Gamified Asset Issuance Protocol Based on Virtual PoW

Since 2017, Web3 has entered an era of low barriers to asset issuance. Various projects issue tokens or NFTs through methods like IDO and ICO, but often face issues of strong control or lack of transparency, leading to frequent RugPull incidents.

As of today, the fairness defects of traditional IDOs and ICOs have been fully exposed. People have long hoped for a more fair and reliable asset issuance protocol to address the many issues during the token generation activity of new projects (TGE). Although some innovative projects have proposed their own "fair economic models," most have failed to be promoted as universal protocols.

So, what kind of model is a fairer and more reliable way of asset distribution? What kind of solution can serve as a universal protocol? The Cellula introduced in this article provides a new perspective to solve the above problems. They have implemented an asset distribution layer that simulates PoW, using virtual proof of work (vPOW) to "mine" the asset distribution process, simulating a fairer asset allocation paradigm compared to Bitcoin.

Although Cellula is considered a GameFi project by many, since the in-game rewards it distributes can be set as any type of Token, theoretically, Cellula can serve as a universal asset distribution platform with PoW effects, bringing broader prospects and imaginative space for Web3 asset issuance. It can even be referred to as "a social experiment paying tribute to Bitcoin mining."

PoW and vPoW: Unpredictable Lottery Draws

Whether it is the traditional PoW or PoS, or the vPoW introduced in this article, the essence is to set up a system of algorithms whose output results are unpredictable or hard to predict, using the output results to conduct a "lottery draw." Bitcoin miners need to locally construct blocks that meet the restriction conditions and submit them to the full nodes in the network for consensus in order to receive block rewards. The restriction condition is to ensure that the constructed block's Hash meets special requirements, such as having a prefix of 6 zeros.

Due to the unpredictable or hard-to-predict results of block Hash generation, to construct a block that meets the conditions, one can only continuously change the input parameters of the given algorithm. This process requires brute-force enumeration and places high demands on the miners' hardware.

In short, Bitcoin mining achieves a "lottery draw" system for online participation of miners across the network through the unpredictability of the SHA-256 hashing algorithm. This design ensures a permissionless form of participation at the cost of electrical energy.

In addition, PoW is a fairer way of asset distribution. The difficulty of project parties controlling the mainstream PoW public chains is much greater than that of PoS public chains. In many PoS public chains or ICOs and IDOs, there are numerous cases of project parties having strong control.

The problem is that the PoW model is often applied to the underlying public chain rather than the asset issuance layer of DAPPs. Can we simulate the effects of PoW with an on-chain achievable solution? If so, we can implement a more fair and reliable asset distribution protocol than strong control schemes like ICOs and IDOs, and with some gaming scenarios, we can create interesting GameFi(. Of course, the actual use is not limited to games; it can also provide a fair asset distribution scheme for other projects).

In Cellula, by introducing the famous "Conway's Game of Life" algorithm, mining power is allocated to the on-chain virtual digital entity ( called "BitLife". Simply put, it's like allowing a group of people to cultivate cell clusters in their own petri dishes; over time, the more surviving cells in a person's petri dish, the higher the mining power calculated, and the more likely they are to receive mining rewards.

Cellula replaces the hash calculation of traditional PoW with another form of computation that is unpredictable or difficult to predict, substituting the "Work" aspect in "Proof of Work". Under Cellula's concept, the key is how to obtain more living cells in petri dish )BitLife(, while deducing the state changes of BitLife requires computational resources. Essentially, it transforms the hash algorithm executed in Bitcoin mining into a specific algorithm for simulating Conway's Game of Life, which is referred to as vPOW)Virtual POW(.

![Interpretation of Cellula: A Tribute to the Gameified Asset Issuance Protocol of PoW])https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-7c88e7b70b6aeb205470e125f535915f.webp(

The Core of vPOW: Conway's Game of Life and BitLife

Before we interpret the mechanism design of Cellula, let's take a look at the most important core of vPOW - "Conway's Game of Life". It can be traced back to the concept of "cellular automata" proposed by John von Neumann in 1950, and later mathematician John Conway officially introduced "Conway's Game of Life" in 1970, using algorithms to simulate the evolutionary laws of life in nature.

Assuming we have a petri dish, which is divided into a bunch of small squares according to a two-dimensional coordinate system, and then we perform an "initial setup" on the petri dish, allowing some living cells to occupy part of the squares. After that, the life and death states of these cells will evolve over time, gradually presenting complex forms of cell clusters. Essentially, this is a two-dimensional grid game with very simple rules:

• Each cell has two states: alive/dead, just like in the game of Minesweeper, each cell interacts with itself and the eight surrounding cells.
• Assume a certain cell is alive, but if there are fewer than 2 living cells in the surrounding 8 squares ) or 1(, then that cell enters a death state;
• A cell remains alive if it has 2 or 3 live neighbors.
• A cell is in a living state. When there are more than 3 living cells surrounding it, the cell enters a death state ) simulating a scenario where excessive life competes for resources (;
• The current cell is in a dead state, but when there are 3 living cells around, this cell transitions to a living state ) simulates cell proliferation (

In a two-dimensional culture dish, given the initial pattern of cell states, the cell states will evolve and iterate over time according to the aforementioned rules, producing a myriad of results.

![Interpreting Cellula: A Tribute to the gamified asset issuance protocol of PoW])https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-022dbfaef89cc79b60d30d197dc32d2b.webp(

After understanding the basic concepts of Cellula and Conway's Game of Life, let's look at the specific design details. Cellula divides the "petri dish" mentioned earlier into 9*9=81 squares, where each cell in the square has two states: alive or dead, corresponding to the binary 0 and 1). In this way, according to permutations and combinations, the initial state of the cells in the petri dish has 2^81 possibilities, which equals the square of one trillion.

What players need to do is select the parameters ( for the initial model of the petri dish ). BitLife acts as the entity of the petri dish (, which is actually an NFT ), containing 81 squares, with one cell placed in each square. Then, every 3*3=9 adjacent squares in BitLife form a BitCell, and each BitLife is composed of 2 to 9 BitCells.

According to permutations and combinations, BitCell ( 3*3 grid ) has 2^9 initial patterns. What players need to do is randomly select multiple BitCell combinations of different patterns to construct a BitLife. To explain simply, it means randomly finding an initial pattern for one's Petri dish, and as mentioned earlier, there are a total of 2^81 different initial patterns, which is an astronomical number. Therefore, the choice space left for participants is very large, which is somewhat similar to the scenario of using SHA-256 in Bitcoin mining.

The cell state of BitLife changes with the increase in block height. Cellula allocates computing power based on the state of BitLife at different block heights. Given a block height, the more surviving cells contained in BitLife, the higher the computing power it possesses, which is equivalent to creating a virtual mining machine.

In Cellula, the process of players synthesizing BitLife is essentially a process of "manufacturing" new mining machines. After BitLife is minted on the chain, it needs to undergo a "charging" operation to start mining. The validity period for a single charge is 1 day, 3 days, and 7 days, and a small fee needs to be paid, with the need for continued charging after expiration.

To encourage users to recharge BitLife more often, Cellula has set up a "recharge lottery" feature, where users may be selected to receive additional rewards each time they initiate a recharge operation.

According to the official rules of Cellula, the minting of BitLife containing 3*3 Bitcells (, which includes 81 small squares ), has stopped. Players have minted over 1.5 million such BitLife. Future new users can purchase BitLife in the secondary market and engage in charging mining. Limited minting is aimed at maintaining the stability of the game ecosystem and preventing scientists from infinitely minting BitLife NFTs, which could lead to a depreciation of mining machine value.

In the future, Cellula will introduce a role similar to that of mining machine manufacturers. This role is based on a licensing system, which requires staking tokens, publicizing sales channels, and having a certain community size and influence. These manufacturers will be responsible for minting and selling BitLife, which contains 4x4 BitCells, totaling 16*9=144 small squares. The amount of BitLife that manufacturers can mint will be limited by the amount of staked tokens.

The essence of vPOW is a computational model based on given rules, where participants can engage in competition by optimizing strategies and conduct asset issuance and distribution in a gamified manner. Cellula simulates the operation form of the Bitcoin mining machine market, replacing the computational task form in PoW. Since the distribution method of mining power can be dynamically adjusted, any mode of BitLife may not necessarily be globally optimal. The BitLife with the most cell survival today may be surpassed by other BitLives tomorrow, leading to complex emergent phenomena and dynamic strategies.

Analysoor Lottery Algorithm and VRGDAs Index Pricing Curve

The charging lottery segment of Cellula uses a random number output algorithm called Analysoor, which takes the block hash as the input parameter for the random number generator to select a winner among the participants in each block, introducing a lottery system.

In addition, to prevent a certain pattern of BitLife from being heavily followed in terms of minting, Cellula introduces a variable rate progressive Dutch auction ( VRGDAs ), which is a pricing algorithm developed by Paradigm that dynamically adjusts prices — raising prices when the minting volume exceeds expectations and lowering prices when the minting volume falls short of expectations.

Summary: Viewing Cellula from the Perspective of Player Game Theory

In vPOW, there are many participants, each with different strategies. Taking the primary issuance market as an example, a "scientist" can write code to combine different BitCells to find a BitLife with higher computing power, thus obtaining higher mining rewards. At the same time, there are some MEV players who monitor the minting events on the chain. When they discover that a certain NB scientist has minted a certain type of BitLife, they will also follow suit and mint in large quantities.

However, due to the existence of the VRGDAs exponential pricing algorithm, the minting price of a single type of BitLife can grow exponentially, which can effectively deter scientists. Of course, it will also price BitLife/miners. If a certain type of miner has high computing power, its minting/production price will also be high, and the price circulating in the secondary market will reference the production price, which will then be transmitted throughout the entire supply chain.

Analogous to the issuance process of Bitcoin mining machines, scientists discovered that a certain type of BitLife has high computing power, just like how mining machine companies develop new chips. MEV players follow suit to mint, similar to how primary dealers set the prices of mining machines, and the subsequent secondary market trading is akin to retail investors purchasing equipment from dealers.

In contrast to the development of mining machines in the real world, scientists have discovered new BitLife's.