Portal is a gaming platform that seeks to connect games from various blockchains onto a single platform, leveraging LayerZero's interoperability technology.
Gaming has always been touted as a narrative to onboard millions into the crypto space. After all, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin’s entry into the crypto space apparently stemmed from gaming. However, despite the seemingly perfect match between crypto and gaming, various problems hinder the progress of mass adoption.
For one, the fragmented communities spread across the various chains made it difficult for games to integrate other users or collaborate with other communities. Additionally, the complexities of traversing the blockchain made it a challenge for many Web2 gamers to enter the Web3 space, leaving many games with only crypto-native players on them.
Portal aims to solve these multi-chain challenges.
Source: Portal Twitter
What Is Portal?
Portal is a gaming platform that seeks to connect games from various blockchains onto a single platform. The platform is powered by the popular interoperability protocol, LayerZero, which unifies more than 200 games across their network to provide a seamless multi-chain gaming experience for its users.
To date, they have integrated more than 40 different blockchains including Ethereum, Polygon, Solana, Avalanche, Arbitrum and more. Star Atlas, Sipher Odyssey, DeFi Kingdoms, Crypto Unicorns, and Apeiron are some of the top games they have integrated from their lineup of more than 200 games.
Source: Portal Twitter
The Portal Ecosystem
Portal Wallet
Beyond the game platform, Portal has also designed their own wallet, the Portal Wallet, to reduce the friction of onboarding traditional gamers into the Web3 gaming space. The Portal Wallet enables a simple onboarding experience, using Web2-enabled login methods such as Apple, Google or Discord, without the hassle of securing their seed phrases or private keys.
Portal Companion App
Portal also has a companion app, which allows gamers to easily discover new and featured games as well as content relating to games on the platform. The app also serves as a platform to trade in-game assets directly and participate in the staking of the PORTAL token. Finally, the app also adds a social layer to the project, allowing gamers to interact, meet and chat.
Source: Portal Twitter
LayerZero Integration
As a core part of their value proposition, Portal connects games across different blockchains, leveraging LayerZero’s cost effective and novel messaging system. This allows different game ecosystems to be linked by Portal’s native token, PORTAL, by using it as a default currency for transactions on the platform.
Source: Portal Whitepaper
Portal Nodes
The Portal ecosystem is supported by a network of nodes which are run and operated by the Portal community. These nodes form a synchronization layer to connect LayerZero’s oracle-relayer network with Portal’s Web3 layer. In other words, when a cross-chain transaction occurs within the Portal ecosystem, LayerZero facilitates this transaction with their cross-chain messaging system, but the Portal Nodes conduct a second layer of verification to ensure that the transactions are valid and legitimate. This is a core element of the Portal ecosystem as it ensures the validity of cross-chain transactions on their platform and hence, the security of the entire ecosystem it supports.
These nodes can be operated through cloud-based services or locally on users’ devices and operators are rewarded for their validation services in PORTAL tokens, which can be claimed at the end of each 24-hour epoch.
PORTAL Token and Tokenomics
At the heart of the Portal platform’s design is their native token, PORTAL. PORTAL is an omni-chain token, leveraging LayerZero’s technology to be completely chain agnostic. The token is designed to facilitate a variety of functions including:
Transaction fees
PORTAL will be used to pay for transactions on the Portal platform as well as rewards Portal Node operators.
Payments
PORTAL will also be used as a currency in decentralized marketplaces to facilitate the trade of in-game assets from games supported by the Portal platform. Due to its nature as an omni-chain token, PORTAL can be freely transferred across chains to be used in the different games supported on Portal.
Governance
PORTAL token holders will also be granted voting power to determine the direction of the platform and decisions affect the distribution and usage of the token.
Staking
The token can be staked and stakers will be entitled to benefits from Portal’s partners and the Portal Foundation. These benefits include a baseline PORTAL yield paid out from the Portal treasury with an additional yield component derived from transaction fees paid on the platform. Stakers can also vote on specific games to give them additional visibility on the platform. Through this mechanism, new games can stake PORTAL to boost their game to help it gain traction on the platform and acquire new users. This creates a “Stake-to-Scale” system which decentralizes the game distribution process.
Exclusive Access
Holders will also gain access to purchase exclusive NFTs from Portal’s network of partners.
Node Purchases
The token is also required for purchases of Portal Nodes for node operators to support the infrastructure behind the platform.
The token will have a total supply of one billion tokens, with 167 million tokens (~16.7%) circulating on launch. Majority of the tokens have been allocated to the team and advisors, as well as to the treasury. The treasury will be used to pay out PORTAL rewards to game developers as well as to node operators on the platform. A portion has also been allocated for a community incentive, to reward players who participated in Crystal Dash, an event where users could earn Shards which eventually converted to PORTAL tokens at the token generation event (TGE).
Source: Binance Report (link)
Majority of the tokens will also begin vesting at TGE, and will vest linearly, with most of the supply unlocking by the middle of 2026, or around 30 months after TGE.
Source: Binance Report (link)
Binance Launchpool and Token Launch
Binance announced the Portal launchpool on February 21, making it the 47th project to be launched on the platform. Following previous successful launchpools like Pixels and AltLayer, this launch saw huge demand from users, with a record-breaking $8.6 billion worth of BNB and FDUSD staked. Users stake BNB or FDUSD for 7 days to receive PORTAL tokens, with a total of 50,000,000 PORTAL, or 5% of maximum token supply, up for grabs. The launchpool event concludes on February 29, and trading for PORTAL token will go live on Binance.
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