Introduction
Call, Raise, Double, ALL IN... When players shout out words excitedly, a wonderful and dangerous Texas Hold'em game unfolds.
Nowadays, with the development of blockchain games, Texas Hold'em, which is easy to use, has strong gameability and a wide audience, has naturally become an important type of option, and a large number of homogeneous projects have been born. However, most of them are pseudo-blockchain games, and even the most basic fairness cannot be achieved. They just use the blockchain shell to embezzle user assets (commonly known as "eat customer losses"); a very small number of projects that apply blockchain ultimately fail to design a good economic model and fall into a death spiral.
AK Poker, the first on-chain Texas Hold'em game platform composed of professional Texas Hold'em enthusiasts, was born to provide a safe, fair and immersive online poker experience for enthusiasts around the world.
AK Poker solves the problems of lack of reliability, fairness and transparency currently faced by Web3 poker platforms through deep integration of account systems, on-chain transactions and settlements, and verifiable random shuffling. In addition, AK Poker pioneered a staking dividend mechanism, where players can become shareholders of the platform by staking the platform token AK and receive income dividends, thus achieving an organic combination of entertainment and income and helping players generate income.
It is no exaggeration to say that the emergence of AK Poker has completely subverted the traditional poker industry and the Web3 poker game track.
1. Texas Hold'em games are worth tens of billions of dollars, but online platforms have huge pain points
Texas Hold’em poker, whose full English name is Texas Hold’em poker, is the most popular card game in the world. It has hundreds of millions of fans, and there are many capital giants among its loyal players.
Thousands of tournaments are held around the world every year. Among them are several high-profile Texas Hold'em tournaments, which are famous for their high prize money, strict competition rules and high-level participants, such as the World Series of Poker (WSOP), World Poker Tour (WPT), Asia Pacific Poker Tour (APPT), Aussie Millions, EPT, and World Championship (WPT). The highest prize money for the WSOP tournament is over 10 million US dollars.
The high bonuses, unique gaming and entertainment also attract a large number of players. Especially during the epidemic, many players can no longer organize card games through offline clubs, which has led to the vigorous development of online games. According to the survey, among online Texas Hold'em games, more than 50 platforms have monthly revenues of more than 10 million RMB, among which the leading game "WSOP" even once reached 60 million RMB in revenue, which shows its strong ability to attract money. At present, the entire online Texas Hold'em market capacity has reached 10 billion US dollars and is growing rapidly.
Although online Texas Hold'em is developing rapidly, there are still some pain points that need to be addressed.
First, the interactive experience is not good. Players who have played online Texas Hold'em all have the same feeling that deposits and withdrawals are complicated and require multiple verifications. Sometimes foreign exchange transfers are required, which can take 2-3 working days. Withdrawals are even more troublesome, and users need to go through strict KYC on each poker platform. In the worse case, even after KYC, you cannot withdraw the assets you won in the game, or you need to pay a high handling fee. In short, you can only lose money, but you can't take away the winnings.
The second is the fairness of the platform's card dealing. Traditional offline card dealing is random, while online is controlled by code, which involves the issue of randomness. Many online players reported that they were often in the leading position and only lost one card (a low-probability event), but were often killed in the last card, such as when they had a "full" and the opponent had a "four of a kind". This kind of low-probability event often happens, which also makes players lose confidence in the platform, and it is difficult for the platform to prove its innocence.
These situations can be solved through blockchain technology, and AK Poker was born in this context.
The team members come from technology giants such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, Microsoft, Coinbase, and Binance. They share a common passion for Texas Hold'em and frequently participate in online and offline unlimited Texas Hold'em tournaments, with extensive experience. They want to use their professional background to bring some new changes to their favorite Texas Hold'em market, so that Texas Hold'em players can compete on a fair and just playing field.
To this end, they spent a huge amount of money to buy a two-word domain name: ak.com. The shorter the domain name, the more expensive it is. Texas Hold'em players all know that if you get the ak hole card at the beginning, the strong hand can make you fearless of any challenge and bravely complete the challenger's game. The high-end domain name ak.com also marks the team's determination to create an extraordinary Texas Hold'em game.
2. AK Poker creates a safe, transparent and fair on-chain Texas Poker platform
AK Poker is committed to providing a user-friendly and reliable online poker platform. It uses blockchain technology to provide a safe, fair and transparent online poker experience without having to change traditional gaming habits. This is mainly achieved in the following aspects.
The first is the integration of the Web3 account system. AK Poker uses decentralized identity authentication, allowing users to log in by connecting to a wallet. It currently supports the Ethereum mainnet and Arbitrum One. By accessing the blockchain address, players can make deposits and withdrawals, and all actions are completed on the chain. The platform's contract wallet cannot prevent any of your withdrawals. The speed of deposits and withdrawals depends entirely on the block processing speed. You don't have to worry about the game platform blocking KYC and not allowing withdrawals, nor do you have to worry about the transfer speed being too slow.
In this way, the user's funds and privacy are effectively protected - players can participate in the game without revealing their personal identity information. For users who value privacy protection, AK Poker provides a safe gaming environment where any user can safely participate in poker games without revealing personal identity information.
“While connecting a wallet to log in may seem daunting to non-Web3 users, we are committed to simplifying the process. By providing wallet creation assistance and clear guidance, we strive to lower the barrier to entry and ensure that every user can use it. In essence, our goal is to make it easy for users to start playing without trust,” AK Poker explained in the white paper.
Of course, considering that some users may need to "expose their identities", such as professional players or online game anchors, who want to connect with fans, AK Poker also supports binding emails, phone numbers, linking social media accounts, and even KYC certification. Users who voluntarily complete the certification and accept platform verification can obtain blue or gold labels to highlight their identity.
Second, it can verify random shuffling to prevent cheating. As mentioned above, all online poker platforms will face the problem of fairness in dealing cards. AK Poker also uses blockchain to deal with the problem of dealing and shuffling cards in the game, generating true random numbers that can be checked on the chain and cannot be tampered with. This not only solves users' doubts about the platform, but also solves the problem of how the platform can prove to users.
Specifically, AK Poker uses a trusted third-party random source to ensure a truly random shuffle process, and uses asymmetric encryption to ensure the secure transmission of card sequence data and the security of shuffling. In addition, using the anti-collision characteristics of the Hash function, the platform proactively discloses the hash value of each shuffle sequence in advance, reducing the risk of cheating and manipulation on the platform. Users can save the Hash in advance to independently verify the authenticity of the sequence, thereby achieving true fairness in the game.
(Random number shuffling flow chart)
In view of the fact that some bad platforms gamble with users to eat the losses of users, AK Poker made a commitment: "We do not gamble with players. Our platform is different from those platforms that use robots to gamble with users for profit. Unlike these practices, AK Poker positions itself as a fair referee rather than an active participant in the game."
In addition, to prevent other players from cheating in collusion, AK Poker has also taken a series of measures, in addition to standard practices such as GPS and IP tracking, card viewing delays and random seating, it also extends to real-time audio and video functions to provide an additional layer of security to prevent cheating strategies such as collusion.
Third, the smart contract audit is open source to improve information transparency. FTX's unauthorized misappropriation of assets in 2022 caused damage to the entire crypto industry and sounded the alarm for all practitioners. In view of this, AK Poker decided to separate business from fund management to ensure that malicious behavior is eliminated on the centralized business side and that funds are safe and controllable. In order to improve transparency and user trust, the core smart contract will be audited and open sourced by a third-party security company to ensure the openness and fairness of the platform. In addition, the official website provides basic operating data, including betting, settlement, commissions and dividends, so that users can obtain more complete information.
In addition to the above, AK Poker also provides players with a variety of gameplay in the platform, including Private Games, Lobby Mode, and Tournaments. For example, in private games, administrators can easily create games with customized settings, including chips, etc. In addition, AK Poker will also introduce popular special game options based on market demand and provide other gameplay, including Blitz Mode, Mushroom, and Squid Game. For specific game introductions, players can refer to the official website: https://docs.ak.com/special-modes
In addition, AK Poker has also put a lot of effort into social aspects. For example, it provides real-time audio and video functions, allowing players to chat while playing cards to promote social interaction. In addition, AK Poker has also developed web-based hand replays, which are spread on the official website in the form of forums. All users can watch, like, comment and share these replays.
There is a passage in the AK Poker white paper that explains the original intention of the project, "Winning user trust is the cornerstone of successfully operating an online Texas Hold'em platform. At AK Poker, our primary focus is to ensure fairness and security. AK Poker is committed to providing a safe and fair gaming environment for Texas Hold'em players around the world."
3. The first profit dividend, pledge AK to become a platform shareholder
In the traditional model, players not only have fun in the game but also bring valuable traffic and revenue to the platform, but all these benefits go into the pockets of the platform, and it is difficult for players to get a share of the profits.
AK Poker decided to change this unequal situation and truly share revenue and value with players. "We are committed to revolutionizing the Texas Hold'em experience and creating a global community of enthusiasts who contribute to platform governance, and all platform profits will go directly to stakeholders."
Specifically, AK Poker issued the platform's governance token AK Token, with a fixed total of 1 billion tokens - 800 million on Ethereum and another 200 million tokens bridged to Arbitrum One. After issuance, 700 million tokens will be directly locked in the contract, with an initial issuance of 300 million tokens, and the distribution ratio is as follows:
20%, 60 million tokens will be raised in the seed round;
13.3%, 40 million tokens will be freely redeemable on the official website;
13.3%, 40 million tokens will be used for team incentives;
33.3%, 100 million tokens will be used for project development, including R&D, operations, marketing, partnerships, and events;
20%, 60 million tokens will be managed by AK DAO for community governance.
According to the official website announcement, after deducting operating costs and AK Token repurchase and destruction, the platform's profits will be distributed 100% to shareholder users on a weekly basis. The weekly profit distribution will be carried out at 08:00 am every Monday.
For example, last week AK Poker's total revenue was 1 million USDT, of which 15% was used for operating costs (including servers, office equipment, and global employee salaries), 5% was used to repurchase AK Tokens in the secondary market for destruction, and the remaining 80%, or 800,000 USDT, was distributed to shareholders - 20% (or $160,000) will be used to purchase AK Tokens in the secondary market for dividend distribution, and each dividend distribution will be composed of a combination of USDT and AK Token. So, in the end, users will get 640,000 USDT + $160,000 in AK tokens. (Note: Regarding the data information part, after users join AK Poker as shareholders, they can unlock weekly profit sharing, income verification, and all game data through the dashboard.)
Through this repurchase and destruction method, the market price of AK can be continuously increased, and the confidence of coin holders can be enhanced. Users can "eat and get", just like Binance Launchpool empowers BNB.
So, how can you become an AK Poker shareholder? Users need to pledge at least 10,000 AK tokens on the AK Poker official website to become a platform shareholder and be eligible to participate in the profit sharing of the week. It should be noted that failure to maintain the pledge will result in the loss of shareholder status. For example, a user pledged 30,000 tokens on Monday, but redeemed 10,000 in the middle of the week. Even if the total pledged amount is still 20,000, he is still not eligible to share profits that week. This move is to ensure that the AK market price will not be maliciously smashed and protect the interests of more coin holders.
In order to promote the diversification of currency holding addresses and prevent whales from damaging the rights and interests of the vast majority of ordinary users and arbitrarily controlling the currency price, the platform also strictly limits the number of user transactions. Users must connect their email addresses to the website, and the AK team actively monitors on-chain activities to prevent token concentration.
In addition, in order to protect the safety of users' funds, all pledges are made on-chain and can be freely redeemed at any time. The platform will also open source the pledge contract, which will be audited by a blockchain security company and accessible to all users.
For more details about staking, please refer to the official website: https://ak.com/en-UK/project
Conclusion
Texas Hold'em blockchain game projects have gradually emerged in recent years. These projects usually combine blockchain technology and the gameplay of Texas Hold'em, aiming to achieve transparency and fairness of the game through smart contracts. At the same time, they also introduce a token economic system so that players can obtain actual benefits in the game.
Compared with other competing products, AK Poker stands out in fairness, transparency and security, and is the first to introduce a platform revenue dividend mechanism. All platform profits will directly belong to stakeholders, allowing players to truly enjoy the fruits of platform development.
As the first poker platform deeply integrated with Web3, AK Poker will dominate the blockchain game market in the future.