Personally, I am not a huge fan of the blockchain-game[1] craze. I am simply too familiar with both industries to believe they will meld together effectively in their current iterations. But Enjin’s ERC1155 Token Mintshop[2] is bringing that reality one step closer to fruition.
First, a quick primer: The ERC1155 Token protocol was announced in September. It has a few claimed advantages over both the standard ERC20 and the popular ERC721[3] standards. For starters, ERC1155 tokens can be both fungible or nonfungible. Fungible means each token has the same value, like a gram of gold. A gram of gold is worth the same amount regardless of what shape it holds or where it came from. If it is gold and it weighs a gram then it is worth the current exchange rate for gold. The same applies to ERC20 tokens. There are no identifying features of individual ERC20 tokens. If I give you ten ERC20 tokens and Elon Musk gives you ten of the same token, there isn’t anyway to determine their uniqueness. You won’t be able to sell the certain tokens as “previously owned by Elon Musk”.
ERC721 tokens are non-fungible, meaning they each have their own unique history and properties. The popular CryptoKitties game uses the ERC721 standard, as does our upcoming range of physical collectibles[4].
ERC1155, however, can support both fungible and non-fungible assets. Within a game, this means certain items, like Ammo or health packs, could be represented with a fungible token while a unique piece of armor could be non-fungible, with its unique properties and history accessible and verifiable on the blockchain. You could in theory, trade some fungible ammo, healthpacks and a non-fungible “uncommon” weapon for a non-fungible “rare” item.
The ERC1155
