How web3 gives power back to the players with Alex Connolly CTO of Immutable X – CryptoSlateIRL #22
At the recent NFT.London event, we spoke with CryptoSlate’s Akiba and Immutable X’s CTO Alex Connolly about the future of web3 gaming and the power it gives players. Immutable X takes the web3 industry by storm, growing to $2.5 billion evaluation in just two years.
Past investment rounds have included Tencent and Animoca Brands. The company has raised over $200 million as the startup has grown rapidly over the past few years, making him one of the largest companies in the web3 gaming scene.
The Australian-based company was founded in 2018 by Alex Connolly, James Ferguson and Robbie Ferguson. The company’s chief technology officer, Connolly, studied law and computer science at the University of Sydney, and has since gone on to devote himself exclusively to Immutable X.
In an interview with Akiba, Connolly discussed his history of running a CSGO item trading bot and website on Steam and his passion for facilitating true digital asset ownership through his work with Immutable.
The young co-founder spoke eloquently about the problems of gamers in the modern world and how the cryptocurrency industry can mitigate these problems. We believe full ownership of our digital assets is essential to our ever-expanding digital world.
When Connolly first started playing the game, expensive in-game items such as the infamous CSGO Dragonlore AWP skin were only tradable through the centralized Steam marketplace. However, he eventually turned to third-party sites such as OPskin to use Steam’s built-in trading mechanism.
However, in 2018 Steam banned such sites from using its platform, locking Steam-based skins into a closed ecosystem. As a result, even digital items and skins from games like Fortnite, League of Legends, and Dota 2 are either untradeable or trapped in centralized marketplaces.
Using NFTs and other blockchain technologies, web3 games empower players to decide what to do with their hard-earned digital assets. Additionally, the ability to trade in-game items using peer-to-peer transfers or any number of marketplaces allows real-world value to be assigned to any in-game item.
Immutable X runs a proprietary Layer 2 scaling solution for the Ethereum network optimized for gaming, with a focus on high scalability and performance while maintaining robust Layer 1 security. The company also market Here, items can be freely traded between gamers, similar to how art and music NFTs are traded on OpenSea.
The interview touches on other topics critical to web3’s success. For example, complex terminology, poor onboarding journeys, and a generally underwhelming user experience are issues that plague not just games, but the entire crypto industry.
But as Connolly said in an interview, the web3 games sector is leading the way in its approach to solving these problems. Watch the full interview at the link above to hear what Connolly has to say about these and other web3 gaming topics.
