Blocks of Crypto -- a Minecraft-Crypto Concept

[notasimp]

Update 22/11/25: Removed all old updates and rewrote the thread; spent time this last week redoing the codebase from scratch. A lot of changed with crypto (and me & my development skills in the last three years! I started this project while I was still serving mandatory National Service and now I'm in my final year of university. I recently got back into development, diving deeeeeeep into coding spending close to forty hours last week starting at an IDE.

Welcome to Blocks of Crypto

The First Minecraft Server Where Your Gameplay Earns Real Cryptocurrency

What is Blocks of Crypto?

Imagine a Minecraft server where every quest you complete, every town you build, and every strategic decision you make has real-world value. That's Blocks of Crypto – a revolutionary Minecraft server that bridges the gap between gaming and cryptocurrency, allowing you to earn, trade, and withdraw XRP (Ripple) through skilled gameplay.

This isn't a pay-to-win server or a gimmick. It's a fully functional, player-driven economy where your dedication, strategy, and community-building skills translate directly into cryptocurrency you can withdraw to your own wallet.


Why XRP?

We chose XRP for several important reasons:

• Ultra-Low Fees: Only $0.0002 per transaction – practically free!
  
• Lightning Fast: Transactions confirm in ~4 seconds (vs minutes for other cryptocurrencies)
  
• Widely Available: Listed on all major exchanges worldwide
  
• Stable & Established: #4 cryptocurrency globally with excellent liquidity
  
• Purpose-Built: Designed specifically for value transfer, perfect for gaming economies
  

Unlike Bitcoin or Ethereum, XRP's minimal fees mean you can withdraw even small amounts without losing most of your earnings to transaction costs.


The Economy: Two Currencies

Blocks of Crypto uses a dual-currency system designed to balance accessibility with real-world value:

Bytes (Soft Currency)

• Earned through: Completing quests, selling items, player trading, town taxes
• Used for: Town upkeep, player trading, converting to tokens
• Status: Unlimited supply, not withdrawable as cryptocurrency

Bytes are your everyday currency – earn them freely through gameplay and use them for in-game activities. Think of them as the foundation of the economy.

Tokens (Premium Currency)

• Pegged to XRP: 1 Token = 0.1 XRP (~$0.20-0.30 USD)
• Earned through: Token plants, miner network, XRP deposits, referral program
• Used for: Founding towns/nations, season passes, withdrawing as XRP
• Status: Limited supply based on server's XRP reserves

Tokens are your path to real cryptocurrency. They're backed by actual XRP reserves, meaning every token you earn represents real value you can withdraw.

Code:

Quick Reference:
• 1 Token = 0.1 XRP ≈ $0.20-0.30 USD
• Season Pass = 25 tokens (~$5-7.50)
• Found a Town = 50 tokens (~$10-15)
• Found a Nation = 250 tokens (~$50-75)
• Minimum Withdrawal = 5 tokens (~$1-1.50)

Core Features

1. Quest System

Complete quests to earn bytes and progress through the game. The quest system is designed to reward both casual and dedicated players.

• Daily Quests (3 per day): Earn 15-25 bytes each for completing objectives like "Mine 100 stone" or "Kill 10 zombies"
  
• Weekly Quests (5 per week): Earn 100-150 bytes each for larger challenges like "Build a structure worth 1,000 blocks"
  
• Season Pass Quests: Premium players get 3× multiplier on daily quests and 2.5× on weekly quests, plus exclusive premium quests
  

Free players can earn approximately 60 bytes per day from quests, while season pass holders can earn 180+ bytes per day with the multiplier bonuses.

2. Token Plants (High Risk, High Reward)

Token plants are the primary way to convert bytes into withdrawable tokens. This system creates meaningful risk/reward dynamics and encourages strategic gameplay.

• Investment Required: Each plant requires a seed (500 bytes), fertilizer resources (32 Bone Meal, 16 Glowstone Dust, 8 Ender Pearls), and bytes locked for the growth period
  
• Growth Time Options: Choose from instant (9× penalty) to 3 days (best rate, 30% profit)
  
• Protection Mechanics: Plants can be placed in towns (with permission) or neutral territory. Towns lose all protection while plants are growing, creating high-stakes defense scenarios
  
• Raiding System: Other players can raid your plants before maturity for 60% of prorated tokens, but you lose your investment if raided
  
• Miner Distribution: 20% of all mature harvests go to the miner network, distributed equally among active miners
  

The longer you're willing to wait and protect your plants, the better your exchange rate. A 3-day plant converts 1,000 bytes to 1 token (best rate), while instant conversion requires 9,000 bytes for 1 token.

3. Miner Network

Build massive multiblock structures to earn passive token income from server revenue streams.

• Structure Requirements: 5×5 beacon pyramid with 34 Netherite Blocks + 1 Beacon + Miner's Core
  
• Revenue Sources: Miners receive a share of town founding fees, nation founding fees, season pass purchases, token plant harvests, and upkeep costs
  
• Distribution: All revenue is split equally among all active miners
  
• Acquisition: Miner's Cores are obtained through season pass purchases or rare quest rewards
  

This creates a true passive income system for dedicated players willing to invest the massive resources required to build a miner structure.

4. Town & Nation System

Found and manage towns and nations with integrated economic features.

• Town Founding: 50 tokens (~$10-15) to found a town with chunk claiming, tax collection, and member management
  
• Nation Founding: 250 tokens (~$50-75) to form a nation with 3+ member towns, shared teleportation, economic bonuses, and diplomatic systems
  
• Tax System: Town leaders can set daily tax rates (0.1% - 5% of member bytes), creating competitive pressure to keep rates reasonable
  
• Token Plant Integration: Towns can allow or prohibit token plants. If allowed, the entire town loses protection while plants are growing
  
• Economic Benefits: Nations provide 10% discount on town upkeep, shared resource pools, and enhanced land expansion
  

The town/nation system creates meaningful community structures where economic decisions have real consequences.

5. Season Pass System

Purchase a 90-day season pass for enhanced earning potential.

• Cost: 25 tokens (~$5-7.50 USD) for 90 days
  
• Benefits:
    
• 3× bytes multiplier on all daily quests
• 2.5× bytes multiplier on weekly quests
• Exclusive premium daily quest (150 bytes)
• 1 Miner's Core (worth ~8 tokens if sold)
• Exclusive cosmetic items
• Access to premium quest line

Earning potential varies by playtime:

• Casual players (1 hour/day, 60 days): ~$1.30-1.95 profit after pass cost
  
• Dedicated players (1-2 hours/day, 90 days): ~$6-9 profit after pass cost
  

Free players can still earn approximately 55-75% of the season pass cost through free gameplay, encouraging upgrades while remaining accessible.

6. Referral Program

Invite friends and earn rewards for growing the community.

• Immediate Rewards: Both you and your referral receive 150 bytes when they enter your code
  
• Delayed Rewards: You receive 2 tokens when your referral purchases their first season pass
  
• No Maximum: Unlimited referrals, unlimited earning potential
  

This creates a sustainable growth mechanism that rewards community building.


How It Works

Earning Cryptocurrency

There are multiple paths to earning withdrawable tokens:

• Complete Quests: Earn bytes through daily and weekly quests, then convert to tokens via token plants
  
• Protect Token Plants: Invest bytes and resources, protect your plants for 3 days, harvest tokens (80% to you, 20% to miners)
  
• Build Miner Structures: Massive investment required, but earns passive income from all server revenue
  
• Deposit XRP: Directly deposit XRP to receive tokens at 1:0.1 rate (no fees)
  
• Refer Friends: Earn tokens when your referrals purchase season passes
  

Withdrawing Cryptocurrency

• Minimum withdrawal: 5 tokens (0.5 XRP / ~$1-1.50)
• Withdrawal fee: 0.5 tokens (~$0.10-0.15) to cover transaction costs
• Processing: Most withdrawals process automatically within 24 hours
• Requirements: 10 hours minimum playtime, 48-hour cooldown between withdrawals

Current Development Status

We're actively developing Blocks of Crypto and have made significant progress on the core systems. Here's what's been implemented so far:

✅ Completed Features

• Core Plugin Architecture: Full plugin structure with database integration, command system, and event handling
  
• Quest System: Daily and weekly quest generation, tracking, and reward distribution with season pass integration
  
• Token Plant Mechanics: Complete planting, growth scheduling, harvesting, and raiding systems with UUID protection
  
• Miner Network: Multiblock structure validation, revenue distribution, and integrity monitoring
  
• Town/Nation Integration: Economic features integrated with Towny plugin including founding costs, taxes, and upkeep
  
• Referral Program: Code generation, tracking, and reward distribution system
  
• Onboarding System: Tutorial quests, welcome book, starter kit, and persistent HUD display
  
• Anti-Exploitation Systems: Rate limiting, multi-account detection, activity monitoring, and bot prevention
  
• Wallet Integration Framework: API communication layer for deposits and withdrawals
  
• Database Layer: Complete schema with migrations, stored procedures, and DAO pattern implementation
  

🔄 In Progress

• Wallet server finalization and testing
• Minor feature polish and optimization
• Security audit and penetration testing
• Load testing with simulated player counts

What's Coming Next

We're targeting an MVP launch within the next few months. The roadmap includes:

• Closed Beta: Invite 50-100 players for stress testing and feedback
  
• Open Beta: Public testing phase with active community engagement
  
• Launch: Full public release with marketing and community building
  
• Post-Launch: Enhanced UI, additional quest types, mobile support investigation, and advanced features
  

We're committed to building this right – that means thorough testing, security audits, and community feedback before full launch.


Why This Matters

Blocks of Crypto represents a new paradigm in gaming economies. We're not just adding cryptocurrency to Minecraft – we're creating a sustainable, player-driven economy where:

• Your time and skill have real-world value
• Strategic decisions matter (protect your plants, build your town, invest in miners)
• Community building is rewarded (referrals, towns, nations)
• Free players can participate meaningfully while premium features enhance the experience
• The economy is transparent and backed by real cryptocurrency reserves

This isn't a get-rich-quick scheme. It's a game where dedicated players can earn modest amounts of cryptocurrency through skilled gameplay, strategic thinking, and community participation.


Get Involved

We're building this with the community in mind. Here's how you can get involved:

• Join Our Discord: Connect with other players, get updates, and provide feedback
  
• Follow Development: Watch our progress and see features as they're built
  
• Beta Testing: Sign up for beta access when we're ready for testing
  
• Share Ideas: We want your input on features, balance, and improvements
  
• Spread the Word: Help us grow by sharing with friends who might be interested
  

Important Notes

• This is an experimental project combining gaming and cryptocurrency
• Cryptocurrency is volatile – token values can fluctuate with XRP price
• Earnings require active gameplay and strategic decisions
• Free players can participate meaningfully, but premium features enhance earning potential
• All economic activity is logged and monitored to prevent exploitation
• We're committed to transparency and will publish reserve proofs and economic statistics

Ready to Play?

Blocks of Crypto is coming soon. Join our community to stay updated on development progress, beta testing opportunities, and launch announcements.

This is just the beginning.

[/list]

[SFR10]

I think that simply saying you can earn money while playing it will attract a large playerbase, but I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Attracting players shouldn't be the main concern, instead, you should focus more on how you're going to keep them on the server in question and that depends on how simple the whole process is going to be for them.

Just a big mess of thoughts. Would love to hear your takes on it.

I'm not a Minecraft player but I've heard about a somewhat similar server before ^{["link" - make sure to check the other links within that article as well]} and I think Minecraft players would probably enjoy having another option in regards to such a server.

[notasimp]

Attracting players shouldn't be the main concern, instead, you should focus more on how you're going to keep them on the server in question and that depends on how simple the whole process is going to be for them.

I'm not sure. A long time ago, Minecraft players were pretty evenly spread between many small servers. Nowadays, the majority of the online population spends its time on large networks like Hypixel.

Personally, things that motivate me to stay on a particular Minecraft server are friends and community. I think I will focus heavily on the economic aspect of the server, perhaps even code something to make the server shop price items at a floating value based on demand and an artificially determined supply (i.e. admin can trigger a "shortage" or "surplus" of a certain item, driving the price up or down).

I'm not a Minecraft player but I've heard about a somewhat similar server before ^{["link" - make sure to check the other links within that article as well]} and I think Minecraft players would probably enjoy having another option in regards to such a server.

I checked it out. It's an interesting concept... perhaps it could be something we run regularly on the server. Like a jackpot-type thing, where the first person to find the random chest is rewarded with the pot to date, and only players who contributed a set amount to the pot can play.

1. Bitcoin isn't practical for micro-transaction, decent percentage of BTC could loss to withdraw fee (even if it's 1 sat/vbyte).

I realize this. And of course, the problem would be accentuated by the fact that payouts to players would be very small to begin with. Could an alternative be to payout using an altcoin? Or, possibly, set the minimum threshold for payouts high enough that the fee would become less of a problem. That way, only players with sufficient balance would be able to withdraw their earnings. It might be possible this threshold is set unreasonably high for a single player to achieve, thus requiring a team effort or guild structure.

Towny structure: residents belong to towns, towns belong to nations. At each level, it's possible to set a daily tax. Perhaps this could be a way a single player might hit the threshold for withdrawals: by being a town or nation owner.

Few concern/problem,
2. Moderating the community who have financial motivation rather than having fun (for example, compare this forum with other forum which discuss video game/movie).

I'm sorry, I don't understand. Do you mean it might be a problem if players join out of financial motivation rather than having fun?

How about in-game advertising?

As mentioned in my original post:

...

More importantly, one major challenge is finding an income source to fund the money that the server will be giving away. I considered in-game marketing the players, but that goes against the Mojang EULA.

...

In-game advertising is technically against the EULA.

[notasimp]

IMO using altcoin (such as Doge) is more practical. There are times when Bitcoin mempool is full which makes transaction fee very expensive.

Possibly. But then how will the server get its balance in the altcoin? Unless you're suggesting we hold a hot wallet stocked with the altcoin of choice... which is risky if the altcoin dips. What's the transaction fee like for ETH? That's one of the most stable altcoins I know. Will check it out.

What i mean is player who join out of financial motivation is likely to be less friendly and use deceptive tactic to earn money.

No doubt about it. I'm sure we can find a way to moderate in-game transactions, however, to prevent or dissuade/discourage scams in-game. What kinds of deceptive tactics are you thinking of?

[notasimp]

1. Unfair exchange rate during trading. Usually people who don't know average exchange rate become victim.

I think players are generally quite saavy when it comes to pricing. In-game economy is usually very simple. If we implement a floating/dynamic value in the server-shop, it will reward attentive players who also manually vary their personal shop prices.

Let me very quickly explain the common setup for Minecraft economies.

• Server runs a shop. It buys and sells usually at hugely uneconomic prices, i.e. it sells diamonds at $500 per diamond but only buys them at $50 per diamond.
• Players can setup their own physical shops. These are either in protected areas like a rentable "stall" in a safe, server-managed shop complex OR out in the wild but on protected plots of land (this would be the case on our server, most likely) OR out in the wild and unprotected.

As for ours:

• In the economy I'm thinking about, the only way to directly earn Bitcoin will be to convert a special item into a premium currency balance in-game. Call it... blooptokens... whatever. One emerald = 1 blooptoken. Let's say.... 100,000 blooptokens = mBTC. Something like that.
• Non-premium in-game currency is measured in virtual dollars. The virtual dollar to blooptoken rate varies and is controlled by the server. In that sense, blooptokens are like a centralized token.
• Blooptokens can be spent directly with the server to withdraw BTC to an address.
• Blooptokens can be sent directly to other users without first converting to virtual $.

Went off on a little tangent there, but just had to get the idea out.

2. Falsify detail of the item to make it looks more expensive. One example i remember is CSGO skins where each skin quality have different market price.

Not possible in Minecraft. Items all look different and named items are italicized. Very obvious what's what, so this is not a concern. There aren't different rarity diamonds, for example, just diamonds, emeralds, gold ingots, etc. They're all skinned differently and can be told apart quickly. Maybe naming an item would fool someone logging on for the first time, but any reasonably experienced (~a few hours?) Minecraft player would be able to pick up such an obvious scam immediately. It has the same chance of happening as someone falling for a Nigerian prince scam.

3. Modify game client to reveal more information than you're supposed to know. For example, location of Diamond ore.

Having run my fair share of Minecraft servers in the past (including a network I still host but is pretty much deserted due to lack of advertisement), I'm aware of how to counter this. Simply put, there are plugins like this (https://dev.bukkit.org/projects/orebfuscator) that obfuscate nonvisble blocks, changing them into random blocks / other valuable blocks. Blocks are "revealed" or unobfuscated when exposed to air. This makes x-ray cheats redundant as suddenly every block is valuable until discovered legitimately.

The link is to a plugin that's outdated. There are newer alternatives, many of them. Not a problem to code, either, though I'm sure there are open-source options out there that the community has heavily refined or optimized. Would definitely be installing one of those, as well as an anti-cheat plugin to ensure fair play on the server as far as cheat/hack clients go. I use Spartan (https://www.spigotmc.org/resources/spartan-anti-cheat-advanced-cheat-detection-hack-blocker-1-7-2-1-17.25638/, link requires login on SpigotMC) on the network I run and it works well.

[notasimp]

Edit

Some ideas:

• Quest system w something like a battle pass / seasonal pass. Users can complete quests and earn rewards, but these rewards are greatly amplified with the purchase of a seasonal pass that unlocks additional rewards. We make it feasible to make an ROI on this investment, but design it so that playtime and active contribution would be necessary. Can require that this user interacts with other users to breakeven on his investment in buying the season pass. Would encourage community building and also spice up the vanilla game.
• Run the server as modded server. I currently run a modded server with a custom modpack just for friends and DEFINITELY enjoy it more than vanilla Minecraft. Barrier to entry: potential users would have to download the modpack. Not a complicated affair, we can use public launchers/platforms like CurseForge (https://www.curseforge.com/) or the Technic Platform (https://www.technicpack.net/) to distribute the modpack, but it does add some hassle to the process of joining.

Added some ideas to my OP.

[notasimp]

Spent the night up with some friends yesterday brainstorming how the economy could work. Updated OP with a lot more detail about playcash, tokens, etc.

[zeuner]

...

More importantly, one major challenge is finding an income source to fund the money that the server will be giving away. I considered in-game marketing the players, but that goes against the Mojang EULA.

...

In-game advertising is technically against the EULA.

You might want to consider Minetest, which comes without an EULA, and has gained quite some traction lately. Having a fully open sourced codebase would be more alongside with Bitcoin's transparency anyway.

[Welsh]

This is a massive project, and while it could definitely be possible to do. You might want to try appealing to the more casual Minecraft player, rather than users of Bitcoin. I don't know what the demographic would be for Bitcoiners that also play Minecraft. Instead, you should try promoting it as a way of earning money while playing Minecraft. That would likely appeal to the general public more, and therefore you would generate more players.

A partnership with a gambling site that has an API? Possibly allow users to bet on the site while in-game or (with the help of the Minecraft plugin) make bets more fun. Income would then be collected either directly in a fixed payment from the site or a % commission.

This is something that is probably more hassle than its worth. Depending on your country of residence, you would likely have to register with a gambling commission, get licensed, and wouldn't be able to accept users from certain countries unless you have a sufficient enough license.

I understand you wouldn't be providing the services exactly, and just using an API. However, I do still believe that would require being licensed. Not to mention, this likely goes against the Mojang EULA.

[notasimp]

You might want to consider Minetest, which comes without an EULA, and has gained quite some traction lately. Having a fully open sourced codebase would be more alongside with Bitcoin's transparency anyway.

I just checked it out. Doesn't seem very popular. As Welsh said, the size of the demographic that both plays Minecraft and is into Bitcoin/cryptocurrency is already notably small. The Minetest x crypto demographic is very likely even smaller. I want to build off an existing, accessible playerbase -- namely, the Minecraft community. After all, you don't need to know jack shit about crypto to join the server. One could join and learn while playing.

This is a massive project, and while it could definitely be possible to do. You might want to try appealing to the more casual Minecraft player, rather than users of Bitcoin. I don't know what the demographic would be for Bitcoiners that also play Minecraft. Instead, you should try promoting it as a way of earning money while playing Minecraft. That would likely appeal to the general public more, and therefore you would generate more players.

That's precisely what I intend to do. I spent a good 25+ hours this last week working on the project and I'm happy to say I'm well into the standalone server that'll run the wallet. The only thing I've touched on the plugin is the code implementation to get it to talk to the wallet/account server.

I'm currently running it on the testnet network and I've gotten deposits and withdrawals to work. I'm planning to finish the standalone server before working on the plugin and in-game mechanics. I'll be creating a simple web interface as well for users to access their accounts and tokens, so in case the Minecraft server is taken offline for maintenance there will still be a way for them to retrieve their funds at any time.

I'm not always at my computer and I'm usually quite busy, so also looking into (minimally) having logging integrated into a Telegram bot. May add notifications through Telegram in the future, things like confirming deposits, miner under attack, plant growth progress, etc.

I've planned out a rough development road map for the Minecraft plugin, researched the libraries I'll use, and out down the base code as well. The current version can be loaded by the latest version Spigot server and will start and connect to the standalone server.

I'll post a proper update or a link to more updates in the OP soon.

[JohnnyBboy]

Damn bro, I had that idea like in 2013

Best of luck! It will be tough to make, but it's very much possible.

[Welsh]

I've planned out a rough development road map for the Minecraft plugin, researched the libraries I'll use, and out down the base code as well. The current version can be loaded by the latest version Spigot server and will start and connect to the standalone server.

I'll post a proper update or a link to more updates in the OP soon.

Always interested in hearing about it, as Minecraft is probably one of the only games which gives enough freedom to implement something like this. In fact, I believe many have attempted, and partially succeeded in the past. You are probably aware of it, but I believe there was a server which integrated Bitcoin, and had Bitcoin payouts for things like mining in Minecraft. There was also a casino inside Minecraft, which I believe might have closed down due to legal issues, I'm not entirely sure on that though.

I do absolutely believe though, that the best way of making this a success is to focus less on attracting those already involved in cryptocurrency, and instead trying to entice the general Minecraft playing demographic, but offering the ability to earn money that can be redeemed to real life cash.

 

[Kakmakr]

I see some users are suggesting that you should create some in-game currency that can be converted to Crypto, but for me it kind of defeats the purpose. I want to see a server where you can use Bitcoin (BTC) as the economy and not some kind of fantasy token. (We see lots of games where in-game currencies are created and in some of these games, people pre-mine them to enrich themselves)

Minecraft still has a huge cult following and we can tap into a group of people that are very passionate and would appreciate some real world reward for their time and effort. (That are not linked to Fiat currencies)  

Something like this : https://finance.yahoo.com/news/minecraft-players-win-bitcoin-treasure-160033197.html

[Welsh]

I see some users are suggesting that you should create some in-game currency that can be converted to Crypto, but for me it kind of defeats the purpose. I want to see a server where you can use Bitcoin (BTC) as the economy and not some kind of fantasy token. (We see lots of games where in-game currencies are created and in some of these games, people pre-mine them to enrich themselves)

The issue is, your probably restricted by Mojang's EULA. They probably won't authorize the ability for a real life currency to be earned, and sold via in game. I haven't checked the EULA in a long time, but most games have similar policies in place which restrict the purchasing, and selling of in game items, and I'm sure a lot of them have extended that to cryptocurrencies ever since they have emerged.

By creating a in game currency, it'll probably be easier to work with the EULA. Also, it does save a butt load of work trying to implement Bitcoin into the server. The virtual currency could operate the exact same, and is probably a more secure implementation, since you aren't storing Bitcoin on the server. Instead, users would earn the virtual currency, and then request a withdrawal at x time.

Its just like how your bank account works. The money that you see on your screen isn't actually cash/good or whatever. Its just a number, which is processed later on down the line, rather than immediately as you push withdraw or send.

Many services already offer a setup, and most users won't even know the difference. 

 

[notasimp]

Damn bro, I had that idea like in 2013

Best of luck! It will be tough to make, but it's very much possible.

Cheers mate.

Always interested in hearing about it, as Minecraft is probably one of the only games which gives enough freedom to implement something like this. In fact, I believe many have attempted, and partially succeeded in the past. You are probably aware of it, but I believe there was a server which integrated Bitcoin, and had Bitcoin payouts for things like mining in Minecraft. There was also a casino inside Minecraft, which I believe might have closed down due to legal issues, I'm not entirely sure on that though.

I do absolutely believe though, that the best way of making this a success is to focus less on attracting those already involved in cryptocurrency, and instead trying to entice the general Minecraft playing demographic, but offering the ability to earn money that can be redeemed to real life cash.

 

I agree entirely.

I see some users are suggesting that you should create some in-game currency that can be converted to Crypto, but for me it kind of defeats the purpose. I want to see a server where you can use Bitcoin (BTC) as the economy and not some kind of fantasy token. (We see lots of games where in-game currencies are created and in some of these games, people pre-mine them to enrich themselves)

Minecraft still has a huge cult following and we can tap into a group of people that are very passionate and would appreciate some real world reward for their time and effort. (That are not linked to Fiat currencies) 

Something like this : https://finance.yahoo.com/news/minecraft-players-win-bitcoin-treasure-160033197.html

The fantasy "token" is worth a set amount of Bitcoin, the in-game cash ("Playcash") which is used as the primary economy of the server is not.

Playcash must be able to be generated freely (i.e. from quests, selling items to the server shop, etc) -- it can therefore NOT be pegged to a Bitcoin balance... unless you're willing to sponsor me unlimited Bitcoin.

[Lee_Mire]

Few concern/problem,
1. Bitcoin isn't practical for micro-transaction, decent percentage of BTC could loss to withdraw fee (even if it's 1 sat/vbyte).
2. Moderating the community who have financial motivation rather than having fun (for example, compare this forum with other forum which discuss video game/movie).

More importantly, one major challenge is finding an income source to fund the money that the server will be giving away.

How about in-game advertising?

Wouldn't a solution that uses LN fix issue 1?

[notasimp]

Few concern/problem,
1. Bitcoin isn't practical for micro-transaction, decent percentage of BTC could loss to withdraw fee (even if it's 1 sat/vbyte).
2. Moderating the community who have financial motivation rather than having fun (for example, compare this forum with other forum which discuss video game/movie).

Wouldn't a solution that uses LN fix issue 1?

LN only solve the problem if,
1. The player already have channel with the minecraft server's node.
2. There's route which connect player and minecraft server's node.

If neither is available, player must create on-chain transaction to create new channel, where either player/server/both need to pay the transaction fee.

Correct. Furthermore, my understanding of the Lightning Network is that for channels with < 2 recipients (other than sender) the fee is actually bigger than if the main network was used.... didn't really read much into the technical side of the LN though.

The LN might work if the player requested multiple withdrawals without sending coins between each withdrawal to an address/recipient not on the LN.


Just a development update, haven't gotten much done. Been on a course for work since the 28th and I've been arriving home around midnight, leaving home again at 6+ in the morning, so no time or energy to work on this project.

Will begin working on it again end July. Will be drawing up proper timelines and plans for the project soon.

[Rath_]

Correct. Furthermore, my understanding of the Lightning Network is that for channels with < 2 recipients (other than sender) the fee is actually bigger than if the main network was used.... didn't really read much into the technical side of the LN though.

I am not sure what you are trying to say here. A channel is maintained between only two people. A node can have multiple channels. When some node routes a payment, it receives coins in one channel and uses some other channel to send the same amount of coins (minus the fee). If there was only one node which could route a payment from you to the player, it would not be necessarily more expensive than an on-chain transaction. The LN was designed for micro-payments, so you would end up paying a couple of satoshis or even less.

The LN might work if the player requested multiple withdrawals without sending coins between each withdrawal to an address/recipient not on the LN.

In other words, the player can receive payments over the Lightning Network as long as they don't close their channel.

[notasimp]

Correct. Furthermore, my understanding of the Lightning Network is that for channels with < 2 recipients (other than sender) the fee is actually bigger than if the main network was used.... didn't really read much into the technical side of the LN though.

I am not sure what you are trying to say here. A channel is maintained between only two people. A node can have multiple channels. When some node routes a payment, it receives coins in one channel and uses some other channel to send the same amount of coins (minus the fee). If there was only one node which could route a payment from you to the player, it would not be necessarily more expensive than an on-chain transaction. The LN was designed for micro-payments, so you would end up paying a couple of satoshis or even less.

The LN might work if the player requested multiple withdrawals without sending coins between each withdrawal to an address/recipient not on the LN.

In other words, the player can receive payments over the Lightning Network as long as they don't close their channel.

LN contracts require a pre-payment, though, don't they? And a contract is between max two parties.

Meaning an additional amount will always be tied up in open LN contracts.

[Rath_]

LN contracts require a pre-payment, though, don't they? And a contract is between max two parties.

Yes, you need to lock up a certain amount of coins in a multi-signature address beforehand.

Meaning an additional amount will always be tied up in open LN contracts.

You also need to worry about inbound/outbound liquidity. When you open a channel, all funds are on your side of the channel. Unless someone opens a channel to your node or you spend some coins over the Lightning Network, you won't be able to receive any payments.

I know it's complicated. An average minecraft player would not bother to do all of that. That's why you could recommend BlueWallet to your players. This way, they would be instantly able to receive Lightning payments without any extra configuration. It's a custodial wallet, though.