Crypto and blockchain games: what is it and how does Immutable’s Web3 infrastructure work?

Immutable is a web3 development platform born in 2018, focused on creating simple and effective solutions to support the growth of the crypto gaming sector.

Composed of two main products, Immutable X and Immutable zkEVM, this infrastructure aims to become the home of blockchain games, offering low fee rates and high transaction throughput to users and an easy design framework to developers.

At the center of this ecosystem orbits the decentralized governance token IMX.

Let’s delve into the project details below.

What is the Web3 Immutable platform and how does it revolutionize the gaming world with crypto?

Immutable is a web3 gaming platform based in Sydney, focused on empowering digital players through the use of blockchain and crypto.

Founded in 2018 thanks to an invention by brothers James and Robbie Ferguson and Alex Connolly, it has quickly established itself as one of the most high-performing infrastructures in the industry, supporting the development of numerous successful projects including Illuvium, Gods Unchained, Metalcore, Shardbound, Wagmi, Kiraverse, Blocklords, PlanetQuest, and many others.

Immutable presents itself to the public as the “home of web3 games“, offering developers and game studios a powerful suite of products capable of solving some of the technical limitations that are slowing down the expansion of blockchain technology and at the same time able to bring digital ownership of games into the crypto world.

The company is funded and supported by important VC funds and cutting-edge investors such as Bitkraft Ventures, King River Capital, AirTree, Temasek, Coinbase, and others. 

From a more technical point of view, Immutable’s web3 platform provides the public with 2 layer-2 scaling solutions that offer decentralization and privacy, and key APIs for operators who want to use internal tools and build their own cryptographic game. 

Furthermore, developers can rely on several practical guides for the development of dapps, live support for their communities, and access to the vast gaming ecosystem of Immutable.

Immutable’s networks are specifically designed for ease of use, allowing developers to launch their games faster without compromising either security or gaming experience. 

By leveraging the Ethereum blockchain Ethereum inheriting security, and at the same time exploiting a simpler architecture, Immutable X and Immutable ZkEVM can be used by paying negligible fees and with very fast execution times.

This solves Ethereum’s main problem, which is being a network that is too heavy and inefficient to host gaming experiences in the crypto world, making it possible to trade NFTs at low cost, high-frequency trading, and in-game transactions.

It is important to remember that Immutable also benefits from the so-called “network effects” of Ethereum, where the most successful decentralized applications live and where there is greater attraction for emerging web3 products.

The company is valued at a whopping 3.5 billion dollars by blockchain gaming pioneer Animoca Brands, making it one of the most valuable private technology companies in Australia at the time.

Immutable X and Immutable zkEVM: the two flagship products of the project

The Immutable web3 platform, as mentioned, uses two different Ethereum layer-2 blockchains to support the development of games in the crypto world, namely Immutable X and Immutable ZkEVM.

The choice to rely on scaling solutions to navigate the world of cryptographic games, rather than opting for a proprietary layer-1, is driven by the desire to offer an unprecedented experience and high standards of security, while aiming for high performance.

The founders of the project, launching Gods Unchained in 2018, were struck by the high gas costs required to mint the NFTs in the collection, and they found a solution to the problem with layer-2.

At the end of 2021, the management of Immutable decided to collaborate with the provider Starkware (the same one responsible for the development of Starknet) to build the Immutable X scaling network.

Subsequently, in March 2023, the development of “zero-knowledge proofs” solutions pushed the group to create the second Immutable ZkEVM network, with the support of partner Polygon which helped make Web3 games faster, easier to develop, and less risky from development to launch.

The difference between the first and the second network is that Immutable zkEVM presents advanced features, such as the presence of dynamic NFTs, in addition to enjoying full compatibility with the EVM world and better interoperability with the rest of the web3 world.

Furthermore, the trend of zkrollup and its expansion thanks to the introduction of giants in the blockchain sector such as zkSync, Base, Blast, and Starknet, can help Immutable attract a new base of crypto users.

Regarding Immutable zkEVM, the project team announced that they have allocated 50 million dollars as an incentive to support the development of the new chain, which currently has a TVL of just 3 million dollars compared to the 38.4 million of Immutable X.

You can participate in the airdrop by downloading an Immutable Passport wallet, bridging assets from the Ethereum mainnet, and performing various operations.

According to Game7 Research, Immutable appears to be the richest L2 ecosystem in terms of games developed within it, ahead of Abitrum and Mantle.

The IMX crypto and its role within the web3 ecosystem

IMX is the governance token of the Immutable ecosystem, and serves as a token that guarantees voting power on proposals for the development of web3 gaming infrastructure.

This is an ERC-20 token, with a total supply of 2 billion units and a market capitalization of 3 billion dollars, making it the 36th currency according to CoinMarketCap’s ranking.

The utility of IMX does not stop only at governance: in fact, the currency is also used for network commission fees and staking.

The “proof of stake” consensus mechanism makes IMX a fundamental resource also to ensure the security and integrity of Immutable’s cryptographic networks.

The main markets where you can trade IMX are Binance, Coinbase, Bybit, Okx, Upbit, Kraken, and Kucoin. Among the DEX we also see the presence of Uniswap.

In the last few months the price action of this token has been very hot: from September 2023 to March 2024 IMX has grown by about 550%, going from 0.5 dollars to 3.5 dollars.

However, since March, bears have stumbled upon this coin, pushing the price up to the current $2.

Currently the crypto is in the middle of a dip, above the 50-period moving average on a weekly time frame, ready to resume its uptrend.