What is Enjin?

Enjin (ENJ) is a token created by the company of the same name and which is the backbone of one of the largest NFT markets in the world, knows how it works and the benefits of it. 

PIt is possible that the name of Enjin is known to you at this moment, and it is not for less, because that is the name of a company that is dedicated to taking the world of blockchain and NFTs to video games.

This Singapore-based company has been dedicated since its inception to creating communities, services and tools for game developers through blockchain technology.

To achieve this, Enjin has developed tools based on Ethereum (ETH). Enjin has even created such important advances in this community as the creation of the standard ERC-1155, a type of token that brings together the best of tokens ERC-20 y ERC-721, within oneself Smart contract. As a result, Enjin created a highly flexible type of token upon which the construction of blockchain development platforms in the video game realm is based.

History and origin of Enjin

The Enjin story begins in 2009 when Maxim Blagov (CEO) and Witek Radomski (CTO) decided to launch the Enjin Network, a community gaming platform that brought together more than 20 million users worldwide. However, with the cryptocurrency and ICO boom in 2017, Enjin decided to take a turn into the blockchain universe. A decision driven especially by one goal: to unite the world of video games and blockchain to create unique ecosystems.

The idea of ​​Enjin was not new, since it looked for to make that the virtual worlds could have a more real economic representation. All this while making the objects in said games could be transported or shared between different virtual universes. In this way, such objects could be traded or stored as objects of unique value. A clear evolution of Bitcoin collectibles such as rare pepes o Spell of Genesis.

Pursuing that goal was what prompted Enjin to initiate a ICO (Initial Coin Offering) on August 21, 2018, in which he managed to raise $ 18,9 million. That ICO then led to the initial launch of its ERC-20 token, Enjin Coin (ENJ), on August 28, 2018. However, this was only the first step in a long list of innovations initiated by Enjin, one that would allow it to create unique blockchain tools and services for the world of video games.

It was this development of projects that later ended with the launch of the Enjin Platform, a platform designed so that video games could create fungible and non-fungible tokens in their respective worlds with a representation on the Ethereum blockchain. The basis of this platform was the ERC-1155 token, of which Enjin presented a EIPs (Ethereum Improvements Proposals) which was accepted by the Ethereum community and developers.

Since then, Enjin has worked hard to be a technological benchmark in the blockchain world in the field of video games. Not only by creating a platform to unite both worlds, but by demonstrating the real operation of such technology with games like Minecraft. And it has even taken a further step in the development of scalability options and blockchain technology designed to make this union something simple and especially useful for game developers.

How does Enjin work?

To understand how Enjin works, you must first understand its objective: to unite the virtual world of video games with blockchain to be able to transfer the objects of those virtual worlds to real markets or other virtual worlds. Imagine for a moment the following scenario:

You are a Lineage player and in all the years that you have played, you have a unique character and items within your virtual world. Assets that you treasure deeply, because you have dedicated hundreds and even thousands of hours to achieve that point. But, at one point, the game developers decide that it is time to shut everything down and for the virtual world of Lineage to disappear. That decision means only one thing to you: you will lose everything. All that time spent will disappear the day the server is disconnected, and all your time spent on your character and getting those items will vanish as if it never happened. A sad and very upsetting situation.

But what if you could move that character and objects like NFT onto the Ethereum blockchain? In that case, you would be able to store those characters, their properties, and objects. Even if the game server is never online again, you will be the owner of it. And not only that, but you will own a collectible, the memory of a game known in the gamer world.

There you have three options: the first is to keep those objects knowing that they will live forever on the blockchain. The second is to participate in an NFT market, offer your holdings and earn some money for it. And the third, take advantage of Enjin technology to transfer properties of your NFTs to other games with properties similar to those of Lineage. This last option allows you to recover part of that time you dedicated and integrate it into a new character in another virtual world.

If you understand this scenario, then you will understand the spirit of Enjin, the potential of this technology, and how it works in a very basic way. That said, we are sure that the idea has surprised you, and it is certainly a total change in the game development rules. The best thing is that it is the beginning of a technology that could have much more use and development.

GraphQL and Trusted Cloud, Enjin's base infrastructure

Now, the technical reality of Enjin is much more complex. In the first place, Enjin does not seek to create a blockchain for each game, but to allow them to use an SDK and an API that allow them access to those functionalities as needed. In this way, if you create a character, the game will generate the corresponding blockchain transaction to generate said NFT and update it as it evolves. The same will happen with the objects that you collect and wish to collect.

To do this, Enjin has created a solution that uses GraphQL, a query language and data manipulation via API created by Facebook. The advantage of using GraphQL is that this language is fast, since it allows a single query to provide information from multiple labels and properties to the developer. In addition, GraphQL facilitates the interaction between the virtual world and blockchain smart contracts, by simplifying the way in which these resources are accessed.

Although GraphQL is the basis of Enjin, to interconnect the game with the blockchain a bridge is required, and that function is fulfilled by Enjin's Trusted Cloud. Trusted Cloud is a backend service that allows the interconnection of games that use the Enjin Network SDK and API with the Ethereum blockchain. To do this, Trusted Cloud receives all the calls and requests made by all the actors in the game (servers and clients), and transforms them into the expected responses (user identification, access to blockchain data, token holding information, among others. ). At this point, Trusted Cloud is the backbone of the Enjin Network, the nexus of virtual worlds, the blockchain, and its Enjin Wallet.

However, Enjin's Trusted Cloud has a downside in the community: it is a centralized, closed-source solution. This means that all the server code that allows Enjin to work (attend to requests and interconnect the games with the blockchain) is proprietary code and, therefore, cannot be developed openly. The decision to do so is understandable, but it is still a point against the platform. But, in its favor, the SDK and the API are totally open, as are the smart contracts for the control of the platform.

Enjin Wallet, a wallet for the platform

The Enjin Wallet becomes the second most important element of the Enjin proposal. This wallet allows all interactions between the game and the blockchain to take place. This is possible because each Enjin Wallet directly links an Ethereum address to a user identity on the Enjin platform. In this way, each item stored in a game using Enjin Network, is quickly transformed into an ERC-1155 token (fungible or non-fungible). And, at that point, the user can verify in his wallet that his tokens are indeed there under his control, since the platform does not custody.

In addition, each interaction with the blockchain requires a small commission payment in which you need to spend Enjin Coin (ENJ) tokens. In this way, each interaction, object or character has a certain value, which generates a real economy within the game. This adds value not only to users, who can gather a lot of value with their holdings (characters, items, coins, and more), but game developers can monetize them in a completely new and positive way for their platforms.

In this way, Enjin seeks to solve one of the great problems of current games: their monetization. This allows you to attack issues such as micropayments and game modes (such as the annoying Pay2Win) in a different way. At the same time, profitable value is generated not only by developers, but also by the community itself.

Efinity and JumpNet, Enjin's next evolutionary steps

Enjin however faces a serious problem with his approach: the scalability of Ethereum. Ethereum's scalability is so low that facing a massification of Enjin technology in games is unthinkable. And, all this for a powerful reason: the commissions in the network would be too high.

Enjin's model depends on the low payment of fees for interacting with the blockchain. In this way, users do not have to spend fortunes to be able to play. To solve this, Enjin started with the development of an Ethereum scaling solution called Efinity. This technology will be used within the Enjin platform in order to make transactions within the Enjin Network much cheaper. All this without having to leave the Ethereum ecosystem. And, at the same time, Enjin has created JumpNet, a cross-chain payments solution, thereby attracting value from other chains.

At the moment, JumpNet is an active solution within the Enjin Network ecosystem, but Efinity is still a project in development in which a fund of 100 million dollars has been provided to build a decentralized Metaverse. According to what is explained in its whitepaper, it will be built on Polkadot, as a parachain within that network. With Efinity, Enjin aims to become an ecosystem for non-fungible tokens within Polkadot, which means that Efinity will be a very high-speed and high-performance sidechain, with costs per transaction that can be less than $ 0,000001 per transaction, and the promise to process between 700 and 1.000 transactions per second (TPS).

Enjin Coin (ENJ) Token Features

The Enjin Coin token is the fourth cornerstone of the Enjin Network. This token has a total supply of 1.000.000.000 ENJ tokens, with a controlled issuance. The primary wallet for storing these tokens is the official Enjin wallet. However, in Bit2Me You also have the opportunity to buy, sell and store Enjin Coin (ENJ) tokens without any major problems.

Also, remember that the ENJ token is an ERC-20 token, so all operations are carried out on the Ethereum blockchain. Therefore, it is linked to your technology and fees. On the other hand, as it is an ERC-20 token, it is not possible to mine or staking these tokens directly. So, for this, it depends on platforms DeFi , the Uniswap, AAVE o Bancor.

Enjin use cases

The project has collaborated with several renowned multinational companies, such as:

1. Atari: Enjin partnered with Atari to integrate the iconic brand into blockchain gaming across the ENJ Ecosystem.
2. BMW: Enjin partnered with BMW to allow users of the BMW Vantage app to convert their BMW Coin reward points into Enjin Coin.
3. Microsoft: Microsoft uses Enjin technology to run a social rewards program called Azure Heroes.
4. Samsung: Enjin partnered with Samsung to integrate the Samsung Blockchain Keystore on the S10 into the Enjin Wallet.
5. Unity: Enjin partnered with Unity to launch an SDK, which will make it easier for the 4,5 million developers in the Unity ecosystem to integrate the blockchain into their apps and games.
6. Aave Protocol: Enjin's first step into the DeFi space allowed its users to deposit ENJ tokens in the Aave Protocol and earn interest by allowing others to borrow them.

Since December 2020, Enjin has recruited more than 35 app and game developers as part of the official Enjin Adopter program. This program seeks to help them build, finance, monetize and market their games through blockchain.

Links of interest