Chainguardians, a DeFi gaming project influencing the NFT marketing is connecting superheroes to blockchain with true decentralized principles. COO Robbie Cochrane shares more details with us in this interview.
Could you tell us more about Chainguardians and about yourself?
First of all it’s an honour to be interviewed for Techbullion – so thank you very much for this opportunity. Regarding myself: before I found blockchain, blockchain gaming and NFTs, I worked various communications roles and I was an English teacher. In 2017 I fell down the proverbial cryptocurrency rabbit hole before becoming heavily involved in Decentraland’s early adoption: serving as board member for Decentraland University and Vegas City. To this day I am still very close with these projects and provide some advisory services. In 2018 we founded ChainGuardians having fallen in love with NFTs and blockchain gaming; the rest of my time writes itself. Regarding ChainGuardians: our elevator pitch is we’re ‘the world’s first ecosystem where blockchain meets superheroes’. We like to think of ourselves as the Marvel Avengers, or DC Comics equivalent, of the blockchain world. We have killer art, immersive story-telling and an awesome team, but what some people don’t realise is that we have an immense amount of technical staff dedicated to pioneering web3 UI/UX tools in order to assist blockchain and blockchain gaming adoption.
Chainguardians employs a turn-based strategy where users play to earn. Could you explain this interesting gaming style?
We have two games which utilizes both our NFTs, and our partnered ecosystems’ NFTs, where users can play2earn. These are our NFT Proof-of-stake mining game and turn-based RPG (to which is referred here).
The RPG also enables users to utilise their NFTs through a more traditional turn-based RPG strategy game: users can battle through different worlds (stages) to earn CGC (our in-game currency) and then redeem this for $CGG or spend them in-game. As part of this RPG, users can level up their Guardians, earn daily free characters, earn rewards and follow the story of the ChainGuardians Cryptoverse (universe). Much more is in the pipeline for the RPG including crafting, looting and the unearthing of some killer items. Player-versus-player tournaments are also in the pipeline, where users will be able to compete with one another for prizes.
What do you think about the hype surrounding NTF and do you think that NFT will play a prominent role?
I presume this question is whether I believe NFTs will play a prominent role in disrupting either fintech or gaming, of which my answer to both would be that yes, I do. If I just reflect on my own journey, I feel even this provides a microcosmic example of how many others’ journeys may start out. First of all, I found blockchain in early 2017 (pre-last bull run) and really enjoyed researching and learning about blockchain technology. However, I truly fell in love with and began to understand the true disruptive potential of blockchain when I discovered NFTs. The excitement ran through me like an electric shock when I unearthed Decentraland. Provable ownership, scarcity and rarity are fundamental concepts which resonate with people and communities world-wide. This is as true now as it was in the stone age. It’s about the intrinsic factors of determining value and the psychology of people. I believe NFTs offer true disruptive potential of how we view ownership and value; if I didn’t believe this I wouldn’t have started building ChainGuardians with my Co-Founders at the belly of a bear market. Does this mean that there are not some tough questions to answer along the way for NFTs and blockchain gaming? Absolutely not. But the potential is extraordinary. With the potential to disrupt different industries worldwide: gaming, art, finance, real-estate and much more.
Currently, there are several blockchain-based games in the crypto space. How is Chainguardians different from the others?
Holistically, we try not to compare ourselves to other blockchain games in terms of competitive analysis – ideologically we like to look at neighbour projects as providing more exciting opportunities for collaboration (as Satoshi and the decentralised community would want it). After all, interoperability and cross-chain opportunities are some of the most powerful ideological concepts for the potential of blockchain. We feel, where possible, we have a responsibility to support other blockchain gaming projects who have demonstrated they are good actors looking to further the adoption of blockchain technologies and grow the blockchain gaming space. As such we look to collaborate with NFT and blockchain gaming projects wherever possible – as is evident through our NFT Mining platform whereby we have included NFTs from projects such as: MyCryptoHeroes, CryptoBeasties, Bondly, Ethermon and more.
However if we were pressed for an answer, we’d probably point to a few key factors. Firstly, for example, we are more often than not at the front of the queue to adopt blockchain technologies: Chainlink’s VRF, Matic – Polygon, we just released the world’s first NFT Portal enabling movement of NFTs from Ethereum mainnet to Binance Smart Chain, as well as a number of others. Secondly, we have world-class artwork as created by our lead artist who has worked for: Marvel, DC Comics, Disney and Cartoon Network to name but a few. Thirdly: our products. The NFT Mining Platform and RPG were released way ahead of other NFT platforms/gaming ecosystems (whereby most are quite literally just promising a host of things we’ve either already delivered, or are way ahead in building). We don’t like to brag, as we’re not really too much about the hype. We look to over deliver and build.
Chainguardians has partnered with major NFT programs, what is the role of these partnerships to the Chainguardians ecosystem?
It really depends on the nature of the relationship. For example we work with Chainlink on a technical level: being one of the pioneers for the adoption of their Verifiable Randomness Functionality. For Matic – now Polygon – we were one of if not the first to adopt the Matic platform (certainly for moving an NFT from Ethereum mainnet to Matic). Whereas for Bondly, we work with them on the game level – adding their assets to our NFT Mining Platform. All are vitally important in building use-cases for NFTs for our community, their communities and the wider blockchain gaming ecosystem.
You have an enviable list of partners, some outside the crypto world. How do they come into play within the Chainguardians ecosystem?
A large part of our ideology at ChainGuardians is to pioneer state of the art blockchain technology as well as grow the practical adoption of blockchain and blockchain gaming within the wider world context. So we’re extremely proud to be at the forefront of the adoption of some of the world’s most exciting technologies. We collaborate with projects on a number of different levels: product, technological, cross-communal and where appropriate, co-marketing. Each of these collaborations is designed to bring value to our community, the communities of those we work with and the wider blockchain community. Beyond that, we are starting to work with companies within the ‘traditional’/none-blockchain space where it makes sense for brand growth or to accelerate adoption.
Could you tell us more about your invention, the world’s first NFT Mining game; how does it work and what sets you apart from the competition?
We’re extremely proud of the NFT Mining Platform, since it was developed, in the first instance, to showcase the beauty of interoperability of NFTs across different gaming experiences, as well as bring blockchain gaming projects closer together. This platform was essentially one of the world’s first examples of where NFTs can bring a use-case to users to earn income. The NFT PoS Mining Platform is akin to an idle game where users can stake their NFTs to earn a number of different cryptocurrencies, including our governance token: $CGG, as well as our partnered ecosystem tokens, such as that of Bondly: $BONDLY, DuckDAO: $DDIM, and a number of others. This means that our communities’ NFTs are not just a pretty piece of art to look at, but also provide genuine value for the holders.
What is the process for esports teams looking to play in Chainguardians tournaments?
Right now I’d encourage them to reach out! Within the blockchain gaming space I know of YGG (Yield Guild Games) who will focus heavily on building competitive teams for participating in blockchain games, of which we already have a dialogue with them. For the traditional esports teams, I’d love to speak with them. As our gaming experiences continue to evolve, there will be more and more exciting opportunities for play2earn, competitive tournaments and development.
What more interesting things do you have in store for Chainguardians fans. What can they expect in the coming months and years?
We have a huge amount of developments in the pipeline, both on the product/gaming side of things as well as technological development. I always have to check myself to remember what information is currently top-secret, NDA or public knowledge! What I would say is that our community and ChainGuardians fans should expect continued development of use-case for our NFTs and the $CGG token, as well as more exciting gaming experiences. This includes continued improvements and development of the NFT Mining Platform and RPG, as well as new gamified use-cases for the $CGG token. We are also working on several new products (top secret!) which we hope will continue to accelerate the adoption of the ChainGuardians ecosystem and hopefully even blockchain gaming as a whole. We have some further exciting collaborations to reveal as well as the release of state of the art merchandise utilising exciting technologies. If you are yet to learn about ChainGuardians, I would encourage you to come and check out what we’re building and keep in touch: we’ve only just begun. You can check our roadmap here: https://chainguardians.io/ (scroll to the bottom).
