Today French headquartered games company Ubisoft announced it is now a corporate baker on the Tezos public blockchain.
What is a corporate baker? You’ve probably heard about minting new blocks on proof of work blockchains like Bitcoin or Ethereum v1. Well, baking is the equivalent on proof of stake blockchain Tezos. The games company is working with French Tezos developer Nomadic Labs, which is also indirectly involved in French central bank digital currency trials, as well as a new euro stablecoin.
“We’re happy to be joining the Tezos ecosystem as a corporate baker,” said Nicolas Pouard, Ubisoft Blockchain Initiative Director. “Ubisoft believes that blockchain has the potential to bring new possibilities to players and developers alike, and this new collaboration will allow us to pursue our innovation efforts with an ecosystem that aligns with our environmental-friendly approach thanks to its proof-of-stake consensus algorithm.”
With increasing investment by corporates in Bitcoin, its wasteful use of energy has come to the fore, although many claim that much of the energy usage is renewable. Ethereum has started the slow process of moving to proof of stake, but the main blockchain is still energy hungry. Bitcoin has no plans to change.
There are other potential attractions to Tezos, not mentioned by Ubisoft. The first is the high transaction costs on Ethereum, although it’s possible to mitigate these using side chains which batch transactions. In fact, Ubisoft is already active on Ethereum with a fantasy football competition for Belgian soccer, which uses nonfungible tokens (NFT).
It also has a relationship with Flow, the blockchain built by Dapper Labs, the creator of NBA Top Shot. As Dapper Labs attracts more and more investment, it’s not a bad idea for Ubisoft to diversify.
Last year Ubisoft also launched a blockchain collectible game to raise money for UNICEF.
