Xai (XAI) - The Cutting Edge of Web 3 Gaming

“Xai is built to enable open trade in the next generation of video games. With Xai, potentially billions of traditional gamers can own and trade valuable in-game items in their favorite games for the first time, without the need to interact with crypto-wallets.”

Welcome to TokenUnlocks' Tokenomics Insights guide to Xai (XAI), where we will look at the project’s history, fundamentals, competitors, ecosystem, utilities, tokenomics, unlocks, community, and more.

Let’s get underway. 

History & Creation of Xai

Xai was announced by the Binance Launchpool on January 3rd, 2024, and the XAI token subsequently went live on January 9th. It’s a baby, but it’s growing fast.

This decentralized gaming ecosystem focuses on developing and publishing blockchain games using their native infrastructure. The official position is that the ecosystem has no central team or authority, but that is then contradicted by another statement that says “The Directors of Xai Foundation stay anonymous for security purposes”. 

Certainly, people were involved, and whether they kicked off the project and ran, or stayed around to help it flourish, is yet to be known. What is assumed by onlookers is that interested stakeholders, ambassadors, and supporters will find ways to join the project and help guide it in the right direction. If they don’t, we can say bye to Xai. 

What we do know is that there are five key entities involved:

1. Xai Foundation - The Xai Foundation is the custodian of the blockchain infrastructure that serves the games being built and deployed on the chain. They are the guardians of the tech, and also of the native XAI token. To add to that, they are involved in blockchain strategy, network stability and security, fair & transparent token governance, and community development.
2. Offchain Labs - Developed and serviced the Xai Blockchain under the direction of the Xai Foundation. As a result, the key development team behind previous Arbitrum blockchains is the same team developing and servicing the Xai blockchain, as well as providing ongoing marketing support to Xai and its ecosystem.
3. Tobias Batton — CEO, Ex Populus
4. Soby @SobyLife — Head of Strategy, Ex Populus
5. Mark C. Harris — Chief Creative, Ex Populus
   

Ex Populus is the USA-based labs entity responsible for the research, development, and innovation of blockchain games - XAI Foundation

Want to know more about these three individuals and their respective roles in the Xai ecosystem? Read here.

Those anonymous individuals who built Xai designed it as an Arbitrum Orbit chain, utilizing AnyTrust technology to deliver maximum speed with minimal costs. Xai benefits from direct technical support courtesy of Offchain Labs, who also helped to build Xai.

An important part of Xai, which we will cover, is the role of Sentry Nodes. These are observation nodes that monitor the Xai rollup protocol so that if an incorrect block is proposed, an alarm will be raised. This allows for intervention and to find a solution for the verifier. 

Let’s look at the “why” behind Xai.