People's ideas about gaming as a form of recreation have changed a lot over the years. Crypto gaming has added an investment layer on top of traditional gaming, for example, with the Play-to-Earn (P2E) industry. Due to this, consumers are becoming more interested in cryptocurrencies, such as Ethereum, as potential investment vehicles.
What if these two sectors could be combined so that it was feasible to earn crypto while playing games without the traditional P2E elements? This would be a really exciting prospect. The idea of mixing decentralized finance (DeFi), non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and blockchain-based virtual games, is one of the most interesting ecosystems to emerge from the cryptocurrency market in recent times.
To compete with the traditional pay-to-win models, new ones have emerged where players may purchase enhancements inside the game that offer them a competitive edge. In addition, DeFi within gaming also enables users to wager real money while participating in various gaming activities.
Incorporating game theory with DeFi practices allows for a transition toward crypto focused gaming ecosystem. NFTs can also play a role in this transition by providing players with assets they can earn, which carry real-world value. Players can buy, sell, and trade nearly anything that exists as an NFT, which can be located all across the world and range from ammunition to clothing.
One way DeFi is being integrated into gaming is through partnerships. EQIFi, a regulated global DeFi services platform backed by EQIBank, partnered with Kafu Games, a gaming hub hosting esports tournaments for the biggest titles on every gaming device. Through the partnership, players on Kafu Games can invest and stake the earnings from Kafu Games tournaments on EQIFi’s platform.
As a Middle East gaming platform hub, Kafu Games is building a home for gaming communities of all kinds and sizes in the region and beyond by hosting esports tournaments. The EQIFi and Kafu Games partnership also includes creating a loyalty program, further incentivizing the establishment of these communities offering opportunities to learn more about the crypto industry and EQIFi’s product suite. Additionally, the collaboration enables players to use EQIFi’s native $EQX on the Kafu Games platform, allowing them to transfer their esports earnings into tokens.
EQIFi and Kafu Games will work together to build data-driven solutions to integrate EQIFi’s suite of DeFi products and services into the gaming platform. In the long run, this will ensure new use cases for Kafu Games users to invest their tournament earnings, taking esports and play-to-earn to another level.
“The entire EQIFi team is thrilled to be working with Kafu Games,” says Brad Yasar, CEO of EQIFi. “EQIFi is an industry leader in DeFi as the first DeFi platform powered by a licensed and regulated bank and Kafu Games is leading the charge in the MENA region when it comes to online gaming and esports. The Kafu Games and EQIFi partnership will continue to push the worlds of DeFi & Gaming more closely together to take gaming to the next level.
“The ever-expanding capabilities of blockchain offer so much potential to gamers,” says Rami Elkhalil, CEO of Kafu Games. “Our Partnership with EQIFi brings the capabilities of staking and NFT technology to our gamers. Having hosted more than 3 million sessions on the Kafu Games platform last year, we’re excited to see our growing user base reap the benefits of blockchain technology.”
DeFi gaming is also beneficial since it makes use of blockchain technology for data storage. The rewards and collections of participants are recorded in the distributed ledger so that a transaction record may be utilized as evidence of purchase if necessary. This guarantees that the system's security is not jeopardized, which is of the utmost importance.
If players cannot access the gaming platform due to technical issues, they will still be able to retrieve any rewards they have won. Furthermore, there is a chance that these games will also use tokens denominated in the native cryptocurrency of the game. Because users can trade these tokens directly between each other, there is no longer a need for the participation of a trustworthy third party or a governing body in the transaction process.
Users who already own tokens can "stake" their tokens to earn interest on them or to spend them on in-game purchases of virtual products. In addition, as a result of DeFi's provision of a diverse range of liquidity pools, players are in a position to swap the coins they have earned from one game in exchange for those of another game in which they are experiencing more challenges. This is just one of the many wonderful aspects of playing games within the integration of DeFi.
There is also the chance that players would trade in their virtual riches for money that is used in the real world, like the United States dollar or bitcoin. If you take out loans and lend in-game tokens and stuff to other players, you may be able to prioritize the assets that are essential to you while eliminating the ones that aren't vital to you. This is possible if you remove the assets that aren't important to you first.
Users within the DeFi ecosystem can also exchange their virtual wealth for real-world money. Players who take out loans and lend in-game tokens and other items to other players may be able to prioritize the assets that are important to them while removing those that aren't.
Conclusion
DeFi is an interesting addition to the crypto gaming space, bringing decentralized finance into traditional gaming. This can help to bring new users to the crypto industry as well as provide new use cases, games, protocols, and products for users.