Category: GameFi

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Bored Ape Yacht Club GameFi Markets Metaverse

ApeCoin Pumps Almost 50% on Release of ‘Otherside’ Metaverse Demo

A thrilling “first trip” into the gamified metaverse associated with the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) has boosted the price of ApeCoin (APE) by around 50 percent.

Data from CoinGecko shows APE rallied in the days following a demo of the Otherside metaverse, and it is up more than 43 percent over the past week. 

APE has been on an upward trend since reaching its all-time low of US$3.10 in June this year – but it’s still down more than 77 percent from its all-time high of US$26.70 in April. 

First Voyage into ‘Otherside’ Metaverse Stirs Excitement

The Otherside metaverse was co-created by metaverse tech company Improbable and Yuga Labs. Yuga Labs flagged its metaverse project and the sale of virtual land in March as a means to expand its Bored Ape ecosystem – one of the most expensive and successful NFT collections launched – guaranteeing strong interest.

Around 4,500 people explored the immersive virtual world via a demo held on July 17, which sparked genuine excitement and helped hike the value of $APE:

The demo was exclusively open to owners (known as Voyagers) of an Otherdeed non-fungible token (NFT). Otherdeed NFTs went on sale earlier in 2022 and essentially represent a plot of land and associated resources in the Otherside world. 

Gameplay Central to Otherside Experience

ApeDAO launched $APE in March to a mixed market reaction, while stating its purpose was to “drive culture forward into the metaverse”. That now seems to be being realised given that $APE is required to access Otherside and purchase game-related assets. 

According to the Otherside project’s litepaper, initially users (aka Voyagers) will engage with the virtual world through a narrative-based gameplay.

All Voyagers are invited to take part in Voyager’s Journey, an 11-part storyline surrounding a mysterious Obelisk that has appeared in the Otherside universe. Team up with other Voyagers, develop your own experiences on your slice of the Otherside, and discover and shape what can be harvested, crafted, traded, bought and sold.

Otherside litepaper

Tech demos like the one that triggered the price increase for $APE are the first stage of the Voyager’s Journey. Future “trips” inside Otherside are planned to accomodate more Voyagers, with dates to be announced via Otherside’s social media.

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Australia Ethereum GameFi Immutable X NFTs

Australia’s ‘Immutable X’ Launches $500 Million Fund to Accelerate Web3 Game Development

Immutable, the Sydney-based company behind the NFT-focused Ethereum scaling solution Immutable X, has announced the launch of its new US$500 million developer and investment fund:

The so-named Immutable Developer and Venture Fund will help accelerate the growth of Immutable X by providing grants to, and investing in, the most promising projects building on the protocol, with a particular focus on fostering the growth of Web3 game development.

New Fund to Supercharge Adoption

The fund will provide investment and grants in both cash and crypto, with crypto funding in the form of Immutable X’s native token, IMX.

The ventures side involves partnerships with several large VC firms including BITKRAFT, Animoca, AirTree, GameStop and others. The fund will look to invest in the most promising projects building on Immutable X, providing them with the necessary resources to help them scale and launch successfully.

Grants will provide developers with financial support tied to project milestones, as well as technical and educational support to help them realise their project goals. Drawing on its experience in blockchain-based game development, Immutable X will provide guidance to grant recipients to support them to transition to blockchain gaming:

We’re taking the lessons learned from building two of the blockchain’s biggest games – Gods Unchained and Guild of Guardians – and hiring the smartest people from Web2 studios like Riot Games to make entering the NFT gaming world simple and rewarding for gaming studios.

James Ferguson, CEO and co-founder, Immutable

Web3 Gaming Presents Huge Opportunity

James’s brother Robbie Ferguson, president and co-founder of Immutable, sees Web3 gaming as an enormous growth area moving forward that Immutable X will be well placed to benefit from with the launch of this fund:

Gaming is bigger than movies and music combined, and is compounding by 10 percent every year. With the knowledge we have from building two of the blockchain’s biggest games in-house, we’re going to be providing the funding, expertise and infrastructure needed to grow this to a trillion-dollar ownable economy over the next decade.

Robbie Ferguson, president and co-founder, Immutable

Immutable X Focuses on Gaming

Founded in Sydney in 2018, Immutable X was designed specifically to bring scalability and affordability to Ethereum’s NFT ecosystem. The protocol is fast – able to process up to 9,000 transactions per second – and has zero gas fees and is carbon neutral. 

Immutable X works by leveraging StarkWare’s zero-knowledge proof technology, which allows it to ‘roll-up’ thousands of transactions on its own network separate from Ethereum, and then commit them to the Ethereum blockchain in a single transaction.

Immutable X has had a busy few months, having raised $US200 million in its most recent funding round in March and in May partnering with gaming company Kongregate to launch a US$40 million developer grant fund.

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Axie Infinity Binance Crypto News DeFi GameFi NFTs

Binance Leads $150 Million Round to Reimburse Ronin Attack Victims

Following last month’s record-breaking hack of the Ronin network, responsible for Axie Infinity transactions, Binance has led a funding round to help reimburse affected users.

According to an announcement this week by Vietnamese gaming studio Sky Mavis, a funding round was led by Binance with other venture capital firms – including Animoca Brands, a16z, Dialectic, and Paradigm – to help reimburse funds lost in the US$625 million Axie Infinity hack.

Community to the Rescue

The hack is the biggest decentralised finance (DeFi) hack on record and has done a lot of damage to the Axie Infinity ecosystem Sky Mavis has created. Axie is the best performing blockchain game in the space, having processed 10 times more all-time volume than the next biggest NFT game.

We have seen the tremendous work and growth of the Sky Mavis team since working together on the Axie Infinity project on Binance Launchpad. We strongly believe Sky Mavis will bring a lot of value and growth for the larger industry and we believe it’s necessary to support them as they work hard to resolve the recent incident.

Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, CEO, Binance

Proceeds of the funding round along with funds on the Sky Mavis balance sheet will be used to ensure that all affected users are reimbursed. According to the post, “The Ronin Network bridge will open once it has undergone a security upgrade and several audits, which can take several weeks.”

The post also stated that “the 56,000 ETH compromised from the Axie DAO treasury will remain undercollateralised as Sky Mavis continues to work with law enforcement to recover the funds”.

If the funds are not fully recovered within two years, it has been decided that the Axie DAO will vote on the next steps for the treasury.

Sky Mavis post

Increasing Ronin’s Security

Following the attack, Sky Mavis started the process of implementing rigorous internal security measures to prevent future attacks.

On March 23, Sky Mavis’s Ronin validator nodes and Axie DAO validator nodes were compromised, leading to the record-breaking hack. With the support of Binance, the Ronin chain has now been able to expand its validator set from 5 to 21 – increasing the security of the network – according to Sky Mavis CEO Trung Nguyen.

There have been only a few cases where affected users were reimbursed, especially in a case as large as this. With Axie being the biggest NFT game, major players have come together to help the project get back on its feet. Last year, Rari Capital also reimbursed up to US$25 million after being hacked.

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Blockchain BNB Crypto News GameFi Gaming Metaverse

BNB Chain to Launch Application-Specific Sidechains to Reduce Network Strain 

BNB Chain is on the move to add application-specific sidechains to the blockchain to help with scalability and streamline data-heavy applications like gaming and the metaverse.

BNB Chain, formerly known as Binance Smart Chain (BSC), the Layer 1 solution developed by Binance, will start including sidechains to improve its scalability. Similar to Polkadot’s (DOT) parachains, these BNB Chain Application Sidechains (BAS) aim to cut costs and increase the speed of transactions for resource-intense applications such as gaming, SocialFi, and the metaverse.

Binance Labs – the core development team of BNB Chain – has yet to reveal all the technical details. However, the possibility has been ruled out that these sidechains become equal layer 1 blockchains, which is the case with parachains.

A BNB Chain spokesperson told The Block:

The BAS is an infrastructure introduced to help developers and node operators build and run their own blockchain as their internal value system for a massive number of users while still maintaining a close connection with BNB Chain.

BNB spokesperson

It’s All About the Use Case

The point of application-specific sidechains is to allow each chain to focus on a specific use case. According to the BNB spokesperson, the sidechains will host BNB-compatible dApps and will be able to operate independently of the mainnet – allowing teams to customise for their own security needs, instead of relying on the mainnet.

Sidechains to Open Doors for Large-Scale Applications

A valid comparison to BAS is Ronin, a sidechain on Ethereum dedicated solely to Axie Infinity’s play-to-earn game. Similarly, the very first BAS testnet will focus on GameFi, according to the BNB spokesperson.

BNB Chain ecosystem coordinator Samy Karim has mentioned previously that “BNB Chain will embrace large-scale applications, including GameFi, SocialFi and the Metaverse. In particular, scaling from one chain to multi-chain, improving scaling solutions and expanding the validator set of BSC from 21 to 41 (with 20 validators functioning as candidate block producers).”

Binance has been making various moves as of late, from acquiring traditional businesses and bringing them into the crypto space to now adding sidechains to facilitate specific use cases. The centralised giant may still have a big role to play in the crypto space.

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Crypto News GameFi Genopets Play to Earn Solana

STEPN Token Soars 128% Following Web 3.0 Move-to-Earn Token Sale

STEPN token has soared 128 percent following its Web 3.0 token sale. The app allows users to earn money while exercising and adds to the very small market of move-to-earn. STEPN joins Genopets which was the first move-to-earn initiative.

Burn Calories, Earn Tokens

STEPN is a Web3 lifestyle app built with in-game GameFi and Social-Fi elements. Players can make “handsome earnings by walking, jogging, or running outdoors”, according to the project’s website. The first project to bring to life a functioning move-to-earn concept, STEPN finished in fourth place out of 500+ projects at the Solana Ignition hackathon 2021.

Users in the game equip themselves with NFTs in the form of sneakers. Through movement, users earn game currency to be used in-game or cashed out for profit.

Towards Wider Web3 Adoption

The goal of STEPN is to utilise GameFi to move millions of people towards a healthier lifestyle, combat climate change, and connect the public to Web 3.0. Along with all of that, the project hinges on its Social-Fi aspect to build a long-lasting platform to foster user-generated Web 3.0 content.

Naturally, users are excited and many took to Twitter to share their elation:

Move-to-Earn Is On the Move

STEPN joins Genopets, the world’s first mobile move-to-earn NFT game that aims to bridge the physical and digital worlds. Genopets, like STEPN, is built on the Solana blockchain and allows users to create an NFT connected to their fitness data.