Minecraft’s ban on non-fungible tokens has killed NFT Worlds, a project that relies on the implicit approval of Microsoft-owned games. Now the project team is looking forward to a fresh start.
NFT Worlds, rebranded as Hychain Games, developer of cryptocurrency video game Hytopia, is starting to sell nodes on Hychain, the game’s layer 2 blockchain. The company said HiChain is based on Arbitrum’s Orbit technology.
Free-to-play Hytopia, which appears to be heavily inspired by Minecraft, plans to release an “invitation-only” beta version of the game by the end of the first quarter, according to a statement. Hytopia’s beta version has more than 1 million pre-registered players, the statement said. “Hytopia was born from a vision to transform the Minecraft experience with blockchain technology,” Hychain Games said in a statement. “Compared to Minecraft, Hytopia leverages web3 features to introduce a player-centric economy and real ownership of in-game assets.”
The NFT world was turned upside down in the summer of 2022 when Swedish Minecraft developer Mojang Studios banned NFT integrations. NFT Worlds used Minecraft’s source code as the basis for an NFT-based metaverse. At one point, NFT Worlds’ non-fungible tokens generated tens of millions of dollars in trading revenue, according to reports.
Hitopia
Check out Hitopia. Image: Hichain homepage.
Earn Rewards
Hytopia developers hope that the sale of Hychain nodes will be “an invitation to the global gaming community to be rewarded for helping to ensure the operation and security of the Hytopia native network.”
“We are giving back to the community and encouraging participation in network security,” ArkDev, the pseudonymous co-founder of Hytopia and Hychain, said in a statement. “By decentralizing our network operations, we are handing the keys over to the community and empowering them to shape the future of gaming.”
Highchain Games also said that the node sale will take place in five phases, with the first four phases being “accessible exclusively to whitelisted members.”
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