Eric Vander Wal is the brain behind Uprising, the first multichain native yield gaming blockchain. He brings a wealth of experience to Uprising, having worked at Nervos L1, Mantle, and Oasis L1.
In this Q&A session, Eric discusses his early career journey and motivation as he explores the inner workings of Uprising blockchain and the value it offers gamers and developers. And yes, the platform is gas-free!
Eric Vander Wal’s career journey and motivation
Hello Eric, please introduce yourself and tell us about your role at Uprising Labs.
Hello! I am a builder, husband, father, and Canadian. I started as a developer almost 25 years ago now, when connecting to the internet sounded like “beep-beep-beep… krrrshhhh… brrrrrrrrr… kchh-kchh-kchh…”. I spent most of the first decade-plus doing web development, working my way up the ladder. Later, I got burned out and went into indie game development. Like many people in the field, I quickly figured out how hard it is to make a living doing that. Using the skills I had learned, I took on game tools developer roles and worked in developer relations. Later, I moved into VR development when the Steam Vive came out. This was the last development job I worked on before moving into blockchain.
My first real taste of blockchain came through a core developer boot camp for the Polkadot ecosystem, but I took a director of developer relations role at Nervos L1 PoW UTXO chain. While I was at Nervos, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to launch my first L2 as the CEO and co-founder, along with my CTO and CIO. Even just a few years ago, the blockchain ecosystem was not nearly as mature as it is now. At that time, it took an entire engineering team and millions of dollars to get an L2 developed and running.
Together with Nervos, we launched the first production L2 EVM on top of a UTXO chain. It still stands as an incredible technical feat. However, Nervos’ focus has remained on building UTXO, while my focus has shifted towards EVMs.
After leaving Nervos, I joined Mantle as the Head of Product. This was pre-mainnet as they were shifting out of BitDao. Again, I was fortunate to leverage my experience of launching an EVM chain from scratch and building an ecosystem (and everything that comes with it).
After the launch of Mantle, I joined the team at Oasys L1 as the VP of Ecosystem. I have been with the Oasys team for around eight months! I like to joke that there is regular, start-up, and blockchain time. It just flies by so fast.
This brings us to Uprising. Uprising L2 is the first multichain native yield gaming blockchain with access to $800 billion in liquidity. Uprising shares sustainable rewards at the protocol level with players, offering a secure, gas-free, brand-safe environment. I am the CEO and founder of Uprising, and it will be the third L2 I have helped launch.
You have two medical degrees, a Doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine and a Master of Medicine. Why transition to blockchain development?
Like many others in crypto, my path to this position wasn’t direct. I started in professional development right after high school and continued throughout college and university. After finishing my second graduate degree, I just kept working in development because I greatly enjoyed it.
Also read: 30 Questions and Answers About Layer-2 Blockchain
A deep dive into Uprising blockchain
What is Uprising Labs?
Uprising Labs is the team and company behind the Uprising L2 Blockchain. We are dedicated to developing the ultimate gaming blockchain, integrating advanced technology with a strong and supportive ecosystem (with an eye on quality content first).
Please explain how a multichain native yield gaming blockchain differs from conventional blockchains like Solana or Arbitrum L2.
We are the first and only multichain native yield gaming blockchain, achieved through two key components working in tandem. Our gaming-focused platform is developed specifically for that purpose, and we leverage the benefits of native yield.
Regarding gaming focus, we’ve utilized a combination of Optimism’s OP stack and Avail’s new DA layer. OP, combined with Avail’s innovative DA layer, means the stack is affordable and economical on gas fees.
The second key aspect is the multichain native yield mechanism. This mechanism is revolutionary. While liquid staking has been around for a while on Ethereum, it has seen limited usage outside of some DeFi applications. For example, stETH from Lido cannot be used to pay for gas, buy NFTs, or perform other common functions. However, it provides a ‘receipt’ while earning a modest APY. Currently, Lido returns a 3.3% APY.
Multichain native yield chains solve the problem of earning APY through staking while remaining truly liquid. When bridging onto Uprising L2, your Oasys OAS tokens are staked into the Oasys L1 validators run by Sega, Bandai Namco, Ubisoft, Square Enix, and others. These L1 validators then return a 9% APY to the user, triple the rate of validator staking on Ethereum. We will also accept stablecoins that bear yield, and other yield methods will be considered in the future.
As part of the native yield mechanism, we mint a wrapped version of your staked token on Uprising. This wrapped token is treated as a native token that can be used for various purposes. In exchange for bridging your tokens to Uprising, we reward users with our own token. One of our core principles is to reward users for adding value to our ecosystem, whether through TVL, gameplay, or community participation.
We also believe in choice, so users can bridge or play without using the multichain native yield bridge.
Why did you choose Oasys Layer 1 EVM over other blockchains?
The Oasys team launched their first game, “My Crypto Heroes,” on Ethereum in 2018. While initially successful, it faced challenges during DeFi summer when gas fees spiked, making on-chain transactions prohibitively expensive for gaming. In response, the team reevaluated and designed an L1-L2 ecosystem to enhance blockchain gaming.
Originally based in Japan, the team has deep roots in the country’s gaming industry. Japan ranks as the third-largest gaming market globally, with the highest spend per person.
The network is secured by major gaming industry players such as Ubisoft, Sega, Square Enix, and Bandai Namco and telecommunication giants like Softbank, KDDI, NTT Docomo, and others.
The Oasys network stands out not only for being developed by blockchain natives with gaming experience and secured by industry leaders but also for its speed and stability at the base layer, along with its affordability in gas fees.
In the Oasys network, all gaming applications operate on L2s, while the L1 supports DeFi applications, bridging, and other supportive applications. This ensures that there is ample block space available for the L2s.
Lastly, the L1 is permissioned, significantly reducing the potential for bugs, fraud, or other malicious activities. This is crucial for supporting gaming, especially as blockchain gaming gains mainstream attention.
How is Uprising L2 capable of providing gas-free transactions? I assume gas plays a crucial role in incentivizing node operators.
We believe that taxing the end user, which may have made sense at one point as a way of funding L2 coffers, is a dying business model. Being gas-free is critical for the long-term success of blockchain gaming. Gas presents a barrier to onboarding new players, as they must first navigate through a bridge or centralized exchange (CEX). For non-crypto native players, this can be a significant hurdle. Their initial interaction should not involve the need to open their wallet.
At Uprising L2, we have abstracted away gas at the protocol level. Unlike some other chains, this means you don’t need to use special wallets, and developers don’t need to implement complex account abstraction solutions.
However, we (Uprising) must pay gas fees down to the Oasys L1, which secures our L2. One advantage of building on Oasys is the affordable gas fees. Additionally, we are building with Avail and utilizing their data availability (DA) layer, which further reduces gas costs.
Uprising pays these fees on behalf of the users and developers.
Take us through the economic model. How does Uprising L2 benefit gamers and its developers?
Economic models are inherently complex, so we have assembled one of the best economics and product teams.
The team includes Mike Wallis, who is the Director of Product Management at PlayStation Studios Live Services. Mike has decades of experience creating games, game economics, and overseeing live operations. Next, we have Dr. Joon Yoon, who holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford. His background includes game economics and data modeling, with experience on notable blockchain gaming projects. Additionally, I have contributed to the economic modeling and play system that we use at Uprising. While I don’t have the same game experience as Mike or Joon, I have launched two blockchain networks, providing first-hand experience in this area. We have been working with Simplicity, a token economics firm, for further expertise.
Beyond creating a sustainable token economy, our main goal is to share value with our players. All game platforms have symbiotic relationships with their players, and we recognize the need to include them in our successes. Players bring value to platforms like ours—whether by playing the games, creating content, sharing information about our ecosystem, or being part of an active and vibrant community.
To this end, Uprising players earn a combination of proof of play points along with Uprising’s native token. They can use these to claim further rewards in the ecosystem. We aim to reward players first and avoid value extraction by heavy speculators and botters, who may inflate numbers but ultimately result in a net negative for real players.
Unique features and partnerships
What are you most excited about the project?
I believe the correct answer is supposed to be something like “the technology,” but for me, it comes down to the excitement of building with people. I’m incredibly proud and excited to work with our assembled team. Moreover, we’ve been fortunate to have a vast network of builders and developers to collaborate with.
With major players like Optimism, Arbitrum, and other L2 technology providers, the technology needed to launch an L2 at the foundational level has become commoditized. And that’s perfectly fine. We can now select the technology that aligns with our mission and focus more on the community, content, and execution.
One of our early backers likened us to the “Nintendo Model.” Similar to Nintendo’s consoles, which often didn’t introduce new technology but focused on assembling and tweaking existing tech to their needs, we aim to work with partners and internally to create exceptional content.
Are there any partnerships you would like to mention?
We utilize the open-source OP stack and maintain a strong relationship with Optimism, which has supported blockchain gaming on its stack. However, our excitement extends beyond this base layer as we collaborate with Avail. Their roadmap has several exciting features, but two stand out for Uprising.
Firstly, the Avail DA layer enables us to maintain low internal gas fees and offer free gas to end users. This is a significant advantage for our platform.
Secondly, Avail is developing a product called Avail Nexus, a verification layer that unifies rollups utilizing Avail DA. Its independence from specific stacks (such as OP Superchain or Polygon Aggregation Layer) sets Nexus apart. We believe that each chain should leverage the technology that best suits its needs at the base layer while still being able to participate in cross-rollup interoperability. Nexus makes this possible and aligns with our vision for a flexible and interconnected blockchain ecosystem.
What new features and updates should gamers be excited about?
The ability to share value back to players on multiple levels is a crucial evolution for us. We are witnessing the emergence of new economic models involving game developers, publishers, and players, and we believe gamers should be excited about this development.
We have observed the model evolve from quarter arcades to home consoles, PC gaming, social gaming, mobile, VR, and blockchain-enabled gaming. Each of these transitions brought its value-sharing model (or lack thereof), not just changes in hardware.
Our goal is to share value with all players, regardless of their economic contribution, in terms of playtime, community involvement, growth, or other factors.
How do you see blockchain gaming evolving over the next five years?
Many in the community believe blockchain gaming will become popular through a massive hit game that breaks through to the mainstream. However, we subscribe to a slow-burn model where the collective volume of games will have a more significant impact. Not just one massive hit but a slow transition from indie devs to AA and AAA titles. We observed this shift with mobile gaming; in my humble opinion, AAAs don’t want to miss out this time. Mobile gaming has become dominated by numerous hypercasuals who are willing to take risks and adapt quickly.
There has also been a shift in blockchain technology during the bear market, which brought things like paymasters and social sign-in wallets to the forefront for easier onboarding. As account abstraction gets better and smart contract wallets evolve, this should also further make onboarding more accessible.
Following this general direction, blockchain-enabled gaming will become more common over time and integrated deeper and deeper with a subset of games. What will be interesting to see is if some major game launchers, such as Steam, relent on their policies and allow blockchain games. I suspect some major consoles may even allow stablecoin payments into console store wallets before Steam changes course.
All in all, I see a positive future for blockchain gaming. We just need to stick with it.
