A New Era for ZK: NFTs and GameFi Are Gaining Fresh Development Opportunities
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A New Era for ZK: NFTs and GameFi Are Gaining Fresh Development Opportunities
On April 14, the "ZK New Infrastructure Entrepreneurs' Brunch" event titled "The Coming ZK Era: Brand New Possibilities For NFT & GameFi," hosted by zkMeta and Polygon and co-organized by Alibaba Cloud, Particle Network, and O3 SWAP, was successfully held in Hong Kong.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsScalability has become the biggest obstacle to Web3 gaming development, with high gas fees and low liquidity significantly affecting Web3 users' on-chain interaction experiences. With the rise of the ZK sector, ZK technology is seen as one of the best solutions for on-chain congestion and scalability issues. Multiple networks and projects, including Ethereum Layer2 and its sidechains, are now focusing on and adopting ZK technology to support more users and applications. Meanwhile, dedicated ZK-based Layer2 gaming networks are reshaping the landscape of GameFi and NFTs.
On April 14, the "ZK New Infrastructure Founders Brunch" event — titled "The Coming ZK Era: Brand New Possibilities For NFT & GameFi," hosted by zkMeta and Polygon, and co-hosted by Alibaba Cloud, Particle Network, and O3 SWAP — successfully took place in Hong Kong. The event attracted numerous institutions and builders focused on GameFi, cross-chain technologies, NFTs, and ZK tech. Attendees discussed topics such as blockchain gaming infrastructure, new business models for NFTs and GameFi under ZK-based infrastructure, current public chain pain points, opportunities, and challenges, offering fresh strategic insights for Web3 game developers and teams.
During the event, zkMeta and O3 Swap delivered keynote presentations. Sandeep, Founder of Polygon and one of the event hosts, specially sent a congratulatory video expressing his hopes for the event’s success and his optimism toward Hong Kong as an emerging Web3 hub. He noted that this year's Web3 Week in Hong Kong has brought renewed vitality to the industry and is rapidly becoming a center for Web3 innovation in the Asia-Pacific region. Sandeep also expressed enthusiasm for collaborating with Chinese developer teams. As a key ecosystem partner of Polygon, zkMeta will work together with Polygon to drive mass adoption of Web3 and bring new user traffic to the industry. Additionally, zkMeta has entered into a strategic partnership with Polygon Labs, through which Polygon will collaborate with zkMeta to identify and nurture outstanding Chinese developer teams in the coming months.
zkMeta is a gaming-dedicated Layer2 network built on Polygon, aiming to provide ultra-low gas fees and seamless user interactions. Adam Zhao, founder of zkMeta, shared insights on current L1 trends, ZK developments, blockchain gaming evolution, and the transition of Web2 games into Web3. Adam holds an Executive MBA from Cambridge University and previously worked at British Telecom managing high-frequency trading networks for the financial sector. After returning to China, he founded ProtonCloud, a programmatic advertising platform specializing in user acquisition and monetization within the gaming industry. At the end of 2020, Adam transformed the Web2 game "Fist of Truth" into the Web3 card game Era7: Game of Truth, which remains among the top three most active DApps on BNB Chain by DAU.
Adam believes that when transitioning from Web2 to Web3, game studios face multiple strategic decisions — including user sources (Web2 vs. Web3), content types (virtual items vs. NFT assets), revenue models (fiat vs. cryptocurrency), and value capture mechanisms (one-time payments vs. transaction fees). Moreover, once Web3 games reach a certain scale, they encounter infrastructure bottlenecks. To address these challenges, zkMeta was founded to help established Web2 game studios smoothly enter the Web3 space and achieve integration of NFTs, tokens, and communities. As a gaming-specific L2, zkMeta will work alongside Polygon to discover and incubate benchmark Chinese-language games, lowering barriers for both users and developers based on specific game business logic.
O3 Swap is a cross-chain aggregation protocol launched by O3 Labs. Matt Powers, Communication Director at O3 Swap, presented on universal liquidity solutions for cross-chain transactions. Matt emphasized that O3 Swap aims to connect liquidity across different blockchain networks to realize the full potential of decentralized finance. He also introduced their recently launched scalable NFT cross-chain bridge, NFT Shuttle, designed to enhance NFT liquidity.
Following the keynotes, a panel discussion titled "GameFi Infrastructure Choices: New Public Chains, Layer2 Networks, or App Chains?" featured Kenneth, Head of Project at Animoca Brands; Wade, CTO of Footprint Analytics; Madeira, Co-founder of Matr1x; and Kevin Shao, Co-founder of ABGA and Bitrise Capital.
The panelists shared their perspectives on selecting GameFi infrastructure and expressed optimism about the future of blockchain gaming. They agreed that with the emergence and widespread adoption of new technologies led by ZK, along with growing demand for gaming infrastructure offering ultra-low gas fees and high TPS, innovations in blockchain gaming infrastructure will reshape the Web3 market. Infrastructure choices for GameFi will become richer and increasingly personalized — beyond mere feasibility, suitability will be a crucial factor. On this foundation, GameFi is poised for further growth. Furthermore, cross-chain and multi-chain capabilities are vital for blockchain gaming development, and reducing fragmentation across ecosystems remains a key goal for projects.
Although the ZK sector is still in its early stages, ZK-based applications are rapidly emerging. A new era for ZK is approaching, bringing unprecedented development opportunities for GameFi and NFTs.
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