WAX stands for Worldwide Asset eXchange, and this is a global decentralized marketplace designed for virtual assets, specifically those related to video games. The platform is completely decentralized and makes it possible for anyone to run a fully functional virtual marketplace without having to invest in payment processing, infrastructure, or security. The team at WAX is the same as behind OPSkins, which is the world’s top marketplace for assets related to online video games. The team created WAX to serve the more than 400 million online players that already use in-game items, selling, buying, and collecting them.
Essentially, the WAX platform will give millions of traders the opportunity to create virtual stores on a single decentralized platform. All of these virtual stores will get to take advantage of the trust services, security, and instant payments, which should attract millions of new people to this growing ecosystem.
Who Is Behind WAX?
As mentioned, the team behind WAX is the same group that developed OPSkins. Following its creation in 2015, OPSkins has become the leader in the global marketplace for virtual assets in video games. Over the years, OPSkins has served millions of customers in 95 countries, facilitating more than 100 million purchases each year. While OPSkins is decentralized, the founders realized that it would have even greater potential for growth with decentralization since the users would have the power.
What Are WAX Tokens?
WAX tokens are the exchange’s utility tokens that make it possible to easily tokenize and exchange virtual goods for cryptocurrency. While the focus is for use in video games, WAX tokens can also be used outside of them. Thanks to the smart contract that underlies each transaction, trading between the buyers and sellers is trustless.
The WAX Token sale included the sale of 64,750,000 WAX tokens (35 percent of total tokens), and all contributors received 10 times the number of tokens purchased. This method of delivering 10 times the purchased tokens makes it easier to calculate microtransactions, which is crucial for a platform designed to facilitate those transactions. Thirty percent of the total tokens were designated for market development, with 15 percent for advisors and early contributors and 20 percent for the founders and team.
What Is the WAX Blockchain?
The WAX Platform serves as a global repository for virtual items that anyone can access. Just like any other blockchain, it is accessible to all. The WAX Platform makes it possible to view available items that are up for sale in real-time. By using the blockchain, WAX users get access to the full global market plus the advantage of blockchain technology, like security and transparency.
Who Can Participate in the WAX Ecosystem?
Users can become Store Owners, operating their own virtual item marketplace. WAX sees this as a new generation of virtual asset traders, just like how the first online marketplaces made it possible for regular entrepreneurs to reach new audiences.
There are also Guilds that users can join or start to oversee and self-govern transactions for a particular game server or game. Guild participants receive rewards for their involvement.
Transfer Agents review and facilitate transactions and can earn fees for doing so. As members earn more fees, more tokens become available for use, expanding the ecosystem as a whole.
Those who are WAX members that have familiarity with pricing and assets within their favorite games can become Appraisers. Appraisers will offer their appraisal services to the marketplaces which need verification and valuation services.
Finally, Asset Creators can use their entrepreneurial design and making skills to create virtual assets that they then sell in their own marketplace.
What Partners Does WAX Have?
WAX is always looking for new partners to work toward the goal of optimizing the ecosystem for all users while ensuring it is secure and feature rich. The partners have the same goal of democratizing and decentralizing the world with groundbreaking technology, so users can benefit based on their contributions. Just some current partners include Kyber Network, Robot Cache, Bancor, Jaxx, and SALT.
What WAX Applications Exist?
WAX Connect is the browser-based SDK that lets users build listing widgets, seamlessly onboard new users into the platform, and conduct wallet transactions via remote wallets. It will also conduct automatic node discovery depending on guild affiliation, enabling listing retrieval from the guild nodes.
WAX Nodes are the full nodes that Guilds and the other participants in the ecosystem run. They are a requirement for being a Guild and let Transfer Agents bond. WAX Nodes also provide a gateway to the platform as a whole, including API endpoints and discovery of nodes and Guilds. Every WAX Nodes has its own complete WAX blockchain copy.
The WAX Wallet lets WAX users who are not Guilds hold their WAX tokens, as well as participate as one of the DPOS delegates.
Finally, the WAX Core is an SDK encapsulating the common functionality of the WAX Wallet and WAX Node. The WAX Core allows for forging delegates and providing blockchain synchronization. It also includes the full developer API and will be used by those who want to build on the WAX platform.
What Does the WAX Roadmap Look Like?
The WAX roadmap began in Q4 of 2017 with the white paper release and OPSkins using the first version of WAX. Q1 of 2018 saw manual onboarding and ERC721 outreach. The blockchain selection was finalized at the end of the quarter. During Q2, WAX will create the Crypto Collectibles marketplace and implement WAX DPOS on the Guild Nodes.
In Q3, WAX will create the listing contract, provide self-service and automation for Crypto Collectibles, create the settlement contract, and develop the dispute resolution contract. Q4 will see the introduction of the rating contract, guild creation, and guild voting. Q4 will end with the beta version of WAX, with the platform becoming fully operational in Q1 of 2019.
Conclusion
WAX will assist and benefit from those who perform transactions for online video game assets. It allows for payment processing, infrastructure, and security, and the team behind WAX already has a solid track record thanks to their success with OPSkins. As such, this is a project to watch as it continues development.
