Since 2020, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have been experiencing an enormous increase in popularity in a variety of sectors: music, art, collectibles, etc.

But one of the most notable sectors that NFTs are revolutionizing is the video game industry with the Enjin (ENJ) platform taking the lead in innovation in this arena.

Enjin, a platform that allows users to create their own NFTs, has become a leader in the video game industry, focusing on “evolving” the gaming industry through tokenization.

But what does this mean for gamers, crypto investors, and the video game industry as a whole?

Let’s take a closer look at Enjin Coin to see how The Future of Gaming and NFTs could possibly benefit gamers, crypto investors, and enhance the video gaming industry insha’Allah.

Why NFTs are the future of gaming?

Blockchain Games.

When we talk about blockchain games, we mean games in which the ownership and storage of the in-game items are decentralized.

Some triple-A games like Counter Strike or World of Warcraft have parallel marketplaces where players can buy and sell items within the game.

Let’s say you get an extremely rare skin for your weapon that has a great demand in the market, so this makes it worth hundreds or even thousands of dollars.

You want to sell it and make some money, but you run into a problem: the skin is not really yours, but actually belongs to the developers of the game, so selling the skin can be a legal problem for you. In addition, the developers could decide at any time to remove your skin or simply delete it from the game.

In blockchain games that doesn’t happen; players own the game assets, so they can sell them without infringing copyright or anyone’s “property” rights.

The ability to tokenize game assets and convert them into NFTs is one of the innovations that are establishing a new way of playing video games.

Transforming game items into NFTs helps solve several situations that were previously unavoidable problems for players:

• Players now actually own items within games
• These objects cannot be deleted or modified by third parties
• Being digital objects, these items can evolve and acquire new properties
• Players can sell them on virtual markets and earn money from it
• Thanks to cross-playing, the same NFT could be used in different video games on different platforms
• Players can “move” their objects from one place to another, store them, exchange them, etc., with total freedom

NFTs represent a new way of playing in which games can evolve according to the wishes of their communities. At the same time, they provide a new incentive for players, both veterans, and beginners, to monetize the time they spend playing.

Enjin coin and gaming

Enjin is both a platform and an ecosystem of software tools designed to enable the creation, distribution, storage, trade, and integration of digital assets in the form of NFTs. Enjin is also a cryptocurrency created on the Ethereum blockchain that was brought to life through an ICO that raised $18.9 million in late 2017.

At Enjin, users are primarily interested in video games and business use cases, using the platform to create ENJ-backed digital assets for creative use, from artistic NFTs to digital vouchers, to objects that can be used in different video games. Millions of users have already used the platform’s management tools to strengthen communities around their favorite games.

Taking this user-centric approach and applying it to the blockchain realm, they set out to create the ultimate all-in-one tokenization platform.

The idea behind the Enjin project is to offer an ecosystem and a tokenization platform, combined with a powerful set of tools for anyone to enter the world of blockchain, even being a total neophyte.

How does Enjin work?

Enjin Coin is an ERC20 token developed on the Ethereum network, so, in addition to being able to execute transactions, it can also execute smart contracts.

The platform offers a set of functions through its public API and its software development kits (SDK) so that users can make use of its features with great ease.

The main feature of Enjin is the creation and management of virtual assets; developers can create their own cryptocurrencies within Enjin and add them to their games later.

For this, developers must acquire and block certain amounts of ENJ tokens, which are locked within the assets they create, generating cryptocurrency scarcity, which in turn gives ENJ value and at the same time, increases its price in the market.

With software development kits for Unity, Java, Godot, etc., Enjin provides millions of developers with an easy way to integrate their new or existing projects. Creatives can subsequently enter an online marketplace with more than 10 million digital items where users can discover, buy, and sell rare and unique blockchain assets.

In addition to this, Enjin also has additional tools to make life easier for developers and users, such as Enjin Beam, a digital asset distribution system using QR codes, or the Smart Wallet, an asset wallet on the blockchain that easily syncs with games and apps.

Why is Enjin unique?

Every token minted within the Enjin platform is directly backed by ENJ, the platform’s currency. This gives real liquidity to game items, allowing real-world games and gaming platforms to be powered by the crypto ecosystem. When players obtain these items, they can use them within the game, but also sell or trade them for ENJ.

In addition, Enjin has a limited supply of coins of just 1 billion, of which there are about 800 million tokens in circulation, increasing their value over time.

Enjin, NFTs, and the future

In a previous section, we touched on some of the problems that Enjin is trying to solve in the gaming world, but let’s now dive a little deeper into this topic.

We already mentioned that thanks to Enjin and NFTs, players can now truly own these special items within their favorite games. At first, this may not seem like something of importance, but when you take a closer look at the current video game industry, you quickly realize how players are at a disadvantage and how video game companies hold all the keys.

Large companies develop triple-A games that millions of gamers play every day for hours, in many cases striving to progress or “level-up” in their favorite game or, as in the case of competitive games, they simply strive to be the best.

In many cases, having a rare weapon, armor, or power-up can make the difference between victory and defeat.

How many times have we heard or read about players whose accounts were unfairly banned by the companies behind these games?

When this happens, players feel as if they have wasted their effort, time, and money they’ve invested in their passion in addition to losing their treasured items.

Thanks to NFTs, players would have full control over these objects, and even over their progress in the game, since in the blockchain the records are unalterable.

Also, in most traditional games, special items lose value when a game becomes obsolete and players lose interest in it.

Enjin proposes to change this by creating an ecosystem in which different “worlds” – or games – interconnect, in which these special items don’t lose value and can continue to be used, or that these items can even be resold to make some money.

How people and organizations are using Enjin coin today

Although the main use of Enjin revolves around the gaming market to tokenize the value of in-game assets, the platform is also offering applications in other sectors, such as loyalty rewards and real estate.

Several major companies are partnering with Enjin to offer their customers and users an enhanced experience and the opportunity to earn incentives to help build loyalty from new and old customers.

For example, BMW is converting loyalty points that can be used to pay for fuel, tolls, and parking fees, into Enjin tokens that users can then exchange on the platform.

Also, the giant, Microsoft, is using Enjin’s technology for its social rewards program called Azure Heroes.

The company Unity wants to launch an SDK to facilitate the 4.5 million developers of its ecosystem, the integration of their apps and games with blockchain.

Also, some companies related to cryptocurrencies such as Binance, Changelly, or Swissborg, are using Enjin for their blockchain-based marketing campaigns, gamifying the user experience through the creation and distribution of digital assets.

On top of that, Enjin itself has been incorporating different app and game developers into its official Enjin Adopter program for some time, allowing them to build, finance, monetize, distribute, and earn money with their blockchain-based games.

The use of NFTs in the video games industry is an activity that is providing greater meaning to this new technology since in addition to solving real problems of users of real services and products in the digital world, they provide a different way of approaching games as players can earn money on the go.

Naturally, not everyone will make significant amounts of money this way, but for users who take it much more seriously, the ability to see their playtime significantly monetized, in addition to their contribution when creating content on certain types of games, the idea that Enjin proposes in combination with the NFTs should be more than exciting.

Is Enjin Coin halal?

Is Enjin Coin halal? Yes. Enjin Coin is halal. So long as the Enjin NFT that is created does not have characteristics that promote or convey what is haram, then creating, using, or earning income from Enjin coin is permissible.

Scholars who hold the opinion that cryptocurrency is halal would view Enjin coin as a utility token and would classify it as an asset and not a currency.

Conclusion

Insha’Allah (God willing) there is a bright future with numerous possibilities, especially if we take into account the direction that the video game industry is taking with Enjin and NFTs thanks to developments such as virtual reality, augmented reality, AI, 5G Internet, eSports, and the next big thing, the metaverse.

Some people say that all this, combined with blockchain and cryptocurrencies, is about to create a parallel “universe” in which everything will be possible. Have you seen the Steven Spielberg movie, “Ready Player One”? Prediction of the future? What do you think?

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Since the earliest civilizations, humans have always been attracted to collecting “special” objects to which they have assigned a certain value, for different reasons. In the past, this collecting mania could be reflected in any physical object, be it coins, artwork, vehicles, even rocks.

But we’re in the middle of the digital age and now, this collecting fever has a new exponent that’s causing a true sensation among lovers of the rare and exclusive: Non-Fungible tokens or NFTs.

But what exactly are NFTs, how do they work, what can you do with them, and most importantly for investors, do they have a future?

Take a look at this quick guide to find the answers to all these questions.

What are NFTs?

Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are basically tokens based on cryptography that only exist on a blockchain. These tokens have unique characteristics that make them unrepeatable. These tokens can represent unique assets from the digital world or digitized versions of objects from the physical world.

In addition to this, NFTs can also be used to demonstrate the authenticity and ownership of different assets on a blockchain, acting somewhat like a digital fingerprint.

NFTs are different from fungible assets, that is, objects – both physical and digital – that can be exchanged with other objects of identical properties.

We have a good example to illustrate this in money; it doesn’t matter whether it’s physical like the dollar, or digital like Bitcoin (BTC): you can easily exchange one Bitcoin for another Bitcoin. This is possible because 1 BTC keeps the same value when you exchange it for another BTC; they’re equivalent and have exactly the same properties.

Non-fungible assets can’t be substituted in the same way as fungible assets because they are unique, unrepeatable, and have different characteristics.

Another good example of this is in artwork from famous painters.

You can see each of those paintings as a non-fungible token because although they’re all paintings, they’ve different properties and value; they’re unique, and you can’t exchange one of these paintings for another because there is only one original painting.

The good news is that these assets can also be represented in the digital world in the form of crypto tokens; thanks to information technology, it’s possible to “imprint” special marks that make each one of them unique.

The basis of NFTs are smart contracts

Today, virtually anything can be represented digitally, and the Ethereum blockchain is perfect for it. In fact, it’s this blockchain that has the highest percentage of NFT tokens on the market, due to the use of smart contracts.

A smart contract is a small program that can be created within a blockchain, which allows you to tell the network that it should store certain information and perform certain actions. In this case, anyone with the necessary knowledge can create a smart contract for an NFT token, assigning it the characteristics they want with enormous creative freedom.

In this way, it’s possible to store anything within an NFT token, and the smart contract within the blockchain will ensure that it works correctly at all times.

What can I do with NFTs?

Although NFTs began essentially as objects for entertainment and collectibles – KryptoKitties – today the market has expanded enough to find practically infinite uses for this technology. Let’s take a look at some of these use cases.

Digital Art

It’s possible to store information from artwork, jewelry, and other artistic objects on the blockchain in the form of NFTs.

This not only helps in motivating updates, circulation, and sharing through several markets, but it also helps in tracking unique digital art in the form of NFTs to verify its provenance, authenticity, and scarcity.

In fact, NFTs are already being developed for artwork such as paintings and sculptures that include professional certificates. The owner only has to show the unique information stored in the corresponding NFT to demonstrate that he is the owner of such work.

It’s easy to trace this digital certification because the ownership of these assets is already registered in the blockchain.

Video games

The creation of NFTs for different virtual objects from videogames allows you the in-game exchange of such accessories for points or digital currencies, and even for real money. This is something that we’ve already seen in the past, but blockchain and NFTs are doing a great job in creating and improving this online ecosystem or virtual economy.

When you play one of these games, you can obtain items such as weapons, clothes, skins, etc. These items will have their own related NFT, and they’ll be stored on the blockchain.

In this way, all the operations and properties related to such items will be registered in a public database, avoiding the possibility of cheating by malicious users. Some examples of such NFT-based games include:

• Sorare: In Sorare, you can purchase NFT tokens that represent professional soccer players. You can later use these tokens to play online fantasy games.

• Decentraland: A virtual world pretty similar to Second Life, where you can buy, sell, and exchange ERC-721 tokens and participate in different in-game events such as art shows, games, concerts, etc.

• Gods Unchained: A turn-based collectible card game where you can compete against other opponents.

Digital tickets

Many companies are using NFTs to represent digital tickets for different types of events, such as musical concerts and sporting competitions. These NFT tickets represent your unique permission to participate in those activities at a specific time and place, and you can’t convert this right into something else.

Using NFT technology ensures that each ticket is unique and valid at the time of use so that this will prevent the use of false tickets.

Identity tests

NFTs are also being used for identity authentication to help in keeping a complete record of personnel in public and private organizations. The technology can be applied to birth certificates, passports, and driver’s licenses, just to give you an idea.

These types of NFTs cannot be exchanged, but it’s perfectly possible to implement access control to obtain the information stored in them. This is a very practical application because it allows the interaction with NFTs so that organizations can obtain information about any individual, such as their educational level, for example.

On the other hand, an individual can do the same, requesting identity information from a doctor to verify their professional level.

Digital certificates

NFTs can be used to store information about different types of documents such as contracts, patents, and other similar certificates on the blockchain. This is an efficient way to make these documents traceable and prevent counterfeiting.

These digital certificates can store attributes such as intellectual property values, copyrights, etc. When it’s necessary, you can verify the validity of these documents using electronic signatures.

Domains

Domains are unique and can be very valuable, so it can be very costly and time-consuming to find the most appropriate for you. It’s possible to link domains to NFTs to create a public record for tracking purposes. This can help avoid third parties in domain trading, which also contributes to reducing costs due to speculation.

Some NFT coins to keep an eye on

Enjin (ENJ)

Enjin is a platform that allows individuals and organizations to create their own NFTs. In order to mint these virtual tokens and objects, you must acquire and block ENJ, Enjin’s cryptocurrency.

Decentraland (MANA)

Decentraland is a virtual world similar to The Sims or Minecraft in which users can buy and sell digital real estate while exploring and interacting with this virtual world. The game uses two tokens: LAND is an NFT token that represents unique parcels of land within the game, while MANA is a cryptocurrency that facilitates the purchase of LAND, as well as other virtual goods and services.

Axie Infinity (AXS)

Axie Infinity is a Pokémon-like virtual pet world that runs on Ethereum. Players can fight, collect, raise and build a kingdom for their pets (Axies) and have the AXS token, which is used for the governance, staking, and payment system.

WAX (WAX)

WAX is a platform that allows its users to create virtual markets to buy or sell digital items, especially games. For these transactions you must use the internal currency called WAX token.

Cardano (ADA)

Cardano is a third-generation blockchain platform with a scientific approach that promises great improvements to the crypto ecosystem and that, thanks to the use of smart contracts and dApps, will offer an ideal environment for the development of NFT tokens. All this is governed by the use of its cryptocurrency ADA.

Origin Protocol (OGN)

Origin is a platform very similar to Enjin, but that not only serves for the development of NFT tokens but also allows users to earn money that supports the development of projects within the platform through a model based on DeFi. Its internal currency OGN has the function of regulating the economy and the future of the platform.

Do NFTs have a future?

NFTs are a very recent technology in the crypto space. Although they have existed almost since the beginning of Bitcoin – does anyone remember the Colored Coins? – It wasn’t until the beginning of 2020 that a real craze for these digital assets began.

So much so, that almost every day it was possible to read in the news about a new NFT created and sold for hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars in a matter of hours.

The truth is that, according to history, when too much money moves around something new that generates a lot of hype, the risks also increase exponentially where scams and the risk of a bubble can be the order of the day.

However, even with all the madness surrounding NFTs, the reality is that this technology has many practical uses, as you may have read in a previous section.

The blockchain technology that makes NFTs work provides them with numerous possibilities to position themselves as digital objects of common use; as technology advances and matures, it is very likely that more and more people will become familiar with the use of NFTs.

The problem with this is that being such a “new” technological phenomenon, this maturing process takes time, and meanwhile, it seems that the bubble has already started to deflate, as we can read in the news.

So, as we always say, before jumping into the world of NFTs, you should proceed with proper education and caution before taking action.

Are NFTs halal?

Are NFTs halal? Yes. NFTs are nothing more than cryptographic tokens on a blockchain that have unique characteristics that make them attractive to collectors and investors or serve some purpose that the NFT can be used for. So long as the characteristics of the NFT do not convey or promote anything that is considered haram by the sharia such as, pornography, illegal drugs, cruelty to animals, anything that promotes hatred towards Islam, etc., then the NFT is permissible to create, use, and earn income from.

Another excellent article to read on the permissibility of NFTs would be, What are NFTs? by Mufti Faraz Adam.

Conclusion

NFT tokens are another technology option within the wide range of possibilities offered by blockchain. The number of practical applications to the real world is enormous, with all kinds of applications for identity, security, business, arts, and entertainment in the digital world.

Of course and as always happens, there are many people who simply want to make some money with new technologies as an investment, but like everything related to crypto-assets and with any investment in general, you have to take precautions before investing.

What we see now is just the tip of the iceberg of what can happen around NFTs – and maybe cryptocurrencies as well – but insha’Allah, in the future, surely non-fungible or NFT tokens will continue to surprise us with their enormous versatility and possibilities. There are a lot of people banking on that.

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