Accelerating AI Gaming with Nim Network
Exploring the Future of AI-Driven Gaming: Innovations, Interoperability, and Economic Incentives in the Nim Network Ecosystem
Introduction
Over this past month, we’ve gone through the rabbit hole of AI & web3. We first broke down decentralized AI, for those completely new to this vertical, and then we followed this up by taking a closer look at the components involved in creating this vertical, from AI agents, to privacy, gaming, and more.
In today’s post, we’ll be taking a closer look at one of the projects at the forefront of integrating web3, AI, and gaming - Nim Network.
Nim is developing the infrastructure, products, and coordination mechanisms to facilitate a variety of use cases within this intersection. This paper delves into the details of Nim Network’s approach and solutions.
But first, let’s examine the current state of the ecosystem.
Today’s post is sponsored by none other than Nim Network.
Nim Network is building the future of AI gaming and consumer applications in crypto, creating an ecosystem that connects ownership with the funding of open-source AI and applications.
Current ecosystem
The current web3 gaming ecosystem faces several significant challenges.
Many existing web3 games are not fully decentralized, relying heavily on off-chain elements that limit scalability and decentralization.
On-chain games, which strive for complete decentralization, also struggle with scalability due to current blockchain infrastructure limitations.
Both web3 and fully on-chain games often lack viable business models and face difficulties because they attempt to bootstrap their networks from scratch. Instead of building independently, it would be more beneficial for these projects to collaborate with specialized partners who can provide specific services and expertise, such as data availability and modularity.
Today, most on-chain games are still under infrastructure development. The true test for these games will come when they can achieve user numbers comparable to successful web2-native games. That being said, we’re still pretty far off from this, considering significant improvements are still needed in various aspects, including transaction processing times, latency, FPS, data availability, and more.
Web2.5 games, which aim to bridge the web2 and web3 experience, also face challenges. They struggle to introduce meaningful web3-first use cases, fail to incentivize users, and are unable to create onboarding flows that are truly web3-native while still being accessible to traditional web2 users. Most of these games often struggle with:
Providing proper incentives
Ensuring a smooth onboarding experience
Being genuinely enjoyable and engaging
Due to these issues, most games fail to capture the core ethos of web3 - promoting ownership, transparency of in-game assets, and incentivization for contributing to the game economy.
Additionally, the onboarding process for casual gamers is complex and not user-friendly. Moreover, many crypto consumer apps, including games, fail to fully leverage the power of a chain due to issues such as:
Network outages
Slow transaction processing times and fulfillment
Modularity (difficulty in integrating with different types of products and services)
What are some potential solutions?
Here are some of my thoughts on potential solutions to address the challenges in the current web3 gaming ecosystem:
Collaboration Network
One of the primary solutions involves creating a coordination network and ecosystem to set expectations and incentives for all stakeholders. This approach can attract a wider variety of contributors with specialized expertise, fostering collaboration rather than building in silos.
Solving Onboarding
Enhancing user onboarding and overall user experience is crucial to prevent drop-offs at the first step. Developing solutions that simplify the onboarding process, such as embedded wallets and email-based logins, is essential to improve user retention and engagement.
Decentralized Identity
Adopting a more aggregated form of decentralized identity, rather than relying solely on wallets, can enhance user experience. Simplifying these processes can make the gaming experience more seamless and user-friendly.
Seamless Payments
Users should not have to deal with the complexities of bridging, swapping, and integrations. Emphasizing a frictionless payment experience allows users to focus on enjoying the game without constantly signing transaction requests. Ideally, users should be able to pay out seamlessly in fiat, with the game handling the entire process.
Personalization and Customization
Creating an enjoyable game is fundamental. Beyond that, providing deeper user engagement through customization options, such as configurable maps, skins, and effects, can enhance user satisfaction. Traditional web2 games often lack these features; users are rarely financially rewarded for their contributions even when available.
Personalized interactions are another key focus. By understanding user behavior and creating interactive models that adjust according to user preferences, games can create a more engaging and comfortable experience for users.
Where does Nim Network come in?
Nim Network aims to bridge the gap between existing infrastructure and consumer applications in the web3 gaming ecosystem. They focus on several core aspects to achieve their goals:
Scaling on-chain games: Handling large volumes of transactions and data efficiently.
Funding and creating LLMs and AI models: Specializing in customized use cases.
Developing AI agent frameworks: Providing the foundation for intelligent and autonomous game agents.
Developing systems for on-chain verification: Ensuring the integrity and security of data and interactions.
Designing a smart contract layer: Integrating games and applications seamlessly into the chain.
They are building AI agents that can:
Automate tasks
Make payments
Participate in games on behalf of players
Enhance the overall gaming experience
Let’s dive deep into some of the products they’re building!
Meme Maker the First Tokenized AI model
Nim Network is launching NIM-AI, a platform designed to tokenize specialized AI models.
The initiative kicks off with the Meme Maker tool, which will help tokenize these AI models. This initiative allows owners to participate in the AI economy on-chain, while AI builders gain access to funding for developing and deploying specialized models. The continuous flow of new AI models will drive constant innovation and utility.
General AI models often underperform in specific use cases, requiring users to repeatedly tweak prompts to achieve desired results. Specialized models, trained or fine-tuned specifically for tasks like gaming, art, or coding, offer higher quality and reliability. Custom models are essential for achieving consistent, high-quality targeted outcomes compared to general-purpose models like GPT-4.
This is where the Meme Maker tool comes in, enabling users to create AI-generated memes tailored to specific communities, ideas, or brands. To operate this ecosystem, Nim Network employs the yield sale framework.
Inspired by Morpheus’s network design, this framework aims to offer a fair and transparent method for token distribution and reward users for staking through a stake-to-earn mechanism.
This approach allows users to provide liquidity by depositing stETH and, in return, claiming AI model tokens.
Deposited stETH generates a positive yield ("overplus"), managed to maintain liquidity and token value.
The reward token "AI” is an ERC20 token initially deployed on Arbitrum and bridgeable across LayerZero's supported networks. This community-owned token distribution model encourages broad participation and ensures the benefits are widely shared.
AI Agents
Nim is focused on developing and integrating AI agents through a robust framework that leverages various components of the AI stack, including:
Verifiable AI
Diverse economics
Innovative business models
This ecosystem will enable these AI agents to play, transact, and generate income.
Verifiable AI integrates AI models with blockchain using concepts like TEE, AI oracles, and zk proofs, creating reliable and private integration. The data for the model is stored and verified on-chain, ensuring transparency and reliability. This setup allows unrestricted access, testing, and customization of AI agents, enhancing the end-user experience and performance.
Players, developers, and holders have unique roles and incentives within this ecosystem:
Players provide feedback through a data and agent marketplace, helping improve AI agents.
Developers create platforms, models, and tools, sharing revenue with active users.
Holders provide liquidity and earn rewards as AI assets are activated.
Innovative business models support the creation of AI agents through development and no-code platforms, with a revenue-sharing mechanism among developers, owners, and players. Continuous improvement is driven by player feedback and active testing, ensuring AI agents remain relevant and effective.
Nim’s AI game, Titan (which we’ll explore in the next section), exemplifies this framework, promoting collaboration and continuous improvement. This approach enhances user experience and AI performance, fostering a vibrant ecosystem for gamers, developers, and holders.
Titans - The AI Game
Nim Network is developing Titans, a crypto x AI game where players can own and create AI agents that compete in high-stakes races. These AI agents autonomously generate income for their owners, adding a financial incentive to gameplay.
Players craft their agents through planning, coding, and iterative testing to align agent autonomy with player intent using a detailed skill tree mechanism. In the game, agents compete in races, akin to Mario Kart, choosing actions like accelerating, attacking, or shielding. Resource management is crucial, as action costs rise with demand.
Agents have access to competitors' information, including speed, position, and coin balance, enabling informed decisions. Titans is more of a strategic play than a typical action game, where planning and effective resource management are key to winning races.
Titan leverages AI and blockchain to offer a dynamic and competitive gaming experience, combining financial incentives with immersive gameplay.
Ligetron
Ligetron is a foundational component of Nim’s AI framework, designed to provide economic ownership and verified access to AI models.
In the zk space:
zkVM handles general-purpose languages.
zkML uses zk proofs for heavy computational loads, ensuring data privacy and security.
Ligetron combines the strengths of zkVM and zkML to execute complex AI models with scalability, addressing trust issues of off-chain computations and the high costs of on-chain AI implementation.
It has achieved significant performance improvements, including a 1024x increase in memory efficiency and a 66x speed boost for AI models like Llama 27b, compared to Modulus Labs.
However, Ligetron proofs currently cannot be verified on-chain and need further optimizations, such as switching to a pre-processing variant and optimizing for composition with a fully succinct SNARK like Groth16/Sonic.
You can learn about the detailed performance benchmarks and comparisons here.
Further optimizations are necessary to enable seamless on-chain verification and integration, though currently, no on-chain verification is available.
Funding gap in open source AI
Open-source AI faces distribution challenges that closed-source models avoid by leveraging cloud-provider partnerships. High computational demands for training and inference create barriers, particularly for smaller entities. Moreover, open-source models are vulnerable to easy replication, complicating IP protection and monetization efforts.
Customization and consistent performance often lag in open-source AI compared to closed-source counterparts. While closed-source models allow limited customization through fine-tuning, open-source variants permit unrestricted adaptation, re-training, and data integration for specific tasks. This flexibility fosters broader innovation and rapid technological advancements in AI.
Nim’s network aims to tackle these challenges by utilizing crypto-economic incentives. The focus is to monetize open-source AI through software composability, network effects, and liquidity. This approach enables AI components to seamlessly integrate diverse applications without deep technical expertise, promoting widespread adoption and innovation.
Nim’s model incentivizes early participants to provide liquidity in exchange for ownership via token distribution. As the tokens accrue value, liquidity increases, further bolstered by fees generated from model usage and increasing application demand. This framework ensures equitable compensation for contributors - whether they are the users, developers, or researchers.
Tokenizing AI models involves validating their on-chain usage, accomplished through an oracle approach. This method verifies off-chain AI computations and ensures authenticity via blockchain validation, exemplified by Ligetron's substantial performance enhancements. Solutions like opML offer cost-effective strategies to bring AI onchain.
The oracle approach also includes optional privacy features to safeguard intellectual property using zero-knowledge (ZK) verification, while enforcing economic rules for on-chain AI utilization. This includes directing AI call fees to a fee pool managed by token holders and integrating royalties for on-chain non-fungible token (NFT) contracts. This adaptable system supports customizable plug-ins such as eip-7007.
Tokenomics 101
Nim’s token distribution strategy is designed to:
Drive ecosystem growth
Incentivize contributions
Ensure long-term sustainability of the complete economy
The allocation breakdown is as follows:
Ecosystem (39%): Dedicated to expanding the ecosystem and funding research and development (R&D), including incentive pools, future public allocations, and support for open-source AI initiatives.
Backers (19%): Reserved for initial partners and backers who supported the project in the early-stages.
Core Contributing Team (12%): Allocated to the early team members for their past and ongoing contributions, ensuring continued dedication and involvement.
Community Pool (10%): A treasury for community growth, grants, incentives, and investments, aimed at fostering community-driven development.
Token Sale (11%): Funds earmarked for future token sales to sustain ongoing financial support and ecosystem expansion.
Genesis Rolldrop (9%): Includes the Genesis Rolldrop and incentivized testnet, aimed at kickstarting network activity.
The unlock schedule:
Some notes:
Significant tokens are already allocated for ecosystem development and R&D initiatives.
Public NIM allocations prioritize active community members, recognizing and rewarding their contributions.
Projects seeking support must align closely with community goals and values, fostering a collaborative environment.
The community gains access to specific AI models and shares in the revenue generated from the fee usage pool, promoting ownership and active participation.
Staking NIM tokens provides staking rewards, incentivizing token holders to stay engaged and invested in the network's success.
What we like
Here are some of Nim’s key aspects, which have helped with the team’s current success:
Modular Design: Nim’s modular design helps facilitate efficient integration across various stacks, tools, products, and services, which allows them to take on a build-fast, ship-fast mentality.
Community-First Approach: Nim prioritizes deep community engagement, fostering a strong sense of ownership among users. In just three months, Nim has secured partnerships with major players such as Avail, Gemz, UNKJD, AI Arena, Wayfinder, Todaythegame, and JokeRace.
Technological Advancements: Nim has achieved significant performance enhancements, surpassing competitors by nearly 1000x with innovations like Ligetron.
Strong Investor Backing: Backed by leading investors including Geometry, Starkware, Bitkraft, 1kx, Fabric Ventures, and Delphi, Nim has garnered substantial support and validation in the blockchain and gaming sectors.
Commitment to Transparency: Nim maintains transparency through active education initiatives and regular blogging, ensuring the community remains well-informed about developments and strategies.
Innovative Product Development: Nim is at the forefront of innovation with products such as tokenized AI models (like the meme maker) and engaging AI-powered games like Titans.
What are we keeping an eye on?
While Nim Network shows promising developments, there are still some things to keep in mind:
Scaling Contributor Networks: Scaling open-source contributor networks requires robust incentives to attract and retain talent effectively.
Effective Partnership Onboarding: Managing diverse partnerships across various use cases demands strong coordination and efficient communication strategies.
Community-Led Governance: Maintaining a community-led approach with decentralized governance is pivotal to ensuring equitable participation and sustained growth.
Expanding Market Reach: To validate its infrastructure fully, Nim needs to expand beyond the niche of Web3 gaming and AI to traditional games with large user bases.
On-Chain Verification for Ligetron: Current limitations in verifying Ligetron proofs onchain raise concerns about centralization. Addressing this issue is crucial for achieving full on-chain functionality and upholding network integrity and decentralization.
The team background
Nim Network boasts a team composed of core members and contributors with extensive experience from leading organizations, such as:
Ethereum Foundation
Polygon Labs
Uniswap Foundation
Starknet Foundation
AI Research
This diverse background brings expertise from key sectors crucial for advancing Nim's goals in the intersection of Web3, AI, and gaming.
Partnerships & coalition
Nim Network has forged strategic partnerships with leading projects in the industry, enhancing its position at the forefront of AI gaming innovation:
Avail: Nim Network's partnership with Avail creates specialized DA solutions for AI gaming, addressing issues like modular stack fragmentation and cross-chain composability.
Gemz: Gemz collaborates with Nim to use AI-driven gaming tools and NFTs, leveraging their vast IP pool to combine AI gaming with crypto-native culture.
UNKJD: The partnership with UNKJD connects players to a sophisticated bot system using LLMs to create advanced AI players that mimic top human players and achieve superhuman performances.
AI Arena: With AI Arena they are collaborating to raise awareness about AI's potential through AI education, gaming entertainment, and human versus machine competitions.
AI Wayfinder: The partnership with AI Wayfinder aims to expand Nim's capabilities by integrating the Wayfinder toolkit, focusing on supporting multi-chain expansion and enhancing ecosystem interoperability.
Todaythegame: Todaythegame has partnered with Nim to enhance player experiences in a social simulation game using advanced AI for interactive NPCs, aiming to create AI-driven metaverses.
JokeRace: JokeRace collaborates with Nim to develop new use cases for community contests, integrating AI agents and GenAI to improve user experience and expand community-driven initiatives.
These partnerships contribute to Nim's goal of establishing a self-sustaining ecosystem powered by the $NIM token. Each coalition member introduces unique blockchain requirements, prompting Nim to expand functionalities and use cases.
This collaborative effort enriches the value for all ecosystem participants, including stakers, users, builders, and partners, fostering a dynamic gaming chain that evolves to meet community needs.
Funding & backing
Nim Network has garnered strong support from influential research and venture capital partners within the blockchain and AI sectors. Key backers include:
Research Partners: Geometry and Starkware, providing strategic research support and technological expertise.
Venture Capital Partners: Bitkraft, 1kx, Fabric Ventures, Delphi, Lemniscap, Big Brain Holdings, Wicklow Capital, and Chapter One, contributing substantial financial backing and industry insights.
Conclusion
Thank you for reading and exploring Nim Network with us.
Nim Network is pioneering innovative solutions at the intersection of crypto and AI. Its modular and customizable framework promises seamless integration with diverse technologies, setting a robust foundation for future growth.
With strategic partnerships already in place, Nim is poised for expansion and collaboration across the blockchain ecosystem. The development of AI tokenized models stands out as a potential game-changer, offering new avenues for innovation and economic participation.
We are excited about Nim's ongoing initiatives and look forward to witnessing its continued evolution.
Thank you for reading and following along! 👋