Play, collect, and earn on Arcaden

Arcaden had to welcome two very different audiences: traditional gamers who expect an email and password, and crypto-natives who expect to connect a wallet. The login screen offered both — classic credentials alongside secure wallet authentication using Sign-In with Ethereum (SIWE).

Once inside, the homepage kept everything one click away. Auto-rotating banners surfaced the latest games, drops, and rewards, so players always landed on something new without digging through menus.

Players deposited selected cryptocurrencies to receive in-game tokens — the fuel for arcade games, quests, and rewards. The mSALD Hub extended this further, letting users convert their tokens seamlessly and unlock new ways to play and earn.

The marketplace closed the loop: players opened weapon treasure chests, purchased collectibles, and picked out avatars from the Avatar Store, giving every earned token somewhere fun to go.

When Arcaden moved to its V2 collectibles, existing World of Arcaden V1 G3M NFT holders needed a safe path forward. On Burn Island, holders burned their V1 G3Ms in exchange for V2 Collectibles — a gasless migration I worked on securing, which moved 5,000+ NFTs with zero exploits.

The V2 minting contracts used lazy minting and signature minting, so in-app treasures only became on-chain NFTs when a player chose to mint. Holders of G3M Material and Weapon Collectibles could mint equivalent V2 G3M NFTs and view them on OpenSea — 50,000+ collectibles ready to cross over without upfront gas costs.

Avatar characters (ERC-721) could equip weapons (ERC-1155) to accumulate combat points — each avatar with unique abilities, each loadout a personal strategy.

Equipped characters were then staked onto the Quest Board to embark on quests and earn rewards. Better gear meant better odds, turning what is usually a dry staking transaction into a loop players actually wanted to repeat — engagement rose 300% after launch.