Next Steps in the Bitcoin Ecosystem - Overview of Popular Metaverse/Gamefi Projects

The recent popularity of inscriptions has fully demonstrated the potential and mass appeal of the Bitcoin ecosystem. Compared to other public blockchains, the Bitcoin ecosystem has significant ecological value due to its foundational asset - Bitcoin.

As an ecosystem with great potential, its forms should be diverse, including but not limited to inscriptions, NFT, DEX, cross-chain, etc. Gamefi should be one of its key categories in the next stage.

The development of Gamefi in the past six months has fully proved that Gamefi is no longer a false concept, nor is it just gambling, but a real game with strong playability. Seraph and many upcoming games have proved this viewpoint.

In fact, some games or similar projects have already appeared in the Bitcoin ecosystem and deserve our attention. However, they are currently in a very early stage and the numbers are very small. In order to enrich the content of this article and learn from gamefi’s experience in the Ethereum ecosystem, we have also included some land-based metaverse projects into our research scope.

This article will sort out and summarize these projects, and also make some conjectures about the next development path of gamefi in the Bitcoin ecosystem.

Bitmap

Bitmap, known as the first metaverse project in the Bitcoin ecosystem, was proposed by Twitter user @blockamoto on Twitter on June 13, 2023, and was subsequently followed and promoted by some media.

Bitmap is based on Ordinals theory and Bitmap theory.

Ordinals theory numbers the smallest unit of Bitcoin, Satoshi, and defines the scarcity of Satoshi. This can be visualized as each “Satoshi” is a numbered box, whose scarcity is determined by the time of production, and can be used to load data.

Bitmap theory maps each transaction input in the Bitcoin block into a parcel (Parcel), forming a block or area (District). The difference in size of different transaction inputs results in different sizes of mapped plots.

According to bitmap theory, land parcels should be mapped by transactions, but most investors understand Bitmap according to the logic of buying land in sandbox and decentraland, so they choose to write data into Satoshi through inscriptions to obtain a specific Bitcoin area. Ownership of blocks, similar to free minting.

Since its launch, the market performance of Bitmap’s land parcels has been acceptable. After a few months of silence, the floor price has climbed to 0.002 BTC in December 2023, which is more than ten times higher than the price in August this year. The current supply of Bitmap plots is 820,000. If calculated based on the floor price, the total value of the project exceeds 1,600 Bitcoins. At the same time, the number of Bitmap plot holding addresses exceeds 27,000. Bitmap’s land is also currently on the popular list of Magic Eden.

Bitmap is also moving in this direction. The BRC-420 protocol, based on Bitmap’s asset protocol, creates a variety of assets from small characters and pets to complete game scripts and virtual machines by combining multiple inscriptions into a complex asset.

However, currently we have not seen any mature games deployed on the BRC-420 protocol. We are eagerly awaiting the development in this direction.

BTC Pixel War

BTC Pixel War, which has been online for more than a month, is the first recursive inscription game on Ordinals.

Games such as Pixel War have had good attempts on web2 and became a hit on Reddit in 2017. On April Fool’s Day that year, Reddit launched a node called Place. It was a huge blank canvas. Each user would get an opportunity every 10 minutes to choose a color and click a dot on it (the interval was later modified into 5 minutes).

This event can be understood as a multiplayer online game, which is very consistent with Reddit’s user attributes. It quickly gained huge popularity, and always kept tens of thousands of people online at the same time.

The whole process produced many interesting stories and images, and finally led to a 10K high-definition version of “artwork” creation.

The logic of Pixel War deployed on Ordinals is basically similar, but it uses an on-chain minting method and rewards through tokens and NFTs.

After connecting your wallet on the official website, you can select the pixels where you want to add color on the canvas, or use drawing tools or drawing robots to create images. Additionally, as you are participating in a pixel war, you have the ability to overwrite any pixel when devising strategies and creating artwork.

If satisfied with their creation, users can choose to submit it and follow the on-screen instructions to complete the purchase using their BTC wallet.

Pixel War has a total of 2.1 million pixels, and each pixel is priced at 0.000033 BTC, which is roughly $1.45 at the current BTC price.

If the selected image is large, the required pixels and corresponding costs will be higher. Therefore, Pixel War also has a union model, which is a group of people jointly funding and creating a work.

Pixel Wars has designed a complete set of rewards for users including tokens and NFTs. Each time a user submits a pixel, he or she will receive 10 $BPIX, so the total amount of BPIX is 21 million. In addition, users can obtain a BTCNFT generated from the current screenshot after submission.

Overall, the project has provided users with an adequate amount of hype. However, the promotional effect of the game has been poor for over a month. As of December 8th, only 220,000 pixels out of 2.1 million pixels have been submitted, which is far below expectations.

Regarding the future of the Pixel War, I am not very optimistic in the short term because projects like this are relatively rare in the cryptocurrency community and it is difficult to gain widespread support from the community. Of course, if there are positive changes in the prices of tokens and NFTs, it will also have some positive effects on the game.

Bitmap Valley

During the research process, we also paid attention to a relatively low-key game: Bitmap Valley. Judging from the name alone, this game has a relatively close relationship with Bitmap and belongs to the same type of Metaverse/Gamefi project.

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You can go to play.bitmapvalley.com to experience the first version of the game. At present, you can basically walk around and look for interactive items. According to the project description, the valley integrates social networking, entertainment, games, NFT, etc. Users can even play Super Mario on the game console inside, and the TV can also connect to their own Youtube account to watch videos. Specific functions need to be experienced by users in the game.

The X (Twitter) account of the founder of Bitmap Valley is IMSO (Solana Chris), who is also the founder of the IMSO project. The IMSO project focuses on converting 2D items into 3D images and building multi-chain games. Currently, Bitmap Valley does not have an independent social media and mainly relies on Chris’s personal Twitter to publish information.

Chris also issued the inscription $EVLV for the game. According to his own response, $EVLV is a base currency that can be exchanged for tokens and other permanent items in the Bitmap Valley game. According to data from Okx, $EVLV was created with a total of 75 million pieces. The current price of each piece is 12sats, which is not a big increase from the initial price of 5sats. The high price on December 8 was only 26sats. The total trading volume in the past 17 days is 5.13 btc.

Ordz Games

Ordz also calls itself the first Gamefi project in the Bitcoin ecosystem. It was launched in March in 2023, and two rounds of free mint and brc20 token rewards were conducted that month.

Ordz’s game is not complicated, it is an html file, and users can directly open the rune details and enter the game through the Mingwen browser. Ordz’s game is relatively traditional, with the first game being the long-standing Tank Battle. The project team has also launched a series of small games such as “Sheep Get Sheep” and Spaceship. Players can earn points by playing games in each season and redeem them for $OG$ tokens in the later stages.

According to Okx trading market data, the low price of $OG$ tokens is 600sats, and the total market value of $OG$ tokens is approximately US$5.46 million. Ordz’s nft Ordz Heros have a total supply of 3,300 units and a floor price of 0.0055 BTC on Magic Eden. The total supply of Ordz’s game card OG Cartridge is only 105, and the current floor price on Magic Eden is 0.0626 BTC.

The current specific requirement to participate in the new Ordz season is to own an Ordz Hero and invest og tokens in the game. The winner will take all the tokens away.

Predictions about the Bitcoin ecosystem Gamefi

1. At present, it seems that the hot spots in the Bitcoin ecology are basically concentrated on inscriptions, which are still in a relatively early stage. Although Gamefi has attracted a lot of attention, it is still in a very early stage. Several metaverses/gamefi have not shown convincing strength. Some internet users even joked that Ordz’s games were from 40 years ago.
2. The potential of Gamefi in the Bitcoin ecosystem is undeniable. With a wealth of underlying assets and a passionate community of users, there is great potential for growth. The emergence of multiple projects in this space demonstrates the team’s commitment and ongoing efforts. However, it is important to note that the development of Gamefi will take time.
3. In addition to Inception, the current Bitcoin ecosystem is experiencing a boom in various Layer 2 and side chains. This provides a solid foundation for the development of Gamefi in the next stage.
4. Given the NFT attributes of Inscription, Gamefi is destined to be the next big thing in the Bitcoin ecosystem, particularly within the Inscription ecosystem. This is undoubtedly a positive development and something to be highly anticipated. Gamefi has evolved beyond being a mere scam, with some Gamefis already demonstrating impressive quality.

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