I’m not a big gamer. But I do recognize the very cool realities and possibilities of the Blockchain on scarce resources such as trading cards. the makers of the game Moonga, have begun to make a blockchain card game called Spells of Genesis. As far as I know, it’s the first of it’s kind. So far they have released 4 special edition cards that will be able to be played in the game when it is released. You can find them delineated on the dex if you’d like. they are SJCXCARD, FDCARD, SWARMCD, and GEMZCARD.

I have the FDCARD, but I don’t have the SWARMCD card yet. But thanks to fellow Bitcoiner Nicola Minichiello, I have added the SJCXCARD and GEMZCARD to my collection. I traded 1 GEMZCARD and 1 SJCXCARD for 1 full FDCARD.

We did this on the Counterparty DEX, which means that Nicola (who is in London while I am in Florida, US), whom I’ve never met in person, were able to trade the cards without needing to trust each other at any point in the transaction. It was the first time ever, as far as I know, that two people have performed a decentralized trade of in-game cards.

The txs can be found on Blockscan here and here. Below are screenshots for the lazy.



The trading cards are by EverdreamSoft, a Swiss based game company maker of Moonga and the upcoming Spells of Genesis (the cards work within both games). The game is built on Counterparty and uses Counterparty’s protocol to manage the in-game assets. This means that anyone can trade cards outside the game. While the DEX allows people to trade cards for anything, in real life, trading cards for cards is part of the game and a long respected tradition. And what’s amazing is that the Blockchain preserves the integrity of that trade in spite of those cards being digital.



Here you can see the contents of my Counterparty wallet post-trade.

Spells of Genesis, just like Magic the Gathering or anyone who has come before them, does a great job of making game art too. So for those of you who want to know what these words look like when they are played in the game, check out the amazing cards below:

Sometimes my mind is blown. And this wasn’t intentionally an awesome moment, but the more I think about what’s happened here, the more awesome the Blockchain seems, and the more awesome the future is looking.

EDIT: So interestingly, Nicola didn’t actually get the trade. Hari, another Counerparty-er who was watching, swooped in and filled the trade because he wanted the card as well. This is hugely representative of the principles I talk about in Blockchains will kill remittances. The idea of decentralized settlement of unexpected assets is coming. Whether is COINBASEUSD for WELLSFARGOUSD or for that matter some amount of COINBASEUSD for some amount of WOWSWORD or FDCARD, it’s coming. And what’s amazing is that because the DEX and the project itself relies on Bitcoin and a number of federated servers, to ensure that the entirety of the transaction is decentralized. No one has to trust any other participant in the settlement. If you didn’t believe that Bitcoin/Counterparty are for settlement, I don’t know what more I can do to convince you. Let me leave you with this final thought: it’s going to get weird, folks, when Wells Fargo’s accounts are being settled by Banco El Chapo :).