, which can be used across multiple different games.
So even if one game dies off or fails, players aren’t left with an item that has 0 utility, as you can just bring it to other games that support it and use it there.
Check out the first playable Multiverse item in action:
How does ENJ differ from classic crypto? Do you have plans to persuade the average user that crypto is “good”?
Witek: Enjin is a new generation of blockchain project compared to classic crypto chains like Bitcoin. The ENJ token itself is extremely utility-focused: to create certified ERC-1155 items on the platform, you have to lock some ENJ into each item. There will be further integrated uses for ENJ once more components of the Enjin system are live.
In any case, the goal is to show the world how tokenizing concepts like “game items,” “collectibles,” “characters,” and“licenses” can bring a completely new form of addictive engagement to a game or business. It gamifies an entire experience by giving you a collectible item that you hold and own.
People have traded things between each other for all of history, but only in the digital space have these virtual items been locked down and owned/ controlled by companies. With blockchain items, users finally get this new dimension of ownership. I think this form of ownership is going to be EXPECTED by everyone in the future, once the mainstream public starts using this technology in their daily lives.
Please tell us how and under what circumstances did the idea of a token originate?
Witek: Enjin has been around for over 10 years, and our core business was focused around community-building and monetization of online games, especially Minecraft servers.
We noticed that a lot of Minecraft servers were selling items and power-ups to their users, and they were extremely popular. We started thinking about how we could use blockchain to improve the experience even further.
The ENJ token was made because there was a disconnect between virtual collectibles and value. In the most basic sense, we see game developers adding more ENJ to some of the rare items, and less ENJ to the common items. This staking mechanism actually protects players, because if a game item stops being supported by games, there is still some value available to retrieve.
Why use the ENJ token as a reserve? Wouldn’t it be more practical to use stablecoin?
Witek: The ENJ token is actually ideal, because the success of the entire platform and idea will be reflected in the usage of Enjin Coin. As more games start minting items, and more utility cases are added for ENJ, it will behave naturally like any “raw material” in the real-world free market.
We’d like to extend a big thank you to Binance for hosting us and Gleb for being a gracious moderator!
Now, back to our regularly scheduled #BUIDLing.
