Overview
Ikigai Technologies is a software company that builds consumer apps and public code, from an NFT auction marketplace to a game studio1. Collectors can use its NFT auction marketplace, while developers can read the public code behind its auction and minting tools2. The name comes from ikigai, a Japanese idea about finding purpose where passion and vocation meet1.
Ikigai Technologies says its work is funded through Project Catalyst, Cardano's community-voted grant program3. Its team mixes smart contract engineers, who write programs that run on the blockchain, software engineers, and operations engineers with game roles such as an audio engineer and a 3D artist4. It builds with outside firms too, including MLabs, a Cardano engineering consultancy5.
Key Features
- NFT auctions that run on the blockchain. Grabbit, the company's NFT marketplace3, runs live auctions next to buy-now listings, lets creators mint new NFTs, and can limit an auction to holders of a community's own tokens6.
- Bids that don't block each other. Grabbit's smart contracts, the self-running programs that hold bids, give each bidder a separate escrow, so many people can bid at once without blocking each other. The code is published under the Apache-2.0 license7.
- A web tool for NFT collections. Mintun is a web tool for creating and managing token collections under CIP-68, a Cardano standard for storing NFT details on-chain. Its contracts are written in Aiken, a Cardano smart contract language8.
- Contracts for launching a new token. The Discovery contracts, built with Anastasia Labs, a Cardano smart contract development and audit firm, run price discovery events, a sale format that lets the market settle a new token's launch price. The repository includes an audit report written by EMURGO Diligence9.
- A Hydra auction app and developer kit. With MLabs, Ikigai Technologies won Catalyst funding to turn a Hydra auction prototype into a mainnet-ready app and a reusable developer kit. Hydra is a Cardano add-on that processes transactions off the main chain, and Catalyst marks this project complete5.
What to Expect
The company site works as a portfolio. It has a solutions page listing featured projects, plus a list of Catalyst proposals3,10. Visitors who want to see what Ikigai Technologies pitches will find ideas such as a Shopify plugin that gives NFT holders store discounts and open-source wallet linking for Steam games10.
Gamers will find GENUN Games, a game studio that Ikigai Technologies lists among its own projects1. Its game Ascent: Rivals is a combat racer on Steam where players race, shoot, and upgrade their ships11.
Developers get the most from the company's GitHub organization2. Next to the auction and minting code sits Logosphere, a framework that takes a description of an app's business data and generates the code to store, query, and share it. Records go into a knowledge graph, a database that links facts to each other, built on Fluree DB12.
For teams looking for a Cardano development partner, that portfolio shows the range: NFT marketplaces, minting tools, token-launch contracts, and games. Much of the code is public, so it can be inspected before getting in touch.
