Xai

About Xai (XAI)

What Is Xai (XAI)?

Xai is a gaming-focused Layer 3 blockchain in the Arbitrum ecosystem. It runs as an Arbitrum Orbit chain that settles to Arbitrum One, which in turn settles to Ethereum, and it uses XAI as its native gas token. Its chain ID is 660279, which can be confirmed against the network's public RPC endpoint.

One point of confusion is worth clearing up immediately. This page describes Xai, the Orbit gaming chain whose token trades under the ticker XAI. It is not the artificial intelligence company founded by Elon Musk, which shares a similar name but has no relationship to this network or this token.

The design goal is narrow and practical: let studios publish games where players own items and accounts on-chain without having to think about wallets, seed phrases or gas. Developers get higher gas and contract limits than a general purpose chain typically allows.

Official sources:

• Xai
• Xai Network documentation
• Xai block explorer

Who Founded Xai? (History)

The chain was developed by Offchain Labs, the team behind Arbitrum Nitro, and is overseen by the Xai Foundation. Game studio Ex Populus is the closest ecosystem partner and shipped the first titles on the network, including the auto-battler Final Form and the NFT-linked shooter LAMOverse.

Mainnet and the XAI token both went live on 9 January 2024, with the token distributed in part through an exchange launchpool and a community airdrop. The documentation frames both relationships as formal partnerships rather than a single founding company, which is worth understanding when you evaluate who controls what.

How Xai Works

1. An Orbit Layer 3 built on AnyTrust Rather than posting all transaction data to its parent chain, Xai uses Arbitrum's AnyTrust mode, where a Data Availability Committee signs certificates attesting that it holds the data. This makes transactions far cheaper than a full rollup, at the cost of a trust assumption described below.

2. Assertions on Arbitrum One Validators post assertions about the state of the Xai chain to Arbitrum One. Because each assertion must consume exactly the inbox messages that existed when its predecessor was created, the correct successor state root is fully determined the moment an assertion appears, and any node can compute it.

3. Sentry Nodes and the Referee contract A Challenger holds a BLS key pair registered with a Referee contract and signs assertions made by validators. Sentry operators who hold a Sentry Key submit claims about the correct successor state root, and the Referee pays a reward when a claim proves correct after confirmation.

Key Ecosystem Components

• The Xai chain, an Arbitrum Orbit Layer 3 running AnyTrust
• Sentry Keys, transferable NFT licenses that entitle the holder to run a Sentry Node
• The Referee contract on Arbitrum One, which records challenges and pays rewards
• The Challenger component, which signs assertions for the Referee
• esXAI, a non-transferable reward token, together with its staking pools
• Games and studios publishing on the network, led by Ex Populus titles

XAI Token Utility

XAI is the token of record for the network and is fully transferable. Its documented uses are paying gas on the Xai Layer 3, burning at a 1:1 ratio to mint esXAI, and voting through the Xai governance portal.

esXAI is the other half of the design. It cannot be traded or transferred, it is what Sentry operators actually earn, and converting it back into XAI happens through a redemption process with varying rates and waiting periods. Staked esXAI raises an operator's reward tier and can be delegated into pools, which lets holders who do not own a Sentry Key still participate.

On supply, the project documents a maximum of 2.5 billion tokens covering XAI and esXAI together. This is not only a policy statement. The Arbitrum One token contract exposes a MAX_SUPPLY constant, and its mint function requires that total supply plus the minted amount stays at or below that constant. Reading the deployed contract confirms the constant is set to 2.5 billion. Because XAI is burned to create esXAI and esXAI is burned to redeem XAI, the two balances move against each other inside that ceiling rather than adding to it.

What Makes Xai Unique?

• A live production gaming chain rather than a testnet or a roadmap, with games shipped by a named partner studio
• Rewards tied to a verifiable computation task instead of to locking tokens alone
• Sentry Keys as a tradable license, separating the right to earn from the capital staked behind it
• Account and gas abstraction aimed at players who have never used a crypto wallet

How Xai Differs from Similar Chains

Compared with general purpose Layer 2 networks, Xai sits one layer further down the stack and accepts a weaker data availability model in exchange for cost. Compared with other gaming chains:

• Against a gaming sidechain with its own validator set, Xai keeps its settlement path anchored in Arbitrum One and Ethereum instead of standing alone
• Against a gaming Layer 2 that posts full data to Ethereum, Xai is cheaper per transaction but relies on a committee for data availability
• Against networks where rewards are purely proportional to stake, Xai ties rewards to nodes computing and claiming a specific state root

Use Cases of Xai

• Publishing games where items, currencies and progression live on-chain
• Player-to-player trading of in-game assets without a studio-run marketplace
• Running a Sentry Node to earn esXAI, or delegating esXAI into a pool without operating hardware
• Governance participation on network parameters and proposals

How Xai Is Secured

Xai inherits its execution and settlement guarantees from the Arbitrum Nitro stack and, through Arbitrum One, from Ethereum. That is the strongest part of the model, and the codebase is shared with a heavily audited implementation covered by a large public bug bounty.

The weaker parts should be stated plainly. AnyTrust replaces full on-chain data availability with a committee that signs certificates, so availability depends on that committee behaving honestly or on the fallback posting path being used. The attention challenge protocol relies on a Challenger that registers a public key with the Referee, a trusted rather than permissionless role. The token contract sits behind a transparent upgradeable proxy, so the proxy admin can replace the implementation, including the logic that enforces the supply ceiling.

Risks and Considerations

• Data availability rests on a committee under AnyTrust, a real trust assumption and not a full rollup guarantee
• The Challenger role in the Sentry protocol is trusted rather than permissionless
• The token sits behind an upgradeable proxy controlled by an admin role
• Emissions continue to mint toward the ceiling, so holders who do not stake are diluted relative to those who do
• esXAI is illiquid by design, and redemption into XAI carries waiting periods and rate penalties
• Demand is concentrated in one vertical, so usage tracks the success of a small number of games
• Creating a staking pool and claiming certain redemptions requires identity verification
• Several unrelated projects use the XAI ticker or a similar name, creating a real risk of buying the wrong asset

Why Xai Matters

Most gaming chain projects never get past an announcement. Xai has a live network with a verifiable chain ID, a public explorer, an actively maintained open repository for its Sentry client, and shipped titles from a named studio. Whether or not the broader gaming thesis plays out, it is a useful reference case for what an Orbit Layer 3 looks like when tuned for one workload rather than trying to be a general purpose chain.

Where Can You Buy Xai?

XAI trades on a range of centralized exchanges and on decentralized venues on Arbitrum One, where the ERC-20 contract lives. Before trading, verify the contract address against the project's own documentation, because more than one token uses the XAI ticker.

You can review listings and market context on the Xai page on CoinRithm.

Major Centralized Exchanges (CEX)

XAI reached a broad audience through a major exchange launchpool at its January 2024 launch and has since been listed on several large international venues. Availability varies by region, so check your exchange's listing page and confirm the market is the Arbitrum-based Xai gaming token.

Storage Options After Purchase

• Any EVM wallet that supports Arbitrum One, for holding the ERC-20 token
• Hardware wallets paired with an EVM interface, for longer-term storage
• The official Xai application, for burning XAI into esXAI and managing staking positions
• Exchange custody, which is convenient but means you do not hold the keys

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