How to Buy or Earn GALA — Including by Playing Video Games

GALA is the native cryptocurrency token for the Gala Games ecosystem on the Ethereum blockchain.
Connor Emmert
By Connor Emmert 
Updated
Edited by Chris Hutchison

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GALA is the token for Gala Games, a platform for blockchain gaming that allows users to earn cryptocurrency as they play. GALA tokens can be used to make in-game purchases or transact with other players.

But GALA can be used for more than gaming. Holders may trade their tokens for other cryptocurrencies outside of the gaming platform, and many exchanges will let you convert GALA to cash.

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What is GALA trying to achieve?

Once upon a time, purchasing a video game required two steps — convincing someone to drive you to Toys R Us, and buying the physical cartridge or disc. After that, it was all yours.

In recent years, game developers started to add paywalls and layers that players had to “unlock” in order to access certain features. As a result, players may end up spending hundreds of dollars on a game they purchased for much less. Additionally, most of these microtransactions are not refundable, meaning that if you stop playing the game, there’s no way to reclaim the money you’ve spent.

How does GALA earn money?

Gala and GALA mean to return a sense of ownership to gamers, giving them input into the platform and letting them keep what they win while playing. But how can they afford to pay players currency that holds real value? Gala develops collectible non-fungible tokens — digital assets — that can be used in their games. These NFTs are initially sold to the public, and then can be traded among users. Each time a Gala NFT is bought or sold, Gala collects a royalty commission of 2.5%.

For example, NFTs called Vox Collectibles are avatar characters that players can use in Town Star, which is a game on the Gala platform. People can buy and sell these NFTs on marketplaces like OpenSea or LooksRare, and some of the rarest NFTs available can be quite valuable. As of September 2022, NFT prices for Vox Collectibles range from 0.7 to 20 ETH, which means they can be worth anywhere from $1,100 to $32,000.

Security concerns

Like many other popular cryptocurrencies, Gala is not without controversy. Recent reports have alleged that dating back to September 2021, over a hundred unique Gala wallets were hacked and hundreds of thousands of dollars have been stolen from its players. Unfortunately, Gala hasn’t really responded to public outcry from the victims of the hack, and it hasn’t become clear if it plans to address concerns about security. If you own a Gala wallet, be sure to regularly update passwords and avoid websites that may contain malware while you have access to your wallet.

4 ways to acquire GALA

You can get GALA tokens in a few different ways:

1. Play their games

This may be the most straightforward way to earn GALA. From a secure web browser, type gala.games into the search bar and, when prompted, click “Register.” Once you’ve entered your information, click “Create Account,” and then following verification of your email address, you're done.

Well, almost done. At this point, the Gala website recommends that you set up a wallet for all the GALA tokens you’ll be earning as you play. Click “Finish Setup,” and then create a transfer code for your wallet. The transfer code proves ownership of your wallet — so keep it secure. Gala does not have access to your individual wallet’s code, and it is unrelated to the username and password you used to register. If you lose or forget the transfer code, you’ve effectively lost the contents of your wallet. As with other cryptocurrencies, you have the option to sell the tokens for fiat money or trade them for other coins.

All games on the Gala platform are free, so you can start playing immediately and earn Gala while you play. Serious gamers can choose to pay $50 for a lifetime Gala Gold membership. Gold members receive access to a private Gala Discord community, where you can chat with other members. They also receive different perks, like sneak peeks from the development team on what’s coming up, or complimentary NFTs when games are added to the platform.

2. Earn referral rewards

You can refer friends to the platform and get rewarded with GALA tokens. To refer someone, all you need to do is send a referral link to their email. Make sure they know to click the link to register so that you receive credit (if you’ve ever done this with ride-hailing apps like Uber or Lyft, it works pretty similarly).

3. Purchase GALA on an exchange

Don’t have time for games? You can purchase GALA on several cryptocurrency exchanges, including Binance and Coinbase. Each GALA token is worth about 5 cents as of Sept. 1, 2022. There are two ways to trade for GALA on an exchange:

  • Cash: If you’re new to crypto and looking to invest in GALA, you can purchase tokens at an exchange using cash. After you open an account, you’ll need to fund it before you can make a transaction. Most exchanges will accept debit cards, ACH or wire transfers (some will let you fund an account with a credit card, but this is an extremely risky maneuver that should only be done by experienced investors with assets to fall back on if something goes wrong). Once the funds hit your account, you can make a transaction and exchange USD for GALA tokens in the amount that you choose.

  • Other cryptocurrencies: If you’re already a cryptocurrency investor, you might have crypto in an account at one of the exchanges that support GALA. If not, you can move crypto from a wallet or a different exchange over to one that will accept GALA transactions and place a trade that way.

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4. Purchase a founder’s node

The Gala Games ecosystem is a decentralized network developed on the Ethereum blockchain using ERC-20 protocol. The network uses a hybrid method for verifying transactions and employs proof-of-work, proof-of-stake, and proof-of-storage consensus mechanisms to validate transactions and keep the blockchain secure.

The Gala Games platform is decentralized, meaning that instead of each transaction having to go through one place, other users on the network can help keep the system running smoothly and securely by operating a founder’s node. Nodes are basically a software algorithm that is downloaded and runs each day, and node operators are compensated with GALA tokens each day for helping validate transactions. Node owners don’t really need to do much; they’re basically allowing the network to use computational power from multiple different sources to keep transactions moving along.

Purchasing a node may seem like an easy way to increase your daily income, but the $90,000 price tag to own a node might be a barrier to entry for most users.

Neither the author nor editor held positions in the aforementioned investments at the time of publication.
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