Quarters: Decentralized coins for games

“I hate it when my coins that I bought and earned are stuck in games I no longer play. Why can’t I use them in another game?” — George Weiksner, 12

Why can’t you use your coins from one game in another? Simple question, asked by a kid.

Why can’t I use my Clash of Clans gems in Candy Crush?

The App Store is a business estimated to be over $58B per year, and growing. Yet, no major app store allows players to bring coins from one game to another. Why? They can’t! The App Store model requires players make purchases *through* the app store, not with games directly. The App Store intentionally fragments games, one from another, and games from players.

Imagine: what if you could bring your coins to new games? As a player, you could easily switch to new games when you become bored. You could mix “grinder” games to earn coins, with AAA titles that require fancy in-app purchases. You would be able to buy coins with confidence, because they can be used in many, many games that you might want to play. The benefits of removing these centralized barriers are easily seen.

What are the “unseen” possibilities afforded by decentralization?

Decentralization supercharges traditional games. Poker is much more fun if you can use your winnings in other games. (Paying to play single-app slots still boggles my mind.) Even single-player games can be made social, for example, by having an escalating pot to win if you beat the high score among your friends.

Generation Z spends almost all its time with video and messaging apps

Anything social becomes game, with decentralization. Think:

• Celebrity trivia, right on YouTube.
• Slots in your kitchen, on Alexa.
• Mafia Wars, on Snapchat.
• Poker with friends, on WhatsApp.

Without the shackles of a centralized intermediary, games and players will surely find new and interesting ways to have fun.

Decentralization changes who plays games, where they play, and even what a game is.

Cryptocurrency is a possible way to offer decentralized gaming. Cryptocurrency and blockchains can enable games and players to exchange value without a central authority. Also, the blockchain provides transparency to gamers and player around transfers, and helps to validate claims like how likely to win you may be.

Cryptocurrencies are decentralizing everything. What about games?

So, why can’t we use existing cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum? A gaming token should be a use token to play games *only*, and have no financial value to players. Tokens with financial value would be gambling, which is illegal in the US and many countries. But there are also psychological reasons (it’s more fun), game theoretical reasons (no bribes) and practical/historic reasons (in app purchases).

We need a new token “where a kid can be a kid” again

To unleash the potential of decentralized gaming, we need a new coin for gameplay.

Other tokens are hybrid investment + utility token. What would a token designed exclusively for utility look like? Quarters is designed to play games only, including these novel features:

1. Quarters will be the first token for use to play games only. Like “Chuck E Cheese” and other arcade tokens, you can buy Quarters but you can’t redeem them when you leave. (But they can be used in game outside the arcade, of course!)
2. Developer earnings reward scale non-linearly. The largest “Mega” developers drive adoption and monetization. Smaller developers tap into a network of Quarters players. If you game is great, anyone can become Mega developer. Check out our pricing model to see how Mega developer can earn 2–3x what they would earn with Google or Apple’s App Store.
3. Quarters have a fixed price for players. Players can always buy 4 Quarters for $1.
4. Quarters flow quickly from source to sink. Players buy Quarters, use them in games, and then developers exchange Quarters for ETH. No one wants to hold Quarters; they only have value if you use them.
5. Free Quarters! Players get Free Quarters when they sign up, and whenever the number of Quarters sold doubles. Free Quarters are a fun reward for everyone in the Quarters network. Learn more about how we invite players to buy Quarters.

Read the white paper to learn about Quarters’ novel smart contract features and check out the open source Quarters contract to see how they work.

As Vitalik Butterin talks about, you have to be clear: what becomes decentralized, and what will be centralized? Decentralized: Quarters and Q2 tokens (see below). Centralized: “Pocketful of Quarters (PoQ)” PoQ mission is to facilitate adoption of Quarters by players and developers. PoQ provides such goodies a hot wallets for players, SDKs for developers, and governance of the tokens in the early days. The mission of PoQ is make it easy for players and developer to buy Quarters and play games.

The rise of the Ethereum ecosystem finally enables the rise of a universal cryptocurrency for games.

What about investors? Q2s are the companion investment token for Quarters. Q2 tokens entitle owners to a proportionate share of all ETH from the sale of Quarters. Proceeds of the ICO will be used to catalyze growth directly: Free Quarters for players, and the largest Crypto Game Jam with 1,000+ ETH at stake for developers. Learn more about the ICO pre-sale for Q2. Instead of a hybrid token, we unbundle it into a pure utility token (Quarters) and a pure investment token (Q2).

Learn more at www.pocketfulofquarters.com. Buy Quarters, play games!

Now, get involved:

1. Investors: Join us on telegram for the latest on the ICO of Q2s
2. Players: Join us on Discord to discuss games and Quarters or get started now (ALPHA)
3. Developers: Join us on Discord to discuss the Crypto Game Jam and collecting Quarters in your games (and get API access).