What is Flow?
Flow is a fast, decentralized, and developer-friendly blockchain. It was launched to solve the scalability problem of blockchain. It aims to serve as the foundation for a new generation of games, applications, and digital assets that power them. It is based on a unique multi-role architecture to make large-scale improvements in speed and throughput, while retaining a developer-friendly and ACID-compliant environment.
Smart contracts on Flow can be assembled like Lego bricks to power applications that serve billions of people. Among the existing blockchains, Flow has four major advantages that make it unique.
Multi-role architecture: The design of the Flow chain is unique, allowing the network to expand without fragmentation and without reducing the degree of consensus decentralization to serve billions of users.
Resource-oriented programming: The smart contracts on the Flow chain are written in Cadence, which is a more convenient and safe programming language for encrypted assets and applications.
Developer ergonomics: From scalable smart contracts to built-in logging support to the Flow simulator, Flow's network design is driven by results.
Consumer entry: Flow chain is designed for mainstream consumers, and its payment Onramps provides a secure and low friction platform for fiat currency exchange tokens.
"After nearly two years of research, we are very happy to share Flow with the world," said Roham Gharegozlou, CEO of Dapper Labs. "Flow is a blockchain built from scratch that can support a high-performance ecosystem of applications and games without affecting decentralization. Bitcoin and Ethereum show how encryption technology can make the financial world more open and Transparency; Flow will bring the same results to consumers in the entertainment and cultural industries."
How does Flow work?
Flow is unique in encrypted networks. By dividing the work of cryptocurrency miners or validators into four different roles, each with its own characteristics, it achieves a significant increase in speed and throughput. This means that anyone with a reliable internet connection can participate as a validator of Flow at various computing and financial levels.
Verifiers can join Flow in one of the following four roles:
Collecting nodes can improve efficiency
Execution nodes can achieve speed and scale
Validator nodes guarantee correctness
Consensus nodes ensure decentralization
Who are Flow’s investors and partners?
"Warner Music is always looking for new opportunities for artists and is committed to exploring emerging technologies." said Jeff Bronikowski, senior vice president of global digital business development and head of innovation and emerging technologies at Warner Music Group. "When we met with Dapper Labs, they immediately understood our vision, so we sought to strengthen our partnership through strategic investments."
In addition to Warner Music's investment, Dapper Labs also announced that it has established partnerships with leading entertainment publishers to ensure that Flow is ready for enterprise-level use cases. Ubisoft, known for developing games such as Far Cry, Just Dance, and Assassin's Creed, is providing advice and valuable industry feedback to Flow.
"When it comes to new technologies and innovations, Ubisoft has always preferred a cooperative approach," said Nicolas Pouard, director of the blockchain program at Ubisoft's Strategic Innovation Lab. "We are eager to learn more from Dapper Labs. They are the best pioneers in the field of blockchain and games. As a player-centric technology, we believe that the blockchain can help players become real benefit recipients. , We can’t wait to know the results of our cooperation with Dappr Labs."
Animoca Brands is a well-known game developer and publisher. It has developed a number of encrypted games including F1® Delta Time and The Sandbox. It is one of the first Flow-based game companies.
"We believe that encryption is the future of the gaming industry," said Yat Siu, co-founder and chairman of Animoca Brands. "In order to support the expected scale of the game and be adopted by mainstream consumers, we need a powerful platform. Considering the needs of developers and the charm of decentralized entertainment, we chose to cooperate with Dapper Labs to build interesting games on Flow. Experience."
What are the projects and companies that use Flow Chain?
The development team behind the Flow chain-Dapper Labs
Dapper Labs was established in February 2018. Its mission is to introduce the value of blockchain technology to consumers through interesting games and make the world more open and trustworthy. It is also the popular blockchain cat development and trading in 2017 The team behind the game CryptoKitties. Dapper Labs completed a $12 million financing in 2018 and was spun off from parent company Axiom Zen. Dapper Labs aims to bring the advantages of decentralization to 1 billion consumers through the power of games.
Dapper Labs has conducted 4 rounds of financing so far, raising a total of US$52.5 million. Their most recent financing was the A round of financing on August 6, 2020. Dapper Labs is funded by 43 investors. Blockchange Ventures and Coinbase Ventures are recent investors. Other well-known investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures, Venrock, GV (formerly known as Google Ventures), and the founders of companies such as DreamWorks, Reddit, Coinbase, Zynga, and AngelList. Recently, Dapper Labs is also conducting a new round of financing of USD 250 million, which is expected to reach a valuation of USD 2 billion.
The four rounds of financing time, number of investors and financing amount are shown above
Dapper Team currently has 9 core members, as shown in the figure below.
What well-known projects does Dapper Labs have?
Cryptokitties, the world's first blockchain game, launched in 2017, also known as Cryptokitties. Encrypted cats are a group of likable digital cats. Each cat has a unique genome that determines its appearance and characteristics. Players can collect and breed cats, create new cats and unlock rare attributes. After the release of CryptoKitties, the response was enthusiastic. Many people were attracted by the game and flocked to Ethereum for cat breeding and trading, which once caused a great congestion on the Ethereum network.
NBA Top Shot is a sports collection game that combines basketball manager and NFT. Players can have action NFTs like "James Dunk" and "Curry Three Points". After its launch in October last year, it attracted a lot of attention from NBA fans. The game's daily sales in January this year soared 140 times. It surpassed CryptoKitties on the 26th and won the highest sales throne. It is now a bright spot in the NFT collection world. New star.