Karate Combat Unveils UP Layer-2 Platform on Hedera Network to Bring Web3 to Esports, Sports, and Entertainment

The world’s leading professional strike league Karate Combat recently announced the launch of the Layer-2 platform on the Hedera blockchain network

Karate Combat, the world’s leading professional strike league, has announced the upcoming launch of a Layer-2 platform on the Hedera blockchain network, to be named UP. This Layer 2 blockchain and crypto-native software licensing platform is set to go live in Q1 2025.

The platform will be designed to integrate Web3 into mainstream esports, sports, and entertainment. To facilitate this, UP will offer a versatile toolkit to drive engagement and adoption across multiple sectors.

Karate Combat’s “UP Only Gaming” gaming software stack has already seen success, with over 10,000 active players engaging in the stack’s token-earning game, which rewards token holders for accurately predicting the fight outcomes. The stack also includes mobile apps for iOS and Android, a web app, and a blockchain backend.

Karate Combat has announced that it will be licensing this software stack for free to qualifying sports leagues, teams, esports, fantasy sports, poker tournaments, memecoin projects, and gambling platforms using the UP Layer 2 built on Hedera.

This follows recent reports of Hedera entering into a partnership with Microsoft.

Partners will be able to clone, customize, and launch their own stack, without any licensing fees. They will also have the flexibility to issue tokens on any blockchain and later access the Up Only Gaming software by wrapping tokens to UP on Hedera during play. Commenting on the development, Onlylarping, Karate Combat Co-Founder, said:

“Karate Combat is already massively incentivized to spread its Up Only Gaming technology to other sports, esports, fantasy sports, crypto projects and more. UP is the enabling technology to not only allow us to provide all the tech for free, but to give grants and our user base to early partners”.

Karate Combat to Launch Native Token UP on Hedera

The Layer 2 blockchain has announced its strategy to integrate blockchain technology into sports and entertainment, which includes the upcoming launch of its native token, $UP, in 2025. The UP token treasury will fund a grant program to support early builders in the Up Only Gaming software stack.

Once the $UP token is live, up to 30% of the token supply will be distributed to $KARATE token stakers over time, providing further incentives for community engagement.

In addition to the token, Karate Combat will also be launching H-Stack, an open-source library for deploying Layer 2 blockchains on the Hedera network. To boost DeFi capabilities and liquidity, 10% of the UP token supply will go towards incentivizing HBAR liquidity pools, decentralized borrowing and lending, and staking of HBAR and other Hedera tokens on the UP platform.

Karate Combat’s expansion is bolstered by a renewed three-year strategic partnership with The HBAR Foundation, Hedera’s key blockchain sponsor. The HBAR Foundation supports the development of decentralized applications in areas such as DeFi, NFTs, and gaming, and will continue to back Karate Combat’s blockchain initiatives, following their successful collaboration since 2021.