Immutable x Epics
Hello Collectors!
First off, I want to say thank you to each and every one of you for making our CSGO Season 2021 launch by far the biggest in our short history. It was truly astonishing to see the response to the collection preorder and we’re humbled. The team is working tirelessly to make sure we live up to and exceed your expectations. Especially Lewis. We don’t allow him to sleep.
Second, I’d like to tell you all more about some important plans we have for the future of Epics and our technology stack. Today we’re announcing a partnership with @Immutable to leverage their ImmutableX technology to help us finally achieve the vision we had when we created Epics way back in 2017.
Staying true to our vision
We’ve always wanted our collectibles to live forever — to be truly owned by you the collectors. I often recount a story that we dreamt about back when we started working on the Epics project — imagining a virtual auction house 100 years from now where one of the first Epics cards ever produced would be auctioned off just like rare baseball cards are today. This is what we want for Epics and for our customers. The best way to achieve this vision has always been to provide our collectibles on a public, permissionless blockchain like Ethereum.
However, in 2017 Ethereum was far from ready to meet that vision. We watched as Crypto Kitties choked and stalled the network and as fees skyrocketed to the point where only extremely rich collectors could afford to take part. That’s not what we wanted for Epics — we want to provide a product that’s affordable for average folks like us.
After a lengthy search for partners
Fast forward to today. Ethereum has come a long way. It has a thriving ecosystem of developers, investors and collectors all working together to build a new internet of value. Most importantly new scaling technologies have evolved to help reduce the extreme gas fees associated with minting and trading collectibles on the network. Immutable is building one such solution and it’s their first project ImmutableX that has gotten us excited after an exhaustive four year search and talking to practically every player in the space.
Why we chose ImmutableX
ImmutableX leverages a layer 2 network using zero knowledge rollups to provide the security and authentication of Ethereum without the high gas fees. In fact, there are no gas fees to mint or trade, and on top of that transactions are instant with up to 9,000 transactions per second. Another key aspect is that you will remain in control of your items and they’re all tied back to the security and interoperability of the main Ethereum blockchain so they won’t be locked into a walled garden like Flow, WAX or other private blockchains. This gives you the maximum level of security and freedom while allowing us to provide you with more interesting features like trading, crafting, free drops, etc which are cost prohibitive on Ethereum today.
This sounds complicated (and it is), but for you the collector, we want to make this as simple as possible. To accomplish this, we’ll be taking a staged approach to assess UX issues that could arise from building on layer2 and to solve those issues before we migrate the entire Epics experience.
Immutable has shown dedication to the Ethereum ecosystem and have been at the forefront of scaling solutions over that time frame. As the makers of one of the first large scale games on Ethereum — Gods Unchained — they’ve learned a ton about the network, scaling on top of it and what is needed from a solution to be practical for game developers. They eat their own dog food and that’s a huge part of our trust in working with their team.
Looking ahead
Over the next few weeks we’ll be announcing more info about our plans. This is the bleeding edge of blockchain tech and there will surely be learning lessons along the way and we could not be more excited and proud to help pioneer this space.
Thanks again for your support and rest assured our focus as a team is and always will be to build value for you, our collectors.
- Mark Donovan, Co Founder and CEO
If you’d like to learn more about Immutable you can check them out at the links below:
