As Gala Games continues to make big news and big waves in the blockchain space, more people each day are noticing the core component of our future decentralized network: The Gala Games Founder’s Node. Not only are we pioneering the gaming industry by empowering players to own their gameplay through NFTs, but we are creating a massive, decentralized system that will give even more control to some of our players by turning them into node operators.

Whether you have purchased a node license or are considering purchasing a node license, one of the most important things to remember is that you are not an investor in Gala Games. The node license is a product sold by Gala Games, and even though it comes with the ability to earn GALA tokens and NFTs as rewards for operation, there should be no expectation of profit or return. Node operators must be part of our ecosystem because they believe in our mission and our vision of empowering the world through play. A Gala Games node is not an investment. It spells this out very clearly in our Terms and Conditions:

“Ownership of a Gala App or Node or the use of Gala services does not represent or constitute any ownership right or stake, share or security, debt or equivalent right, or any right to receive any future revenue or form of participation in or relating to any blockchain or digital reward, including the Gala Blockchain or Gala Reward.” (Source: Terms and Conditions)

With that said, on to the rest of this post.

The Bad Habits

In the world of cryptocurrency, there are a couple bad habits that have unfortunately become prevalent among the masses of newcomers who find their way to this world each day. One of these bad habits (perhaps the worst) is lack of research. Many have decided that how fast they spend their money is more important than understanding what they’re spending it on. It is especially crucial in this space (which is crawling with deceptions, tricks and scams) to fully research any projects you wish to support or coins you’re thinking about purchasing.

How much research is enough? Simple. Once you fully understand something, you have done enough research, but only until tomorrow. With the breakneck rate at which companies in blockchain and crypto make new developments and innovations, there is always continuing education to be done. This means that the important act of doing your own research never actually ends.

Another bad habit that must be avoided is expectations. As they have watched some lucky people in the cryptocurrency space become unreasonably rich very quickly, many have decided that they can expect the same for themselves by following a similar path. Still worse, some of these people have learned to feel entitled to piles of riches or exorbitant returns, even to the point of becoming frustrated and resentful of the project that failed to deliver in their eyes. These expectations have no place in responsible decision-making when it comes to your hard-earned money, and they can prove toxic when allowed to influence your spending choices.

What is a Node?

A node license is not an investment, nor is running one some kind of miracle money machine. If you are considering purchasing a node license with these expectations, we at Gala Games urge you to reconsider. A Gala Games node is many things, but an “investment” is not one of them.

A Node is a contribution. In the same way that a crowdfund provides crucial financial support to aspiring projects and companies, purchases of node licenses are helping to fund the bright future of the Gala Games ecosystem.

A node is a commitment. Those who choose to run Founder’s Nodes with Gala Games are committing to being part of our ecosystem for years to come, not only to receive rewards, but to play an important role in the governance and directions of the company.

A node is a responsibility. Nodes require care, maintenance and attention. They must be run according to the terms provided by the company in order to earn the rewards offered, and Gala Games reserves the right to change those terms for any reason at their discretion.

To our Community

We love our community and we recognize that we could never be such a success without the power and support you constantly bring to Gala Games. We mean to reward your support however we are able, and we hope each and every one of you (node operator or not) will play your part as an important member of this ecosystem.

We would like to encourage all of you to spread the ideas expressed in this article. Please do not encourage people to invest in Gala Games, but to support us. If someone approaches you with expectations or questions about ROI and investments, please make it clear that none of the products sold by Gala Games are investments in Gala Games.

We are building a vast and powerful ecosystem of supporters from the ground up. The intentions and goals of each of these supporters are important to us, and we look forward to a beautiful future whose abundance we can all share.

Thank you to the entire Gala Games ecosystem.

Welcome to Gala Games University, empowering the players of tomorrow and putting the future of a better world into their hands!

Okay, so there may not be a Gala Games University… but we’re extremely excited to announce the launch of another initiative that you can all be proud of as supporters of the Gala Games ecosystem: The Gala Games University Partnership Program!

With this partnership program, any University that qualifies will be given a Gala Games node to run for educational purposes. With their nodes, University blockchain education programs will be able to give their students a priceless gift: The ability to learn not only about the operation of Gala Games as the company grows, but a unique and inside understanding of what blockchains and gaming can do to benefit the world.

By sponsoring and offering nodes to qualifying programs, Gala Games will be able to reach more of the brilliant minds of tomorrow, who will be calling the shots as we plow together into an unknown and often uncertain future. It is our intention to empower these hungry young minds in the same way that we already empower our players to own their experience, earn through play, and create a more abundant future for everyone.

Gala Games will provide qualifying university groups with A Founder’s Node License (subject to re-approval every semester), and assistance with education. This includes talks, AMAs, documentation, and even opens the door for internships with Gala Games.

Gala Games believes that the University Partnership Program will have the unique ability to create a highly mutually beneficial partnership by helping spread the word about what the entire Gala Games Ecosystem seeks to accomplish. By letting these programs into our ecosystem and offering a node, their student participants will be able to benefit in countless ways, including NFT rewards, GALA, and most importantly, the tools to succeed in the blockchain-powered world of tomorrow.

As always, we are extremely grateful to our incredible and supportive community of gamers, without whom none of these exciting initiatives would be possible. It must be nice to know that you are part of something as strong and vibrant as the Gala Games Ecosystem. But with all the amazing things the current leadership of this company can accomplish, we expect the next generation of leaders, developers, creators, dreamers and gamers to leave us in the dust! We’re proud to know that we can play a part in the beginnings of their success with the University Partnership Program.

To find out how to apply, send an email from your official university email address to [email protected] and we will get your university signed up!

We are delighted to announce that the Gala Games Node Network is going to be helping to support the Flare Time Series Oracle (FTSO) as a decentralized data provider.

The Flare Time Series Oracle is the process by which estimates of off chain data are safely made on the Flare Network. At a high level the FTSO takes the votes of $FLR holders and other involved parties (predominantly FAssets) to form data estimates. In this way each voter has their token value at stake and therefore is highly incentivized to provide good estimates. In return for providing good estimates the voters that hold $FLR receive a reward. Drilling a little bit deeper, the data estimates are provided by parties called “Data Providers” to whom token holders delegate their votes. Each data provider charges a small fee on any rewards garnered from the votes that are delegated to them. Anyone can set themselves up as a data provider. More information can be found here: https://blog.flare.xyz/ftso-a-breakdown/

The Gala Games Node Ecosystem is going to create one of the first decentralized data providers integrating with the Flare Network. This will enable anyone that holds an eligible token on Flare to delegate their vote to the Gala data provider, with the Gala node network earning $FLR for being a data provider.

Here is how it is going to work: Once this system is integrated into the Gala Games Node Ecosystem, ten randomly selected high-performing nodes will be selected to provide data to the Gala Data provider on Flare. Gala Nodes will be assessed based on a variety of factors, such as their uptime, their available bandwidth, and their contributions to the Gala DCDN. If a node is chosen, it will receive additional points in the distribution for providing this service. This may even include $FLR rewards specifically for being the chosen provider to send data to the network.

UPDATE: To make this clearer — the top nodes in terms of stability and performance will be put in a pool and 10 nodes will be randomly selected from that pool each time the FTSO requires data. If a node is selected, it would receive a reward for providing data. This does not mean that only ten nodes would ever be able to participate, only that only 10 would be selected at any one time.

This week, we sat down with Hugo Philion from Flare, to discuss exactly how the Flare and Gala Networks can support one another as we advance towards greater decentralization. We are very excited to help support the growth and decentralization of the Flare Network.

The basic functionality of the Flare Time Series Oracle (source: Flare Network)

We are currently advancing towards the goal of having GALA exist as an F-Asset within the Flare Ecosystem, giving greater functionality to Gala and opening GALA users up to other options for using their GALA and NFTs in the ever-widening GALA ecosystem.

About Gala Games:

Gala Games was founded with one goal in mind: to give power back to the gamers. Our mission is to enable freedom through play. To this end, we have embarked on one of the most ambitious development projects to date — the creation of the Gala Games Ecosystem. Gala Games is here to fundamentally redefine both the gaming and blockchain spaces.

More information about Gala Games is available on their website, www.gala.games, and in their Discord at galagames.chat.

About Flare

The Flare network is the first Turing complete smart contract network to use Federated Byzantine Agreement (FBA) consensus. This allows Flare to have fast inexpensive transactions and unlike other scaling methods does not need to base network safety on value. This allows Flare to scale for arbitrary value without facing capital constraints and importantly allows Flare’s native token, Spark (FLR), to be used for other productive purposes. Flare brings utility to other networks by enabling their tokens to be used on Flare with Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) based smart contracts.. XRP, LTC and Dogecoin are currently slated for integration with Flare. Many more tokens can potentially be added. As a Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible blockchain solution, Flare can dramatically lower the costs associated with NFT minting and transactions whilst opening up previously unavailable communities.

Find out more about Flare at www.flare.xyz