Navigation
- Introduction
- Opportunities to Enter the Web3 Field
- Motivation and Process of Creating Sonic
- Impact of Experience in Different Fields and Projects on Entrepreneurship
- Development Process and Directional Change of Mirror World
- Comparison of Solana's Scalability and Ethereum's Scalability
- Challenges Faced by Layer2 Scalability on Solana
- Future Prospects of Web3 Gaming Track
01. Introduction
Welcome to the Ryze Up program brought to you by Ryze Labs. Ryze Labs serves as a bridge connecting the East and the West, aiming to accelerate the development of Web3 in emerging markets and influence the global Web3 world. Local Insights, Global Impact, let's embark on this journey together. Time to Ryze Up.
Host of this Episode
Fred, Ryze Labs Researcher, focuses on expanding the influence of the fund in the Chinese community and providing ideas and advice to the portfolio companies of the fund.
Special Guest
Chris, whose career began at ByteDance, accumulated rich experience in consumer entertainment and SaaS market research before entering the Web3 field. After joining the RCT AI team, which focuses on the intersection of AI and Web3, he delved into the combination of AI with NFT and AI with Crypto. These new business models sparked his interest in Web3. After founding Mirror World and focusing on game asset issuance, he discovered the diversity of market demand and collaborated with the Solana Foundation to develop Sonic, a proprietary chain for gaming services aimed at addressing scalability issues within the Solana ecosystem. With his wealth of experience and deep understanding of technology, Chris has become a key driver of the Web3 gaming ecosystem.
02. Opportunities to Enter the Web3 Field
After leaving ByteDance in the second half of 2021, Chris began to explore the Web3 field. During his time at ByteDance, he was involved in research on consumer entertainment and the SaaS market. Subsequently, he joined the RCT AI team, which focused on the intersection of AI and Web3. The team conducted in-depth research on the combination of AI with NFT and AI with Crypto, which deeply attracted Chris and prompted him to enter the Web3 field.
03. Motivation and Process of Creating Sonic
During the process of creating Sonic, the transition from Mirror World to Sonic led Chris to identify three core issues:
Diversity of game assets and users: In the early stages of Mirror World, Chris's team focused on asset issuance through NFT collections to serve multiple game projects. Over time, they found that the demand for game asset issuance in the market had high cyclicality. During bear markets or downturns, project teams were more inclined to build and address core issues. The diversity of game assets can directly bring about user diversity. However, on the Solana chain, the number of assets for consumer applications, games, and social applications is relatively low.
Computational resource and congestion issues on the Solana chain: It was observed that a single project occupying a large amount of computational resources on the chain led to congestion on the Solana mainnet. Despite Solana's high TPS and low costs, when more applications place logic on the chain, congestion issues still arise. Therefore, Chris and the team considered offloading computational resources through sidechains or proprietary chains to avoid mainnet overload.
Insufficient game issuance capabilities: Solana itself lacks the capability to issue games, which is not only a technical issue but also involves organizational structure and team background. Chris believes that the game industry needs dedicated resources and professional publishing institutions to support content development and issuance. Therefore, they discussed with the Solana Foundation to develop a game-specific chain using the SVM framework to address these issues.
Based on these three core issues, Chris's team collaborated with the Solana Foundation and proposed a solution to develop Sonic, a game-specific chain based on Solana, leveraging their R&D capabilities and resources in Mirror World, successfully transitioning to the gaming SVM track.
04. Impact of Experience in Different Fields and Projects on Entrepreneurship
Chris's career experience spans multiple fields, from ByteDance to RCT AI, and then to Mirror World and Sonic, each providing valuable experience. During his time at ByteDance, he learned enterprise management concepts and efficiency management methods in a rapidly developing environment, which played an important role in his later entrepreneurship. At RCT AI, Chris joined a young and international team, which further honed his skills in managing enterprises and recruiting talent, laying a solid foundation for his later entrepreneurship.
These experiences became particularly important for Chris upon entering the Crypto field. He realized the strong cyclicality and volatility of the Crypto field, with clear time windows for capital inflows, unlike the sustainable growth of SaaS products. Therefore, when managing the Sonic team, Chris adopted a more flexible and adaptive strategy. He emphasized keeping the core team members lean and quickly expanding when market demand surged, to cope with the rapid changes in the industry. This flexible management approach helped Sonic maintain competitiveness in a turbulent market environment.
05. Development Process and Directional Change of Mirror World
Initially, Mirror World served game projects by issuing NFT assets. However, over time, Chris and his team found that simple asset issuance could not meet the long-term market demand. Especially during market downturns, project teams were more interested in addressing infrastructure issues, such as fiat liquidity and cross-chain exchanges. Therefore, in early 2022, the team collaborated with the Solana Foundation to begin developing in-game wallets, markets, fiat liquidity, and swap tools. This shift allowed Mirror World to not only focus on asset issuance but also to provide broader infrastructure support.
In 2023, with the outbreak of the FTX incident, the number of projects in the entire ecosystem sharply decreased. Chris and the team realized that existing solutions alone could not cope with the new market challenges. They engaged in deep discussions with the Solana Foundation and ultimately decided to develop Sonic, a specialized SVM extension chain for gaming services. This new direction not only leveraged their R&D experience in Mirror World but also helped game projects operate better on the chain by addressing Solana's scalability issues.
06. Comparison of Solana's Scalability and Ethereum's Scalability
When discussing the scalability issues of Solana and Ethereum, Chris pointed out that their purposes and characteristics are significantly different. Ethereum's scalability is mainly aimed at addressing mainnet speed and cost issues, increasing transaction speed, and reducing transaction fees through Layer 2 solutions. On the other hand, Solana's TPS is already very high, and transaction costs are low. Its scalability aims more to meet specific needs in different fields.
Solana's scalability is intended to provide proprietary chains for different fields to ensure each field has its independent economic effects and computational resources. This approach not only offloads the mainnet's load but also provides more professional and efficient services for each field. For example, in the gaming field, developing a dedicated gaming chain can better support on-chain operations of game logic and assets, improving overall operational efficiency.
07. Sonic's Expansion Plan, Hypergrid
Sonic's expansion plan on Solana, Hypergrid, is a framework aimed at creating a specialized SVM environment for gaming services. Through Hypergrid, Sonic became the first project to apply this framework. The design concept of Hypergrid is to provide proprietary chains for different fields through horizontal expansion, thereby addressing the scalability issues of specific domains. Chris anticipates that in the future, not only the gaming sector but also other domains such as DeFi, AI, and more will have their proprietary chains. This approach allows each domain to enjoy customized expansion services.
The core of Hypergrid lies in its flexibility and adaptability. Through horizontal expansion, each domain can develop independently while remaining connected to the Solana mainnet. This approach not only enhances the professionalism and efficiency of each domain but also contributes to the overall performance and scalability of the Solana ecosystem.
08. Challenges Faced by Layer2 Scalability on Solana
In terms of Layer2 scalability, Solana faces several challenges. Firstly, it involves evaluating which domains truly require independent SVM expansion chains. While independent expansion chains can improve efficiency in certain cases, not all domains require such solutions. Chris mentioned that Ethereum faced similar issues in its early stages and eventually determined which domains were suitable for Layer2 expansion and which could run directly on the mainnet.
Secondly, Solana's codebase presents technical challenges during the ongoing process of splitting and maintenance. For example, the recent completion of the code split for Solana's client and runtime environment is still being gradually adapted to by the ecosystem. Ensuring code stability and compatibility amidst rapid development is an important issue for the team to address.
Lastly, the rapid development of the Solana ecosystem requires continuous resolution of new issues. Chris pointed out that Solana is more like a fast-growing startup, constantly adjusting and optimizing during its development. Therefore, the team developing Sonic needs to maintain flexibility to adapt to new challenges and changes.
09. Future Prospects of the Web3 Gaming Track
Chris is confident about the future of Web3 gaming, believing that the quality of game content and the toolset for monetization have significantly improved compared to the previous cycle. Despite the less-than-ideal price performance of Web3 games at present, he feels that the quality of games and user willingness to pay have reached a relatively high level. For example, games like Big Time have seen continuous growth in monthly active users and overall revenue, indicating significant potential for user base and economic impact in Web3 gaming.
Future game designs will increasingly place logic on the chain. When technology costs and speed reach a certain level, fully on-chain games will become possible. Sonic is also working towards this direction in technical development. Although 80% of the focus is currently on games that bring assets onto the chain, there will be more emphasis on the development of fully on-chain games in the future. Chris believes that with technological advancements and a mature market, Web3 gaming will achieve breakthroughs in gameplay and asset innovation, and may even witness the breakout success of the first fully on-chain game.
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