Welcome to this special post focused on LIGHT⚡NITE NFTs! We are happy to announce that Satoshis Games has just released the first example of sidechain-based non-fungible-tokens in a game, but not only that, also the first sidechain-based utxo NFT explorer available at explorer.lightnite.io.
In other words, this is the first time in history where assets have been tokenised following a NFT standard on bitcoin
The end goal of this new feature is to enable users to get a higher control & ownership, trust and ultimately worth over their purchased (or earned) assets. This was a promised achievement we had implicitly made to users, as a reflect of our own conviction and engagement. So, really excited to offer this new gift feature to all our users who care about privacy & ownership.
Before starting, we’d like to mention this is the fruit of a collaboration between Satoshis Games and Blockstream. Thanks to Blockstream’s Liquid sidechain, our in-game assets acquire a new security dimension, at the time new use cases broaden sidechain-based assets portfolio, for the good of the whole community.
Among our user community some of you will be more familiar than others with the NFT concept, so we’ll start with an overview about Non-Fungible-Tokens and how they represent a perfect fit for in-game assets
What fungibility means?
Fungibility in this context means inter-changeability. If I exchange with you a dollar note by another dollar note, none of us will notice the change. Their value is not attached to their unique nature, but rather to the amount of value they represent. It would happen the same even with two equal collectible coins, or two common stock shares from Satoshis Games.
However if we were forced to exchange our houses or two art pieces we may own, we won’t probably remain indifferent, even if eventually they could have a similar market value. Also Jordan’s last pair of sneakers at an NBA match will hardly have the same value than identical pair I wore at that match and keep zealously. Those are non-fungible assets.
Often non-fungible assets inherit their value from a unreproducible material characteristic they possess, because of its provenance, previous owners and story, or because such belongings to a very special, limited series, which cannot be easily enlarged.
There is a quite clear distinction when physical world assets (and many intangible ones) are concern, but how does the concept apply to the digital world? Well, precisely most digital assets can be easily reproduced in a virtually infinite manner.
But what if I as an art company want to control the distribution of a limited edition of my digitised art pieces? How can I assure any of my clients that his digital copy is a unique specimen of a limited edition? And further, that he actually owns it? How can he rest assured that I cannot increase the supply without his knowledge or consent? How to find a public trustworthy register book that keeps track of all living assets from that edition? How can he demonstrate the authenticity of his asset, and contrast it with a fake one?
To give a response to all these questions, which increasingly often represent needs of new digital products, NFTs were born.
What are NFTs and how they add value to your assets in LIGHT⚡NITE?
As opposite to fungible coins or tokens in the traditional financial world (dollars, euros) and in the new crypto world (bitcoin, ether), non-fungible-tokens appeared in the blockchain sphere to provide a unique identity to transferable digital goods. An NFT is a token normally generated as part of a limited edition, which helps identify uniquely a digital asset with respect to other assets of its family and series. It avoids reproduction, forge and counterfeiting. It cannot die as long as its blockchain stands, and its supply cannot be modified once produced.
This gives NFTs exciting capabilities to enrich gaming assets’ security and functionality. Actually it has been gaming, together with art and collectible industries the first adopters and most clear beneficiaries so far. Although the concept is technology agnostic, most NFTs have been developed over the Ethereum blockchain. Only recently sidechain-based NFTs have seen the light, for the benefit of use cases like Light Nite game, or the gestating crypto-friendly game publishing platform called Elixir.
The Bitcoin blockchain is well known for its extremely reliable codebase and security. Blockstream’s sidechain Liquid builds on these foundations while enabling the issuance of utxo-based NFT assets. These have been used by Satoshis Games to assure asset ownership and verifiable scarcity, allowing users to securely transact with them.
The main advantages for our users to get NFT-backed assets are the following:
- Tradeability: Assets can be traded with bitcoin (the most liquid cryptocurrency) natively implemented in the game. A secondary market allows flexibility to monetise earned assets, or sell existing assets easily, lowering the barriers for asset purchasing.
- Proof of ownership: This is another tool supporting reliability on asset transactions and backing tradeability
- Provable scarcity: Users can check anytime the current live supply of a certain asset. As unique copies of an asset series may be lost in the battle (and burned in the blockchain), the supply of any asset will shrink with time, pushing up the value of the remaining copies.
- Inter-operability: Assets can be transferred to a user’s Liquid wallet, and eventually used in other games or exchanged by other assets or cryptocurrencies
Now we will see how you as a Light Nite user interact with your in-game assets outside of the gaming arena.
How are my LIGHT⚡NITE skins linked to the liquid assets?
It is important to highlight that each asset, defined as a skin that can be purchased in the game (characters, weapons, hoverboards, etc) has associated an specific Liquid asset that has been issued, containing infrastructure properties such the LIQUID ID, UTXO or TICKER. At the time of its creation, its supply is transacted on-chain and its balance modified upon reductions due to in-game casualties.
However each specific unit within the total supply of an asset, has its SKIN ID, which is transacted off-chain when purchased or sold, and shares the same ASSET ID as its parent belonging asset. Let's see the example below.
Example
The Blockstream Hoverboard is a premium skin, which is linked to a Liquid asset that has been issued with a total supply of 500 units that cannot be re-issued again.
Now every time a user acquires a Blockstream Hoverboard a new skin is generated from the parent asset. Each skin has a different unique id named SKIN ID, that belongs to a Liquid asset.
In this sense, our asset model is a hybrid semi-fungible token standard, where assets are non-fungible but copies produced for each asset are fungible. This model keeps a very high-security level while allowing to keep transaction fees low and system efficiency at high level.
How do I explore my purchased skins in Liquid?
First of all, in your dashboard at Light Nite store you must go to your Library section and click on any of your assets.
There you will see the ASSET ID, RARITY & TYPE. Also, if you want to have more information about that asset, you can click on “View in the Explorer”. The general tool to explore assets is Light Nite Explorer, where you can see the whole catalogue of available assets.
Some asset attributes you can check in our explorer
- Total Supply: This is the total amount of units that have been issued in a series. This total supply cannot change once produced, and it is by default of 500 units for premium assets and 100 units for rare assets. Normal assets will have unlimited supply
- Live Supply: Part of the total supply that has been purchased by users, and not yet burned in the game arena (only this competitive mode will allow asset burning when implemented, unlike the casual mode that is currently in production)
- In-stock Supply: Number of units of a particular asset yet available for purchase in the store, These copies have not been yet issued, and they amount to the difference between the Total Supply and the Live Supply, while asset burning is not in place.
- Liquid Id: This is the unique identification number of an asset in the Liquid sidechain. It is the equivalent to an asset token in the Ethereum blockchain
- UTXO: Standing for Unspent Transaction Output, this parameter is used by the Bitcoin blockchain associated to authorised amounts and entities to perform transactions. In practical terms, it is used in Light Nite to register on-chain immutably of the transaction time stamp for the issuance event.
- TICKER: The liquid asset ticker of a specific asset, such as BTC for bitcoin.
You can also transfer the asset to a Liquid-enabled wallet such as Blockstream Green, in case you want to have non-custodial control over it.. Withdrawing an asset from our game to your wallet has a fee cost of 5K BTC sats via lightning from your account balance. Once an asset is withdrawn from the game, you will not be able to use your skin in the game unless you return it back to your account.
You can deposit a Liquid asset to the game in the Light Nite store, when you click on the settings button you can see an option named DEPOSIT SKIN. This pops up a modal view containing a liquid address to deposit the asset to your game account.
From the explorer, any specific asset, you can click on the Liquid Explorer link and get to know at a high-level all the technical details from the issuance, to the asset or the transaction.
SATOSHIS GAMES ? BLOCKSTREAM
Satoshis Games and Blockstream are launching a campaign to raise awareness on the advantages of using Liquid NFTs on games assets. Starting with a giveaway at the Consensus: Distributed livestream event, ore than 20,000 Light Nite assets will be distributed for free in the following days in order to spread the word and demonstrate this new application.
For Satoshis Games, this is our first step on the road to build the first Gaming Asset Infrastructure within our game publishing platform we are developing for game developers: Elixir Platform. The final goal is allowing all crypto games to tokenise and reliably commercialise & store their users’ assets, creating an open market standard and marking joint critical mass for massive bitcoin adoption.
Map's Points of Interest
To celebrate the launch of our Liquid-based NFTs, we included Blockstream branded locations in the first season of the game:
The Blockstream Bar
The Blockstream Bar has a cyberpunk theme and will, therefore, be located in the Alien City zone.
Blockstream Monument
The monument is a rock formation that resembles the Blockstream logo. It is a landmark that the players will be able to easily distinguish as they freefall from the plane at the start of the match. Please note that it is in an early state of development. We are planning to add variety to the height and shapes of the rocks among other things.
