Loom Network (LOOM)

• Loom Network (also referred to as Loom) launched its mainnet, Basechain, in September 2018. Basechain is a Delegated Proof-of-Stake (DPoS) network that acts as an interconnected multi-chain platform supporting the Ethereum, Binance Chain, and TRON networks.

• Basechain allows developers to deploy highly-scalable games and user-facing dApps that interact with other major blockchains. Developers can deploy their dApp once to Basechain and gain access to the user base of multiple networks.

• The LOOM token is an ERC-20 token on the Ethereum network, it is a staking token that is used to secure the Basechain network, and is further used as the currency that dApp developers use to host their dapps on BaseChain.

• Any LOOM holder can delegate their tokens on Basechain to help support validators and actively participate in securing the network.

1. What is Loom Network (LOOM)?

LOOM token overview & use cases

As a staking token, LOOM enables a system where participants are incentivized to contribute toward securing the network:

• Validators: a minimum stake of 1.25M tokens is required to qualify for running a full validator node. If selected, validators can perform core network services (validate transactions, propose new blocks, participate in governance, etc) and earn LOOM rewards for their work.

• Delegators: LOOM holders can proxy their tokens with any validator from the PlasmaChain Dashboard, thereby helping choose which nodes run the network, contributing toward that validator's staking pool, and potentially sharing in the rewards it generates.

• Developers: to run their DApps on the network, developers must stake and make ongoing payments in LOOM. These 'hosting' fees are consequently paid out to validators as rewards for their services.

• End-users: LOOM is the native currency for the Marketplace. When users buy and sell items using LOOM, they will get a portion of their commission fees instantly refunded, and the remaining tokens will be funneled back to validators as additional rewards on their stake.

Commercial partnership and business development progress

• ConsenSys: co-hosted a blockchain game hackathon in New York in August 2018 with ConsenSys.

• GameWith: organized two Tokyo hackathons in June and July 2018 and conduct regular CryptoZombies workshops with GameWith, one of Japan's largest game media sites.

• Mossland: organized a hackathon in Seoul with Mossland in September 2018. Mossland are creators of a blockchain-based augmented reality ("AR") game where users buy and sell virtual real estate.

Games built using the Loom SDK include:

• Neon District: a hybrid card-based RPG and MMO set in a futuristic, tech-noir world.

• Axie Infinity: a game about collecting, raising and battling fantasy creatures.

• Mossland: building Moss Pop (location-based AR mobile application where users can discover ERC-20 tokens scattered around the streets, and collect them by consuming relevant advertisements) and Moss Store (marketplace for digital contents and VR/AR games in the Mossland ecosystem that can be purchased using their ERC20 token, Moss Coin) on top of the Loom SDK.

• CryptoWars: a blockchain-based strategy game that lets you build your village, summon your army, form alliances, and go to war with your enemies.

Other elements

• Raised $25MM via a private token sale in January 2018.

• Part of Techstars NYC 2018 class, one of the world's leading startup accelerator programs.

• Released several working products since going live in March 2018, including an online coding school with 300,000+ developers (CryptoZombies), the Loom SDK, an alpha of a mobile trading card game platform (Zombie Battleground), three sidechains (PlasmaChain, GameChain, SocialChain), DelegateCall, and EthFiddle.com.

• Released the first live Plasma Cash implementation for secure interchain asset transfer.

• Loom PlasmaChain staking for delegators and validators.

2. Loom's key features

2.1 Loom's value proposition

• Loom offers developers an SDK to build and deploy on Layer-2 solutions so that their dApps can support large transaction volumes (i.e., online games, social apps, etc.) and scale to millions of users without causing major congestion on the Ethereum blockchain.

• Loom's sidechains make it possible to use Ethereum exactly as it was intended — a highly secure, base-layer platform that supports more complex and feature-rich applications built on top of it.

• By using Plasma Cash-based relays to transfer assets across chains, Loom can preserve the security of the Ethereum mainnet, while enabling increased speed and scalability through Layer-2 DPoS consensus of its sidechain.

• This allows users to get the best of both worlds  —  gasless transactions and sub-second confirmation times, and the assurance of having their tokens fully backed by the security of the Ethereum mainnet.

• Loom's goal is to allow app developers to have smart contracts that can access more computing power when necessary, or the same computing at lower costs for tasks like free trials for onboarding new users or applications that do not need the full security of the blockchain.

2.2 Other features

• Loom SDK: The fundamental building block of Loom Network is an SDK that allows developers to build their own blockchains without having to understand blockchain infrastructure — a "build your own blockchain" generator.

• Shared Sidechains: A network of interconnected, high-throughput sidechains, such as GameChain and SocialChain, that use Ethereum as their base-layer.

• PlasmaChain: A Layer-2 hub that bridges multiple sidechains to Ethereum, allowing for faster and cheaper token transactions and a more performant chain for developers to deploy their dApps.

• Delegated Proof of Stake: Loom supports DPoS out of the box, which enables dApps to scale with gasless transactions and sub-second transaction times. Online games and social apps are the two initial types of dApps that Loom is focusing on, but developers can build any type of dApp using the Loom SDK.

• Secured by Plasma on Ethereum: Loom inherits the security of Ethereum mainnet on its Layer-2 sidechains by using Plasma Cash-based relays to transfer assets across chains.

2.3 A wide variety of products

Loom's ecosystem is made up of several products.

The Loom SDK

Foundational piece that supports all of Loom's other tech. Since all of Loom's sidechains are built on the SDK, all the new features Loom adds to the SDK gets passed on and integrated into every sidechain.

PlasmaChain

Plasma Cash-backed hub for transacting between sidechains and the Ethereum Mainnet.

It is a Layer-2 hub that other sidechains can use for faster and cheaper token transactions on Loom's DEX / Marketplace, as well as functioning as a more performant sidechain that developers can launch their Solidity dApps on.

PlasmaChain Staking Dashboard: the portal allows any LOOM token holder to easily transfer their tokens to PlasmaChain and delegate directly with validators.

Source: Loom Management Team.

Zombie Battleground

• Zombie Battleground is collectible card game that runs on the GameChain.

• Gamers buy, sell, and trade their cards freely on the marketplace.

• Loom successfully raised $321,606 (with an initial goal of $250,000) from 1,693 early backers for Zombie Battleground on Kickstarter over a 60-day period between June and August 2018.

• The backers purchased almost 2 million Zombie Battleground cards, all of which have been delivered since the game's alpha launch.

• Zombie Battleground is currently averaging 575 weekly active users on alpha and will be opening the public beta by end of November or early December 2018.

Source: Loom.Games.

Zombie Battleground serves a number of important purposes in Loom's long-term strategy. The game drives the development of Loom's SDK and sidechain technology since games need to be able to handle hundreds of thousands of simultaneous users sending dozens of actions to the server per minute.
Loom's position is that if sidechains can successfully handle running games fully on-chain, the technology can be applied to any type of applications. The success of the game will also drive user adoption of the Marketplace, an internal economy where users can trade their collectibles and encourage use of the LOOM token for transactions.
Additionally, early success of Zombie Battleground and its revenue model (earning through Marketplace transaction fees rather than in-app purchases) provides a tangible use-case that underscores the capabilities of the Loom Network to attract gaming partners and developers.

Loom Trading Post (Marketplace)

Gamers from Zombie Battleground trade their in-game items via the Loom Trading Post (Marketplace).

One of the key objectives for the project as a whole is attracting the largest number of users trading on the Loom Marketplace. Loom sees this as driving the most token usage in the near future, and the technical requirements for the internal DEX are also a major driver of Loom's own feature development on PlasmaChain.

Source: Loom.Games.

Other products

A lot of other products are built around the Loom Network:

• GameChain: a highly-performant sidechain optimized for interactive mobile games. This chain is a sidechain to PlasmaChain and does not connect directly to the Ethereum mainnet. It is the chain that Loom is currently using to run the alpha version of Zombie Battleground.

• SocialChain: a sidechain optimized for social applications. It is currently used to run DelegateCall and is the first sidechain built by Loom.

• DelegateCall: DelegateCall is a Q&A site for Blockchain and Ethereum-related questions that runs fully on SocialChain.

• CryptoZombies: interactive code school that teaches you to write smart contracts in Solidity through building your own crypto-collectibles game. Nearly 300,000 users since launch in December 2017.

• EthFiddle: allows developers to compile Solidity code directly in the browser, so they can test & debug smart contract code, and share a permalink to the code in a click. Roughly 128,000 developers have used EthFiddle since September 2017.

• SolidityX: a secure-by-default superset of Solidity that compiles down to regular Solidity (protecting against known security holes).

• EthDeploy: an easy way to spin up private Ethereum blockchains for testing and demoing your dApps.

• CryptoZombies Origins: an in-browser playable game / tutorial that teaches the basics of the blockchain.

3. Economics and supply distribution

Table - Key Metrics (as of February 19th 2019)

The token supply distribution was as follows:

• Private sale tokens made up 45% of the total token supply.

• Team was allocated 10% of total tokens issued. Half unlocked in Jan 2018, with the remaining half vested equally in Mar and Jun 2018

• Advisors received 10% of issued tokens (unlocked in Jan 2018)

• Team Reserve funds constitute 35% of the total token supply.

LOOM token distribution (%)

Meanwhile, the private token sale was conducted in Jan 2018 for 450MM LOOM at a rate of 22,500 LOOM = 1 ETH and raised a total of 20,000 ETH ($25MM) at ~$0.07 per token, selling 45% of the total token supply. Loom did not conduct a public token sale

LOOM is a staking token that is used to secure the network, reward contributors, and serve as the native currency on the Loom Marketplace. Any LOOM holder can delegate their tokens on the platform to help support validators and actively participate in securing the network.

Loom uses Trezor and Ledger hardware wallets, and has cold storage private keys stored in multiple safety deposit boxes around the world. The company keeps specific location information private for security purposes.

As of October 2018, Loom Network has already used 15% of the funds from their total raise across the following activities in the ratios below:

• Marketing: 35%.

• Software development costs: 55%.

• Operations: 5%.

• Legal & Compliance: 5%.

The following chart represents the number and breakdown of all LOOM tokens that are to be released into circulation on a monthly basis. Loom adopted a relatively simple methodology in releasing tokens, with 60% of total supply in circulation from the initial token unlock date (Jan 2018).

There is no timeline for the release of the untouched Reserve funds (35% of total supply).

However, Loom has confirmed that a portion of the Reserves will be locked to allow themselves to operate some validators for the first year. Reserve tokens will also be used for airdrops or other promotional items in the future.

LOOM token release schedule

4. Project team

Information can be found on their team page here.

5. Loom's activity and community overview

5.1 Social and community activity

Overview and strategy

Loom has a robust community growth strategy that incorporates incentives and campaigns to attract gamers on various platforms to prove out the network's scalability to the developers who will be building dApps on top of Loom sidechains. Focuses include:

• Viral Content Marketing: Loom has an active Medium blog that receives over 75,000 visitors per month (https://medium.com/loom-network/), with top posts that receive ~30,000 page views. Several of Loom's articles have been featured prominently in the community by influencers.

• Email Marketing: Loom has a current subscriber base of 125,000 people, 60,000 of which are developers authenticated with Github accounts.

• CryptoZombies: unteractive code school that teaches users to write smart contracts in Solidity that has 300,000+ developers who have learned to build dApps and provides an additional developer base that can be funneled to build on the Loom network.

• PR Campaign: Loom launch announcement was covered by Venture Beat, CoinDesk, BTCManager, Blockchain News, The Merkle, Coin Central, Blockchain Gamer, CryptoBit Games, GameWith, and BitFalls, amongst others.

• Zombie Battleground: a Kickstarter campaign that provided Loom with a large pool of mainstream, non-crypto users. Raised $321,606 from 1,693 early backers who purchased almost 2 million cards that were subsequently delivered since the game's alpha launch.

• Strategic Partnerships: Loom has several strategic partnerships with organizations such as ConsenSys and others with first game devs building on Loom Unity SDK to source developers who will build on the platform.

Loom has a truly global community, with a focus in Asia, North America and Europe across the following active channels.

5.2 Social media channels

Telegram (English)
Twitter (English)
Twitter (Japanese)
Twitter (Korean)
Facebook (English)
Facebook (Thai)
Medium
Reddit

6. Appendix

Additional product detail: demos and screenshots

• Zombie Battleground Sample User Stream 1

• Zombie Battleground Sample User Stream 2

• Loom Game Marketplace

Advisors

• Alex Iskold | Managing Director at NYC @ Techstars

• William Mougayar | Managing Partner & Chief Investment Officer at JM3 Capital

• Tim Galebach | Co-Founder @ Blockmason

• Jared Bowie | Co-Founder @ Blockmason

• MW Partners | Private Blockchain Investment Firm