A CRYPTOCURRENCY AS CUTE AS A PET?

Blockchain technology is revolutionizing the gaming industry. After the craze of CryptoKitties, more and more decentralized applications (DApps) are popping up which showcase the many fancy things that you can achieve through the use of smart contracts. Coinist.io was lucky enough to be able to interview Kohei Nakamura, one of the team members behind the decentralized digital collectible game called CryptoCrystal. Without further ado, let’s jump into the interview.

Could you quickly describe the CryptoCrystal project, what it is all about, how to play it, what things are necessary to start, etc?

CryptoCrystals are sentient Shiny Crystals that have personalities similar to humans while being overly cute like pet animals. You can mine, raise, and trade the sentient Crystals! Before you play CryptoCrystal, you will need to install MetaMask, a digital Ethereum wallet. You will need to put ETH in it. To play CryptoCrystal, you first need “Pickaxe Token (Pkx)”. In the mining page, you can buy Pkx and mine the crystal.

How the heck did you come up with such a strange idea?

We were impressed with the invention of cryptokitties, but We realized that We had not yet made the possibility of smart contracts and digital assets the maximum. By revitalizing digital resources like golden veins, We can extend the reality as much as possible.

What makes this DApp unique? How does it differ from other DApps in the marketplace?

Most Dapps handle the scarcity management of digital assets with a central management server. Crystal is decisively different in that smart contracts decide everything and all users can refer to the scarcity without us.

The game has its native ERC20 token called Pickaxe (PKX) but it has an unlimited supply (1 PKX can be obtained for 0.005ETH). Therefore, I’m assuming there is no reason to HODL PKX, as its price will always remain the same. Is this correct? 

Since the price is stipulated by a Smart Contract, it will not change unless upgraded. And we are not planning to upgrade now. Thus it will always remain the same.

The total reserve of crystals is of 210,000 ton. When will this limit approximately be reached?

According to the supply curve determined by the Smart Contract, it will take ten years for all the crystals to be dug out.

How many crystals are still undiscovered? Is there a reward for those who will find them?

Only two Crystal are still undiscovered. There is a reward for those who will find them, 0.25 ETH for each.

Which parts of the game are stored off-chain?

The name and personality of the crystal are stored off chain.

Are players able to make money or this game is more for entertainment purposes?

This game is more for entertainment purpose. But players will be able to make profit in trading.

Could you tell us more about the team behind the project? How many people are working on this project, and what are their roles? When I checked I couldn’t find any information about the team on the main page.

Our team belongs to a Japanese character company named Quan.inc – http://quan-inc.jp/en/. About 8 people are working on CryptoCrystal. Those roles are Product Lead, Illustlator ,Designer ,UI/UX,  Solidity Engineer, Frontend Engineer *2, Go Engineer.

Currently, we see that Blockchain DApps (especially games) do not have many users. What do you think is the main reason for that?

The big reason is that it is not as fun compared to other ordinary games. The main cause is scalability and block approval time in particular.

Do you think that this could change in the future and if yes, what factors could increase the popularity?

Yes, I think we could change this situation in the future.

As a necessary thing to gain popularity, we believe that we need a game that can provide an experience of “making money” in an easy-to-understand manner by exchanging digital assets. The same way that cryptocurrency gained popularity.

That’s because it is a new user experience that is not found in existing games. And history is proving that mankind has found pleasure there.

Also, as time goes on, we believe that there is a high possibility of web3 applications becoming popular in areas such as VR and AR where there is no existing web 2.0 service. This is because individuals can utilize blockchains to provide services more cheaply and safely.

Are there any future updates planned, what are your thoughts about the future of the CryptoCrystal?

We would like to make Crystal a GreetingToken that can be used to communicate gratitude among friends and to communicate. And at the same time, I would like to offer adventure games like Pokemon Go, making full use of their perfectly defined scarcity and resourceability in VR and AR.

What do you think is the future of the Ethereum and Blockchain technology as a whole?

I believe Ethereum and Blockchain can create a real world. A world were nobody abruptly can rob your rights.

Furthermore, I believe that a society where individuals can have the power supported by Ethereum and the Blockchain can respond to finer needs of the individuals.

Thank you Kohei Nakamura for your kind and insightful answers. We are wishing you the best of luck with your project. 

We hope that this article helped the readers to get the basic understanding about this Crypto game and the crypto gaming market in general. In our opinion this game looks pretty unique and has some promising features. If you want to try it, we recommend you to head over to their official website, read the FAQ and join their Telegram group where you can ask and find answers to all the questions related to this game. Then, buy some PKX tokens either from an official smart contract or from other players at ForkDelta. To buy on ForkDelta you will need to add the Pickaxe token by clicking the tokens list, scrolling to the bottom, then clicking “Other”. Set Address to “0x5116c1d70e3a2cf55a2502d05f1bc17a0518782e”, Name to “Pickaxe”, and Decimals to 0. Once you have some PKX, you can use them to mine some Crystals. Also, Crystals can be bought, traded or sold at OpenSea. Go ahead and try it. Maybe you will be the one who discovers the unfound Crystals!