Junction
Contributedpart of a team codebase
The Web3 gaming platform that put NFT and token mechanics inside real games
Junction was Dark Oak Studios' first product: a Web3 gaming platform funded by a $100K Ripple XRPL grant, built when NFTs barely existed on the XRP Ledger. It connected traditional game mechanics like loot crates and achievements to real on-chain asset distribution.
Role
Founder & developer · 41% of commits, 2nd of 4 contributors
Timeline
2021 – 2023 · Dark Oak Studios
The problem
In 2021 the XRP Ledger had fast, cheap transactions and almost no gaming ecosystem. The XLS-20 NFT standard was brand new, wallet UX inside game engines didn't exist, and there was no infrastructure for a game to hand a player an on-chain asset.
Junction set out to be that bridge: a platform where games plug in and players earn, open, and trade on-chain rewards without needing to understand the ledger.
What we built
A React and Node.js platform with Unity integration, connecting game events to NFT and token distribution. Loot-crate mechanics, holder verification, and a player-facing web app for managing earned assets.
Two XRPL firsts came out of this build: Junction was the third project on the entire ledger to mint XLS-20 NFTs, and it shipped the ecosystem's first Xaman/XUMM wallet integration inside Unity. That wallet work is public: the Junction-Xumm repo is MIT-licensed on GitHub with my commits in it.
System shape
Unity game clients
first XUMM wallet integration in Unity
React web app
player asset management
Junction platform
Node.js back end: loot crates, holder verification, distribution
React front end
XRP Ledger
3rd project ever to mint XLS-20 NFTs
Unity games talk to the platform through the XUMM integration layer; the Node back end handles minting, distribution, and holder verification against the ledger.
My role, honestly
I founded the company and won the grant. On the codebase I was the second-largest of four contributors at 41% of commits, working across the loot crate and claim flow, the in-app shop, community voting, the Firebase integration and the open beta build. A meaningful share of that was rescue work after our original hired developer left mid-project, which is its own kind of useful experience.
The rest of my time went where a two-person company needs it: hiring the team, managing the funder relationship, running QA, and doing the conference circuit that later won grant two.
Outcome
$100K
Ripple XRPL grant
delivered on committed scope
$6M+
on-chain trading volume
on the platform token, within 18 months, organic
18K / 5K
Twitter / Discord at peak
2,000+ holders through the bear market
3rd
XLS-20 project on the ledger
plus first XUMM-in-Unity
Where it went
Junction launched two days after the FTX collapse and still reached break-even. More importantly, building it exposed every gap in the ecosystem's infrastructure. That insight became the pitch for Nexus, our second and larger grant.
Want to talk through how this was built?
I am happy to walk through the decisions, the parts that did not work, and what I would do differently. Email is the fastest way to reach me.