What does decentralized gaming and finance (DeFi) have in common? On the surface, not much: the latter is a crypto organization focused on open access to financials, while the former, which incorporates video games and iGaming, is all about entertainment. As it turns out, many of the features that make blockchain suitable for hosting DeFi applications – transparency; dismissal; reduce trust; verifiable test – applies equally to gaming, for the purpose of proving that games are fair and that players have not been cheated by the house.
In 2021, one project will be on a mission to drive more synergies between DeFi and games to form iGDeFi (iGaming DeFi). The project is Royale Finance, and is controversial at the best possible time on the best possible platform. Royale Finance will be the third official project to launch on it Polkastarter, the Polkadot DEX and the launch that enables crowdsale participants to purchase tickets using ETH.
While the timing and location of Royale Finance sales are fortunate, the real talking point is what comes next. Can Royale Finance make iGDeFi a thing in 2021? And if so, how will this marriage of gaming and DeFi play out?
Why Fair is a Better Deal
Royale Finance built around the concept of fairly fair gaming: the idea that players in casinos and other chance-based platforms should know that the house is not cheating them. When you play online, how can you tell if the next roll of dice or spin of the slots is pre-determined or is it really random?
Fairly solves this problem by using an algorithm that generates an encrypted result for the game and sends it to the player along with a verification key to prove that the correct result has been achieved. The hashed solution can be stored on a public blockchain, which is a test record. The idea is not to have the player manually check all rolls of the dice to ensure they were not cheated; rather, the existence of such a system prevents cheating, as even one incident could ruin the reputation of the gaming provider in question.
That’s, in a nutshell, how fair experience works in a blockchain context. The technology is there, but the tools for putting it into the hands of regular web users are scarce. This is where Royale Finance comes in.
Cross-Chain Gaming for the Smartphone Generation
Decentralized applications (dApps) enable anyone with a smartphone to interact with crypto networks and engage in trading, gaming and other leisure. Censorship is almost impossible, meaning that people can get involved regardless of location, income or status. The trouble with dApps, however, is that the user experience has traditionally been sub-optimal, while transactions are slow and expensive due to the need to broadcast all actions to the network and wait for confirmation.
Polkadot solves these latter problems by providing a scalable framework that supports high throughput and low fees. Royale Finance believes it can supply the infrastructure to support a variety of iGaming dApps, united by shared liquidity. These projects will be able to benefit and motivate Royale’s community of ticket holders. The ethos underpinning Royale is one of honesty, transparency and devolved governance. Built by the people, for the people, in other words, using a fairly fair framework.
From IDO to iGDeFi
Before Royale Finance can build its iGaming network, there is the issue of distributing its ticket to the community. This comes courtesy of Polkastarter where, on December 21, 2.5 million ROYA tickets will go on sale, with a hard cap of $ 300,000. Given the strong demand for listing the first projects on the Polkadot DEX (SpiderDAO sold out in minutes, attracting 30,000 participants), Royale tickets are likely to go fast.
Once the Initial Dex Offer is out of the way, the Royale team will begin to join its first partners and prepare to usher in a new era for fair gaming, harnessing the unique capabilities of blockchain in the world of iGaming.