GuildFi Rebrands to Zentry, Launching a ‘Game of Games’ to Reward Players

The agency started life again within the Axie Infinity days, operating a scholarship program that lent gamers in-game NFTs in trade for a lower of their play-to-earn earnings. Even then, GuildFi aspired to broader goals, describing plans for a cross-game ID that might accumulate factors throughout numerous video games and reward gamers for engagement.

Now below the Zentry banner, the upcoming blockchain-powered superlayer is sort of a extra bold tackle the thought—a “sport of video games,” as founder and CEO Jarindr Thitadilaka mentioned in a press launch, spanning not solely crypto and NFT video games but in addition pulling in information from video games that customers play on Web2 platforms.

Gaming stays on the core of that have, however Zentry is aiming larger, looking for to reward customers for all kinds of social and leisure actions. For instance, social media interactions and real-world actions tracked through an upcoming app can even play into this objective.

In response to Thitadilaka, Zentry’s flagship Radiant app will act because the interface for customers, letting gamers progress and accrue rewards primarily based on their actions throughout blockchain purposes, conventional gaming platforms, social media, and the bodily world. Think about incomes advantages for hitting your health objectives, or for happening a streak of day by day espresso runs.

“Our Play Economic system is the subsequent iteration of play-to-earn, rising its scope past simply Web3 or video games,” Thitadilaka advised Decrypt. “Inside it, each play, each victory, and each second not solely enriches your gaming legacy but in addition advantages your real-world self, empowering players like by no means earlier than.”

As a part of the rebranding effort, Zentry will launch a brand new ZENT token. Holders of the present GuildFi (GF) token on Ethereum can swap for ZENT at a 1-for-10 trade price through an online portal.

GuildFi raised greater than $140 million in funding again in 2021, primarily by means of a neighborhood token sale but in addition through funding from distinguished corporations like Binance Labs, Coinbase Ventures, and Animoca Manufacturers. The agency says its treasury remains to be valued above $100 million as of the begin of 2024, spanning crypto belongings, tokens and fairness through investments, and owned NFTs.

Art work from Zentry’s “superlayer” expertise. Picture: Zentry

Zentry’s transformation comes quickly after one in all its largest contemporaries from the Axie Infinity period, Yield Guild Video games, revealed its personal shift—from a guild itself right into a protocol to energy different guilds. Yield Guild is working with the makers of varied video games to combine its guild tech to let gamers seamlessly workforce up and collaborate inside blockchain video games.

In Zentry’s case, the objective is to drag collectively the entire gaming, social, and leisure actions of customers and merge them through shared interface that provides rewards. It is going to have the sensation of a massively multiplayer on-line role-playing sport (MMORPG), Thitadilaka defined, full with story components to attract gamers additional into the expertise.

Group members, he mentioned, will have the ability to vote on governance, initiatives, and rewards, however Thitadilaka mentioned the gaming universe he envisions will not be a DAO. A decentralized autonomous group (DAO) is a neighborhood construction the place management is unfold out slightly than being hierarchical, and goals to be totally decentralized and ruled by neighborhood consensus.

Thitadilaka expressed skepticism concerning the practicality of a totally decentralized ecosystem at current, citing potential destructive penalties when “everybody does no matter they need,” as an alternative suggesting a extra managed but participatory mannequin as Zentry takes flight.

“Our gaming universe extends past a typical DAO,” he mentioned. “It includes a one-of-a-kind ecosystem stack of 4 vertically built-in cores, together with blockchain infrastructure bridging Web2 and Web3 information, a collection of apps for gamers, and a multiversal IP world that deepens engagement by means of compelling narratives and collaborative IP partnerships.”

The blockchain trade, Thitadilaka believes, is full of infrastructure and video games that may’t entice sizable audiences on account of technical complexities, together with different excessive obstacles to entry. They focus solely on Web3 players and omit the a lot, a lot bigger universe of Web2 gamers. Zentry is designed to bridge that hole.

“We’re right here to resolve that and capitalize on these underutilized techniques and communities,” he mentioned, “to not simply evolve with the crypto gaming trade however be answerable for its evolution.”