Wow. Much hype. Many fancy title.

I've played Minecraft since 1.3 days and have always dreamed of this iea.

Actually a fledgling project and more of an idea than concrete code right now, but here's what I'm thinking:

The main idea is to run a Minecraft server where the economy is pegged to cryptocurrency.

• Users should be able to earn minute amounts of cryptocurrency, somehow
• Users should be able to trade this currency in-game both player2player and player2server, for in-game perks or items
• Users should be able to both deposit and withdraw cryptocurrency

This is what I'm thinking:

• A premium currency is created in-game, whether it be virtual (a number) or "physical" (stored in blocks/items)
• An example of such an item might be emeralds -- whose spawn would then be disabled in wild + villager trade disabled, so the only way to get emeralds would be from the server / some process / trade
• Emeralds could be worth, say, 0.01 mBTC

Technical stuff

• Minecraft server, set up for some gamemode... Towny?
• Custom Minecraft plugin to keep track of users' balances
• Custom server to manage the wallet

I use a dedicated server for all my projects, so development will be free. Actual production server would have to be different, of course, but I'm willing to tank that cost indefinitely. It's not that bad.

More importantly, one major challenge is finding an income source to fund the money that the server will be giving away. I considered in-game marketing the players, but that goes against the Mojang EULA.

I'm thinking:

• A partnership with a gambling site that has an API? Possibly allow users to bet on the site while in-game or (with the help of the Minecraft plugin) make bets more fun. Income would then be collected either directly in a fixed payment from the site or a % commission.
• It might be possible, however impractical, to create a way for users to mine BTC to their in-game balance... but unsustainable and inconvenient, to say the least
• Donations or sponsorships? Possibly selling cosmetic perks / perks that won't affect a player's ability to make/earn BTC in-game

Another challenge is advertising, as there's no real point in going through all this effort to create something that people aren't going to play on or use. I think that simply saying you can earn money while playing it will attract a large playerbase, but I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Lastly, there's the issue of security and trust. Who's to say I won't just walk away without paying anybody? Or barring that, who's to say the system won't be hacked into somehow and the coins stolen?

To-do list

• Make this forum post to gague interest / gather thoughts
• Wallet-handling server
• Minecraft plugin to handle balances
• Other Minecraft server setup (really fast)
• Beta testing
• Release
• Achieve ultimate victory??

Just a big mess of thoughts. Would love to hear your takes on it.