Blockchain Gaming

TL;DR: Partnerships already in place with Ethereum based projects, pilot project WoB to demonstrate Trinity-Ethereum state channels.

As previously stated Trinity has already announced strategic partnerships with the Ethereum based projects Decentraland, Etheremon and Hyper Dragons.

Trinity announce strategic partnership with Decentraland

David has mentioned that the projects in development right now that will utilise Trinity network are very high transaction intensive. These high transaction dApps will need a lot of TNC to function. What people may not realise is when you think of Blockchain gaming and TNC; TNC is a background use which seemingly is lost in understanding…you will be using it, you just won’t know it.

DApp developers will likely need to hold a supply to make it seem less for the user to purchase and use the dApp. If they were to use Trinity Network, players would open state channels which will be an on chain transaction, and whatever they do in game will be a state channel transaction. And playing the game will have many many transactions.

The pilot project referenced on Trinity’s first roadmap was called World of Blockchain (WOB).

Screen shared by David Li in the Trinity Telegram Community

WOB is a blockchain game incubated by Trinity tech, the game was used as a demonstrator on how to integrate Trinity tech into a blockchain game. The game demonstrated how you would create economic demand on the market for TNC as because to play this game required two levels of utilisation of TNC; one is that the game developers would have to buy it to use it for the consumption of the network as you need to pay Trinity Network to route the transactions and secondly; since it can be directly used by gamers in the game as a sort of in-game currency. The game is a stake in the ground and a reference point to show how Trinity tech can be integrated into a blockchain game. The game itself (not created by Trinity) may not have had much success to date however the Trinity developers will have achieved what they set out to do and learned a lot on the integration side of development. More information can be accessed via the following website: wob.games

Preview of gameplay

Blockchain gaming’s impact on the onchain network was covered by Nastya Parygina, check her article out “Can CryptoKitties be an apocalypse for a blockchain? How Trinity will rescue the Crypto World”. Its a great read and has a nice use of infographics. Since that article Trinity has become an agnostic scaling solution and is not bound by any platform. Below is an extract from her article, now decide for yourself whether you think a scaling solution such as Trinity is needed. No-brainer right?

CryptoKitties look innocent however they sometimes sabotage Ethereum network. From time to time a transaction cost increases up to 10 or 20 times. That means due to user activity peaks transactions are queued to be processed by a miner. Sometimes waiting/pending could last for too long and a user has to increase a cost of transaction to be chosen by a miner, to succeed.

Pending transactions queue due to CryptoKitties baby boom (www.news.bitcoin.com)

For example, in December of 2017 due to incredible CryptoKitties usage, many Ethereum based ICOs experienced the critical situation and had to postpone their token sales. The ETH blockchain was suffering from the overload since CryptoKitties transactions are about 10% — 13% of all transactions. That’s huge! The law procession speed is similar to traffic in a rush hour in a big city. Imagine also that a blockchain doesn’t only provides the payment, but it also offers high-security level with multiplied proof of transaction. That means every inrush of the transaction due to whatever ICO or crypto pets baby boom will lead to collapse. As a result of the cryptokittie’s baby boom, the transactions fees increased significantly. Ethereum users were forced to pay up to 300$ fee and more for one transaction to be chosen by a miner, who could have preferred to give birth to a new crypto toy for a higher commission instead of providing an ordinary payment service. Transaction price rose 100 times in the year 2017. These factors will never allow the crypto world to merge with a reality of fiat money. If the cost of transaction is too high, nobody will pay such a fee.

Trinity would utilise state channels to take all these transactions offchain and in the process freeing up the main network. Not only is it faster, it is incredibly cheaper for all involved.

Nodes

TL;DR: Neo and Ethereum Trinity state channels have been deployed, foundations have been built, next stage is to further develop and optimise the node and seek adoption and utilisation of the network. No master nodes, however more you stake the more transactions your node can process, bandwidth, geo location and infrastructure important.

You will need to spend TNC to open and close a channel; the TNC is paid to the Node Providers (very small amounts to ensure autonomy in the network). If a Node price is too high, or fails to adjust its price with price movement, it will be disregarded by users.

Theoretically, Trinity TPS is infinite when the amount of nodes is large enough. As Trinity is like a routing network, the protocol will automatically compute the fastest path when there is no direct state channel built between two nodes.

On 27th June 2018 Trinity announced the release of the Neo-based Trinity State Channel Protocol:

The release of the Trinity State Channel Protocol is a milestone in the course of Trinity development. It is a solid step towards greatly improving the throughput of the underlying chain. It makes real-time payment for the main chain assets, low transaction costs, scalability and privacy protection possible. It means that community developers and users are able to become active participants of the Trinity ecology. Trinity State Channel is a protocol between the underlying Blockchain and Dapps. It is not a tangible product for users to observe directly. Therefore, the team developed Faucet, Web Wallet, on-line shop, and Neo-based Trinity Network explorer for users to try and explore. Log on http://texperience.trinity.ink:8032/ to start the experience. The release of Trinity Protocol is a landmark, but it is not the end of the journey. This is the real beginning of building a community, an ecosystem and an excellent scaling solution for all. Trinity team will continue the optimization of the Trinity Protocol, making it secure and stable with better user experience. We welcome everyone to experience Trinity, configure nodes (node configuration link: https://github.com/trinity-project/trinity/blob/trunk/docs/Trinity_Deployment_Guide_en.md) , and develop dapps using the State Channel Protocol. https://medium.com/@TrinityProtocol/to-global-trinity-users-and-supporters-d239fc765dea

There is no minimum monetary requirement for a user to set up a node and participate in the network. David has mentioned that people may buy in bulk to run dApps amongst other things. It is kind of like filling you car up with a full tank of gas.

Amongst the obvious benefits of using state channels; DApps and projects using Trinity can also benefit from setting up Trinity nodes. A service buyer can also be their own service provider, especially if they have a huge demand, they will most likely have the bandwidth, hardware and most importantly geographical advantages. Whilst the network is in its infancy obviously the incentives for running a node will be very low.

On 31 August 2018 Trinity announced the release of the Eth-based Trinity State Channel Protocol:

The release of ETH-based Trinity Protocol is a landmark, but it is not the end of the journey. This is the real beginning of building a community, an ecosystem and an excellent scaling solution for all. Trinity team will continue the optimization of the ETH-based Trinity Protocol, making it secure and stable with better user experience. We welcome everyone to experience ETH-based Trinity, configure nodes (node configuration link: https://trinity.readthedocs.io/en/latest/en-EN/Trinity_Eth_Deployment_Guide_en.html) , and develop dapps using the ETH-based Trinity State Channel Protocol.

David has been quick to point out that the community should have lower expectations initially for the amount of incentives they expect to get until the network matures and DApps start utilising the network.

Announcement of Trinity Simple Node Deployment Platform

In order to facilitate community users to deploy nodes, Trinity team developed a simple node deployment platform (ETH-based), with which users can complete web-based automation node construction with one click. In order to provide better service and engage the community, Trinity team distributed a quota for the one-click node deployment experience through the server provided by Trinity. Visit the link (http://apply.trinity.ink:8037/) and fill the application form. The window of application was from September 3rd to 7th 2018. Users’ ETH wallet address and the registered email address of Trinity’s official website are required for the application. The functions of Trinity’s simple node deployment platform will gradually open up. The Neo-based simple node deployment platform will continue its development and optimization. More features will be revealed and open to users in the future.

Marty one of the Telegram admin’s provides an insight into how networks work:

Lets take a look at the first layer, which is the blockchain tech, and Trinitys routing protocol, which would be the second layer. This theoretically means Trinity is developing a “second network” that overlaps the existing one to provide hundreds, thousands, and hopefully one day millions of nodes/alternate routes off chain segregating their own private channels to and from the source and destination. In result, Trinity’s network is designed to prevent any congestion from any high amounts on traffic that is desired on that specific blockchain. The TPS of the blockchain Trinity is trying to improve will not effect the TPS of the Trinity Network. The TPS will solely depend on the number of nodes that exist/deployed/running at the time of the transactions when Trinity launches its mainnet. The more users involved, and the more nodes that are set up the higher and higher the TPS will become regardless of the underlying chain.

Masternodes?

There will be no masternodes, however the more TNC you stake the larger the transactions your node will be able to process and thus increasing the amount of incentives you will receive.