Karate Combat plans to launch “UP” a layer-2 on the Hedera network

The global combat sports league Karate Combat will launch UP, a layer-2 blockchain platform, on the Hedera network in Q1 2025.

With the new platform, the prominent striking league aims to integrate Web 3 into esports and sports, allowing for enhanced engagement and user adoption. 

Karate Combat will release its L2 blockchain platform in Q1 2025

Karate Combat will release its new layer 2 blockchain platform, UP, at the beginning of 2025. Upon its release, the striking league will allow early signed-up partners to license UP’s technology at no cost.

Partners on the UP platform will also be able to utilize their own tokens issued on any blockchain. They can access Karate Combat’s Up Only Gaming software stack by wrapping and staking their tokens to UP on Hedera during gameplay.

Additionally, Karate Combat will share its 100,000-player base with developers on UP through the league’s questing modules.

Onlylarping, Karate Combat Co-Founder, remarked on UP’s development, saying:

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.

~Onlylarping

He added that the free offers on UP and the existing ‘Up Only Gaming’ software would help introduce a decentralized model to the market that could redefine fan engagement.

Karate Combat will also launch the $UP token in 2025 

The L2 blockchain UP will also introduce its own token, $UP. The token’s treasury will then fund a grants program to encourage early builders of the Up Only Gaming software stack.

Once released, about 30% of UP tokens are projected to flow over time to $KARATE token stakes. In addition to the $UP token and UP L2 launch, Karate Combat will introduce  H-Stack, an open-source library dedicated to L2 blockchain expansion on Hedera.

The world’s premier full-contact striking league will also continue receiving support from the HBAR foundation, renewing its three-year collaboration with them.  The sports league has also planned to have 10% of the total $UP token supply support HBAR liquidity pools and promote decentralized borrowing and lending on Hedera.