What is Funfair?

Funfair uses the ethereum technology to provide blockchain solutions for the gaming industry. Their emphasis is on providing transparency, cost-effectiveness, and fairness in the gaming space.

These are virtues that broadly lack in the industry. The team behind this project comprises of individuals with a proven track record in the entertainment space and a combined 40 years solid experience in creating and selling gaming solutions.

Together they have placed the gaming industry on the ethereum blockchain. Funfair has created the first series of 3D games as proof of concept and as a model that other developers can emulate.

The games built on the Funfair platform run directly on the browser; this means that a user will not require downloading any app to game. Player onboarding usually arises when this is not taken into consideration.

Ultimately, the plan is not for Funfair to create all the games, but to inspire thousands of online casinos to be launched on its platform.

This platform has the options for creating fully customizable games as well as the traditional ones such as roulette, blackjack, baccarat and slots. Operators using this platform can set up and host their private label casinos with customized standard and VIP rooms.

Once created, it takes just two clicks to publish the full casino suite in a live environment. These are some of the unique features of Funfair:

1. Developer Friendly

This platform is created with game developers in mind. It uses a simple coding language and the platform has even gone ahead to develop model games from which other developers can emulate.

2. ENS-Ready

FunFair allows investors to create gaming-related .eth domains such as blackjack.eth.

3. Instant and frictionless Gaming

Frictionless gaming is an elusive feature in many blockchain based gaming solutions. It is quite frustrating to have to wait for transactions to confirm or for multiple blocks to be mined. Funfair platform allows for instant transactions to be made due to the technology behind it. We shall look at this in depth later. But this affords the user a frictionless gaming experience.

4. Signup and KYC

“Every 100ms of Latency Costs Amazon 1% of Profit.” It is with this in mind that Funfair has created a time-saving solution where the customer sign up process takes less than half a minute. Very little information is required from the customer.

5. Putting Social First

Gaming is a social experience and the FunFair platform has been designed with this in mind. They have created an interactive platform and an affiliate program where operators can grant affiliate revenue to social players to incentivize them to invite friends.

6. HTML Only

The browser-based gaming platform utilizes HTML5 on both mobile devices and desktop computers. This provides a rich 3D experience that is highly polished and has a great user experience.

7. Funfair Token – FUN

The FUN token is what drives the Funfair platform. It is used for: purchasing in-game credits for playing the casino games, paying game creators and paying licensing fees. FUN can also be staked for returns. All FUN token was created in the genesis block and no subsequent tokens will ever be created.

It is expected that the value of FUN will increase as the customer base for games running on the FunFair platform grows. However, this should not result in FunFair-licensed casino games becoming more expensive to play.

What Problem Does Funfair Solve?

By 2015, global gaming revenues were about $400 billion with Asia dominating the space.  About 10% of these revenues were generated in the online space.

As much as this is not huge, many would- be gamers have been deterred from online gaming due to the lack of transparency and fairness in the system. There have been recent cases of manipulation resulting in daylight defrauding of gamers.

This industry has been plagued with two key issues; lack of trust and unsustainable competition.

1. The Trust Issue

Online gaming has been predominantly dominated by monopolies which offer no transparency or fairness to the unsuspecting gambler. This has been a deterrent for many would be gamers. This has led to the large-scale preference of brick and mortar casinos which have some form of regulation. Inefficiency in the system further pushes the cost of gaming higher and higher.

Specifically, the Funfair blockchain based platform enables provably fair and streamlined currency deposit and withdrawals. It is not plagued by the declining speeds and increasing transaction costs that have affected other blockchain based casinos.

 Current Competition is Unsustainable

Current statistics indicate that transaction costs across ethereum based platforms range between $1 to play a single hand of blackjack and $.75 to place a bet on dice games.

Staking an individual bet ranges between $1-$10. At these rates, the transaction costs can overwhelm the value of the bet making it unfeasible to bet on small amounts.

This is further complicated by the volatility of ETH prices. With these increasing costs of transactions, more and more would be gamers are turned away from the industry.

An appropriate solution would address the cost of transacting on the ethereum blockchain and the fluctuating price of the transacting currency.

The blockchain is a trustless, transparent and decentralized system that can unlock the true potential of this industry.

Funfair is based on the ethereum blockchain and this is the basis for a trustless gaming system. Games built on this platform are provably fair, transparent and publicly auditable. With luck still a prerequisite of gaming, players start off with odds not oddly stacked against them.

How does Funfair Solve the problem?

Funfair is an ethereum based platform and carries in it all the intrinsic features of the ethereum network; a decentralized, transparent and trustless network.

Unfortunately, the ethereum network is prone to congestion leading to increased transaction times and consequent high fees charged to users.

This, in the long run, is not sustainable. Funfair has created different technologies to circumvent these problems which we shall be looking at below.

1. Fate channels

This is a state channel created on the ethereum blockchain that runs for the duration of a gaming session. It supports the communication between the client and the server. It operates separately from the main blockchain but still carries the properties of the main blockchain. How this works is this; during a gambling session all the transactions are recorded separately on an escrow. At the end of the game the funds are released through a smart contract and the chain connects back to the main chain. All the transactions happening during a game are doing so on a customized side chain. By having these transactions on a side chain, Funfair is able to speed up the process of verifying transactions and the cost consequently goes lower.

These improvements on the Funfair technology enable it to achieve its core objective which is to be a provably fair, decentralized, fast and flexible gaming platform. Gaming costs need to be cost effective to allow sustainable gaming experiences for users as a single gaming session can include hundred of bets.

2. Serverless Operations

FunFair is a serverless, employeeless and peer to peer platform that is resilient and cheap to maintain. This is attractive to gaming operators as this drives down the overhead costs significantly. As we all know, costs eventually are passed on to the player and the cost of making bets in this case is pushed further up.

What makes Funfair better than its competitors?

1. Decentralization

Fun Fair is an open source platform that is completely decentralized. In addition to this, Funfair incorporates Fate channels technology to ensure that games are provably fair, transparent and cost-effective.

2. Great User Experience

Speed has been a great deterrent for many would be online gamers. Having to wait for block confirmations makes the experience frustrating for players in the least. High costs of transactions per bet further worsen the user experience.

With the Funfair serveless system and use of fate channels all these concerns are a thing of the past.

3.   FunFair License

With the Funfair licence, casino operators can set up their own customizable casino suites. Players can have a wide variety of games to choose from with the full benefits afforded by the Funfair platform. Operators can also launch traditional games such as blackjack, slots, and roulette on the platform. Other superior features of this platform include:

• High quality 3D games built in HTML5
• Ability to publish online casinos for operators in just two clicks
• 10 times cheaper per bet than other platforms (gas costs)
• Completely server less and decentralized platform
• Uses an open architecture that can be shared by other developers

How can Funfair be categorized?

Funfair is a gambling platform, it is also an exchange platform that allows for the development and execution of smart contracts. It is also a cryptocurrency- FUN

Funfair and Security?

Funfair shows a clear cut commitment to enhancing security and transparency in its architecture. Being based on the ethereum blockchain, it carries all the cryptographically sound security features inherent in the ethereum blockchain.

Funfair is a transparent and auditable network. More than this, they employ the use of State channels to further ensure the security of transactions. With state channels, the bulk of transactions during a game are completely off- chain.

Only the opening and closing transactions on the fate channel are broadcast on-chain. The side chains use strong cryptography to validate transactions which cannot be refuted. Funfair combines state channels and reverse hash chains to ensure the fairness of games. These methods make cheating almost impossible. Should one party detect cheating, the transaction is run on- chain for verification, with the main-chain acting as a mediator of sorts. This system ensures the validity of transactions prevents double spending and creates security.

Examples of Funfair use cases / applications.

Funfair has many potential applications in the gaming industry. These are a few examples of how some companies are already using the Funfair platform.

1. Online gaming

Many would be gamers have been deterred from online gaming because of the lack of fairness and transparency in the system. Others have also been to self conscious to openly visit brick and mortar casinos. Abigail is an example of a gamer who tried out online gaming on the Funfair platform and is now hooked because of how fair and transparent the network is. Very little personal information is required and players do not even have to download the app. It is easy to play directly from any smart phone also and the transaction costs are negligible.

2. Publisher with a Big Readership

Bionic Publishing is another customer of Funfair. They have been able to create a fully-customized casino designed to appeal to Bionic

readers specifically. They also plan on rolling out annual gaming events, celebrity and sports endorsements, and co-marketing tie-ins in the future.

3. The Nonprofit

Courageous Critters is a nonprofit organization that finds homes for unwanted cats and dogs. Recently, they decided to try out an online fundraiser centered on licensing a casino experience through the FunFair blockchain platform. Their model is a pet-themed online casino based on ethereum smart contracts. This has not only created a stable revenue stream for the non- profit but it has also brought together seasoned players and new supporters for the program.

Placing the gaming industry on the blockchain was definitely a step in the right direction for this high-value industry. This tackles the issue of transparency and decentralization spot on! What Funfair has done is to come in and seal the remaining loopholes in this system using state of the art Fate channels. With this, the issue of prolonged block confirmation times and unpredictable transactions costs are addressed, making the system fairly foolproof. It’s no guarantee whether Funfair will have large-scale adoption in the casino market, time will tell. But should the market warm up to them considerably, gamers will be the ultimate beneficiaries; with transaction costs at the bare minimum and the games being provably fair, the odds will not be stacked against them.