We're preparing to launch zkGame DAO on the SNS!

Community SNS Project Governance
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**Update: We’ve announced our proposal on the SNS and this discussion has been moved to the appropriate section.: Introduction to zkGame DAO - #10

Hello everyone, we’re excited to inform you all that we are preparing for the launch of zkGame DAO through the SNS! There’s still some final touches left to be done, including making the existing platform code open-source after more security reviews**, but we want to invite you all to learn more about our vision and give you a chance to ask questions.

Below we will provide a brief overview, deferring to our Whitepaper for a more comprehensive look.

**Update 2025-05-21: We’re open source! Check out our code here: zk-game-dao · GitHub

zkGame

zkGame was founded by a team of crypto advocates, some of whom have been involved in the blockchain industry for nearly a decade. With wide variety in backgrounds and skill sets, we found common ground through our love for technology and decentralized innovation. Given this commitment to decentralization, our network of choice quickly became the Internet Computer due to its unique capabilities. Eventually leading us to begin development on the IC in March 2024.

With zkGame we’re focused on building a fully decentralized, provably fair, and tamper-proof suite of games which have wagering elements. As part of this, leveraging the SNS to decentralize the control of our canisters takes us one step further toward making these platforms the most open and decentralized of their kind.

Our Products

In our current state we have two products live: zkPoker and PurePoker. Both currently in beta, with rich features, live wager functionality, and a growing community. As the names suggest, these are both poker platforms. The key difference being that zkPoker is a multi-currency platform focusing more toward the IC community, whereas PurePoker caters more to the Bitcoin community. This approach serves useful purposes in terms of tailoring marketing and UX to hit key target audiences. Ultimately ensuring the DAO captures a wider market share by expanding its reach beyond the ICP ecosystem. A full breakdown of the on-chain architecture can be found in section 3.2 of our Whitepaper.

These platforms are built entirely on-chain and their canisters will be controlled by zkGame DAO. Future development will include expanding our suite of games to include Chess, Mahjong, and more. These too will have in-depth wagering functionalities and be controlled by the DAO.

For a full breakdown of zkGame, zkPoker, PurePoker, etc. please check out our Whitepaper.

We’ll do our best to respond promptly if there’s any questions or concerns.

Our Sites:
zk.game
zkPoker
PurePoker

Socials:
PurePoker Twitter
zkPoker Twitter
OpenChat
Telegram

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will the revenue be shared among token holders?

(if your business is provitable, why getting it decentralized?)
(are you willing to accept a smart contract for collateral against community rib offs?)

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App works well. Except depositing NTN didn’t work. But with ICP it worked.

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Rake sharing is a feature through Host-to-Earn and will expand further with the Clans system. The percentage kept by the house in those instances, or in instances where rake sharing isn’t enabled, is being fed back into operational costs (like cycles). We outline this a bit better in section 3.3 of the WP. This of course could evolve with time once the DAO is live. The community could create/vote on proposals regarding topics like this.

As for the second question, we feel there’s countless benefits toward handing over control to a DAO. It helps in providing further security, better transparency, and puts control in the community’s hands in terms of development direction or other critical decisions. Undoubtedly, a large part of the value proposition for dapps like these is the trustless and secure design. So bolstering this in every way possible is ideal. We feel this is what will really set zkGame apart from other dapps or web2 platforms.

To your last point, I’m not entirely sure what you mean. Can you explain a bit more?

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Thanks for checking it out! For the issue you encountered, do you mean your deposit never reflected? If so, I will coordinate with the rest of the team to investigate. Since assets other than ICP are not being put to much use thus far on the platform, there may be some lingering bugs we need to address there.

The ability to use tokens like NTN play a big role in the future implementation of our Clans system, so it’s a priority to iron out remaining issues while we’re still in beta. We definitely appreciate you bringing this to our attention.

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The balance didn’t update.

By ZK you mean zero-knowledge, but not ZKP correct? If so, I suppose the solution relies on IC nodes and boundary nodes running in TEE and no information going anywhere else but the players.

You may also want to protect it against DoS attacks, which could make a player ‘fold’ because of a timeout, when they really wanted to ‘call’

SNS and the IC make a lot of sense in your app, because of the verifiable randomness, secure frontend & backend, DAO proposals & open-source builds. You could probably make it watertight.

The 25% devs+early investors vs 20% SNS swap may not be a great idea. Puts the people who fund the DAO at a disadvantage and they can only veto critical proposals, but if the non-SNS swap participant collude, the rest wont matter on other proposals. If you go with such ratio, perhaps you also need to let everyone know who these entities are.

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Yes that’s correct, it stands for zero knowledge but we don’t currently utilize zero knowledge proofs. Originally, when we began work on the underlying concept of zkPoker, there was expected to be heavy reliance on ZKPs. Through deciding to build on the IC, the immediate need for this diminished as we were able to create a provably fair, trustless environment without it. That said, as we continue to build and improve it’s likely we will use ZKPs in some capacity. For now we’re just focusing more toward core functionality and new features.

In terms of attack vectors like you described, this is definitely a valid concern. As part of our immediate plans post-launch we want to get an audit underway and we plan to use the data gathered there to strengthen any weak points. In the interim, we’re also seeking security reviews from Dfinity among others for some added third-party input before open-sourcing.

As for the initial allocations, these were definitely a challenge to strike a balance with. We tried to cover all of our bases addressing things like obligations to early investors, recognition for early contributors, ensuring the team isn’t too powerful, and also ensuring that bad actors couldn’t dominate the sale to later try and sabotage the DAO. In the end, there’s really no perfect recipe but we’ve done our best to tackle these areas in a way that maintained decentralization and still protects the DAO while it’s in its infancy.

Having known entities tied to these neurons is certainly ideal but, given the nature of the DAO and its subsequent platforms, no one really wants to be doxed publicly at this stage. Even our team is quite private, and somewhat anonymous, but we’re not hiding our identities outright. For example, in communication with Dfinity or other notable members in the ecosystem we’re not making an effort to hide who we are. We realize this may not provide enough assurance to some, but with our immediate goals to get these platforms licensed and compliant this will change things dramatically as all parties involved will be more at ease.

Hopefully I covered everything adequately here and thank you again for your feedback!

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When you say “other notable members in the eco”. Who are you referring to?

Thanks. Im still going over the whitepaper.

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By that I just mean teams we’ve interacted with for any number of reasons related to the launch plans or exploring possibilities with the platforms. A random example would be ICDevs, whom we reached out to in regard to reviewing our code. We communicate with real emails, and some of us with our real name attached, thereby making it sort of trivial to dox us if we ever deserved it. The team member in this particular instance is known in the ecosystem and works closely with other projects so there’s no question as to whether it’s their real identity. I know this isn’t as much of an assurance as would be ideal but I mention it mostly with the intent of demonstrating we are trying to show good faith where possible.

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We’re pleased to share that we’re officially open source! We’ve updated the OP to include the github link. You also can find our announcement thread on X here which expands a bit on the individual repos.

We welcome and encourage you all to look it over and we appreciate any feedback.

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Proposal 136969 Observations | LORIMER :infinity: :dog_face:

VOTE: NO

TLDR: Doesn’t meet well-established minimum standards for a compliant SNS launch.

The published sns_init.yaml file was modified 20 hours ago (2025-06-12, 12:43 UTC)

The NNS proposal to initialise the SNS was raised over 24 hours ago (2025-06-11, 22:27 UTC)

The final sns_init.yaml file needs to be available to public scrutiny during a syndication phase, prior to raising the proposal (not afterwards).

Aside from this obvious disqualifying point, I have other concerns about this project which I will post separately when I get a chance.

If you found this analysis helpful, you may wish to consider following LORIMER :infinity: :dog_face:

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The voting power allocation to developer neurons is appalling. This is a decentralisation sale?

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In case it’s not clear from the whitepaper, the dev team would use that voting power to unilaterally pass treasury transfer proposals with ill-defined justifications →

aimed at ensuring the platform has funds to cover unforeseen events […] or other problems along these lines which require out of pocket expense to remedy the situation.

Given that important details are located in a whitepaper that could always be modified retrospectively by the team, I’ve copied a few of the important details below:

Initial Allocation

Category Quantity Percentage
Treasury: 500,000,000 50%
• Protection Fund 250,000,000 25%
• Ecosystem Incentives 100,000,000 10%
• Strategic Reserve 150,000,000 15%
Early Investors & Contributors 104,850,000 10.5%
Team 145,150,000 14.5%
SNS Launchpad 250,000,000 25%
Total: 1,000,000,000 100%
  • Gambling License

Initially, our primary focus is getting these platforms adequately licensed and thereby removing any question about their legality in many jurisdictions. Based on our extensive research, obtaining licensing for these platforms has quite a steep cost but its one that will ensure the platform remains operational and gives users confidence.

There’s a wide variety of licenses available, but our research focused on obtaining a GCB Curacao license initially as its a popular license for newer platforms like ours while still being respected and supported in a wide range of jurisdictions. While getting solid figures is near impossible without being well underway in this process, the estimated cost for the first year, including company formation, application, and license fees (under the new LOK B2C structure), could range from €73,400 to €88,900+, depending on the specific services chosen and the number of domains. This does not include ongoing operational and compliance costs either. If necessary, we may adjust our plans to obtain licensing from a different jurisdiction, but ultimately we will aim to get which ever suits the platforms needs best.

  • Operational Costs

In time, and with persistence, we’re confident the DAO platforms will be generating enough revenue to cover these costs. In the early stages though its unavoidable that we will need to use treasury funds for things like compliance costs, legal expenses, and development.

Various parts of the whitepaper are also out of date, such as those relating to NF participation.

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Regarding the ‘primary focus’ →

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We appreciate the feedback @Lorimer. Its important to note that the “Developer Neuron” section or the proposal includes early investors and early contributors. Some of these neurons are held by notable, variable, members of the ecosystem. I’ll see if any of them are willing to dox themselves in an effort to bolster our transparency but its a touchy subject for most without a license.