Going with the Flow — Nifty Football’s New Blockchain
Last week brought the exciting news of Nifty Football’s intention to build on the Flow Network, along with the decision to delay our token launch until after Beta. We take a look at what’s changed and why.
The Nifty nerve centre has been a hive of activity in recent weeks and that’s not just because we’re busy working away on the Beta version of the game. Followers of Nifty Football on Twitter will remember that Good Friday we excitedly announced our new partnership with the Flow network through Troon Technologies. Flow has become the go-to blockchain for NFT projects and their associated games and could not be a more perfect fit for Nifty, thanks to its slick transaction execution, user-friendly interface and scalability.
3rd Time’s a Charm
Legacy supporters of Nifty Football will remember all too well how spiralling Ethereum gas fees helped to put the project almost indefinitely on hold back in 2019. Nifty wasn’t the only one. As Ethereum faced up to the scalability problems they’re now in the midst of fixing, a slew of blockchain projects suffered a similar fate as unprecedented congestion and demand brought the ecosystem to a halt.
Layer-2 scaling solutions offered a solution to the problem by taking much of the hard work off the main Ethereum network while still using its basic code and infrastructure, in order to provide seamless interoperability. The Nifty Football platform was all set to be built on the industry-leading Polygon network, a side-chain which offers the scalability required for NFT-based games at a low cost to the user and to the environment.
However, the emergence of Flow as a purpose-built network for NFTs with utility is effectively a game-changer in this particular space. The unprecedented success of NBA Top Shot — far and away the largest sports NFT franchise in the world right now — proves the Flow network’s suitability for the task in hand beyond all reasonable doubt.
Flow Network — How it Began
The Flow blockchain was created by Dapper Labs, who suffered their fair share of misery caused by Ethereum’s scalability problems way back in 2017. Dapper Labs had been behind one of the earliest ever NFT crazes — the Crypto Kitties. If 2019 was the ice age for NFTs, 2017 must have been closer to the big bang, and nobody could have foreseen the frenzied activity that would cause the creaking Ethereum network to grind to a halt and transaction fees to go through the roof.
Probably feeling a tad short-changed, the Dapper team decided to build their own network in response — one that would stand up to the challenges posed by the minting of NFTs, trading and a game engine that inspired intense activity on the part of a passionate fan base.
Originally Flow was purpose built just for the Kitties, but it soon became apparent that the technology was applicable to the wave of NFT projects that were quickly dominating the crypto imagination. With NBA Top Shot, Dapper Labs took sports NFTs to a mainstream audience and collaborations are now in place with UFC, Dr Seuss and a host of other blue-chip brands looking to enter the space.
Key Features
At the heart of Flow’s success is the speed and efficiency with which the system is able to validate and store transactions on its blockchain. This is down to a revolutionary new system dubbed multi-role architecture, whereby nodes (the hardwares scattered across the globe that validate transactions) are divided into four different types: Consensus, Verification, Execution and Collection. Each type of node is optimised to perform its specific tasks in the validation process, reducing any redundancy of systems or waste of time and energy. As with any proof-of-stake (PoS) protocol, all node owners have skin in the game and are therefore incentivised to operate efficiently and flawlessly.
Thanks to this remarkable efficiency in the validation process, Flow is also an exceptionally green network, with the minting of an NFT said to cost less in carbon emissions than a social media post.
Also key to the consolidation of Flow’s position as industry leader are its resource-oriented programming and designer ergonomics — two features that go hand-in-hand to make the Flow ecosystem superbly versatile and easy to work with for developers. Flow utilises a state-of-the-art programming language named Cadence which is simple, intuitive and secure, with upgradable smart contracts allowing third parties maximum room for creativity.
Bringing the Metaverse to the Mainstream
Sports collectibles are an institution of a bygone age that has enjoyed a significant renaissance thanks to the emergence of NFTs and with NBA Top Shot Dapper Labs have truly begun to break through the glass ceiling, taking blockchain into the mainstream imagination.
Here at Nifty Football, we shamelessly aspire to do the same thing, eyeing a potential market of football management gamers that numbers in the millions, as well as digital art collectors and the wider world of football fans across the globe.
The Flow network is designed to be super-friendly to the non-initiated, with a user experience interface that is second-to-none. Fundamentally, users will be able to ramp onto the network directly with fiat currency (using Apple Pay among other options), rather than have to buy their first crypto on an exchange.
$NFTF Token Launch to come with PvP
Eagle-eyed followers of Nifty Football here on Medium might have noticed the redaction that was made just last week to the article Nifty Football — The Game in Beta, originally published March 14th 2022. While the original plan on the Polygon network was to launch the token at the same time as the Beta release, the new developments have now prompted the wise decision to delay that launch.
That unfortunately means no one will be able to buy and stake $NFTF while we wait for PvP to come out. Sorry about that.
Now is an opportune moment however to remind our darling readers that the Beta version of Nifty Football, which is due out in a matter of weeks, will be completely off-chain. In other words, there will be no money involved. Play-to-Earn Nifty Football is set to come out around the turn of this year and that is when the token will be launched and be made stakeable for rewards.
This is primarily because the Beta phase is expected to be largely experimental, an ongoing cycle of trial and error during which time the developers will need to re-adjust much of the mechanics inside the game engine, as well as the algorithms that dictate how XP is awarded. In other words, the goalposts will be constantly moving in Beta, so it wouldn’t be right to have real monetary value in the game at this stage, no matter how small.
What’s more, the player NFTs will be minted not during the Beta phase but at the end, when everything goes on-chain. Don’t worry though, any progress you’ve made in developing your players during the Beta phase will transcend into the PvP phase!
Be Careful What you Wish for!
When Ethereum’s scalability issues spelled doom for Nifty Football 2019 along with a myriad of similar projects, dedicated fans may have been forgiven for being a bit down in the dumps about things and wishing that Vitalik and the gang had been a bit sharper in pre-empting the ordeal. Yet here we are in April of 2022 and Ethereum 2.0 is still in the works, while a host of new networks are being developed to bring bespoke ways to meet the challenges that each individual project faces.
If the Nifty Football project had come to fruition as originally planned back in 2019, we wouldn’t have had the Flow network, and with this infrastructure below us it’s fair to say the project is in a healthier state than it’s ever been. Added to that, we have true scalability offered by a network that is specifically designed to support platforms such as ours.
In other words, a solid foundation has now been laid for when Nifty Football becomes bigger than the real thing!
Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter and join our Discord community for the opportunity to play Nifty Football in Beta and influence the development of the first real P2E football management simulator game that utilises high quality digital artwork as tradable NFTs!
Disclaimer: This article is not trading nor investment advice nor financial advice. I am not a financial advisor. The above article is for informational and educational purposes only. Please do your own research before making any financial decision especially purchasing or investing in any stock or digital asset.
