Tens of Dollars per Match Forces an Architectural Question

Background: The question of why players should install a wallet was still on the whiteboard. A-Zhen decided to examine a more basic burden first: what would players have to bear for every match if a card battle relied entirely on on-chain execution? She needed to turn an abstract technical choice into a cost the team could discuss.

Today: A-Zhen ran an experiment, putting every step of a complete card battle on-chain. After the testnet run, she calculated the equivalent mainnet gas cost: tens of dollars per match. The meeting room fell silent for a few seconds. Someone said, “Then who the hell would play?” The excitement of getting it to run ran up against the cost of a complete match. That figure later appeared on the first page of many documents.

Consequences and next steps: The experiment gave the argument a concrete boundary: recording every step could turn an ordinary match into an expense players would find unacceptable. A-Zhen planned to separate the battle process from asset records and discuss with colleagues, part by part, what had to be on-chain. The cost barrier was clear, but the tradeoffs, and how to explain them, remained undecided.