What is Carry Protocol? All You Need to Know About CRE Token

Project Highlights

• Carry Protocol is an innovative game industry protocol that aims to create more revenue for game developers and players.
• This protocol replaces traditional gaming platforms and offers powerful features, including:
  • In-game data analysis
  • Bridging between Web2 and Web3 games
  • In-game advertising
• The core concept is slot, referring to tradable virtual ad spaces within the game.
• The protocol employs blockchain and decentralized governance to ensure a balanced, sustainable, and player-centric advertising ecosystem.
• Moreover, Carry Protocol also provides an SDK and robust modular tools, enabling game developers to efficiently manage and monetize their digital assets.

What is Carry (CRE)？

Carry, short for Carry Protocol, launched its token CRE on Gate.io on August 6, 2021. Carry is a native Web3 advertising platform that primarily uses blockchain technology to improve the payment and data exchange process between consumers and retailers. Moreover, Carry allows advertisers, developers, consumers, and gamers to navigate smoothly between Web2 and Web3, creating a platform for better economic models.

CRE is the primary token of the Carry Protocol, serving multiple functions on the platform. It can be used to pay for services via smart contracts, reward ad viewing, and carry out product transactions. CRE token holders are also allowed to participate in Carry community voting.

In the offline business field, Carry uses blockchain to connect offline consumers, merchants, and advertisers and improve the data and marketing practices of the retail industry. Carry’s main goal in retail is to allow consumers to convert their shopping data into assets and earn rewards by sharing these data, while also granting them control over their own data. Moreover, CRE tokens can also be used or exchanged for coupons in offline stores collaborating with Dodo Point through the Carry Wallet.

Carry Protocol is an innovative protocol specifically designed for the gaming industry, increasing income for game developers and players. Carry Protocol replaces traditional gaming platforms, providing robust game construction, analytics, bridging Web2 and Web3 games, and in-game advertising features.

Team and Project Background

The development team for the Carry project is formed by the founding team of Spoqa, a successful South Korean startup company focused on customer loyalty and marketing solutions.

Spoqa was established in 2006 and is headquartered in Seoul. It was founded by co-CEOs Grant Sohn and Richard Choi. The company has been helping Korean retail stores in the food and beverage industry to eliminate membership point cards, which are easy to lose and painful to store. The company is committed to developing innovative software and services to solve the problems of the catering industry. The two main products of Spoqa are Dodo Point and KitchenBoard:

• KitchenBoard provides cost management, supplier search, and ingredient ordering for catering businesses.
• Dodo Point is a loyalty membership point platform in South Korea, helping more than 30,000 retail stores transition to digital. Merchants can build their own loyal customers through the platform. Consumers only need a phone number to register, making it easy for them to check in, receive and use loyalty points at their favorite stores. Most Dodo Point users are under 40 years old.

In 2021, Carry Protocol launched the Carry Wallet, a digital wallet with cryptocurrency deposit functionality and physical rewards. Carry Wallet is the first service to support the Carry token (CRE), providing access to the storage, sending, and receiving of Carry tokens and staking returns on CRE holdings. By holding CRE tokens in the Carry Wallet, users can receive rewards that can be redeemed at Korean merchants using the Dodo Point. Consumers can now earn real-world rewards such as coffee and ice cream through digital assets.

Unlike other DeFi platforms, Carry Wallet provides rewards that consumers can use in their daily routine, integrating Carry into everyday life and creating a link between the cryptocurrency world and the real world. Carry prioritizes simplicity and usability, and recent application updates have simplified the staking functions and broadened the array of goods and services available to users.

The integration of Carry Wallet and Dodo Point bridges the gap between the crypto and real worlds. This demonstrates that the Korean market is an ideal testing ground for digital products and showcases the product’s scalability. Official data indicates that the total number of Dodo Point platform users has surpassed 21 million. Over the past decade, Dodo Point has become the leading tablet-based loyalty platform in South Korea and Japan.

Source: carryprotocol.io

Financing Information

Carry completed a seed round of financing on May 1st, 2018. The investors in this round included One Block Capital, Kenetic, Elysium Venture Capital, and others. A total of 5 investors participated in this round of financing.

Carry Protocol

Carry Protocol is a decentralized protocol based on blockchain, with the primary goal of connecting the Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 worlds.

As previously stated, Carry Protocol initially set out to address the challenges of offline commerce, with a focus on offline retail. Despite the rise of online and mobile commerce, the majority of consumption still occurs offline. The offline commerce market, while vast, is technologically behind due to the time and effort required to introduce and propagate new technologies. Within this context, Carry aims to resolve three major issues prevalent in offline commerce.

The primary problem is that businesses have limited understanding of their customers due to the decentralization and incompleteness of customer data. Secondly, when businesses use this data and monetize it, consumers have no control over their data. Finally, offline advertising is outdated, lacking transparency and efficiency.

Carry is committed to solving these problems through the following three goals:

1. Provide a platform for businesses to better understand and communicate with their customers.
2. Empower consumers to control their transaction data and profit from the data.
3. Provide a new, effective, and transparent advertising channel.

Thanks to previous successes and community support, in January 2024, the Carry community voted overwhelmingly to transition into becoming a key infrastructure for the Web3 gaming industry. Carry’s next developmental focus is to become a “General Infrastructure for both Web2 and Web3 games.”

Carry Ecosystem

The Carry Protocol ecosystem comprises several projects and products. Here are the main components and features:

• Carry Protocol: Carry Protocol forms the foundation of the Carry ecosystem.
• Dodo Point: Dodo Point is a loyalty points platform on the Carry Protocol.
• Carry Wallet: Carry Wallet is the official cryptocurrency wallet of the Carry ecosystem. It allows users to store, send, and receive Carry tokens (CRE).
• Carry Labs: Carry Labs is the research and development branch of the Carry ecosystem. It is responsible for developing new dApps and services.
• Carry Community: The Carry community consists of supporters and users of the Carry Protocol. CRE holders can participate in the development of the Carry ecosystem.

Main Features and Functions

1. Data Empire: Carry allows consumers to control and monetize their own shopping data. Consumers can choose to share their shopping records and preferences and earn CRE tokens as rewards in this way.
2. Advertising Ecosystem: Merchants and advertisers can directly interact with consumers via the Carry platform, and use consumer data to create more effective marketing strategies. This direct interaction reduces the need to rely on third-party advertising platforms.
3. Smart Contract Application: Carry implements smart contracts that automatically execute rewards based on consumer data sharing. This provides transparency and security for consumers and merchants.
4. Physical Retail Integration: Carry pays special attention to physical retailers, providing tools for them to integrate blockchain technology and use data to optimize customer experiences and marketing results.
5. General Infrastructure for Web2.0 and Web3.0 Games: Carry is equipped with a software development kit (SDK) and powerful modular tools, enabling game developers to effectively manage digital assets and achieve monetization.

General Infrastructure for Web2.0 and Web3.0 Games

Since its inception, Carry Protocol has been at the forefront of the transformation in advertising technology. They identified a significant opportunity in the Web3 gaming field, particularly in in-game advertising. While an increasing number of game developers are exploring the unique experiences that Web3 can offer players, they also encounter several challenges:

• Challenges in game growth models
• Death spirals in game economics
• Lack of player intention analysis

The prevalent economic models in current Web3 games also present many issues. Web3 games often adopt a ‘dual token model’, where on one hand, there is in-game utility token circulation, and on the other hand, many game assets or items are sold as NFTs. Although the dual token model brings funding to developers in the early stages of the game, once the market reaches a tipping point and players begin to massively sell off NFTs and in-game tokens, the game can easily enter a so-called “death spiral”, leading to its decline.

Source: 1400/format:webp/1*GEMNOKU8BzZLJb1HvwQ4Gg.png">medium

Today, Web2 online games continue to dominate. However, considering business models, security, and stability, most game companies are hesitant to publicize their attempts.

Carry itself does not develop games, but it has launched an innovative protocol tailored for the gaming industry, offering the potential for increased revenue for game developers and players. The Carry protocol replaces traditional gaming platforms by providing powerful game construction, analysis, Web2 and Web3 game bridging, game advertising and other functions.

The Carry Protocol innovatively bridges the worlds of games and advertising within the web3 space, offering a unique system for showcasing ads within virtual game environments. These advertising spaces, or “slots,” are thoughtfully integrated into games, functioning like digital billboards for interactive promotions. This approach aims to create a better and healthier game advertising economics.

Moreover, the protocol incorporates a transparent and equitable auction system to allocate advertising space, where the market value of each slot is determined by real-time demand. This system ensures a fair and open process for all participants.

The accompanying Carry SDK will provide powerful infrastructure for Web2 and Web3 games, helping developers easily integrate blockchain functions. In addition, Carry provides adaptive data analysis modules for various kinds of games to achieve strategy optimization and service evolution.

One-Stop Game Infrastructure

Without a proper foundation, an ecosystem cannot thrive. Carry SDK was developed precisely for this purpose. It’s a secure and easy-to-use library of standardized blockchain tools, or rather, a one-stop metaverse infrastructure platform for the game ecosystem. Using Carry SDK, developers no longer need to be intimidated or hindered by the security and complexity of blockchain technology. The entry threshold is lowered, and in terms of cost, eliminated. All interested gamers can expect increased playability as a result.

Specifically, the Carry SDK infrastructure consists of three basic modules and two innovative modules:

• Basic Modules: Asset Management Module, Identity Management Module, Security Protection Module
• Innovative Modules: Ad Management Module, Data Analysis Module

These five major modules together provide a powerful framework for integrating blockchain technology into games, providing a seamless bridge between traditional (Web2) and blockchain-based (Web3) gaming experiences. The Carry Protocol enhances community ownership, cross-chain asset interoperability, and security in the gaming community.

Visualizing everything that happens in real-time in the game can give a better understanding of the dynamics of the gaming community.

Innovative Module: ‘Slot’ Embedded Game Advertising Revenue Model

Following the design of core modules in the Carry SDK framework, Carry Protocol introduces a new component: the Ad Management Module. This module is designed to offer an innovative advertising paradigm based on “slots” in blockchain games, integrating advertisements naturally within the game. This not only provides value for game developers and advertisers but also ensures the gaming experience of players.

Carry Protocol’s ‘slot’ is more like a ‘tradable virtual advertising space.’ It refers to spaces that can display ads in games or other digital platforms, and these spaces can be traded.

In its essence, a slot is a unique digital real estate where advertisements can be strategically placed, integrated seamlessly into the virtual environments of games or other digital platforms. Every ad slot is tied to a designated game, taking forms such as visual spaces for graphics, character-specific sound effects, or virtual companions roaming the digital environment.

Imagine you’re playing an online game, and as you explore, you see ads on billboards or even on items like a character’s backpack. These are what we call “slots” in the Carry Protocol. Think of a slot like a piece of virtual real estate where ads can live. These slots are valuable to advertisers and can be bought, sold, or traded just like other virtual items in the game.

Slots are versatile. They can show video ads, become part of the game scenery, or even be part of the outfit your character is wearing. They’re designed to fit into the game naturally, so they’re interesting rather than annoying. Just like those ad placements in movies and TV shows, they appear naturally in scenes or dramatic requirements.

The movie “The Pig, The Snake and The Pigeon” in the drama, Ethan Juan’s role “Guilin Kid” is called the strongest food broadcaster, causing netizens to flesh out and try the same kind of lunch box. Source: Little Red Book @RACHE

Therefore, Slot can be seen as a more advanced form of ad placement, which can not only achieve the purpose of promoting products or services, but also bring more interactivity, immersion, and transactional experience to the players.

Carry Marketplace Auctionable Ad Slots

Carry Marketplace allows community trading/auction of ad slots, game ad content, and NFTs. Carry Marketplace is a place where players, developers, and advertisers gather. The market is a tool for community ideas to collide, and it also makes different assets such as ad slots and content easier to reach market equilibrium prices.

Slots also have another characteristic, ad slots in the game are divided into two types: inherent slots in the game environment (native game assets) and slots controlled by players (assets owned by players). For example, advertising billboards in the game landscape act as native game assets. In contrast, specific items owned by players (such as character skins or pets) are created and thus “minted” by players, representing assets owned by the players.

Combining the above, the market value of each ad slot is determined by real-time demand, advertisers can obtain ad slots from auctions, therefore, players can also open their minted Slots to earn revenue.

Image source: carryprotocol.io

Tokenomics and Incentive Mechanisms

Uses of the CRE Token

The Carry token introduces several new features:

• Governance Vote: Each Carry token represents one vote in the platform’s governance process. The more tokens held in a wallet, the greater the influence and voting rights the holder has on proposals.
• Medium of Exchange: All transactions within the platform can be settled using Carry tokens, with fees and rewards generated during transactions distributed in the form of Carry tokens.
• Collateral: Carry token holders can use their tokens as collateral to access additional services offered by the platform, including identity management, asset management, security protection, and SDK provision.
• Membership: Participants can gain membership status by paying and providing collateral, including access to data analysis, market advice, and additional services such as identity management, asset management, security protection, and SDK provision.
• Auction Marketplace Creation: The ad auction process within the Carry ecosystem is vulnerable to several hard-to-prevent attacks, including collusion and witch hunts. Users can use Carry tokens as collateral to create an auction marketplace. The marketplace creator can adjust its parameters, and manage the transaction process, but cannot manipulate the transaction outcomes. The main responsibility of the creator is to regulate participant behavior and to mitigate certain attacks that are currently difficult to prevent against the VCG mechanism. Furthermore, the creator’s behavior will be monitored, and abnormal activities will trigger a penalty vote.
• Carry Game Token AMM Pool: The Carry platform will provide services for numerous games. In the future, the project will provide DEX services for game assets, allowing users to exchange assets between various games using Carry tokens as intermediaries. Token holders can create AMM pools for liquidity mining by providing collateral.

CRE Token Distribution

• Total CRE token supply: 10 billion
• Maximum supply: 10 billion
• Circulating supply: 10 billion
• Price information: CRE/USDT
• Token Distribution:
  • 40% Supporters (TGE Participants)
  • 25% Partner Program
  • 15% Market Activation
  • 10% Team
  • 5% Reserve
  • 5% Advisor

Source: carryprotocol.io

Market Advantages

1. Flexible advertising mechanism: Carry provides a fair ‘slot’ as a designated in-game asset for advertising, transforming in-game ad spaces into tradable assets. This allows for the direct placement of ads through these slots, thereby eliminating intermediation costs. It also provides interactivity and an immersive experience for ads.
2. More rewards for players and developers: This method offers a sustainable and healthier incentive system for all gaming community members. It ensures balanced rewards for both developers and players, backed by advertiser sponsorship. This approach aids in preventing the common decline seen in the Pay-to-Earn (P2E) model.
3. Decentralized governance and data analysis: An innovative approach to Web3 game analysis, eliminating understanding barriers between developers and game players, and returning data ownership to the community. Decentralized governance ensures transparency and fairness in the advertising ecosystem. Powerful data analysis capabilities help game developers better understand player behavior and optimize game design.
4. One-stop game infrastructure: With Carry, traditional games can easily bridge into the blockchain metaverse. The interoperability and liquidity of in-game assets are also increasingly strong. Carry’s game infrastructure will have a profound impact on the entire digital gaming industry.

Potential Risks

Every emerging industry carries significant unknown risks. Investing in cryptocurrencies could potentially lead to a total loss of the principal. Therefore, conducting thorough investment research and risk management is crucial.

Carry’s founding team has transitioned from offline business to integrating blockchain technology, making CRE a truly real-world currency. Although they have a track record of success, there are still some potential risks to watch out for:

• Emerging Technology: Carry Protocol is an emerging technology, but its long-term impact is still unclear.
• Technological Complexity: The implementation of this protocol requires a certain level of technical knowledge.
• Intense Competition: The gaming industry is highly competitive, and the Carry Protocol needs to compete with other competitors.

From the player’s perspective, despite a seemingly diverse revenue model, they can create slots and share in the advertising revenue. However, it’s important to remember that the player experience is prioritized. Whether a balance can truly be achieved between business benefits and game experience remains to be seen.

Projects with Similar Concepts

Decentraland and Virtual Real Estate

Decentraland represents a pioneering effort to create a decentralized virtual world where users can buy, sell, and manage virtual real estate. It is a landmark example of the combination of blockchain technology with digital land ownership, vividly similar to Carry’s Slot advertising model. In Decentraland, land owners have full control of their plots and can develop them to display content, host games, or provide advertising services, akin to Carry’s vision of in-game Slots as digital real estate for advertising.

Sandbox and User-Generated Content

Sandbox is a user-generated content (UGC) and gaming platform that allows players to create, own, and monetize their gaming experiences on the Ethereum blockchain. It embodies the potential of blockchain to democratize content creation in virtual worlds. Carry Protocol’s slot-based advertising model can be seen as an extension of this democratization, where advertising space becomes a canvas for creative expression and economic participation for developers and players alike.

Conclusion

The Carry project had a good start with successful offline cases in the past. Its forthcoming venture into the Web3 gaming field as an infrastructure builder is certainly something to look forward to. Hopefully, the project team brings more Web2 games to Web3, improving the blockchain gaming economy.

Finally, let’s summarize this project.

How Carry Protocol Transforms Web2 Games into Web3 Games Using Blockchain

Carry Protocol aims to combine Web2 games with blockchain technology to transform them into Web3 games. Here are some specific implementations:

1. Creating Tradable In-Game Assets

• Carry Protocol uses ERC-721 and ERC-1155 standards to tokenize in-game assets, such as characters, items, and virtual land.
• These tokens can be traded on the Carry Protocol marketplace, creating a new source of income for players.

1. Implementing In-Game Data Analysis

• Carry Protocol provides a data analysis platform that allows game developers to collect and analyze player data.
• This data can help developers understand player behavior better and optimize game design.

1. Implementing In-Game Ad Placement

• Carry Protocol has introduced the concept of “slot”, which refers to tradable virtual ad space within the game.
• These spaces can display various forms of advertisements, such as visual images, sound effects, or virtual characters.
• Advertisers can purchase slots on the Carry Protocol marketplace and display their advertisements to players.

1. Bridging Web2 and Web3 Games

• Carry Protocol provides a bridging tool that allows Web2 game developers to integrate their games with blockchain technology.
• This tool can help developers tokenize in-game assets and put game data on the blockchain.

1. Using Decentralized Governance

• Carry Protocol uses decentralized governance to ensure transparency and fairness in the advertising ecosystem.
• Both players and advertisers can participate in the governance of Carry Protocol and vote on the platform’s development direction.

In short, Carry Protocol combines Web2 games with blockchain technology in the above manner, turning it into a Web3 game.