Navigating Hive

Rising Star uses both private servers and a no-fee public blockchain to deliver a very unique browser game. There is definitely a learning curve when it comes to this web3 / blockchain stuff.

## What is Hive?

Rising Star is built on a blockchain technology called Hive.

The Hive Blockchain is completely different and independent from other blockchains, such as the one that runs Bitcoin or the one that runs Ethereum. There are hundreds of independent projects being built on Hive. The most prominent and popular projects revolve around web3 social media and blockchain gaming (the highly successful Splinterlands game is the best known Hive project).

Hive technically came into existence in March of 2020, but its content, communities and projects have roots as far back as 2014.

## How does this blockchain stuff impact the game?

The main blockchain features are as follows.

### Game currency has use outside the game

**In-game currency can be transferred to a separate system and traded for things unrelated to Rising Star, and vice-versa.**

Most games have a closed economy. Your points, score, or resources can only be used in the game they are designed for. In blockchain enabled games, there is much more transferability for these assets. Let's say you play Rising Star for a while, then decide you want to move on. You are able to take your game assets and liquidate them for a number of things, such as:

* Game assets in other blockchain games
* Ownership stakes in web3 projects
* Other cryptocurrencies
* Fiat currency (such as $USD)

The reverse is also true. You could divest assets from other games, web3 projects or crypto holdings to get more Rising Star assets or currency.

Making these trades is not exactly simple—there's a big learning curve for most of these transactions. Some transactions are easier than others.

### You have actual ownership of your collectable game cards

At its heart, Rising Star is a collectable card game. All your Main Stats come from your collection.

Each Card is a unique, one-of-a-kind asset. When you open a pack or acquire a card, it is registered to your Hive account and you own it. The game devs don't own it. No company owns it. It's yours and no one can take it away (unless the whole Hive Blockchain is somehow destroyed, or your account is compromised).

There's a very controversial acronym out there in the gaming world: **NFT.**

Many gamers hate NFTs. They aren't necessarily wrong to have these feelings. And yes: the cards in Rising Star are all NFTs. If this worries you, please read this piece on Why the NFTs in Rising Star don't suck.

### Much of the game data is public

Transparency is a key aspect of most blockchains. Hive is no exception.

All "on-chain" activity in Rising Star is publicly accessible. This opens up a huge amount of innovation and possibility for those with the skills to capture and work with this data. For example,

* Keep track of the trading habits of game whales
* Create tools that allow for efficient market purchases
* Develop derivative instruments for financial reasons, or for fun!
* Program Discord bots to interact with aspects of the game
* Develop your own custom monitoring system

#### Non-public game activity

Some of what happens on Rising Star is not "on-chain." It occurs on private, centralized servers that are owned by the game dev(s). Players have no access or easy insight to these things. The main example of this is the game code itself. This includes:

* Key math functions, like the precise formula for determining how many STARBITS you earn from missions
* Energy recharging rate
* Your ability to access Zones or Missions
* In-game systems like the Music Promoter or Record Staking
* Earning in-game currency
* Spending of in-game currency for in-game things

If you're new to blockchain gaming, this distinction can get pretty confusing. It takes some getting used to! Below are some key ideas to help navigate the space.

## List of "on-chain" game activity

The following are things that happen publicly. They are immutably and irreversibly written to the Hive Blockchain. Much of the time, your Hive account and/or Keychain will ask your permission (aka "sign") to do these things.

* Purchasing a Card Pack with cryptocurrency (purchasing via PayPal goes through a manual process)
* Opening a Card Pack and receiving new cards (known as "minting")
* Anything involving listing, buying, selling or transferring a card
* Depositing or Withdrawing in-game currency
* Completing a Mission. However, the in-game impacts of Mission completion are not always written to the chain.

## Depositing and Withdrawing Currency

It is important to understand exactly where your game currency goes (or comes from) when you Deposit or Withdraw.

### **A crash course on Blockchain Layers**

* The main Hive Blockchain is known as Layer 1. Lots of game data, including your card ownership and some game stats are written onto this public ledger. It has three cryptocurrencies, including its native token: HIVE.
* There is a thriving ecosystem of projects built on Hive's Layer 2 (Known as Hive Engine or H-E).
* Layer 2 consists of a tons of different applications that use Layer 1 data to do their thing.
* Layer 2 has as many altcoins as there are projects: hundreds and hundreds!

Your Rising Star in-game currency is not on Layer 1 or Layer 2. It is data that exists on Rising Star's private servers. You do not own your in-game currency.

When you Withdraw currency, the Rising Star server communicates with a piece of code on Hive's Layer 2 (known as a Smart Contract in Web3 lingo). Your in-game currency is destroyed / deleted. A few moments later, a Rising Star account on the Hive blockchain issues you the same amount of currency as a token on Layer 2 / Hive Engine. You own this currency!

Said another way: The STARBITS in-game are NOT the same thing as the STARBITS you see in your Hive account!

Depositing is the reverse. When you choose to Deposit, an automatic process sends your owned currency to a Rising Star account on Hive Layer 2 (it is not necessarily destroyed). A few moments later, an equal amount appears in-game, created by the private Rising Star servers.

**Your Cards do not follow these rules**. There is no Depositing or Withdrawing Cards. There are technically no "in-game" cards. Most card data is stored directly in Layer 2 Hive as NFTs. You can still look at and do stuff with your cards in-game—this is because the private Rising Star servers use Layer 1 and Layer 2 data to deliver the gaming experience.

## Doing stuff with currency or cards on-chain

All cards and withdrawn currency do not exist on Rising Star servers. They're on Hive's Layer 2 chain!

Obviously, you'll need to know how to interact with this thing if you're do anything with your stuff.

You access the private Rising Star servers like you access any private server: via URL in a browser.

Luckily and thankfully, this is also how you access Hive's Layer 2. 😊

The main difference is this: there's only one URL for the game. But there are dozens for Hive Layer 2.

**Currently, the most popular is Tribaldex.** This is the most feature-rich "frontend" for doing stuff with your currency, and it is built and maintained by the community who built and maintains Layer 2.

### Decentralized Exchanges (DEX)

A decentralized exchange is a place where you can swap tokens (aka your game currencies) for other tokens. All the swapping and fee calculations are managed by software called smart contracts. No one owns the exchange and its transactions recorded on a blockchain (hence the "decentralized" bit).

Hive Engine (Layer 2) has a few DEXs.

* Tribaldex.com is the most popular and feature rich, though it has higher fees for some transactions
* Hive-Engine.com is an older version of TribalDex.
* Leodex is a DEX developed by the HIVE crypto-finance community
* BeeSwap is another option, developed by the folks who make the game dCity

Not every DEX will list or deal with every token, currency or NFT. So you may not "see" or be able to use your STARBITS balance on something like Leodex. It is highly recommended to start with Tribaldex or whichever DEX(s) are managed by the Layer 2 team.

### Buy, Sell or Swap tokens

If the DEX you're using lists Rising Star currencies, you can (attempt to) trade them!

Buy / Sell is usually different than a Swap! Buy / Sell involves trading your tokens with other people. You have a few options here:

* You can immediately accept the market price for buying or selling. Your trade will go through immediately unless you're trying to buy or sell too many tokens (more than are currently being offered or asked for)
* You can create a "limit order." Here, you set your desired buy/sell price and the amount of currency you want to trade. Your order will sit there until someone accepts your price. Note: Limit orders can be partially filled.

Most DEXs will give you all sorts of information related to the current limit orders, the historic price, etc. It pays to be able to understand market and trading charts!

Swapping is a slightly different operation. With a swap, you trade with a non-human entity called a liquidity pool. The trade is instant, and usually (bot not always!) a better deal than doing a market price exchange. At the time of writing, there are not many liquidity pools available for Rising Star currencies. Hopefully that changes as the game gets more popular!

#### Note on pegged tokens

Currently, the Rising Star currencies of STARBITS and STARPRO can only be traded for something called SWAP.HIVE. This SWAP.HIVE currency is pegged (essentially identical in value) to Hive's native token, HIVE. The "SWAP" prefix tells you that it's a Hive Engine (Layer 2) pegged version of a token. You'll notice other SWAP tokens, like SWAP.BTC. This is a Hive Engine token with (close to) the same value as a Bitcoin (BTC). Visit the Hive Engine FAQ to learn more about pegged tokens