X Protocol is building a unique metaverse with a prediction market

Whether you like it or not, the future of gaming and interconnected technologies lies in the metaverse. We see Facebook endorsing this concept when they rebranded the company name to “Meta” and committed $10 billion to develop the virtual social sharing platform. If the seventh biggest company in the world is ready to make such a big transition, it is clear the metaverse is inevitable. And with Web3 producing great applications that are interoperable, scalable, and sustainable — users will have the right to take back ownership of their data. 

Speaking of ownership, non-fungible tokens or NFTs will be an integral part of any metaverse. All the avatars in a metaverse can earn by playing a game or trading their digital items for a higher price. This concept is called play-to-earn. Many projects like Axie Infinity have adopted this to draw millions of users to make money off playing a simple PVP game. While the growth of NFT-based blockchain metaverse projects is beyond a doubt impressive, there are still areas limiting greater adoption. 

Speed, scalability, and interoperability — are a few things to overcome, as they limit seamless onboarding of new users into the virtual world. It is also important to establish an open application of ecology for the metaverse to thrive. As the community evolves in the metaverse, they will also need a robust governance and voting system to make changes on-chain. 

Addressing these shortcomings in the current metaverse model, X Protocol is building the first-ever Metaverse + Application portal with the help of cross-chain solutions provided by Polkadot. Not only that, X Protocol is developing a wide range of decentralized applications to add a significant value network for the ultimate metaverse. In this article, we will provide an overview of X Protocol and help you understand what it is trying to do and how. 

About X-Protocol 

The X Protocol built using the infrastructure of Polkadot emphasizes three key elements, namely performance, interoperability, and scalability, in its X-metaverse. By adopting a multi chain structure, the protocol delivers high throughput, scalability, and, more importantly, a better end-user experience. 

If that high performance has to last, it also needs to be superior in terms of cross-chain communication. So, X-Protocol is leveraging each blockchain in the network to enable secure channels for communication. Besides the multichain deployment of X-Protocol, it is also building commercial applications to build a strong digital economy inside the metaverse.

Tech Under the Hood 

The underlying technology of X Protocol is a combination of multiple solutions based on cross-chain bridge and relayers. The fast bridging solution of X Protocol is achieved through a relay chain that offers high performance and speed. As a result, it relieves users from cross-chain compatibility issues. In addition, the cross-chain bridge can bring better liquidity to Polkadot Defi, as users can deploy their assets at a 1:1 ratio from other chains. 

As X Protocol enables cross-chain activity, it needs to perform authentication on different chains while reducing costs. This is done using cross-chain relay technology. Relay enables one chain to feed information to others by implementing a light client authentication. And in the case of X Protocol, the light client uses the Merkle Mountain Range (MMR) encryption algorithm. 

Unlike other algorithms, the usage of MMR allows a protocol to operate at high stability with the benefit of low cost and storage. In terms of verification, it reduces network burden and increases efficiency. 

The functionality of X Protocol also comes from the Optimistic Whistleblower System (OWS) and miner incentive model. While the MMR takes care of verification, the OWS handles relayers. It monitors their activities and punishes them when they are involved in a malicious act. The X Protocol compensates relayers fairly when the data is ensured accurately. 

X Protocol recognizes the significance of NFTs in a metaverse, so the team decided to use a heterogenous chain bridge to lay the foundation for the development of NFTs. This will also make X metaverse more user-friendly, as the NFT cross-chain supports small transactions like NFT transfers.

Features of X Protocol 

Till now, we learned X Protocol has one of the finest architecture to help grow a metaverse, but it doesn’t end there. The cross-chain platform is also working on a decentralized prediction market made by Fixed Product Automated Market Maker (FPMM). Given its interoperable nature, it was easy for X Protocol to partner with other outstanding public chains, which helps bring down entry barriers for any and all users. 

As the protocol aids liquidity growth for other networks, the prediction market will not suffer from constant price fluctuations. The flow of operations and inside the management of a prediction market run by X Protocol is given below: 

X Protocol has the best tools to build a decentralized prediction market that allows users to create events freely and helps them do the same on different blockchain networks. Asset management becomes more flexible with X Protocol. And when the Polkadot cross-chain agreement is passed, the platform will observe a major spike in user participation.

With NFTs going mainstream, the prediction market will encourage users to bet on the economic, artistic, and irreplaceable value hidden in digital art. X Protocol allows users to create prediction proposals if they stake a certain amount of POT, the native token. If the governance approves, the owner of the NFT receives 10% of the transaction fee. Apart from risk-free cash flows generated from owning an NFT, one can also see major price growth potential in the secondary market. 

This feature involving NFTs will add immense value to the metaverse, as the fee-sharing model is attractive for many users and can also auction off their ownership. More importantly, it helps get more attention and build a passionate community around the X metaverse. Down the line, X Protocol also plans to enable users with collateral lending, NFT trading, and fractionalization. 

Competitor Analysis

The Sandbox and Decentraland are two projects with a functional metaverse that already has a large user base. But the functionality of X Protocol seems to be far superior, at least on paper. Outside of the prediction market, the platform will also integrate an NFT marketplace, yield farming, and acceptance center (bank). 

The utility of native tokens, POT, is expected to drive the digital ecosystem by incentivizing users and helping raise funds for a new project. Moving forward, it will be crucial for a metaverse to have different applications that complement each other and build more emphasis on it. And we believe X Protocol got what it takes to achieve that and stand in the frontline of metaverses. 

Token Economics 

The utility and governance token of X Protocol, POT, is used for many purposes within the metaverse and other applications. The token has a maximum supply of 21 million. And 15% of that will be used for marketing and exchange listing. A fixed 20% of the supply is allocated for the liquidity pool of Uniswap with a three-year unlock. Another major chunk of the supply (35%) is dedicated to network incentives reserved for mining. The team also used 20% of the supply to raise money in the seed and private stages. 

Investors Details 

The initial investment round helped the protocol reach a valuation of $6.3 million, and investors got in at an average token price of $0.3. In the private A round, the team managed to sell $POT at $0.8 to raise $1.68 million. 

Investors who participated in the private rounds are DFG investment advisers, Lancer, IBC Capital, Candaq, Spark, Kernel Ventures, Redline DAO, Mint Ventures, R8 Capital, Ceras Ventures, Infinity Labs, LD Capital, and Crypto Discover. 

Recent Progress 

The X Protocol team has made progress in different areas of metaverse development. The decentralized applications are developed, and the infrastructure is ready. The only thing left for them to do is the interface. It is still under design, and we can expect it very soon. In September, the team launched the NFT marketplace, DAO governance, and staking node. A prediction ranking list was also released. In the next stage of development, we will see social forum integration and a group chat system with brand new UI and UX. 

The platform made many partnerships in recent months to help accelerate growth. They partnered with Supra Oracles to obtain accurate real-time information for the prediction market. In return, the X Protocol is offering cross-chain capabilities to Supra. Another recent partnership is with Standard Protocol. The platform is going to use the stablecoins, MTR, to expand its dAPP ecosystem. 

X protocol recently announced to launch the public token sale of $POT at three launchpads: DAO Starter, Duck Dao, and FrankYield on 5th November.

Roadmap 

X Protocol achieved major milestones in 2021 with NFT trading square, staking node, and prediction mining. The roadmap ahead for X Protocol is going to be crucial. The product prototype, launching of the game section, and metaverse demo — are important steps with a major focus for the team. In this year, we will mainly see the NFT section, UI adaptation of X Predict, and multichain deployment. 

Later next year, we can expect to see more community building with content creation rewards programs and fundraisers. A new social contact section will also be added with the KOL token fueling the community growth. 

Conclusion 

It is pretty clear how important NFTs and metaverse are to Web 3 transition. And everyone in the crypto and traditional financial space is beyond excited. So, when things go mainstream, a single metaverse will not be enough to meet market demand. Users want more and will continue to enjoy more. What is paramount is to make metaverses more reliable and interoperable while having zero entry barriers. A metaverse project like X Protocol has all the attributes to make it happen. The Polkadot’s infrastructure will also get better over time, making X Protocol accessible to everyone. If the metaverse is launched on time with many decentralized applications in the ecosystem, X Protocol should go far in the race of virtual worlds. 

You can find all the details about whitelisting on Twitter

You can find more details about this project from its Website, Whitepaper, and Twitter,