Balance (EPT): Revolutionizing web3 gaming with evolving AI companions
Artificial intelligence (AI) agents are a key growth area within the blockchain industry. Projects like Artificial Superintelligence Alliance (FET), Virtuals Protocol (VIRTUAL), ai16z (AI16Z) and countless others have been essential components driving the overall crypto market. As of April 2025, the CoinGecko portal lists more than 500 cryptocurrencies within its category of AI Agents. These intelligent assistants are now helping individuals and businesses analyze markets, create textual and visual content, automate work processes and trade profitably.
There's a further area where AI agents on the blockchain are flourishing: the world of web3 gaming. In this sphere, bots and agents based on AI algorithms are helping users develop the best in-game strategies, succeed in the competitive world of play-to-earn (P2E) and overcome key challenges in complex gameplay.
Balance (EPT) is a blockchain gaming project that takes the use of AI agents to a completely new level. The creation of the team at the world’s largest social gaming platform, E-Pal, Balance offers players AI agents that can aid them in the in-game environment and serve as their personal companions. Based on a multi-layer architecture, the platform offers some of the most cutting-edge use cases for gaming-oriented AI agents.
Key Takeaways:
Balance (EPT) is a web3 gaming platform that lets users leverage AI companions and co-players.
Balance was launched in 2024 by the team of E-Pal, the world's largest gaming companion provider.
The platform's native token, EPT, is used for access to products and services, Fan Token minting, rewards to nodes, governance, staking and gas fee payments.
What is Balance?
Balance (EPT) is a web3 gaming platform that allows players to easily create, own and use AI companions within the blockchain games it supports. Balance supports a variety of first-party (internally developed) and third-party web3 games. You can deploy your AI gaming companions and they’ll act as your assistants, friends or co-players within Balance games.
Using Balance.fun, the platform’s primary web interface, you can create your AI agents and specify various details, such as appearance, personality and functions.
Balance isn’t just another obscure crypto gaming platform. The origins of the project date back to 2020, when the E-Pal social gaming provider was launched by four young California-based technology entrepreneurs — Brian Xiong, Tung Pham, Yuzhe Norris Wang and Yuanzhe Li. E-Pal quickly became a leading force in the newly emerging social gaming field, helping players worldwide find gaming companions. By early 2024, E-Pal had become the world’s largest gaming companion platform, boasting 4.2 million users and 450,000 Epals (gaming companions).
In February 2024, the E-Pal team focused its efforts on blockchain and AI technologies, starting the development work on the Balance gaming platform. In September of the same year, Balance went live.
Per the project’s documentation, the platform operates on its own chain, Balance Chain, with account abstraction (AA) technology used for cross-chain communication. The fungible and non-fungible assets (NFTs) held by user accounts are based on the Aptos (APT) and Binance Chain (BNB) blockchains.
How does Balance work?
Balance Key Nodes
A key part of the Balance ecosystem is Key Nodes — purchasable nodes that help with the processing, storage and distribution of data required in the resource-intensive environment of web3 gaming. Some applied instances are the management of real-time leaderboards and the automatic distribution of loot and in-game currency. These nodes can also support the computational requirements of training AI models. As a reward for their work in supporting the platform’s operations, Key Nodes receive a wide range of rewards and benefits, including distributions of EPT tokens, the platform’s native cryptocurrency.
As the ecosystem develops, Key Nodes are envisioned to be involved in governance, decentralized finance (DeFi) and NFT operations.
Balance Points System
At the time of the mainnet launch in September 2024, Balance introduced its Points System, designed to reward early contributors to the platform. During the campaign run in September, users could earn points by completing various specified tasks in various activities, such as joining the project’s social media pages or commenting and reposting.
Source: medium.com/@Balance_Fun
The 400 users with the best performance in the Points System earned a whitelist spot to receive Pioneer Badge NFTs — distinct tokens that provide owners with early access to games, future campaigns, airdrops and beta testing opportunities. Pioneer Badge NFT holders can also enjoy other benefits, such as premium NFTs and voting rights on the Balance platform.
Balance key products
Balance AI
Balance’s platform provides a set of tools to create and use intelligent companions for Balance-based games. You can design your AI companions by specifying their key traits and behaviors through custom prompts and strategies. The AI agents on Balance can assist you in battles, gaming contests, learning, routine task execution and interactive entertainment.
Application Layer
Balance’s platform is made up of five key layers, each one serving a specific purpose in supporting its user and developer communities. At the top of the architectural stack is the application layer, which acts as the main interface for users to interact with human and AI companions and the wider Balance community.
The application layer also contains the AI Battle Reporting System, which is designed to give users feedback and analysis tools on their performance in the platform’s gaming ecosystem. AI technology is leveraged here to provide personalized analytics and performance improvement recommendations.
A range of NFTs are also part of the layer. These include in-game asset NFTs, as well as soulbound tokens (SBTs) that serve as summaries of the holder’s achievements.
Platform Layer
The platform layer hosts the various games within the Balance gaming universe. These include both internal games and third-party games that have partnered with Balance. The key concept uniting all of the games is the active integration of AI companions and AI players, making the platform a unique environment in which humans and AI agents play, interact and compete.
The platform layer also features an AI-driven NFT launchpad that offers a rich tool set for creating personalized NFTs for games and applications. These NFTs can be traded on Balance's NFT marketplace, which is also an integral part of the platform layer.
Protocol Layer
The protocol layer includes a trio of critical protocols — the Fans Protocol, Epal Fan Token (FT) Exchange Protocol and Asset Protocol. The Fans Protocol lets players launch and manage their Fan Tokens, creating opportunities for influencers and community builders to tokenize their efforts and launch high-potential crypto assets. Meanwhile, the Epal FT Exchange Protocol facilitates the management of (and trade in) Fan Tokens.
The third protocol, Asset, is used for the comprehensive management of a wide range of digital assets on Balance, providing easy-to-use tools for asset creation and trading.
Token Layer
The token layer is designed for core operations involving the platform’s native EPT token. This layer supports the use of EPT for in-game purchases, access to services and AI companions, Fan Token minting and trading, in addition to other functionalities.
Infra Layer
This is the underlying infrastructural layer that powers the platform’s operational mechanism. It can be described as Balance's operating system, and is made up of several critical components: the node system, the Balance stablecoin, the Balance Chain network and the platform's unique ID system.
The node system provides the computational and storage resources to power games and other functionality on Balance. In addition, the system acts as a key connecting medium between Balance Chain and the AA functionality that lets the platform enjoy cross-chain capabilities.
The Balance stablecoin, also part of the infra layer, is designed to reduce volatility and bring rate stability to the platform's gaming ecosystem. The Balance stablecoin system helps players engage in asset trading without the fear of wild market fluctuations, an important consideration in the typically volatile crypto asset market.
Designed to support multiple chains, Balance Chain operates based on dynamic protocol adaptation, automatically selecting the optimal blockchain platform according to user preferences and needs. This dynamic adaptability is designed to reduce costs, improve operational speed and enhance overall security for users.
The final major component of the Balance infrastructure layer, the Balance ID system, is a unified and secure user authentication and identity management solution. To be introduced later in 2025, the ID system will let users access all services and games within the Balance ecosystem via a single set of cross-platform decentralized credentials. In addition to human players, also AI companions will have their unique IDs.
What is Balance (EPT)?
EPT is the native cryptocurrency of Balance. Although the platform has been operational since 2024, the EPT token was just launched on Apr 21, 2025, with a total and maximum supply of 10 billion. It was issued on two major blockchains — Ethereum and BNB Chain. EPT has a wide range of functional use cases on the platform, including the following:
Purchase of Balance products and services: Users need EPT to access AI companions, games, NFTs and other products.
Fan Token minting
Governance: The token also acts as Balance's governance asset, allowing holders to vote on key protocol decisions, such as feature proposals, upgrades and reward systems.
Staking: EPT can be staked to earn yield, and to benefit from various reward programs on Balance.
Gas fee payments: In the future [when Balance Chain operates as a full-fledged blockchain, instead of using account abstraction (AA) to leverage other networks], EPT will serve as the chain’s gas token.
Reward payments to Key Nodes: Since Key Nodes provide much-needed computational power to support the platform’s operations, they earn daily rewards in EPT.
The EPT token's supply allocation is per the chart below.
Source: Balancefun.gitbook.io
Where to buy Balance (EPT)
You can buy the EPT token on Bybit's Spot market as a swap pair with USDT, and through the exchange's Innovation Zone as a Perpetual contract based on USDT. You can also take advantage of Bybit’s campaign dedicated to the token to grab a share of the 33 million EPT prize pool.
Under the terms of the event, new users can earn EPT rewards by accumulating a deposit volume of at least 3,000 EPT, or by depositing at least 100 USDT and trading 100 USDT worth of EPT via their first spot trade with Bybit. Meanwhile, existing users can qualify for rewards by trading at least 500 USDT worth of EPT on Spot. The event is valid through May 5, 2025, 9AM UTC.
Balance (EPT) crypto price prediction
As of Apr 25, 2025, the EPT token has been on the market for only four days, and is trading at $0.0117, which is 26.4% lower than its ATH of $0.01708 on Apr 21, 2025, and 11.4% higher than its ATL of $0.01129 on Apr 22, 2025.
Long-term price forecasts for EPT are mostly bullish. DigitalCoinPrice predicts average rates of $0.0412 in 2027 and $0.0615 in 2030, whilePricePrediction expects the token to trade at $0.055 in 2027 and $0.1184 in 2030.
These and other emerging long-term forecasts for the token don't constitute investment advice. Given EPT's extremely short history on the market so far, do your own thorough research on the token's future prospects, carefully assess market fluctuations within the crypto gaming niche and consider all other relevant factors before investing in it or any other cryptocurrency.
Closing thoughts
Capturing emerging market trends and sensing the broader market conditions, the team at E-Pal recognized the tremendous potential of gaming companions back in 2020. Four years later, E-Pal realized that the new market dynamics in gaming called for something even more innovative — the use of AI companions, in addition to fellow humans. The resulting product, the Balance platform, is now racing to stake the claim to the best web3 gaming environment supported by AI agents.
The platform's unique features — cross-chain functionality supported by an AA mechanism, a dynamic exchange system that selects the best network for users' transactions and, most importantly, intelligent AI companions — can certainly help establish Balance as a leader in this niche of web3 gaming.
AI agents are taking the gaming industry by storm, with blockchain technology acting as a powerful enabler of these intelligent friends of ours. The Balance gaming universe — supported by the proven track record of E-Pal — has a great chance of becoming the go-to environment in which to befriend your next artificial gaming partner.
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