Karate Combat Announces "UP", a New Layer 2 Blockchain and Crypto-Native Licensing Platform Built on Hedera

‍The league also announces a 3-year strategic contract renewal with HBAR Foundation, maintaining its exclusivity as Karate Combat’s sole blockchain sponsor 

Cayman Islands - (Friday October 11, 2024 at 10:15 EST) - Karate Combat, crypto’s first sport and the world’s leading professional striking league, is launching UP, a Layer 2 blockchain and crypto-native software licensing platform built on Hedera, in Q1 2025.  

Karate Combat’s Up Only Gaming software stack allows $KARATE token holders to earn additional tokens, by accurately predicting Karate Combat fight outcomes. The platform has grown to 100,000  users in just over a  year.  

The software stack includes native iOS and android mobile apps, a web app and an on-chain backend. Today the league is announcing that it is licensing the software stack to any qualifying sports league, team, esport, fantasy sport, poker tournament, meme coin or gambling platform to use for free.  

Partners will be able to easily clone, customize and launch Karate Combat’s apps with zero licensing fee. Leagues and teams can launch or use their own tokens issued on any chain. Users can then access the Up Only Gaming software stack by wrapping and staking their tokens to UP on Hedera during play.  

Karate Combat will also share its 100,000 players with builders on UP through the league’s questing modules.

Further, partner organizations will have an opportunity to receive grants and incentives. UP plans to launch its own token, $UP, in 2025.  The $UP treasury will seed a grants program to incentivize early builders on the Up Only Gaming software stack. When the $UP token is launched, up to 30% of the tokens are expected to flow over time to $KARATE token stakers.

Alongside UP, Karate Combat will release H-Stack, an open source library for the rapid deployment of Layer 2 blockchains on Hedera. 10% of the total $UP token supply will be dedicated to incentivize HBAR liquidity pools, decentralized borrowing and lending on Hedera, and staking of HBAR and other Hedera tokens on UP.

Through a three-year renewal of its strategic relationship with The HBAR Foundation, the Foundation will remain the exclusive blockchain sponsor of Karate Combat. The HBAR Foundation fuels the development of the Hedera ecosystem by providing grants and other resources to developers, startups, and organizations that seek to launch decentralized applications in DeFi, NFTs, CBDCs, sustainability, gaming and other sectors. The renewal comes after three previous successful years of partnership since 2021. 

‍Tonight at 7pm EST, Karate Combat will host KC 50, live at Permissioness III in Salt Lake City, Utah. As always Karate Combat’s events are broadcast for free, cross platform on Karate.com, YouTube, TikTok, X, Facebook and more. 

"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," said onlylarping, Karate Combat Co-Founder.

“We're now in the last half of our third year partnering with Karate Combat, and it's been incredible to see what they've accomplished. As the first professional sports league governed by a token, they've set the bar high and pushed the boundaries of what's possible onchain. With a passionate global community, Karate Combat has become one of the most exciting and prominent consumer use cases in the space. We're thrilled to continue supporting their game-changing impact on the sports world, bringing fans and athletes closer than ever through immersive experiences that are transforming fan engagement.”,” said David Cramer, COOat The HBAR Foundation. 

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About Karate Combat

Karate Combat is the world’s premier full-contact striking league, blending the excitement of full-contact bouts with immersive CGI environments powered by the Unreal Engine. Olympic medalists and national champions from around the world are just some of the multi-discipline athletes invited to compete in pursuit of the KC Championship belt. The league is broadcast to over 120 countries worldwide and concurrently streamed without a paywall on karate.com and other streaming services. Former UFC heavyweight champion and KC Chairman Bas Rutten hosts events alongside Georges St-Pierre, Lyoto Machida, Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson, and “Big Mike” Majlak.‍

About The HBAR Foundation

The HBAR Foundation supports the creation of Web3 communities built on the Hedera network, by empowering and funding the builders developing these communities. The Foundation’s six funds - focused on the Crypto Economy, Metaverse, Sustainability, Fintech, Privacy, and Female Founders - each support communities within those areas, and the interconnectedness enables applications to participate as part of a larger ecosystem.

The collective power of these funds enables entrepreneurs, developers, and enterprises of all sizes to tackle some of the world’s largest problems and create and control their economies, all built on the Hedera public network. Whether you’re building something new or migrating an existing EVM-based application and community, the HBAR Foundation is here to support you. For more information, please visit https://hbarfoundation.org. 

‍Press Contact:

Cynthia Luo, Media & Partnerships 

Contact: cynthia.luo@karate.com