We’re building a non-custodial exchange! One that will greatly improve Gods Unchained’s functionality and scalability.
Since our beta launch in 2018, Gods Unchained has grown significantly, both in size and quality (as those who have been with us since the beginning will be well aware of). With the launch of our first official season just around the corner, we're looking to continue this growth trajectory, amplifying it for the following season, then building upon that for the next, and the next, and the… okay, we're getting ahead of ourselves.
To help make this goal possible, we’re building Immutable X, a decentralized, non-custodial exchange that scales trading on the Ethereum network with instant settlement and zero gas fees. Sound like a lot? It is!
So, uh, what is it?
Immutable X will be a high speed exchange that provides a superior user experience to standard blockchain trading. It will offer fast, reliable trades with minimal transaction fees and support both first- and third-party assets within the Immutable ecosystem. Crucially, Immutable X will be non-custodial, meaning users will have complete control over their assets at all times and won't have to place their trust in Immutable to hold and manage their assets for them.
More room to grow
We’re big fans of Ethereum for both its decentralization and developer ecosystem – hell, it’s the reason we could create Gods Unchained in the first place – so we want to keep using it. However, with plans to massively scale Gods Unchained’s promotion to non-crypto users this year, we need to have an infrastructure which will support hundreds of thousands of players minting and trading assets daily.
The network currently supports approximately 150,000 non-fungible token transactions per day at 30% network usage. This is fine for where we currently stand, but won’t be for long.
That’s why we’re teaming up with StarkWare to make this happen, a leader in zero-knowledge proofs and blockchain scalability. Immutable X will be leveraging StarkEX, StarkWare’s ZK-STARK-based scalability engine, which has demonstrated the ability to process over 9,000 non-custodial trades/sec.
Our plan is for Immutable X to support more than 200 million trades per day while consuming less than 30% of Ethereum’s capacity.
Cheaper, better, faster, stronger
It’s not just about scale. Immutable X as a platform will make user to user trading far more efficient and reliable. At the moment, trades can take anywhere from minutes to hours, expecting players and traders to wait until their assets go through. These trades can sometimes fail and return each user’s assets to their respective owners, an annoyance that requires the trade to be manually re-initiated.
With Immutable X, we look to make these trades instantaneous and reliable – as one should expect from any game. As trades will now occur offchain, we will also be able to eliminate the variable gas fee that comes with trading for users.
Keepin’ it decentralized
Immutable X is still a fair way off but, once it’s live, assets will be minted directly onto the platform. Existing users will also be able to move their Gods Unchained items onto the platform without handing control of those assets over to us.
The reason for minting directly to the platform is because most players just want to trade their assets, and we don't want them to have to send Ethereum transactions to deposit each one. We strongly believe in the philosophy and security behind decentralized economies, it’s why Immutable exists in the first place, so it’s important that all users still hold custody of their funds at all times. It’s equally important that users can take their assets off Immutable X whenever they desire in order to trade in their preferred way.
Overall, when Immutable X launches we’ll still have zero control over its users items and won’t be able to touch or alter those items in any way. Immutable X merely acts as a facilitator to make more efficient trades. To reiterate what was said above (as it’s vital): Immutable X will be non-custodial; users will be able to trade their assets without trusting the security of Immutable’s infrastructure.
Want to know more?
We ran an AMA on reddit with Alex Connolly (Immutable CTO) and Starkware's Head of Core Engineering, Gideon Kaempfer. The team answered community questions around all things Immutable X and you can view the discussion here.
