“We want CARV to be leveraged as an ETF for gaming,” declared Victor Yu, co-founder and COO of CARV, when discussing the project during Cointelegraph’s recent AMA.

As a modular data layer for AI and gaming, CARV is building a comprehensive ecosystem for data ownership and monetization within the industry. The team, which includes professionals from Electronic Arts, Arena, and Tencent Games, raised a $10 million Series A round led by Tribe Capital and IOSG Ventures in the spring of 2024.

CARV has a number of notable features and upcoming developments, which Yu discussed during the AMA with CARV’s head of business development, Paul Delio.

New Ethereum standard and CARV main features

As noted by the speakers, the project focuses on two key features, CARV Play and CARV Protocol:

  • CARV Play allows players to aggregate their achievements from different platforms, such as Steam. To do this, players mint Generative Archive Tokens (GAT), which become on-chain representations of their achievements and reflect a player’s progress, with the GAT itself changing as new achievements are unlocked.
  • CARV Protocol goes beyond achievements by rewarding users for the data they generate. By connecting a platform like Steam to CARV Protocol, users can earn “soul” points based on their data – time spent playing, games played, achievements, etc. – aggregated in a privacy-preserving manner.

The platform boasts over 2.5 million registered users on CARV Play and 500,000 daily active wallets participating in the data reward program on CARV Protocol. According to the speakers, CARV is the number one player on both Linea and ZK Sync, while it is the number two player on Ronin, behind established gaming chain Pixels.

Yu emphasized: “Web3 started out a bit more hyper-financial, and since then the focus has evolved. In that sense, we see CARV as a place where different types of gamers can find their own communities and have a very tailored experience based on AI recommendations. Hardcore gamers would be able to advocate and showcase their achievements in one place while socializing, which is very important. For Web3 natives, the financial return on investment may be of interest. So our extensive feature set caters to a wide range of player demographics and interests, ensuring that everyone finds their place.

“20% of our users are Web2 native and Web3 curious,” said Delio. “And we really like to think of CARVe Play as a discovery site that’s home to everyone, not just a Web3 user or a traditional gamer. There’s no friction to worry about because you can sign up just by email.”

The CARV ID, CARV’s account or player’s digital passport, acts as an extension of the ERC-721 standard. This new standard, proposed by CARV and called “ERC 7231: Identity Aggregated NFT,” offers to link users’ Web2 and Web3 identities to NFTs and SBTs to showcase users’ gaming achievements, social connections and past experiences in one place.

AI-driven discovery tools

Speaking further about the customized user experience, Delio mentioned CARV’s in-game quest discovery feature, which can identify users based on specific criteria: “Let’s say an extraction shooter Shrapnel is looking for first-person shooter players from Southeast Asia who own Shrapnel, Avalanche, and some other tokens. We can get those players into Shrapnel and help them stay there. By opting in to data sharing, you earn a percentage of the fee that Shrapnel pays us for user acquisition. It is a win-win situation – players get rewarded for their skills, and games get valuable players. Overall, we also act as a data exchange layer between big brands, companies and users.”

The same discovery and matching capabilities are planned for CARV’s AI assistant, Cara, which currently operates as a customer service bot on Telegram. As Delio and Yu see it, it will be able to help with game and user discovery by collecting not only first-party, user-provided data, but also data from surveys and interactions with Cara itself.

“With the tailwind of AI development, the need for additional data is increasing every day. Data is the source of all computing and innovation,” Yu remarked. “What we’re trying to do is to protect the data and return the value creation to the users, which we call the atomic unit of the internet. With our privacy-preserving ecosystem built on ERC-7231, we are taking another step toward a user-owned internet where everyone benefits from the value creation.”

Strong community and network

Community building is another pillar of CARV Play. The Discord server boasts over 220,000 members and hosts regular game nights featuring all of CARV’s game projects and direct conversations with developers. In addition, CARV fosters a collaborative spirit through its Guardian program, in which over 100 users participate by submitting new projects, curating the community, and even helping with bug fixes.

The ambitious goals of the project require a robust infrastructure and incentives to attract users and contributors. To do this, CARV uses a CARV token to reward different players within its ecosystem. At the infrastructure level, the token incentivizes node operators, the backbone of CARV’s network security and privacy, who ensure the secure and intended functioning of Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) operated by major cloud providers such as Alibaba and Google. By rewarding node operators, CARV ensures that user data is protected while value is returned to the ecosystem.

CARV also acts as a medium of exchange. Users who contribute data are rewarded with tokens, while brands and games seeking that valuable data use the same token to make purchases. In addition, CARV can be staked, increasing its utility. Staking rewards node operators for maintaining the network.

Looking ahead

Yu highlighted other exciting areas for CARV innovation, such as fully on-chain games and incentive-driven design. “The ability to co-create a completely parallel universe is very exciting, especially as lower barriers to customization will unlock a new level of player agency and creativity,” he added. The other direction they are looking at is the creation of B2B analytics tools in a SaaS model that can provide game developers with advanced user insights, enabling them to better understand their player base and target potential customers.

He also noted: “We want our users to be exposed to the sustainability and prosperity within the entire Web3 gaming ecosystem. No matter which game is successful or which gaming chain or ecosystem is doing well, CARV’s investors and community members will be able to tap into that. With an infrastructure-first approach, we want CARV to be the backbone of a Web3 gaming future.”

Source:- COINTELEGRAPH