Why ARCADE
Why it exists
ARCADE exists so that using a blockchain app doesn't mean trusting the company that runs it.
Our mission
To build a world that no single company owns and no single machine can switch off.
Play first
What you earn by playing is yours, on chain. No node ever holds your keys or your coins.
Run honest code
Screen your own content, and support the nodes around you.
Many nodes, one world
Every node gives and receives. As long as one node runs, the world stays open.
The problems it answers
Most blockchain apps put a company's server between you and the chain. That server holds your account, often your keys, the order book and the app itself. When it's hacked, sold or switched off, your access goes with it. Small coin communities have lived through this: marketplaces that vanished, and collections drained from a hosted service.
Custody by default
Hosted wallets and exchanges hold keys for convenience. ARCADE seals keys in the browser and settles trades by transactions both people sign.
Small chains lack infrastructure
Smaller coins have few explorers, indexers or wallets, because a full node and an index are too heavy for most people. ARCADE lets one operator run a chain and lend it to many others.
Identity tied to a site
A username on a hosted service is a row in its database. ARCADE writes names to a chain, so any arcade can find them and none can take them away.
What the name means
| Word | What it means |
|---|---|
| Adaptive | The network adjusts as nodes come and go, and each arcade runs what its computer can. |
| Reciprocating | Every node gives and receives: sharing work, chain data and players with the others. |
| Chain-linked | Everything that matters is tied to public blockchains. |
| Auxiliary | Separate chains can be bound together by merge mining (auxiliary proof of work), so one stream of honest work strengthens them all; and each arcade can lean on the others. |
| Distributed Ecosystem | Many nodes, many faces, one world. No single one is in charge. |
Eight design principles
These rules run through the code. When a feature breaks one, the code marks the exception, and so do the white papers.
- Keys stay with the user. A wallet is generated and sealed in the browser. The arcade stores only the sealed copy and signs nothing for you unless you hand it a limited authority for one capped order.
- The chain is the database. Names, messages, posts, tokens and inscriptions are transactions. An arcade's own databases are caches that can be rebuilt from the chains.
- Two-party settlement. A trade is one transaction both sides sign, or a pair of hash-locked contracts that either both pay or both refund. Anything custodial is opt-in, labelled and mostly capped.
- Borrow, then check. An arcade without a chain borrows it from a peer and checks what it can, such as proof of work and headers, instead of taking answers on trust.
- Cheap identity on a test chain. Names, messages and the network's own records ride Pepecoin's test network, so social actions cost a fraction of a coin with no market value.
- Unmodified nodes, no root. Coin software runs as its projects publish it, with signatures checked at install. The arcade runs as an ordinary user service.
- Operators are sovereign. Each operator chooses chains, fees, limits, models and look. The rules that protect players are fixed in code.
- Any arcade can start the next. Each arcade serves its own program and index to new arcades, so the network doesn't depend on one website.