Minecraft and Blockchain Adoption (Enjin Coin)

The first article in this now two part series covered how Minecraft and Bitcoin were created around the same time and began gaining notoriety in tandem. This left the two destined to cross paths, and that is exactly what ended up happening. Some early Minecraft servers, like the previously mentioned BitVegas, and BitQuest, adopted Bitcoin economies providing a totally unique Minecraft experience and a wonderful early demonstration of the future of programmable money.

Rather than continuing to look towards the past lets take a look at present involvement of blockchain and Minecraft. As well as some future speculation on blockchain integration in games.

Enjin Coin

The previously mentioned BitVegas and BitQuest provided quite the experience for Minecraft players. Many hadn't experienced Bitcoin, and were awed by the fact that you could earn it in one virtual economy, spend it in any other virtual economy, or even spend it on physical goods and services.

Enjin Coin takes this idea much further by allowing tokenized assets. Put simply a tokenized asset means you can store any virtual asset on the Enjin blockchain, giving users true control over these assets that they earn in various games.

For example, imagine you earned a piece of armour in an Enjin supported Minecraft server from slaying a monster; that armour would get recorded on the Enjin blockchain, and is then accessible by your Enjin wallet. Even without you ever being involved again with the server you earned your armour from, you will still have access to your armour. Remember, it is on the Enjin blockchain, not any one server. This also implies that just as Bitcoin can be bought and sold across economies, our armour can also be bought and sold across economies, all without a servers permission.

To further how detethering for servers benefits users lets imagine that the Minecraft server your got your armour on shuts down. No doubt the closure of the server is a shame, but all hope is not lost as another server with a new host is soon created. This new server chooses to support the items your earned from the previous server. Thus the armour you earned still has use and value.

The simple overview above has hopefully got you interested in Enjin. I didn't go into detail about what Enjin has to offer, so if you want more checkout the video below.

Also, here is a video of a Minecraft Server with Enjin integration.

Minecraft Alternatives

Yes, building upon Minecraft is a great way to spread awareness for blockchain technology, however in Minecraft you are limited in your level of creative freedom since it is proprietary software.

With that said, Minecraft is moddable -- i.e. it allows some aspects to be changed -- which gives uses more creative freedom than many games. In fact modding is part of what gave Minecraft broad appeal and replay-ability, but modding will only get you so far. To achieve better blockchain integration in Minecraft the code would need to be open-sourced. Unfortunately this doesn't seem likely to happen anytime soon.

All hope is not lost, some open-source Minecraft alternatives do exist.

Minetest

Minetest is considered a open-source voxel game engine. The engine is indeed to be a base for anyone to play or build their own voxel based game upon. Minetest also supports modding, which provides an easy ways for users to tailor their experiences. Multiplayer is also supported, so your games, mods, and worlds can be a shared experience.

TrueCraft

TrueCraft is an open-source implementation of Minecraft beta 1.7.3. It's github page provides us with the following clean and concise explanation of TrueCraft.

"A completely clean-room implementation of Minecraft beta 1.7.3 (circa September 2011). No decompiled code has been used in the development of this software. This is an implementation - not a clone. TrueCraft is compatible with Minecraft beta 1.7.3 clients and servers."

The Point

Minecraft has been a fantastic gateway for a new audience to discover what a game economy powered by blockchain can be like. The problem is that Minecraft can only be taken so far with it's proprietary source code.

Open-source Minecraft alternatives like Minetest, and Truecraft are just asking to be integrated with Enjin, and other great blockchain tech. A Minecraft esque virtual world with deep blockchain integration allowing for true ownership, free trade, and unique social experiences might be just around the corner, only time will tell.