Alto.io lets developers create crypto items for games.
Alto.io lets developers create crypto items for games.
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Alto.io lets devs build blockchain items for games on Hedera Hashgraph

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 2 min

Alto.io wants to get consumers to start embracing cryptocurrency and blockchain in a bigger way. So the company announced it will support the Hedera Hashgraph platform with its own application that makes commerce possible.

Alto.io has created a tool, the Alto Forge, that enables game and app developers to mint non-fungible, fully tradeable crypto items and integrate them into their games. Developers can create storefronts where they can sell the crypto items or hold presales.

Game developers have long created items that can be sold in games. But with blockchain, Alto.io can ensure that the user truly owns an item, and that item can be unique thanks to the security and transparency of the public distributed ledger. Hedera Hashgraph recently announced it is creating its own version of a blockchain alternative network to speed such commerce.

“Distributed ledger technology will change the way we play games in the future. For the first time, true ownership of game items is possible. We’d like to be on the forefront of this breakthrough,” said Chase Freo, CEO at Alto.io, in a statement.

If a game shuts down, a user could transfer that item or character to another game that accepts it.

“We’ve chosen to support Hedera Hashgraph because its technology allows for lightning-fast transaction speeds with very minimal gas cost, two of the biggest problems blockchain developers are facing today,” added Gabby Dizon, Alto’s co-founder and chairman, in a statement. “It also supports the full Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), meaning blockchain game developers can port their Solidity code into Hedera with minimal code changes.”

The idea is to create a self-sustaining ecosystem​ built around the blockchain’s item-first economy that is fair and mutually beneficial for everyone.

“Alto.io is helping reduce the barriers to entry for game developers by allowing them to quickly and easily build on top of the industry’s leading distributed ledger platforms”, said Edgar Seah, head of the Asia Pacific region for Hedera Hashgraph, in a statement. “We are pleased that they have chosen to integrate support for the Hedera Hashgraph platform into their tools, creating an ecosystem where cryptoitems can be interoperable across multiple game worlds, benefiting both developers and gamers.”

Alto.io was founded in Singapore and Toronto in February 2018 as a spinout from Altitude Games. It has 12 employees.

Asked why the company is supporting Hedera, Dizon said in an email, “Every distributed ledger protocol needs real-world use cases, and games are a leading use case for its technology. In-game item trading is already a $50 billion business without blockchain, and startups like Wax, Rarebits, and Opensea are trying to solve the marketplace aspect of blockchain games where players can truly own their game items. Our platform enables game developers to tokenize their game assets and connect them to the blockchain, and we are presenting developers with different distributed ledger technologies depending on the needs for their particular game.”
Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.