‘Tiny’ NFT game announces plan to drop Solana blockchain

Today, Tiny Colony declared its intention to port its nascent NFT game – a blockchain-oriented construction and management simulator – from the Solana blockchain to the Ethereum scaling platform Immutable X.

According to Arshia Navabi, co-founder and CEO of Tinyverse, “Immutable has always been focused on the gaming industry with their impressive development team and revolutionary technology.”

In Tiny Colony, players are tasked with constructing and managing underground ant colonies inhabited by humanoid creatures. The objective is to farm, mine minerals and hatch larvae while defending the colony against enemies in order to survive. As they progress through the levels of the game, participants will earn Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) that can be used in-game or traded in various marketplaces. After releasing a trial version for testing purposes last summer over Solana’s blockchain network, the full release of this immersive experience is coming later this year via the Immutable X platform.

While Tiny Colony is a significantly smaller effort than Axie Infinity and Bored Ape Yacht Club’s Otherside, which have each generated over one billion dollars in NFT sales, it still has great potential.

Tinyverse reported that since its launch on Solana marketplace Fractal, the project had amassed more than $3 million in NFT sales. Currently, the game’s NFTs sell for $5 worth of SOL a piece on the secondary market.

NFTs are revolutionary blockchain tokens that stand for unique items. In video games, they can denote characters, extras, digital plots, and more. NFTs also represent profile pictures (PFP), artwork, sports memorabilia and exclusive access to occasions or experiences in other contexts beyond gaming.

Navabi added that Tiny Colony would provide a “burnable coin” to enable current Solana NFT owners to convert their holdings to an Immutable X version. In the coming weeks, they aim to complete the technical procedure in collaboration with Immutable X engineers and will share more details regarding the redemption process.

Why Tiny Colony chose Immutable X

Immutable is the brains behind the Immutable X network and Gods Unchained – an NFT-based card game. The layer-2 scaling solution allows for much faster and more cost-effective transactions than Ethereum’s mainnet, making it a perfect partner for Tiny Colony, according to Navabi. Furthermore, Immutable puts player experience first in its gaming focus, further strengthening its role as an ideal fit with Tiny Colony.

Often perceived as Ethereum’s main competitor, Solana has become a popular choice for constructing decentralized applications and NFTs, given its low fees and ability to process large amounts of transactions per second compared to the Ethereum blockchain.

Despite the hype Solana generated in 2021, its popularity was not sustained into 2022. Network outages, increased competition and turbulence in the NFT market are suspected to have contributed to a significant decline in SOL token prices from November 2021’s peak of $260 down to today approximate rates. of $16 – a dip much more pronounced than those experienced by major cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Just recently, Tinyverse addressed the decline of Solana on Twitter. They stated that even though their money was not lost in the FTX fiasco, they still needed to hold large amounts of SOL due to the low market cap and it would take a while to recover.

There is no doubt that Solana was crucial to Tinyverse’s success. Navabi declared that they “got everything we have today because of [Solana].” As soon as the conversation between Immutable and Tinyverse turned to their plans for games and NFTs, he was immediately hooked—“I was immediately hooked.”

Founded in 2021, Tinyverse is made up of gaming, film and television veterans who have built projects for companies such as Netflix, Disney Plus, Amazon Prime Video and Paramount, not to mention well-known gaming brands EA Games, Capcom and PlayStation.

As Ethereum’s technical shortcomings have made it less suitable for a number of Web3 games, scaling networks such as Immutable X and Polygon are becoming popular with creators to enable gaming experiences that allow users to own their assets without experiencing exorbitant transaction fees.

Navabi said Immutable X is his ideal choice because of the lack of gas fees, which makes it easier and more user-friendly than other networks for traditional (or Web2) players who may not understand what gas usage entails.

Navabi proclaimed that game developers and producers should stop expecting Web2 players to understand the core elements, and instead try to make it a haven for them. He further stated that Immutable X’s strategies, timelines and focus align with this plan: to create games similar to their familiar Web3 environment.

Troubled times for Solana?

Last month, DeLabs announced that two of Solana’s most successful PFP (Proof-of-Fungibility) projects, DeGods and y00ts, would move to other platforms.

DeGods will be moving to Ethereum and Polygon Labs (formerly known as Polygon Studios) will support y00ts migration to their platform with a 3 million dollar grant. President Ryan Wyatt too confirmed that they have reached out to several projects in several chains. Although exact details are still unclear, it appears that this move could be of great benefit to both parties involved.