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Update on Game of NFTs — Testnets & Hackathon

IRISnet
Interchain Ecosystem Blog
Published in
6 min readMar 20, 2023

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Update on Game of NFTs — Testnet and Hackathon for Interchain NFTs

We are just over halfway through the Game of NFTs testnet.

Time for an update.

tl;dr:

· Phase 1 testnet progressing well
· 191 teams participating across testnets on 5 different chains
· First half of testnet is finished — focused on “basic” transfer tasks
· Second half of testnet in progress — focused on competitive and adversarial tasks
· Identified multiple bugs in the different ICS-721 implementations — currently fixing.
· Identified a critical bug — allowing attackers to take control of NFTs — currently fixing.
· Identified possible attack vectors to delay/block NFT txs. Testnet participants are tasked with finding solutions.
· The community has produced at least 6 valuable resources that will benefit the entire Interchain
· Phase 2 hackathon coming up. We expect this event to attract builders to the Cosmos Hub and hope to kick-start NFT innovations connected to the Hub.

Game of NFTs

The Game of NFTs is a two-phase interchain event aimed at thoroughly testing and experimenting with the underlying Interchain NFTs (ICS-721) technology — an IBC module that will enable the secure, trustless and permissionless transfer of NFTs between blockchains.

This is a joint effort by the Interchain Foundation, Cosmos Hub, IRISnet, Stargaze, Juno, OmniFlix, Uptick, and many other talented teams across the ecosystem, with each providing different degrees of operational support or financial sponsorship for the event.

Phase 1 is a set of testnets across multiple IBC-connected chains — IRISnet, Stargaze, Juno, OmniFlix, and Uptick — designed to identify bugs and vulnerabilities, streamline validator operations related to Interchain NFTs and stress test the technology. This set of testnets began on Mar 1, 2023.

Phase 2 will be an interchain hackathon. See below for more information.

For more information about the Game of NFTs, visit interchainnfts.dev/gon/

Update on the testnet tasks & participation

As the technical pioneer and patron of the Interchain, the Cosmos Hub community incentivized the testnets in prop #94. This blog is an update to the Hub’s stakers on the outcomes of this community pool spend.

Starting with over 600+ registrations for the testnet, our team manually assessed the applicants’ suitability against both our entry criteria and the level of technically advanced testing we wanted to perform.

We are currently tracking 191 teams on our Scoreboard, and logging their completion of the 20 tasks we have asked them to complete thus far.

These 20 tasks formed the first half of the testnet, which generally consisted of performing general cross-chain NFT transfers via multiple routes and chain-pairs.

The second half of the testnet will be full of competitive and adversarial tasks — designed to optimize infrastructure to speed up NFT transfers, and deal with delayed or blocked packets, transactions, and relays.

Learn more about the tasks each team has to perform here.

Bugs & issues identified thus far

One of the key value returns for any incentivized testnet is the discovery of bugs and vulnerabilities before the technology is used in production.

The Game of NFTs testnet did not disappoint in this regard.

We are currently tracking (and fixing) multiple bugs in this repo. These bugs are related to the underlying module, relay operations, and various implementations of ICS-721. More specifically, the bugs include issues with CosmWasm implementation not being able to mint tokens in certain scenarios, issues with Juno receiving NFTs, issues with packet relays, and more. See them all here.

However, most importantly, the testnet identified two critical issues for us:

Our teams are currently working on fixing the critical vulnerability mentioned above. We also added 2 new challenges for testnet participants to help defend against adversarial attacks on ICS-721 infrastructure that aim to block transactions.

Tools & resources built by the community

What do you get when the Cosmos community is involved in a testnet? A bunch of valuable solutions for the benefit of everyone!

Game of NFTs Phase 1 was no exception.

We are tracking contributions by the community, which not only add value and improve the UX for current testnet participants, but will also add value to our ecosystem once Interchain NFTs are in production.

Below are some of these tools and UIs that we’ve found useful, but this list is by no means complete:

If we’ve missed a tool, please ping us on #nft-chat on Cosmos Discord.

Notably, these creators did not wait for the Hackathon! We can’t wait to see what they come up with when challenges designed by core teams push their creativity and imagination even further.

Phase 2: The Game of NFTs Hackathon

Phase 2 will be a virtual interchain hackathon in Apr-May 2023, designed to incentivize developers to build innovative solutions with Interchain NFTs.

With support from the chains mentioned above, the aim is to have a competitive hackathon, and attract developers to build solutions that will add value to their host chains.

Thus far, IRISnet, Omniflix and Uptick have confirmed sponsorship and dev support for the hackathon. Stargaze and Cosmos Hub governance are discussing sponsorship, while core teams from both chains, as well as Juno, have confirmed dev support for the hackathon if their respective proposals pass.

In addition, the hackathon has confirmed significant support and sponsorship from Amazon Web Services (AWS), IDG Capital, and HashKey Capital.

Additional DevRel support, educational resources and workshops for developers will also be available for competing teams.

As well as prizes for winning the different challenge tracks in the hackathon, participants will receive:

  • Dev-orientated workshops
  • Extensive DevRel support from Bianjie and the sponsoring chains
  • Mentorship, industry and business insights from NFT thought-leaders and industry experts
  • Key winners will also be introduced to and given the opportunity to pitch to VCs open to supporting Interchain NFT projects
  • Key winners will receive extensive credits from AWS for cloud infrastructure beyond the hackathon

As you can see, we’ve put together a hackathon that has all the pieces in place to lead to meaningful projects built Interchain NFTs that help drive value to their chosen host chains.

Value add for the Cosmos Hub

By incentivizing the GoN testnets on behalf of the entire community, the Cosmos Hub has greatly contributed to the launch and adoption of Interchain NFTs.

Now, it’s time to reap the benefits.

We will be asking the Cosmos Hub governance to sponsor prizes for the “Cosmos Hub Track” in the hackathon — i.e. 1st, 2nd and 3rd place prize pools for teams that develop Interchain NFT dApps that benefit the Cosmos Hub.

We know the community would love to see an NFT appchain, launched as a Consumer Chain via Replicated Security on the Hub, that acts as THE NFT HUB for the entire interchain and beyond (yep, Interchain NFTs will work with Polkadot, NEAR and even Ethereum, when they get IBC connected).

Let’s make that happen. Take part in the discussion on the Cosmos Forum.

Key Links

Some useful links for you to bookmark.

Interchain
Interchain Nft
Interchain Stack
Ibcgang
Cosmos Ecosystem

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IRISnet
Interchain Ecosystem Blog
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Written by IRISnet

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Built with Cosmos-SDK, IRISHUB enables cross-chain interoperability while providing modules to support distributed business systems.

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