With NFTs and blockchain-based games exploding online in 2020 and 2021, we’re seeing more projects emerge in this space. Immutable X is another project leading the way with its Layer 2 scaling solution for the Ethereum network.
The inflated gas fees on the ETH network mean increases in transaction costs, making on-chain game development unprofitable for many firms. This was a serious issue requiring an immediate solution. Fortunately, talented people are working on it.
Immutable X offers a zero-gas Layer 2 solution for NFTs. It’s an open-source ‘ZK Rollup’ protocol built to facilitate a gas-free ecosystem for NFT transactions. Immutable X allows users to build decentralized apps like marketplaces and games.
This guide looks at how and where to the buy the Immutable X token (IMX) and then we take deep dive into the project itself to see if it’s worth investing your money in.
Where to Immutable X IMX
This section is our top picks of where and how to buy the Immutable X IMX Crypto token. We chose these based on our experience of using them and considered fees, security, payment options and reputation.
- Uphold: Great Exchange for Newbies & Advanced Users
- Binance: Largest Crypto Exchange with Low Fees
- Coinbase: Highly Regarded and Easy to Use for Beginners
- Kraken: Highly Regarded and Easy to Use for Beginners
Visit The Top Pick
Uphold: Great For Buying & Selling Multiple Cryptos
Uphold is a comprehensive digital financial services platform catering to a worldwide audience, operating in over 184 countries and supporting over 200 traditional and cryptocurrency assets as well as commodities. Through seamless foreign exchange and cross-border remittance solutions, Uphold has facilitated over US$4 billion in transactions since its inception in 2015.
As a multi-asset platform, Uphold offers a distinct "Anything-to-Anything" trading experience, allowing users to effortlessly exchange between various asset classes. With integrated payment solutions, Uphold paves the way for universal access to financial services.
Founded on a robust framework of proprietary technologies and e-money applications, Uphold is dedicated to promoting a future where individuals and businesses globally can benefit from secure, transparent, equitable, and cost-effective financial services.
Pros
- 50+ Cryptocurrencies
- Easy to Use - Single Click Trading
- iOS & Android App
- Transparent Fees
- Well Regulated
Cons
- No Volume Discounts
Binance: Largest Crypto Exchange
Binance is the biggest cryptocurrency exchange in terms of daily trade volumes. Cryptocurrency investors can enjoy full access to trade over 600 crypto assets, including big movers like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and most of the top cryptos. With a minimum deposit of $10, investors can instantly start investing their crypto of choice.
Besides its large inventory of crypto assets, Binance also offers the lowest trade fees in the market. Binance charges 0.1% on all trades, and there’s an option for this figure to be further discounted by 25% for investors who hold Binance Coin – the exchange’s native token.
Funding your Binance account is seamless and straightforward. The exchange supports several deposit channels, including bank wire transfers, peer-to-peer (P2P) payments, credit/debit cards, and payment processors.
However, unlike eToro – deposits are not always free. For instance, Binance charges customers a standard fee of up to 4.50% on all crypto purchases made with debit/credit cards. Crypto deposits, on the other hand, are free.
This popular crypto exchange features a detailed learning curve and advanced trading tools, making it more suited for well-experienced traders and not beginners.
In terms of security, Binance offers the best security integrations. This broker features two-factor authentication (2FA), whitelisting, and advanced data encryption to protect customer funds and data. Also, Binance utilizes cold storage to store a vast majority of its funds, and the exchange also operates an insurance fund that protects customers in the event of an attack.
Pros
- Lowest trading fees in the market
- High liquidity on most cryptos
- Advanced trading tools
- Large crypto inventory
- Wide range of deposit channels
Cons
- Not beginner-friendly
Coinbase: Simple & Easy for Beginners
Coinbase is another great alternative best suited for newbie investors keen to learn how to buy this crypto. This platform is known for its reputation and simplified trading features.
The US-based platform allows investors to purchase, trade, and stake over 10,000 supported blockchain-based assets. To begin investing, investors must first register an account, which takes around 10 minutes. Coinbase allows users to invest a minimum investment of $2, which is one of the lowest prices in the crypto industry.
This exchange also integrates seamless deposit channels, like wire transfer, crypto deposits, debit/credit card, and e-wallet solutions, as well as fiat currencies like USD, GBP, and EUR available for cash out. Coinbase charges a standard fee of up to 3.99% for all debit card crypto purchases. However, investors enjoy 4% cash back bonuses whenever a Coinbase debit card is used to purchase crypto assets.
In terms of trading fees, users are charged between 0.5% and 4.5%, depending on the selected payment method, type of cryptocurrency, and total transaction amount.
One of the standout features that distinguishes Coinbase from other brokers is its versatility in terms of services and products offered to retail and institutional investors, ranging from exchange-based wallet and cashback visa cards, staking passive income, and asset hubs.
For security, the US-based exchange integrates 2FA verification as an added security layer to investors’ usernames and passwords, crime insurance that secures digital assets from theft and fraud, and many more. Coinbase is also licensed and regulated by top financial agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), New York State Department of Financial Services (NYSDFS), and Financial Crimes and Enforcement Network (FinCEN),
Pros
- Simplifies trading tools, perfect for beginners
- Wide selection of crypto assets
- Lowest minimum deposit in the industry
- Offers Coinbase debit card with 4% cashback bonuses
Cons
- High fees (and usually, a complex and unclear fee structure)
Kraken: A Leading & Well Regarded Exchange
Kraken is one of the longest established exchanges with an excellent reputation for security and integrity.
Started back in 2011 they have built a great reputation among traders and beginners alike and offer high liquidity and lots of different cryptocurrency listings.
Kraken is trusted by some of the largest institutions and traders around the world and can handle high volume trading with ease.
They have lots of coin pairs to trade and also offer withdrawals back to fiat in your currency of choice.
We have no hesitation in recommending Kraken for your trading needs.
Pros
- High Liquidity
- Great Reputation
- Well Established
- Easy to Use
- Fiat Options
Cons
- The KYC process can take a little while
What is Immutable X?
Immutable X is a solution to scale games with the leading Layer 2 for NFTs that’s fully secured by the Ethereum blockchain.
Immutable X facilitates up to 9,000 TPS while leveraging the network effect and security of Ethereum. Immutable X is easy to scale, offering a simple trading platform integrating four architectural components.
StarkEx ZK Rollup Technology is StarkWare’s proprietary tech designed to utilize ZK-STARK instead of ZK-SNARK. The APIs and SDKs are a suite of partner-focused tools enabling simple development and onboarding with its protocol.
The Immutable X Link is the trustless intermediate layer, and the Immutable X Marketplace is the default trading platform. This post unpacks everything you need to know about Immutable X. We’ll discuss the platform and its native token, IMX, in detail.
The Immutable X Management Team
Immutable X is the result of a partnership between blockchain gaming giants, StarkWare and Immutable.
Previously called ‘Fuel Games,’ Immutable X is an Australian blockchain gaming startup founded by James Ferguson, Robbie Ferguson, and Alex Connolly in 2018. Fuel Games’ biggest success was with the title ‘Gods Unchained.’
StarkWare Industries is an Israeli-based blockchain-scaling company founded by Eli Ben-Sasson, Michael Riabzev, and Uri Kolodny in 2018.
The Immutable X (IMX) Token
The native IMX token on Immutable X is an ERC-20 utility token that rewards network activities like liquidity provision, trading, and app development on the platform.
The IMX token matches incentives between creators, traders, and marketplaces while ensuring protocol activity benefits players.
Digital Worlds Ltd. NFTS, otherwise known as ‘The Foundation,’ teamed up with Immutable to assist with distributing IMX tokens on the Immutable X protocol. Both entities play distinct roles in the project.
Digital Worlds functions as the token issuer, tasked with managing the protocol and the IMX token. Immutable acts as the exclusive provider in the IMX protocol and token development.
No Immutable employee, director, or Foundation director will receive any tokens as remuneration for services or project involvement, reducing the chances of rug pulls and LP scams.
IMX Token Allocation
Immutable X initially planned a launch supply of 20 million, changing it to a max issuance of 2 billion in October 2021. Immutable X management split the allocation into four categories.
Ecosystem Development
Approximately 51.74% of the total supply goes to the development of the Immutable X ecosystem. These IMX tokens reward network participants while incentivizing third-party devs to implement the protocol in their projects. The protocol distributes IMX Tokens through two primary initiatives.
Daily Activity Rewards
Those users engaging in positive protocol activities like minting, trading, and asset deposits accumulate points used to calculate their percentage share of all Immutable X network activity. The IMX daily rewards pool allocates to users every 24 hours.
It bases distribution proportionally based on total points earned. To ensure the alignment of rewards and usage with those of long-term protocol users, 66.6% of the daily distribution of token rewards are subject to six-month linear unlocking protocols.
Project Development
Approximately 25% of the total token supply goes to project development. Immutable is responsible for protocol development.
While no founder or team member receives direct payment in IMX, these tokens can be sold to generate funds to accelerate project development.
Developer IMX Grants
IMX Developer Grants are special offers to third parties looking to work on the Immutable X platform. Immutable X works with the new project and sets milestones to ensure the new developers add value to the Immutable X ecosystem.
The Foundation directly allocates these funds for dev grants. However, others receive allocation through decentralized governance on the protocol.
IMX Sales
Approximately 19.26% of token issuance goes to a reserve held for public and private token sales to investors. The protocol splits the 19.26% into 14.26% for private sales and 5% for public sales.
Any tokens sold in private sales are locked up for 2.5 years, with the vesting frequency being every 28 days after the first year’s lockup.
All tokens sold in public sales are locked for three months, with vesting frequencies of 28 days starting from token launch.
Foundation Reserve
The ‘Foundation Reserve’ receives a 4% allocation from the daily distribution of IMX. These tokens fund ecosystem development while providing liquidity for decentralized and centralized crypto exchanges.
IMX Circulation Schedule
According to management, the IMX token will reach full supply and circulation 54 months after launch. The circulating supply of the IMX token will incentivize long-term sustainability and the ecosystem’s growth.
IMX Utility
The IMX token offers users three forms of functionality. You can earn income from trading fees, staking, and decentralized governance.
Trading Fees
The Immutable X protocol offers zero gas fees to users. However, it collects a 2% fee of the value of all trades processed on its protocol. Approximately 20% of protocol fees require settlement in IMX tokens.
Users can pay this fee directly using IMX tokens, or they have the option of Immutable automatically swapping their purchase currency (e.g., Ethereum) for IMX tokens on the open market.
As a result, users don’t have to hold IMX tokens directly to transact on the Immutable X protocol.
IMX Staking
All IMX tokens collected from transaction fees go to an IMX staking rewards pool. The protocol proportionately distributes all staking rewards to users staking IMX tokens. You’ll need to complete the following to stake your IMX on the protocol.
- Hold IMX tokens on L1 or L2.
- Voted on governance proposals in the last 30 days.
- Hold an NFT on Immutable X or complete an NFT trade in the previous 30 days.
These staking criteria ensure holders are actively participating in the Immutable X protocol.
Decentralized IMX Governance
IMX token holders receive voting rights they can execute in governance proposals on the Immutable X protocol and ecosystem.
These proposals cover matters such as voting on dev grants, allocating IMX token reserves, changes in token supply and activating daily rewards for users.
The number of tokens the user holds determines their influence in governance decisions on the Immutable X platform.
IMX Play-to-Earn (P2E) Program
To reward its early adopters, Immutable X issued 50 million IMX tokens to participants fulfilling eligibility criteria for its revolutionary ‘Play-to-Earn’ (P2E) program.
Specifically, the rewards went to the players of the Immutable NFT Trading-Card game, ‘Gods Unchained.’ Users can claim these tokens on the platform page of the Immutable X website.
Partnerships
Some of the earliest NFT collections and gaming projects released on the Immutable X platform include titles like ‘Moody Krows,’ ‘Gods Unchained,’ ‘AstroBros,’ and ‘Landloot.’ Commercial entities like Stardust and TikTok also expressed interest in the Immutable X protocol.
Thanks to its flexible SDK and API set, the Immutable X protocol easily integrates into existing commercial platforms.
As social media giants like Meta start to eye the Metaverse, the Immutable X protocol offers plenty of utility and investment upside to these forms.
Some experts argue that the Immutable X protocol could be what these companies are looking for to assist with implementing their metaverse vision.
StarkEx ZK Rollup Tech
One of the most interesting aspects of Immutable X is its utilization of ZK Rollup tech as a Layer 2 Ethereum scaling solution for the Ethereum network. This system utilizes ZK-STARK tech to provide proof instead of the previously relied upon ZK-SNARK.
The definition of ZK Rollup tech (Zero-Knowledge Rollup) is a Layer 2 solution bundling hundreds of transactions, separating them by smart contract issuance to verify transactions.
IMX Link
The Immutable X ‘Link’ is a trustless intermediate layer acting as the medium between Ethereum wallets and the Immutable X protocol.
As a result, users don’t have to switch networks to use the Immutable X protocol, allowing Immutable X to leverage the security of the Ethereum network.
The Immutable X ‘Link’ plays a pivotal role in two parts of the Immutable X protocol: the NFT wallet and asset trading.
Asset Trading
When users want to trade on the Immutable X protocol, they must use a STARK keypair to sign transactions.
The Link generates the key pair when users sign a security message while using an Immutable X-enabled website or dApp to connect to their Ethereum wallet.
Even if the user loses the STARK keypair, they can re-generate a new one with a fresh Ethereum signature. This protocol ‘delegates’ the wallet security and recovery to the underlying Ethereum wallet.
As a result, users must use this STARK keypair to sign transactions inside Link, with transaction types determining the encoding of each user signature.
The Immutable X Marketplace
The Immutable X Marketplace provides users with a base for trading their NFTs on the Immutable X protocol. It helps to ensure devs and users have a place to trade.
The Immutable X Marketplace lowers barriers to entry for new content creators. Devs who can’t build a marketplace platform can leverage the Immutable X marketplace.
The Marketplace lets users check data like previous transactions and their trade history, similar to what you get with most other Layer 1 marketplaces.
However, the built-in shared liquidity system and global order book allow third-party marketplace developers to avoid the stress of worrying about displacement in marketplace trading volume.
So, all orders placed on one Marketplace will be filled on another, slowing effective and efficient bootstrapping and optimal price discovery for digital assets.
It also means that the Immutable X protocol can assist devs with NFT marketplace development without requiring a backend.
Immutable has the vision of allowing NFT trading on several platforms catering to different customer personas, allowing it to increase marketplace liquidity.
The Immutable X Marketplace supports ERC-1155 and ERC-721 tokens, giving users more flexibility and choice in managing NFT assets. The Immutable X platform also allows for the minting of digital assets.
It provides the utility of allowing users to create and distribute their NFTs at scale, whether they choose to mint a single or a huge batch.
Regardless of the order size, the platform can fulfill the requirement, immediately listing them for sale on the Marketplace.
How to Buy IMX on Uphold
Looking to buy IMX? Get started on Uphold within minutes:
Step 1: Sign Up to Uphold
Visit Uphold and hit the "Signup" button at the top right of the website.
Once the account is created, Uphold requires that users enter their personal information, including legal name and date of birth, as shown on their government documents. They’ll also need to enter their home address information and verify their phone number to finalize the process. This is a basic verification process
Step 2: Fund Your Account
Uphold offers fee-free deposits to its customers. They can deposit funds into their Uphold wallet using cryptocurrencies, debit cards, bank wire transfers, and crypto deposits. New users need additional verification to use the debit card or wire transfer options.
In the sidebar, click the "Linked Accounts" link and choose to add a card or a bank.
Enter your card or bank details.
Step 3: Buy Your Chosen Crypto
Now search for your chosen crypto to purchase, you can choose a currency to pay with, the amount and the crypto you wish to purchase.
After selecting the trading pair, click on the “preview trade” option and it will show you the trade and fees, finally click "confirm trade" to make the purchase.
Immutable X NFT Wallet
The Immutable X Link provides an intermediary conduit between Immutable X and the user’s Ethereum wallet.
As a result, the user gets an NFT-focused wallet experience and interface on the Immutable X platform without the need to create a new wallet.
This framework allows Immutable X to support a third-party marketplace ecosystem. At the same time, it presents no security risk to users or the ecosystem.
The Immutable X Link allows users to verify digital assets to prevent fraudulent transactions in their asset purchases.
In Closing
Immutable X is one of the most impressive Layer 2 scaling solutions for the Ethereum network. By helping users avoid huge ETH gas fees during their NFT transactions, Immutable X is adding real value to the NFT ecosystem.
However, the rollout of Ethereum’s consensus layer in 2022 or early 2023 may severely impact the utility and need for these scaling solutions.
However, it’s all speculation now, and the current investment environment around Immutable X and its IMX token seems favorable.
It’s also important to note that Immutable X isn’t the only scaling solution project in town. The update to Ethereum could end up impacting all the projects involved in the scaling space.
However, if you’re involved in the blockchain gaming space, these scaling solutions can significantly affect gas fees. The Immutable X platform has plenty to offer the ‘Play-to-Earn’ gaming industry in coming years, regardless of the ETH consensus rollout.
It’s worth considering allocating a portion of your portfolio to IMX, especially if you’re passionate about the blockchain gaming space.
