Erjan Koshigulov

Celestia is the first modular blockchain network that makes it effortless to deploy a new blockchain. It allows sovereign blockchains to break free from the constraints of monolithic architectures so that they can build with flexibility and freedom on their own terms. Celestia has no smart contract features; it only orders data and checks to see if it is available. This is because smart contracts are only necessary for blockchains where applications will live. This decoupling of features alleviates some of the largest problems that hold back blockchains from scaling.

Illuvium is an open-world fantasy battle game built on the Ethereum blockchain. Often touted as the first AAA game on Ethereum, Illuvium looks to provide a source of entertainment to both casual gamers and hardcore DeFi fans through a range of collecting and trading features.

To learn more about this project, check out our deep dive of Illuvium.

The world of Illuvium is inhabited by creatures known as Illuvials, who can be captured by players that best them in battle and nurse them back to health. From then on, they become a loyal part of the player’s collection and can be used when battling other adventurers as part of Illuvium’s auto battler gameplay.

The game is a fusion between an open-world exploration game and a PVP battle game. Players can spend their time exploring the expanses of the game world or building up their team of powerful beasts.

Illuvium has been in development since 2020, and is being built by a worldwide team of more than 40 individuals, including the co-founders; serial entrepreneur and early cryptocurrency adopter Kieran Warwick, and experienced game designer Aaron Warwick, who are brothers. (And who are coincidentally also the brothers of Kain Warwick, the co-founder of DeFi platform Synthetix).

The ILV token has a number of uses within the Illuvium ecosystem. It’s the main token used to reward players for their in-game achievements, entitles players to their share of the Illuvium Vault and is used for participating in the governance of the game via the Illuvium decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).

WAX (WAXP) is a purpose-built blockchain, released in 2017, that is designed to make e-commerce transactions faster, simpler and safer for every party involved. The WAX blockchain uses delegated proof-of-stake (DPoS) as its consensus mechanism. It is fully compatible with EOS.

The custom features and the incentive mechanisms developed by WAX are intended to optimize the blockchain’s utility specifically for use in e-commerce, with the goal of encouraging voting on proposals.

To make this possible, WAX created a suite of blockchain-based tools which decentralized application (DApp) marketplaces and non-fungible tokens can be built upon.

Services such as WAX Cloud Wallet, SSO and OAUTH support e-commerce operations, the latter being a native RNG service and a developer portal. WAX’s blockchain architecture supports 500-millisecond block time and zero-fee transactions for customers. It also makes use of voting rewards to incentivize participation in the selection of block producers and improvement proposals.

WAX was co-founded by William Quigley and Jonathan Yantis.

William Quigley studied at the University of Southern California, and then worked at Disney. After leaving Disney in the early 1990s, he got an MBA at Harvard and became a venture capitalist. Over time, he became the managing director at Idealab. Alongside creating WAX, he is also the managing director at Magnetic.

Jonathan Yantis works as the chief operating officer at WAX and as the chief operating officer at OPSkins.

WAX features a WAXP-to-Ethereum (ETH) bridge that allows WAXP token holders to convert their tokens into WAXE, which is an Ethereum-based ERC20 utility token.

Users willing to participate in WAX tokenomics need to burn their WAXP tokens in order to get WAXE through the Ethereum bridge. They will then need to stake the WAXE tokens on the Ethereum distribution contract.

WAXG is an Ethereum-based ERC-20 governance token that is distributed to WAXE stakers. The distribution is based on a set timetable and is proportionate to the percentage of the WAX Economic Activity pool. The token holders can govern the allocation and distribution of economic value on the platform as a result.

The WAX Economic Activity pool is a smart contract that accumulates a percentage of generated WAX fees and can be converted into ETH for distribution to WAXE stakers. It can also be given to WAXG token holders that decide to burn the tokens they already have.

Decentraland (MANA) defines itself as a virtual reality platform powered by the Ethereum blockchain that allows users to create, experience, and monetize content and applications.

In this virtual world, users purchase plots of land that they can later navigate, build upon and monetize.

Decentraland was launched following a $24 million initial coin offering (ICO) that was conducted in 2017. The virtual world launched its closed beta in 2019 and opened to the public in February 2020. Since then, users have created a wide range of experiences on their parcels of LAND, including interactive games, sprawling 3D scenes and a variety of other interactive experiences.

Decentraland uses two tokens: MANA and LAND. MANA is an ERC-20 token that must be burned to acquire non-fungible ERC-721 LAND tokens. MANA tokens can also be used to pay for a range of avatars, wearables, names, and more on the Decentraland marketplace.

Decentraland was co-founded by Ariel Meilich and Esteban Ordano — both of whom have stepped down from major positions at the project, but still work alongside Decentraland as advisors.

Ariel Meilich previously held the role of project lead at Decentraland between 2017 and 2020, and is a serial entrepreneur that has founded several other startups, including an online translation agency and a CRM platform. He also worked as an analyst at Charles River Ventures, a prominent Silicon Valley venture fund.

On the other hand, Esteban Ordano is Decentraland's former tech lead and has a long and varied history in the cryptocurrency space working as a software engineer at BitPay, Inc., an advisor to Matic Network and briefly operated his own smart contract development firm known as Smart Contract Solutions.

Esteban is also credited with co-founding Zeppelin Solutions, an established blockchain technology infrastructure company.

Although Ariel and Estaban are no longer leading the project, the development of Decentraland is still ongoing, with efforts being directed by the recently established Decentraland Foundation.

Play-To-Earn:

– Buy, Train & Sell Rare NFTs

– Win Prize Pools in Online PVP Matches & Tournaments

– Earn Passive Rewards by holding $CHAMP, Land, and NFTs

– Complete Raids to win rare NFTs & Item Drops

Tokenomics:

– No Fees

– $CHAMP is required to earn passive rewards

– $CHAMP is currently available on Gate.io and QuickSwap.

Key Future Events:

– EARLY ACCESS will be released in Q1 2022.

– NFTs will be released regularly on the marketplace months prior to the Early Access release.

– NFT Marketplace will be made available for both PC & mobile devices

– NFT CHAMPIONS will be listed on several Top 20 Exchanges.