Many layer-2 projects tackling common issues faced by Ethereum, providing secure, quick , and low-cost network confirmations. Among these layer-2 scaling solutions is Immutable X. Harnessing Ethereum’s features, Immutable X offers seamless trading of NFTs, giving users fast transactions and massive scalability in creating their own NFTs. This guide will shed more light on what Immutable X is and everything you need to know about it in 2024.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
► Immutable X is a layer-2 blockchain solution designed to address scalability and high gas fees for NFTs on Ethereum.
► It uses zk-rollup technology developed by StarkWare to provide secure and fast trading, minting, and transferring of NFTs without compromising Ethereum’s security.
► Immutable X features a gas-free NFT marketplace with a shared order book, improving liquidity and allowing trading across different platforms.
► The platform has its own utility token, IMX, which is used for network rewards, staking, governance, and covering transaction fees.
What is Immutable X?
Immutable X is a layer-2 blockchain that solves the issue of scalability for NFTs on Ethereum. It allows users to build and manage NFT projects on a secure platform at zero transaction costs. It also offers quick trade confirmations, zero gas fees, and large scalability for games, applications, and marketplaces without compromising security.
The network can process over 9,000 transactions and mints per second using zero-knowledge proof technology. This surpasses the scale required by mainstream NFT projects. In addition, Immutable X seeks to ease the process of trading, minting, and sending NFTs and ERC-20s.
According to the official website, the network has minted over 50 million NFTs and facilities without compromising Ethereum security or requiring extra gas fees.
Aside from creating a layer-2 solution for NFTs on the Ethereum Blockchain, Immutable X also offers a complete carbon-neutral NFT marketplace, offsetting its carbon footprint.
In other words, the L2 solution conserves energy and ensures there is no energy waste while creating and trading NFTs. Immutable X achieve this via a partnership with renowned climate-conscious companies, Trace and Cool Effect.
Immutable X is also the Gods Unchained game. Other notable partners of the L2 include Naspers, Apex Capital, Coinbase, Galaxy Digital, and Starkware, which it borrows technology from.
How Immutable X started
Immutable was initially known as Fuel Games. It is an Australian blockchain gaming company based in Surry Hills, New South Wales. Immutable was started in 2018 by James Ferguson, Robbie Ferguson, and Alex Connolly.
Initiated from a partnership between StarkWare and Immutable, Immutable provides a blockchain infrastructure that transfers NFTs ownership in the video-gaming industry. It allows users to build and trade ERC-721 and ERC-20 tokens at zero fees without disrupting the security of their assets.
How does Immutable X work?
Immutable X integrates NFT-based exchange with the ZK rollup technology created by StarkWare to develop a solution gateway for trading NFTs.
ZK rollup
The core technology behind Immutable X is the zk-rollup scaling engine. It was designed in partnership with StarkWare using their StarkEx prover and verifier. First, let’s explain the meaning of rollups and what they mean in general.
Rollup, as the name implies, bundles up multiple transactions into one big batch and produces a “proof” for that batch. Instead of each transaction, this proof is then deployed on the main network. Rollups are one of the most effective scaling technologies for Ethereum.
In Immutable X’s case, these proofs are Stark proofs. They solve the challenges of snark-roll ups, and they are huge and cost more to publish on-chain: making them more suitable for user security.
Immutable X employs a zero-knowledge (ZK) rollup. It does this by handling several off-chain transactions, provides a “validity proof” — a proof that users who owned the assets approved the trades, and then validates that proof on-chain, where a smart contract confirms it.
During this operation, the smart contract holds the assets and only releases them after producing a valid proof.
One of the main advantages of ZK-rollups is that blocks are validated faster because less data is involved. Furthermore, with ZK-rollups, moving transactions from layer-2 to layer-1 becomes easy because a validity proof generated and approved by the ZK-rollup contract has already confirmed the trades.
API abstraction layer
Immutable X eases the process of designing NFT projects for developers by creating its scaling method on an API that conforms to the design principles of the REST — representational state transfer architectural style.
This architectural style allows for simple API calls, from minting and transacting to transferring. Among other benefits, this style offers an easy conversion of complex asynchronous blockchain interactions into synchronous REST API calls. As a result, new gaming and content projects can instantly deploy their projects without direct interaction with smart contracts.
NFT-enabled wallets
Unlike layer-2 scaling solutions, Immutable X works with all desktop Ethereum wallets without the need for users to switch networks.
The platform offers a transitional layer, often known as “the Link,” which improves the overall experience on NFT-based wallets. Immutable X Link allows users to transact in a safe environment while supporting a third-party marketplace ecosystem.
Immutable X features
As an application-specific layer-2, Immutable naturally comes with some unique features out of the box. Here is a brief overview.
Scalability and security
Immutable X offers the same security as the Ethereum blockchain. In partnership with Starkware, the platform boosts the overall network’s privacy and scalability.
The platform carries out a massive batch of transactions off-chain with users signing for the fast process, which is then put on the main network in one stark proof that compresses the trades at zero costs to the user.
Immutable X also eliminates economic constraints and prevents users from paying gas fees for minting or exchanging assets.
Liquidity and order book
Immutable X offers a shared order book to improve protocol liquidity, as opposed to other NFT scaling solutions. Users can create orders on one marketplace and fill them on another, boosting the marketplace functionalities and price discovery. This also eases the process of building NFT marketplaces on Immutable X, as users can build without a backend.
The platform believes the best way to improve liquidity of NFTs is giving room for diversity. By allowing NFTs to be traded on various marketplaces, targeting different users, there would be a huge increase in liquidity.
Minting
Immutable X also features high minting performance. Users can fast-track their product with Immutable X Mint. It also offers a secure way to create and distribute assets on a large scale. Users can mint in bulk or bits with zero gas fees.
What makes Immutable X unique?
As mentioned earlier, being the first layer-2 solutions for NFTs on Ethereum, Immutable X focuses on NFTs and play-to-earn blockchain games, providing them with improved scalability and reducing the high gas fee.
Unlike other projects that compete with Ethereum, Immutable X leverages Ethereum’s features to provide enticing and advantageous features to NFT traders. This includes zero minting or peer-to-peer trades on the network.
Immutable X marketplace
The Immutable X Marketplace is a gas-free marketplace that offers a wide range of non-fungible products, including art, play-to-earn games, virtual worlds, trading cards, collectibles, and many more. It includes ERC-721 and ERC-20 token assets.
In addition, you can buy, sell, and browse through exclusive digital assets like Gods Unchained, Nifty Nuggets, Vyworlds, etc. The marketplace features hundreds of projects, from collectible games to digital art projects.
Creators can build their own items on the mainnet using the Immutable X minting tool. They can also use it to make a collection and NFTs for free without needing a single line of code. So, if you’re creating your own application for a game or some other products offering unique services on the blockchain, you can easily use Immutable X.
If you’re selling items on Immutable X, you can sell them for a fixed price for free. Additionally, users can trade NFTs on the marketplace without any risk, allowing for a transparent and trustless network.
Immutable X’s IMX token
The IMX token is an ERC-20 utility token primarily created to reward users’ activities on the Immutable X platform. These activities range from trading and liquidity provision to developing applications. In addition, the token is used as a reward between traders, gamers, artists, marketplaces, and other network transactions.
The IMX token has a total supply of 2 billion, with about 1.6 billion IMX in circulation. It’s currently trading at less than $2 and has an overall market cap of about $2 billion.
To learn more specifics about the price performance of Immutable X, check out BeInCrypto’s price prediction.
Tokenomics
IMX tokens are used in building applications, direct value exchange, and providing liquidity. More specifically, the IMX token draws fees and can be staked. Other token usages include staking rewards, voting on the future of the protocol, and covering trading fees across marketplaces.
Fees
The Immutable X platform charges a network fee, of which 20% goes to stakers. You can pay this fee in IMX, or the network can swap a token to pay the fee. This gives users an edge, and they do not need to hold IMX tokens to be able to participate in the network.
Also, there is no commitment or authorization to revenue of the Immutable X protocol solely based on token ownership.
Staking rewards
The IMX tokens network fees gathered from users are deposited to the “staking rewards pool.” Each month, this pool will be evenly distributed between all network participants who are actively locking up their IMX tokens on Immutable X.
These rewards are equivalent to the value IMX users have staked during the month relative to all other regular stakers. For your IMX to be considered staked, you must:
- Hold IMX on L1 or L2
- Have voted on a governance proposal in the last 30 day
- Hold an NFT on Immutable X or have completed a transaction last month.
Distribution and governance
Users holding IMX tokens will be able to vote on token-related subjects through decentralized governance. These subjects are proposals on token allocation, voting on developer grants, activating daily rewards, and possible changes in token supply.
Aside from token holders, the foundation also has the right to propose actions on voting. These proposals seek to improve the overall functionality of the ecosystem and enhance the voting process.
All decided votes will be executed accordingly. Protocol governance is done on the main network, with wallet balances sourced across both layer-1 and layer-2. Typically, the more tokens a user holds, the greater their voting power.
Token supply and allocation
There are currently 2 billion IMX tokens allocated to the following areas: projects, Sales, and Reserves. Notably, the team will not receive any tokens as compensation for their effort to develop the project. Below are the IMX token allocations.
- Ecosystem development: 51.74% — given for marketing, user rewards, developer grants, and liquidity provision
- Project development: 25% — given to improving the Immutable X network
- Private sale: 14.26% — allocated to private sale investors (institutional and individual)
- Public sale: 5% — also allocated to the IMX token public sale
- Foundation reserve: 4% — allocated to ecosystem-growth-related initiatives and liquidity provision for both centralized and decentralized exchanges
Roadmap
- Apr. 2021: Mainnet Launch, completion of the first blockchain development
- Sep. 2021: ICO
- Oct. 2021: Allows users to transfer ERC 20 and 721 tokens from L2 wallets to other L2 wallets from the Immutable X marketplace
- Dec. 2021: On-ramp and off-ramp L2 ETH and USDC to fiat. Users can exchange L2 ETH and L2 USDC directly for fiat. The fiat will be directly deposited into users’ bank accounts.
- Feb. 2022: GameStop and Immutable X partnership
- May 2022: NFT marketplace officially live on IMX!
- Mar. 2023: Announcement of partnership with Polygon for new zkEVM.
- Nov. 2023: Partnership with Ubisoft, a French video game publisher and developer.
- Jan. 2024: Immutable X zkEVM, a separate blockchain powered by Polygon, launched.
How to buy IMX token
IMX token is trading on over 40 cryptocurrency exchanges across about 81 trading pairs. The most popular IMX token pair is IMX/USDT on Binance. You can also trade IMX with several fiat currencies, including IDR, USD, EUR, and many stablecoins, such as USDT, BUSD, and USDC.
This section will show a detailed step-by-step guide on how to buy IMX on Binance.
- Open your Binance wallet and go to the market tab.
- Search “IMX” to see the multiple trading pairs. For this guide, we’ll use IMX/USDT as an example.
- Click on IMX/USDT and click buy. Enter the amount of IMX you want to purchase. And select order types. You can choose market order, limit order, or stop limit.
- Click “Buy IMX” to confirm, and the IMX coin will reflect on your Spot Wallet.
Is Immutable X a good investment?
Immutable X harnesses layer-2 scaling technology to give NFT enthusiasts the best experience while minting, trading, and gaming on the Ethereum blockchain.
Application-specific rollups that abstract away the complexities of a layer-1 always provide a better experience in specific areas. However, you should know that Immutable X is still in its early stages. It’s normal for such a project to promise numerous features. As such, do your own research.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered financial advice. All crypto investments carry a significant amount of risk.
Frequently asked questions
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