Just weeks following successful crowdsale, Boston-based company shifts focus to development

The crowdsale was over in just a matter of minutes with the goal of $5.5 million worth in Ether, the native cryptographic currency of the Ethereum network, secured. Now, Boston-based FirstBlood Technologies is pivoting focus toward a late December release of an alpha version of its eSports rewards platform.

The platform is a peer-to-peer gaming framework and will offer competitors the opportunity to win tokens by challenging each other in skill-based games.

According to Marco Cuesta, head of business development at FirstBlood, a semi-private test phase will kick off toward the end of this year, allowing users to try out the platform and compete against peers in a popular online multiplayer title.

For the upcoming TestNet launch, anyone signed up on Firstblood’s Slack channel at slack.firstblood.io as well as those signed up at the company’s official site — done by entering an email address — will be able to participate. There are close to 850 users currently signed up at FirstBlood’s slack channel.

Cuesta explained, testers will receive a unique sign-up code allowing users to log-on and participate. There is also no limit to the number of total users that can test the eSports platform.

Despite completion of the crowdsale on Sept. 26 — the opening day of the event — the original end-date was slated for Oct. 24 with a lockout period scheduled to last two months from this established date, according to the sale’s terms and conditions. Cuesta confirmed FirstBlood will honor this original time frame.

“People will able to get their FirstBlood tokens by then as well as the lockout period will be over around Christmas Eve,” said Cuesta.

Cuesta also stated that several exchanges expressed interest in listing 1ST after the tokens are fully transferable.

The platform will be a work in progress during the alpha phase, according to FirstBlood, which stated, they wanted users aware it won’t be a finished product, and that it is a test so there could be bugs to iron out.

FirstBlood plans to incorporate other multiplayer favorites with the platform’s full launch, and potentially the beta, which is planned for some time closer to March.

Regarding console gaming favorites, notably titles from the sports video game arm of Electronic Arts, Cuesta stated the plan is to move slow and to begin with PC based eSports titles.

“This [PC] market has been developing for a while and there’s more of a culture around it as well. But the option always exists for us to put on console games.”

Cuesta added, he expects a MainNet launch to occur just weeks after the beta release.