Overview

Minecraft is a sandbox video game developed by the Swedish video game developer Mojang Studios. The game was created by Markus "Notch" Person in the Java programming language. Following several early private testing versions, it was first made public in May 2009 before fully releasing in November 2011, with Jens Bergensten then taking over development. Minecraft has since been ported to several other platforms and is the best-selling video game of all time, with over 200 million copies sold and 126 million monthly active users as of 2020.

In Minecraft, players explore a blocky, procedurally-generated 3D world with virtually infinite terrain, and may discover and extract raw materials, craft tools and items, and build structures or earthworks. Depending on game mode, players can fight computer-controlled mobs, as well as cooperate with or compete against other players in the same world. Game modes include a survival mode, in which players must acquire resources to build the world and maintain health, and a creative mode, where players have unlimited resources and access to flight. Players can modify the game to create new gameplay mechanics, items, and assets.

Traditionally, financial products are created and traded in markets consisting of various organizations(and sometimes individuals) connected by technology systems and contractual obligations that simultaneously facilitate trading and create barriers to entry. These vary in complexity, cost, and sophistication from extremely slow, manual, and error prone paper-based operations to high speed, high liquidity electronic markets.

Regardless of the precise methods and systems in use, these markets all exhibit several key problems. They include the need to trust third parties, rent-seeking intermediaries that drive up costs, and the presence of organizations and structures that act as gatekeepers and censors for access to existing markets, and equally importantly, controlling the availability of products and creation of markets themselves.