Gamified Asset Issuance Protocol Simulating POW: Cellula Analysis

Since the rise of ERC-20 assets in 2017, Web3 has entered an era of low-threshold asset issuance. Various projects issue tokens or NFTs through methods like IDO and ICO, but often face issues such as strong control over the market or lack of transparency, leading to frequent occurrences of RugPull.

To this day, the fairness flaws 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 TGE of new projects. Although some innovative projects have proposed "fair economic models", most have failed to be promoted as universal protocols.

Cellula provides a new approach to solving the above problems. It implements an asset distribution layer that simulates POW, utilizing virtual proof of work (vPOW) to "mine" the asset distribution process, mimicking Bitcoin to achieve a fairer asset allocation model.

Although Cellula is often regarded as a GameFi project, its distributed in-game rewards can be set as any type of Token, theoretically making it a general asset distribution platform with POW effects, bringing broader prospects for Web3 asset issuance. It can even be called a "social experiment in tribute to Bitcoin mining."

POW and vPOW: Unpredictable lottery draw results

Whether it is traditional POW, POS, or vPOW, the essence is to set up a set of algorithms whose output results are difficult to predict, and to conduct a "lottery draw" through the output results. Bitcoin miners must construct a block that meets the requirements locally in order to receive block rewards. Due to the unpredictable nature of the block hash generation results, they can only continuously change input parameters for brute-force exhaustion.

In short, Bitcoin mining utilizes the unpredictability of the SHA-256 hash algorithm to achieve an "lottery drawing" system for online participation by miners across the network. This design ensures permissionless participation at the cost of electrical energy.

POW is a relatively fair asset distribution method. In mainstream POW public chains, it is much harder for project teams to control the supply compared to POS public chains. Although project teams also have some control in POW, the extent is often much lighter than in POS.

The key is how to simulate the POW effect in the on-chain asset issuance layer. Cellula introduces the "Conway's Game of Life" algorithm to allocate computing power for the on-chain virtual entity "BitLife." Players breed cell clusters in a Petri dish; the more surviving cells there are, the higher the converted mining power, increasing the likelihood of receiving rewards.

Cellula replaces the hash computation of traditional POW with another computational method whose results are difficult to predict. The key is how to obtain a culture dish with more surviving cells ( BitLife ). The deduction of BitLife state changes requires computational resources, essentially transforming the hash algorithm of Bitcoin mining into a specific algorithm for simulating Conway's Game of Life, which is referred to as vPOW ( virtual POW ).

vPOW Core: Conway's Game of Life and BitLife

The Game of Life, devised by mathematician John Conway in 1970, can be traced back to the "cellular automata" concept proposed by John von Neumann in 1950. It uses algorithms to simulate the evolutionary patterns of life in nature.

Assume there is a petri dish, divided into small squares according to a two-dimensional coordinate system, and perform an "initial setup" to let live cells occupy some of the squares. After that, the cell states evolve over time, gradually presenting complex forms. This is essentially a two-dimensional grid game with simple rules:

• Each cell has two states: alive or dead, and each cell interacts with the cells in the surrounding eight squares.
• When the number of living cells around the surviving cell is less than 2, it dies.
• When there are 2-3 surviving cells around a surviving cell, it remains alive.
• Dies when there are more than 3 live cells around.
• A dead cell turns into a live cell when there are 3 live cells around it.

After the initial pattern is given, the cell states will evolve and iterate over time, producing a myriad of results. It can even simulate computer effects using Conway's Game of Life.

Cellula divides the "petri dish" into 9*9=81 squares, and each cell in the squares can be in one of two states: alive or dead. According to combinatorial arrangements, the initial state of the cells in the petri dish can be 2^81, which is approximately equivalent to 1 trillion squared.

Players need to select the input parameters for the initial mode of the culture dish (. BitLife, as the culture dish entity ) NFT (, consists of 81 squares. Every 3*3=9 adjacent squares form a BitCell, and each BitLife is composed of 2-9 BitCells.

BitCell)3*3 grid( has 2^9 initial patterns, and players need to randomly select multiple BitCell combinations to form BitLife. In short, it is about randomly selecting initial patterns for the culture dish, with a total of 2^81 possibilities.

The BitLife cell status changes with the increase of block height. Cellula allocates computing power according to the status of BitLife at different block heights. At a given block height, the more surviving cells there are in BitLife, the higher the computing power, equivalent to creating virtual mining machines.

Cellula participants need to exhaustively explore the 2^81 initial patterns of BitLife off-chain, predicting the state after the evolution of each pattern to see if it meets the requirements of the reward system. The player's goal is to construct or purchase the BitLife that is most likely to earn mining rewards. This is equivalent to allowing ordinary/advanced retail investors to develop mining machines on their own, with the option to sell their self-made machines or purchase others' machines for mining.

In BitLife, the living cells can overflow the initial 9*9 grid, and the number of surviving cells can far exceed 81, with no boundary restrictions. If the number of active living cells in a BitLife continues to increase, the allocated mining power will also become higher. Conversely, if the initial mode is chosen poorly, the number of living cells will decrease, and the computing power will also diminish.

The system distributes a certain mining reward every 5 minutes ) energy points (, allocated according to the mining power share of each BitLife in the network.

![Interpretation of Cellula: A gamified asset issuance protocol paying tribute to POW mining])https://img-cdn.gateio.im/webp-social/moments-4255a676799fbd6e1ed24506055c7943.webp(

In Cellula, the process for players to synthesize BitLife is to "manufacture" new mining machines. BitLife entities are NFTs, and after minting on-chain, they need to be "charged" to start mining. The validity period for a single charge is 1 day, 3 days, and 7 days, and a small fee must be paid. After expiration, they need to be charged again.

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

Currently, the BitLife minting, which includes 3*3 Bitcells with 181 small squares of ), has stopped. Players have minted over 1.5 million such BitLives. New users can purchase and charge for mining in the secondary market. Limited issuance is to maintain the stability of the game ecosystem and prevent the devaluation of mining machines due to unlimited minting.

In the future, Cellula will introduce a role similar to that of mining machine manufacturers, based on a licensing system that requires staking tokens, public sales channels, and a certain community scale, etc. These manufacturers will be responsible for minting and selling BitLife, which contains 4x4 BitCells and 144 small squares. The amount of BitLife that manufacturers can mint is limited by the number of tokens they stake.

vPOW is essentially a computational model based on given rules, where participants can engage in competition through optimization strategies, gamifying asset issuance and distribution. Cellula simulates the operational form of the Bitcoin mining machine market, replacing the computational tasks in proof of work. Due to the dynamically adjustable way of allocating mining power, any mode of BitLife may not be globally optimal, which can lead to complex emergent phenomena and dynamic strategies.

Analysoor Lottery Algorithm and VRGDAs Index Pricing Curve

The charging lottery segment of Cellula uses the Analysoor random number output algorithm, taking the block hash as the input parameter for the random number generator, drawing the winners among the participants in each block who are charging, and introducing a lottery system.

For example, the current block hash of the BNB Chain is a string "6mjv...." which contains the numbers 6, 2, and 1. Based on the order of these numbers in the string, the first number is 6, and the last one is also 6( even number ), which will be counted from front to back. The extracted numbers are counted starting from 0, and the number 6 corresponds to transaction order 7, meaning that the 7th player to top up from the current block will be the winner. This random lottery algorithm can effectively incentivize players to top up more, enhancing the activity level of the game ecosystem.

To prevent the randomness of the game from being affected by a large number of follow-the-trend mints of a certain mode BitLife, Cellula has introduced a variable rate progressive Dutch auction ( VRGDAs ). This is a pricing algorithm developed by Paradigm, which dynamically adjusts the price: raising the price when the minting volume exceeds expectations and lowering the price when it falls short of expectations.

For example, the initial expectation was to mint 10 Class A NFTs daily, with a starting price of 1 CKB. On the 5th day, the original plan was to mint 50, but the actual number reached 70. To limit the speed, the minting price was quickly raised to 4 CKB through an exponential pricing curve to suppress minting behavior. If by the 15th day only 120 ( were minted instead of the planned 150 ), which did not meet the expected sales, the price would be lowered to stimulate minting.

When a certain type of BitLife is minted in large quantities within a short period, the minting price of that type of NFT will increase exponentially, effectively preventing scientists.

Summary: Viewing Cellula from the Perspective of Player Game Theory

In vPOW, different participants have varying strategies. Taking the first-level issuance market as an example, "scientists" can programmatically combine different BitCells to find high-computing-power BitLives for greater mining profits. At the same time, MEV players listen to on-chain minting events and follow suit by minting a large number when they discover that NB scientists are minting a certain type of BitLife.

However, the VRGDA index pricing algorithm allows the minting price of a single type of BitLife to grow exponentially, effectively preventing scientists ( from anti-witch ). This also affects BitLife/miner pricing: the minting/production price of high-performance miners will also be very high, thereby influencing secondary market prices and transmitting to the entire supply chain.

Similar to the issuance process of Bitcoin mining machines, scientists found that high-performance BitLife is similar to mining machine companies developing new chips, MEV players followed the trend to mint similar to primary distributors completing mining machine pricing, and subsequent secondary market transactions are similar to retail investors purchasing equipment from distributors.

The difference lies in the fact that, compared to the research and development of real mining machines, scientists have found that the new BitLife operates at a faster speed, and everyone can participate in the BitLife state simulation. This significantly lowers the threshold for mining machine R&D, making it "accessible for everyone to be a scientist," which is a situation that could not occur in the production chain of real mining machines.

For project parties, adopting a POW-based asset issuance scheme inherently weakens their power. Therefore, whether it is scientists, project parties, or ordinary players, none can unilaterally control the market. A tripartite game forms during the mining machine casting and issuance stages, and no party can completely monopolize the market, allowing for a dynamic balance.

Overall, compared to the Bitcoin mining machine industry chain, Cellula's solution is a more interesting social experiment.