Echelon Bonds Alpha is set to revolutionize digital asset sharing in gaming

Echelon has unveiled Bonds, a groundbreaking guild system that enables gas-free and permissionless sharing of digital assets within its ecosystem. This system will undergo an Alpha test in the coming weeks, involving Parallel players and managers from five Bonds. Bonds allow players to borrow NFT cards and create entire decks of cards with no upfront costs, reinforcing Parallel’s free-to-play nature by making access to NFTs and PRIME rewards completely free through a gameplay winnings sharing system.

According to the company’s report, several key components of bonds operate in the chain, including membership, member management and reward distribution. Each bond is represented by an individual smart contract deployed by the Bond Factory smart contract. To stake a bond, a PRIME fee is charged, which covers the first five members, with additional fees for adding more members. Bond members are identified by their Ethereum wallet addresses rather than traditional Web2-style user profiles.

PRIME distributions to bonds and card issuers also take place on-chain. When players earn PRIME from borrowed cards, a portion is allocated to their bond’s smart contract. The lender rewards Merkle root is updated to reflect each lender’s claim to the PRIME earned. Detailed information on rakes and income on bonds will be provided later in this message.

Management outside the chain

Off-chain components manage the credit pools and communication with partner gaming clients to avoid network fees associated with Ethereum L1. Initially, bonds were launched with one asset pool, which could be expanded to three pools for an additional PRIME fee, allowing different levels of access to assets without deploying new smart contracts. Assets in Echelon wallets and smart contracts, such as caching pools, can be added to a lending pool, including keys and cores.

Lending is managed via an off-chain API call between the Echelon-managed Bonds backend and the Parallel Game System (PGS). Only Echelon can authorize authorized loan requests. Lending cycles last one week, with players able to request assets mid-cycle for the next cycle. If a player leaves a Bond midway through the cycle, their lent and borrowed cards remain until the cycle ends.

Bond fees and rakes are crucial to maintaining the sustainability of the ecosystem. Two rakes take place before a player’s PRIME earnings from borrowed cards are determined. The first 5% rake supports the Sink Schedule, which is essential for the long-term success of the PRIME ecosystem. Bonds are designed to be a pillar of sustainability as the player base grows.

The second rake, 10% in the alpha version, is split between the bond and card issuers. Lenders receive a proportional amount based on the number of cards they supply. The bond and lender rakes will be adjusted for future releases. The remaining PRIME after these rakes will be distributed to the player via the usual gameplay mechanism.

Due to the gasless sharing system, problems can arise if cards loaned out during a cycle are sold. The Parallel game client reads and records assigned cards during match wins, and discrepancies can occur if loaned cards are moved to other wallets. League leadership must educate members about the risks of selling loaned cards, as violations could result in reduced or withheld revenue. Players who wish to sell cards that are not linked to their Bond, but linked to their Parallel account, must move the card to a wallet not linked to their Parallel account before marketing, to ensure proper allocation of PRIME earnings and eligible card IDs.