As we continue to unveil the panel set to judge the upcoming GalaChain Hackathon at GDC 2024, we’re excited to spotlight an individual who is well-versed in the intersection of blockchain and gaming: CryptoStache. Behind the social persona of CryptoStache is Shea Newkirk, a content creator who is a leading voice across the realm of blockchain gaming.
His keen insights into gaming trends have made him a go-to source for those looking to understand and navigate the constantly growing landscape of web3 gaming.
Shea Newkirk: A Visionary in Blockchain Gaming
Shea Newkirk, better known as CryptoStache, is a steadfast advocate for the transformative potential of blockchain technology in gaming. Through his content, he has educated and inspired a broad audience while keeping it engaging and entertaining.
His content sheds light on how web3 systems can be used to level up the player experience in gaming. His contributions to the greater culture of web3 have not only fostered a wider appreciation for blockchain gaming but have also helped guide this new world of gaming towards a focus on community and the players themselves.
A Judge with an Eye for Innovation and Engagement
CryptoStache’s involvement in the GalaChain Hackathon brings an invaluable focused perspective on gaming applications of GalaChain. With his experiences as a content creator, he is uniquely positioned to see the perspective of both game developers and players. His criteria for a winning project are likely to reflect his passion for the gaming field – emphasizing creativity, user engagement, and the practical application of blockchain to make a better gaming experience.
What CryptoStache Might Look for in a Winning Entry
In the context of the GalaChain Hackathon, CryptoStache’s expectations for a winning project are likely to include:
Innovative Use of Blockchain in Gaming: Projects that creatively integrate blockchain technology to enhance gameplay, ownership and the overall player experience without breaking the loops that make a game fun! Entries that introduce novel mechanics, economies or systems will stand out.
Engagement and Community Building: Entries that demonstrate a clear strategy for engaging players and fostering a strong community around the game. Projects that understand and leverage the power of community in the gaming space are more likely to capture Stache’s attention.
Accessibility and User Experience: Projects that prioritize a seamless, accessible user experience – making web3 gaming appealing and easy to navigate for both seasoned players and newcomers to the blockchain space.
Sustainability and Growth Potential: Entries that show the potential for long-term growth and sustainability within the gaming ecosystem and communities. Projects that outline clear plans for development, expansion and adaptation to future gaming trends will likely resonate with Stache’s perspective on the pulse of gaming.
Pioneering the Future of Blockchain Gaming with CryptoStache
CryptoStache’s role as a judge is important to the GalaChain Hackathon. Not only are we hosting this hackathon during GDC, but GalaChain’s roots are in the demanding world of games. His expertise and enthusiasm for the sector will guide participants toward creating projects that not only excel technically but also captivate and engage the community on a deeper level – be they part of the open track or gaming track.
As we gear up for what promises to be an extraordinary showcase of talent and innovation, let CryptoStache’s content and personality inspire you to envision new possibilities for gaming on the blockchain.
The hackathon is a unique opportunity to redefine gaming’s future, as well as that of web3 as a whole. With CryptoStache’s keen eye on the panel of judges, we’re set to discover projects that are intriguing, innovative, and fun! How will you create new and exciting ways to engage with GalaChain?
Here at Gala… and throughout any part of the tech world, we sometimes forget that the language we use in the course of business is… well, definitely not how normal people talk. We’ve come to terms with this on a personal level, but we want to make sure that nothing ever gets lost in translation with our community
It’s not embarrassing to not know things. In fact, it’s quite normal! We want to help break down some basic jargon and concepts that are thrown around in the development world in this new series. Welcome to DevSpeak!
A lot of concepts may be oversimplified here, but this is just some basic information to get everybody without a technical background some basic knowledge. Enjoy!
With our registration open for the March 20-21 GalaThon event during GDC, we’ve been talking a lot about hackathons this week! We suspect that there are quite a few people out there who smile and nod when that phrase comes up without really understanding what it means.
That’s OK! Not everyone is a developer or knows their jargon. Today we’re going to go over the basics of hackathons for those who may not have ever participated in one… or even heard the word before!
Hackathon Defined
A hackathon, in its most basic sense, is an event where developers and enthusiasts can gather for collaborative programming. This is an idea born out of the open source community, with decades of nuanced culture and variations.
While collaborative work has existed since long before the computer era, the first event called a “hackathon”, is typically agreed upon as the OpenBSD Hackathon in Calgary, June 4th, 1999. This was a semi-spontaneous gathering of 10 developers all working towards the goal of creating a program that would allow two devices to communicate with each other using an infrared port.
This right away set one of the standard cultural norms for hackathons – that there would be specific goals and parameters that participants were working towards. Often this takes the form of building up a particular piece of software or building tools to accomplish a specific task. In the case of our upcoming hackathon, the parameters are to build on GalaChain using the recently released SDK.
GalaChain SDK: “The Price Perspective”
Even in 2024, the word “blockchain” tends to repel the average developer. What is it that makes #GalaChain more enticing to developers than other blockchains?https://t.co/tlAxMUIXEF
As the idea of hackathons grew into the mainstream, an entire culture sprang up around them. More and more hackathons saw amazing results from their unbridled creative collaboration, more and more hackathons popped up. Now there is a robust circuit of hackathons happening all year long all over the world.
While in-person hackathons are still widely held, remote tools have allowed even more people to enjoy these short development sprints, leading to more innovation across the world of hackathons!
We’ve put together an amazing prize pool with a total value of $1m for our upcoming GalaChain Hackathon. This is a frequent feature of major hackathons in the modern day.
While not every hackathon goes as overboard on the prizes as we did, it’s pretty normal to see multiple awards with prizes at the end of development. These prizes will usually be decided by a panel of judges after reviewing the work from each team versus the criteria of the hackathon and the requirements of each prize.
Why Hack?
While prizes are cool, they’re not the biggest reason that people usually want to jump in and participate in a hackathon. Don’t get us wrong, there are some serious devs out there who are professionals on the hack circuit winning prize after prize… but there we see the real reason that a hackathon is an amazing experience. Getting to work with people like that.
The development world is not a place where you go to school, know everything, then stop learning. Tech is changing all the time, and hands-on experience is a huge advantage to both veteran and novice developers. Self-taught devs often hone their skills at hackathons, and those with the benefit of a development education get priceless real-world experience.
Sometimes hackathons are a great way to try out brand new systems and tech (GalaChain anyone!!!), sometimes it’s just an opportunity to work alongside devs who may have more or just different experience than you. A fresh perspective is often where the best innovations start.
Often in hackathons, people will be open to new teammates for their project as well. This is a great opportunity to get in and network – meet new people with obviously shared interests and maybe find future collaborators and fellow hackers.
Last, it’s just plain fun! Development is work for a lot of people. Hackathons represent a chance to actually get out and do something you love without long-term metrics and bottom lines to worry about. At a hackathon, you can build things that never would be built by a company and you may not have time for as a hobby. Creative development and building for the sake of building can truly flourish!
Come One, Come All!
Don’t take our word for it though! If you’re even remotely interested in development and coding, a hackathon is the time to take that passion to the next level! Anyone can join!
A hackathon is a free way to get in and get your hands dirty in the industry. Most hackathons will welcome amateurs, and will provide robust documentation so that anyone can come in and learn! Even if you don’t win in a hackathon, there’s no way to lose. No one’s efforts “aren’t good enough”. The only way to fail is to not try!
Just a short time ago we announced the initial public release of GalaChain’s Software Development Kit (SDK), giving developers everything they need to build on our L1 blockchain. Shortly after, we announced the initial release of the Gala Creator Portal, a user-friendly interface to guide developers through the process of creation, even allowing them to manage their collections and ecosystems.
Our live games are already using the Creator Portal to power up their games and manage web3 features like rewards, transactions, minting of NFTs and much more. Gala Music used the Creator Portal to build a self-service artist interface that allows musicians to submit and upload their content with no barriers. So many new projects are on their way to GalaChain that we can almost feel the earth shaking with their approach.
Today we’re sharing some of what we like to call “The Price Perspective,” courtesy of Archmage Adam Price, the fearless leader of our GalaChain team, and brave emcee of our company all-hands meetings. This guy knows blockchain, and we’ve been honored with his presence and expertise since the inception of Gala Games. So let’s get started.
Q&A with Adam Price
What is holding the mainstream public back in adoption of blockchain technology, and how is Gala prepared to solve those challenges?
I think there is going to be a tipping point in the near future. The mainstream public doesn’t really get the point of blockchain technology. And it isn’t helped by the fact that any attempt to learn more about it is met with either complicated technical jargon or the latest pump and dump meme coin. With the massive expansion of subscription based centralized web2 services and platforms, we are beginning to see it more and more. You don’t own what you pay for anymore. It can be taken from you at any time. You are being given permission to access that content for just as long as the overlords allow it. So to me, the only thing the general public really needs to know about blockchain technology is that you as a consumer are finally in control again. You and only you control what happens to the content you own.
Building easy to use apps, decreasing friction to adoption and making things secure for all is just an implementation detail and will improve with time.
Even in 2024, the word “blockchain” tends to repel the average developer. What is it that makes GalaChain more enticing to developers than other blockchains?
Most existing blockchain technology has an exceedingly steep learning curve. But GalaChain allows you to write smart contracts in TypeScript, a programming language that is much more familiar to the modern developer. TypeScript is descended from JavaScript, which is practically mandatory for modern web application development and continues to be the most used programming language for eleven years running. Compared to something like Solidity (for Ethereum smart contracts) or Rust (for Solana smart contracts), there are MANY more developers that know and are comfortable with TypeScript. StackOverflow’s 2023 Developer Survey shows this very clearly. JavaScript is the most commonly used language with 63% of respondents using it; TypeScript is in 5th place with 38%. Rust is at 13% and Solidity at 1.3%.
Our mission with GalaChain is to make this empowering web3 technology more accessible to all software developers. The more people building on the technology, the better for everyone.
Those of us who have been with Gala for a while know that “interoperability” is one of your favorite words. Care to tell us why?
Interoperability is the idea that technology, software or even entire products can work together, usually in synergistic ways. Interoperability is enabled by Standards. By establishing an explicit method of doing something or presenting a specific agreed upon interface for interaction, things tend to “Just Work” together, enabling more comprehensive possibilities.
A great example of the power of standards and interoperability in web3 are token standards such as ERC-20 and ERC-1155. Because they were adopted by the community as a whole, fungible and non fungible tokens are now a feature that any blockchain software can interoperate with and rely on. The modern web3 ecosystem would look very different without these standards. Even something as simple as a wallet that shows multiple tokens in a consistent way wouldn’t be possible.
Promoting and enabling interoperability and standards is how we all power up and achieve bigger and bigger goals because it isn’t possible to do as just one developer or one team. A rising tide lifts all boats!
Why is the GalaChain SDK so important for Gala?
This release of the GalaChain SDK marks the first time that truly anyone can begin building on GalaChain. No strings attached. It is the culmination of over 20 developer years of work that we’re making available to the world so they can build the next generation of kick ass blockchain tech. The GalaChain SDK contains everything you need in one easy to use package. Documentation, tools, an entire running instance of the chain itself. It works on every mainstream platform and offers a highly ergonomic developer experience with features like hot reloading so you can build and test on chain features quickly and easily. GalaChain is open for business!
Gala appears to become more decentralized with each update. How do you strike a balance between the chaotic freedom of total decentralization and the rigid control of a centralized core company?
I imagine it’s something like parenthood! You spend the formative years doing the best job you can to prepare what you’ve created for the “real world.” Before you know it, you aren’t in control anymore! You can try to provide advice or shepherd things in a certain direction, but you don’t have any direct authority. It will have its own life and make its own decisions and experiences. It’s frightening and stressful. But hugely rewarding, satisfying and exhilarating. Ultimately, all you can do is your best to set it up for success.
What are some developer resources that you haven’t been able to provide in the SDK but plan to in the future at some point?
Currently, the GalaChain SDK comes with everything you need to develop a GalaChain Smart Contract or a GalaChain integrated application, but the examples are pretty basic. In the future, I would like to provide many, many more examples of advanced capabilities that can be offered as part of the SDK. This would allow GalaChain developers to mix and match or build on those advanced capabilities to achieve bigger and better things.
Picturing a future with hundreds (or maybe thousands) of projects built within the Gala ecosystem by external developers, what is the plan for providing support?
We need you! While we are more than happy to spend time fostering this first wave of GalaChain early adopters, the real mark of success will be when the open GalaChain developer ecosystem itself is the primary means of getting support for developing on GalaChain. We have a GalaChain discord with over 400 members but I could see that growing to many thousands more, and becoming the hub of GalaChain development. With open source projects to learn from, seasoned GalaChain developers to bounce ideas off of and a robust SDK with all of the tools you need to get started in a familiar language and easy to use package, GalaChain Discord is the place to be.
Using the SDK, will external developers be able to build their own node networks that produce their own tokens within the GalaChain ecosystem?
Yes! Although not fully enabled by this first release of the GalaChain SDK, I do see this being possible in the future. No, I won’t say WEN!
What’s your favorite Gala game and why?
It has to be Common Ground World. I spent a lot of my early time at Gala working on the game. We were a small, scrappy team trying to do something that hadn’t ever been done before. When I look at it now, it’s almost unrecognizable. It looks and feels and plays SO GOOD. The CGW team has really done an amazing job with their stewardship in the intervening months and years.
Finally, there are rumors that your workspace is actually a mage tower located somewhere in the enchanted beyond. Can you tell us more about that?
Actually, due to the magical security measures built into the structure itself, even I am not capable of d̵i̴v̵u̷l̶g̴i̷n̸g̶ ̷i̴t̵s̸ ̷s̴e̷c̴r̷e̶t̸s̵.
Any attempts to elaborate further about its m̶̦̊̔a̵̙̾g̷͍̍͆i̵̯̞̾c̸̮͒a̶͔͊l̸̮͛̂ ̴̲̮̀̇s̸̼̩̈́̇y̶̩͌s̶̛͑ͅt̵̘̫̅è̴̺m̸͕͆̊s̷͔͂̅
While we’re pioneering web3 tech to prepare for the incoming masses, one of our most important long term goals has always been ease of access. We want to make the projects built on our blockchain shine, and that means making it easy for developers to create here, regardless of their level of web3 expertise. This is where the Gala Creator Portal comes in.
Our Creator Portal is an innovative and highly user intuitive self service platform that simplifies the incorporation of blockchain tech via GalaChain for creators and developers, no matter the complexity or ambition of their projects.
Ease of Use
The Creator Portal offers a user-friendly interface to anyone who creates or manages projects on GalaChain. Currently, this includes music and film artists and game developers with in development or live titles. With no complex blockchain coding required, devs can upload tracks and other files, create NFTs, or even deploy tokens onto the GalaChain network.
Live game devs use the creator portal to manage NFT sales, database items and more.
Dev Flexibility
Using the recently released GalaChain public Software Developer Kit (SDK), developers who wish to go a little deeper also have the option to customize as they please, writing their own chain code in Typescript. If the more standardized and streamlined approach suits their needs, they can simply use the Creator Portal.
Accessibility
Most importantly, this portal is designed for all types of developers, whether or not they are familiar with web3 tech. This is a big deal because blockchain development has previously been gated behind a wall of prerequisite knowledge and most developers are most comfortable working with systems they already understand. Essentially, the Gala Creator Portal lowers the entry barrier to get started with blockchain tech, inviting a much more diverse range of creators to leverage the benefits and abilities of GalaChain.
If you have an idea that lends itself beautifully to web3, or if you’re an innovative developer who has been hesitant to jump into the web3 deep end so far, this is your chance–We’ve made it simpler than ever.
In the spirit of democratization of some of the most cutting edge tech in the world, we’re extremely excited to offer this Creator Portal to current and future GalaChain developers. We can hardly wait to see your genius ideas come to life, and we’ll make sure you’ve got the decentralized web3 power to make it happen.
We dropped the first version of our public facing SDK, empowering external developers around the world to build on GalaChain.
Whether you’re a dev degen with a web3 obsession, a business owner with a big idea, or a philanthropist with a plan that can revolutionize an entire industry and empower the world, this is the news you’ve been waiting for.
We’ve touched on the awesomeness of our native L1 blockchain, several times before, but none of us have really witnessed its full potential yet. Get ready for a new era of GalaChain, one that decentralizes the game like never before, brings new utility to the GALA token, and empowers developers to think beyond entertainment.
We used games, music and film as the first applications of GalaChain’s user-first empowerment because entertainment makes it incredibly simple for everyday consumers to understand what web3 can do for them. It creates the potential for actual digital ownership, allowing our users to trade their game items, earn rewards for supporting an emerging musician, experience a deeper involvement with their favorite films, and much more.
Now, external developers can build their own projects using all the same ideas and applications of web3 tech that Gala has already demonstrated with our core brands. They can mint NFTs, customizing drops, allowlists and distributions to their heart’s content. Developers can even build Node networks to power their projects, distributing rewards to operators in the same way that Gala Founder’s Node operators receive GALA as a reward for operating their Nodes. Creation of these various features will continue to become easier (requiring less assistance from the GalaChain team) as we continue on this journey of GalaChain expansion.
When you look at Gala’s core examples (Gala Games, Gala Music and Gala Film), it’s only natural to start thinking outside the box, allowing your imagination to pioneer into new territories, beyond the limitations of the web2 world. Smart contracts, tokenization and distributed networks have the power to change everything for the better, and that includes your industry. So it’s time to get creative and build some apps that the world never saw coming.
One of the most important things about the tools that we have on GalaChain, is that most anyone can hop in and get building right away in straightforward typescript. With other chains, you need to relearn the basics to get started, but we’ve totally streamlined the process with GalaChain and this SDK. No need to learn highly complicated and convoluted languages like solidity, no need to be a master of web3 infrastructure. Just get in and get building… Whenever you’re ready to up the difficulty, GalaChain can handle that too!
Introducing the GalaChain SDK
We’ve spent years hard at work building a robust and versatile L1 blockchain, and now it’s open for business. We’re proud to announce the first publicly available Software Development Kit for GalaChain.
Developers– Take a look now on Github through the link below:
For full access and more information, just reach out to us through GalaChain.com by clicking “Start Building” and we’ll get you empowered to build right away.
We’ve been around the block with web3 developments, so trust us when we say that the innovation will not wait for you. If you’re thinking about that great idea but not acting on it, you better get moving.
If you hesitate on that world-changing idea, then we guarantee someone else will develop it first. We’ve been talking for a long time about mass adoption like it’s a distant ship on the horizon. Thanks to GalaChain, the tide has changed and that ship will be here before you know it.
We can hardly wait to empower your brilliant ideas. Welcome to the future.
