Category: Metaverse

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Crypto News Gaming Metaverse Tokens

Metaverse Token GALA Soars 100% in a Week Following ‘SpiderTanks’ Launch

Play-to-earn (P2E) metaverse gaming protocol Gala (GALA) has seen its token price rocket 117 percent this month, with 100 percent of that figure soaring in a single week.

A big part of the Gala surge can be ascribed to the launch of SpiderTanks, a PVP Brawler game developed by award-winning Netherlands-based gaming studio GAMEDIA:

Land and Venue Sales Also Booming

As well as actual gameplay, the newer generation of games launching on Gala has tapped into another growing trend in the P2E space, land and venue sales. These allow users to earn passive income, helping to grow a larger pool of community members invested in the protocol long-term.

New partnerships are also helping Gala expand the reach of its ecosystem. One of the most significant is this week’s announcement of a collaboration with the 888innercircle community, which numbers more than 205,000 members who are fans of digital art and collectibles:

Gala User Numbers Explode

The Gala community has recorded a huge leap in user numbers, particularly since the beginning of December. The aggregate was 122,230 as at February 7, representing a threefold increase since November from 40,380 users, confirms Dune Analytics.

Metaverse tokens in general have been surging since November, with VR (virtual reality) tokens and blockchain games on fire over the holiday period. Also in November, the metaverse token SAND hit an all-time high after announcing its highly anticipated Metaverse Alpha event.

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Blockchain Crypto News Events Metaverse NFTs

Virtual Sporting Company ‘Raramuri’ to Host World’s First Marathon in the MetaverseĀ 

Virtual sporting company Raramuri is hosting the worldā€™s first-ever marathon in the metaverse, where participants can earn digital rewards for running in real life (IRL). The event will take place on June 2, with this yearā€™s annual Global Running Day to be built on the KardiaChain blockchain in what the company is calling its first ā€œrun-to-earn eventā€.

Screenshot of Raramuri marathon in action. Source: Raramuri

Metaverse Marathon Mashup

The in-browser event will host 500 registered participants who will run 26.2 miles (42km) IRL and will be traced using their mobile phones or watches. The race data will correspond to an avatar progressing through Raramuriā€™s virtual course.

According to Raramuriā€™s website:

The Metaverse Marathon, the first hybrid race of its kind, allows you to focus on what you love and do best in the physical world: RUNNING, while greatly enhancing your experience with the shared metaverse.

raramuri.io/ 

The company added that physical marathons hold so many logistical boxes to check that they are currently not accessible to a lot of people. The aim of this race is to bring people from around the world together to run in their home towns, all connected by their course.

The race will be coordinated in such a way that spectators can line the virtual courseā€™s track and support their favourite runners by emoting a thumbs up or sending NFTs (non-fungible tokens) to their wallets as they run by in a watch-to-earn incentive model. Whenever a runner passes a competitor, their phone will buzz. Participants are also encouraged to dress their avatars in costumes showcasing their style, cause or inspiration to make the race more theatrical and interesting.

The metaverse has opened up a world of opportunities, but one Twitter user questioned why participating in a marathon would be the first thing to do:

KardiaChain Set to Run Backend Operations

The projectā€™s backend is built on the KardiaChain blockchain. Runners who complete the marathon will be rewarded with a digital asset ā€“ an NFT to commemorate their experience, which will feature their race times and grant them early access to future marathon registrations. Participants will own their NFTs and have their race information permanently recorded on the blockchain.

To sign up, visit the Raramuri website for further details.

More and More Events to Take Place in the Metaverse

As the metaverse continues to expand and more companies move into the space, various projects have embraced the innovative platform as a means of hosting. A new project called Animal Concerts is building a virtual touring company to host virtual live music events in the metaverse.

While the everyday person becomes accustomed to the idea of the metaverse, tech companies are accelerating their moves into the space. Microsoft, for example, is set on acquiring gaming giant Activision Blizzard for a whopping US$69 billion as part of its plan.  

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Crypto Art Crypto News DeFi Gaming Metaverse NFTs

Warner Bros Partners with Sandbox to Launch First Music-Themed Metaverse

Ethereum-based game The Sandbox has announced a partnership with major recording label Warner Music Group (WMG) to create a musical theme park and concert venue within the gaming metaverse.

According to Sebastien Borget, chief operations officer and co-founder of The Sandbox, the partnership ā€œbrings the open metaverse one step forward in the direction of fan-owned and community-driven initiativesā€.

Weā€™re shaping The Sandbox as a fun entertainment destination where creators, fans and players can enjoy first-of-a-kind immersive experiences and be more closely connected to their favourite musical artists through non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

Sebastien Borget, chief operations officer and co-founder, The Sandbox

Warners the First Major Music Label in the Metaverse

The unprecedented initiative, which marks Warners’ first foray into the NFT metaverse, will see WMG digital land in The Sandbox host concerts and other live experiences featuring artists represented by the label. The Warners roster includes Ed Sheeran, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Coldplay, Madonna, Charli XCX, Kylie Minogue and Rita Ora.

The Sandbox will provide some of those artists with another outlet to engage with fans, experiment with virtual entertainment, and generate new revenue streams while reaching a global community.

Sandbox Now Rivals Decentraland

Digital land remains in high demand, and consistent high trading volume in The Sandbox has made it one of the most competitive rivals to Decentraland in the metaverse sphere. According to the company, The Sandbox will hold a LAND sale in March to allow music fans to buy LANDS adjacent to the WMG property.

During a single week in late November, investors purchased more than US$100 million worth of virtual land, the majority of it coming from The Sandbox.

Other Metaverse Musical Projects

In December, another new project called Animal Concerts announced the formation of a virtual touring company to host virtual live music events in the metaverse. Through that project, artists can earn up to 50 percent of revenues from both ticket and NFT sales.

Earlier this month, a new blockchain-based music platform built for creators and investors was announced, intending to address the biggest challenge facing artists in the music industry today: raising capital. Opulous, as it’s called, allows fans to bankroll their favourite artists by harnessing the power of DeFi. They can also benefit from music sales as part copyright owners, thanks to NFTs.

All of which helps goes some way to prove that the world of NFTs is not all about mindless frivolity and outrageous prices.

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Blockchain Google Metaverse NFTs

Google Launches its Own Blockchain Division

As reported by Bloomberg, software giant Google has reportedly formed a division focused on blockchain technology, appointing Shivakumar Venkataraman as the new executive to lead the unit.

What Will the Blockchain Division Do?

Venkataraman, an engineering vice-president for Google, says the new division will focus on “blockchain and other next-gen distributed computing and data storage technologies”.

The new division comes under the umbrella of Labs, an incubator created by Google that focuses on long-term projects regarding emerging technologies such as virtual reality. Venkataraman will also become the “founding leader” of Labs.

Not much is known about the group apart from the information obtained by Bloomberg. This is probably a response to other tech giants integrating emerging technologies, such as Meta (formerly Facebook) and Instagram, both exploring NFTs (non-fungible tokens).

Will Google Integrate Crypto into Its Business Model?

While it’s still not known if Google will integrate digital assets like Instagram and Meta plan to do, this could be its jumpstart for exploring crypto assets and their foundational technology.

Google has alleviated the pressure on cryptocurrency promotion by lifting its advertising ban last August, allowing crypto companies to place ads on its search engine and sites that are part of its platform.

Another tech giant focusing on the rise of NFTs and Web3 is Microsoft, which has followed Facebook/Meta into the metaverse by launching 3D avatars and immersive meetings.

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Crypto News Facebook Metaverse NFTs Social media

Meta is Experimenting with an NFT Marketplace on Instagram

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, is looking to launch an NFT marketplace on Instagram, reportedly drawing up plans to allow its users to create and display NFTs on both their Instagram and Facebook profiles.

Meta Makes More Moves in the Metaverse

According to a report by the Financial Times (FT), Meta will allow its users to create and display NFTs on their profiles, along with a prototype feature for minting tokens in the pipeline. The report comes after Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri admitted it was ā€œactively exploring NFTs and how we can make them more accessible to a wider audienceā€, and after Meta announced its upcoming metaverse product would support NFTs.

Nothing to announce yet but we are definitely actively exploring NFTs and how we can make them more accessible to a broader audience. I think itā€™s an interesting place that we can play ā€¦ and also a way to hopefully help creators.

Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri

No Particular Blockchain in Mind … Yet

According to the FT report, it is still unclear which blockchain network these features would be built on. At the moment, NFTs exist on several blockchains including Solana, Tezos, Ethereum, Flow and WAX. The report says teams at Facebook and Instagram are looking at NFT integration, with Meta discussing the possibility of an NFT marketplace.

Metaā€™s digital currency wallet Novi is also said to be a key component in its push into NFTs. Novi is a new crypto wallet used for sending digital payments through WhatsApp, and is currently being trialled for a limited number of people in the US.

However exciting the news, users are urged to keep in mind that the initiative is still in the planning stages.

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Basic Attention Token Crypto News Metaverse Privacy

Opera Releases Web 3.0 Browser Dedicated to Crypto, a Challenger to Brave?

Opera, the Norwegian-based company behind the popular so-named internet browser, has launched a beta version of its Crypto Browser Project. Featuring built-in Web3 integrations and designed to facilitate users’ experience of browsing decentralised apps (DApps), games and metaverse platforms, the beta browser also offers a built-in non-custodial wallet, now available to Windows, Android, and Mac users.

Opera Targets the ‘Crypto-Native’ and ‘Crypto-Curious’

According to a January 18 press release, the beta browser targets both ā€œthe crypto-native and the crypto-curiousā€, with Operaā€™s own crypto wallet at the core of its usersā€™ experience. As it stands, the Opera browser features a no-login VPN (virtual private network) and native ad tracker blocker to help secure it. The current wallet is also exclusively compatible with Ethereum, but the company plans to roll out Polygon and Solana compatibility with a ā€œbig layer 2 announcementā€ coming in February.

The main feature of the new browser is that users can switch between apps without having to sign into their wallets for every new tab, which will work for any app that has an Opera wallet integration.

Jorgen Arnesen, vice-president of Web3 at Opera, explained the ultimate goal of the project is to help Web3 and crypto become more mainstream:

Operaā€™s Crypto Browser Project promises a simpler, faster, more private Web3 experience for users. It simplifies Web3 user experience that is often bewildering for mainstream users. Opera believes Web3 has to be easy to use for the decentralized web to reach its full potential.

Jorgen Arnesen, vice-president of Web3, Opera

Opera Picks a Battle with Brave

Opera, with a host of new features, hopes to expose its 350 million users to the magical world of crypto but is not the only one of its kind looking to take advantage of the interest in Web3. Privacy browser Brave recently launched a new Brave wallet and is including a Brave Swap Rewards program that will allow users to recoup 20 percent of their swap fees as an added incentive to the initiative.

Brave, in a further effort to expand its crypto reach, launched its new self-custody crypto wallet built into its browser application last November. The wallet will enable Brave users to store and buy cryptos, store NFTs, and make use of DeFi.

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Crypto News Gaming Metaverse

Microsoft Makes Shock $69 Billion Acquisition to Move into the Metaverse

Microsoft is making a massive move on Activision Blizzard, intending to spend an astronomical US$69 billion to acquire the gaming giant in an apparent escalation of its metaverse plans.

Deal Will Make Microsoft World’s #3 Gaming Company in Revenue Terms

The software behemoth will buy Activision Blizzard for US$95 per share at a valuation of US$68.7 billion. The deal, set to close in the 2023 fiscal year, will make Microsoft the world’s third-largest gaming company in revenue terms behind Riot Games owner Tencent and PlayStation developer Sony.

To frame the deal in another way, as Twitter user @CroissantEth succinctly put it, that US$69 billion purchase price amounts to three times the total market capitalisation of all existing metaverse tokens:

Xbox Game Pass Set to Xplode

Activision Blizzard has a long list of gaming franchises that includes Call of Duty, Overwatch, Candy Crush, World of Warcraft and Tony Hawkā€™s Pro Skater. On conclusion of the deal, its formidable catalogue is set to be added to Microsoft Xboxā€™s Game Pass service, which already has 25 million subscribers.

According to Microsoft chairman and CEO Satya Nadella, the deal will provide ā€œbuilding blocks for the metaverseā€, adding that “gaming is the most dynamic and exciting category in entertainment across all platforms today, and will play a key role in the development of metaverse platformsā€.

Meanwhile, ‘Mesh’ is Coming

In November 2021, Nadella foreshadowed Microsoft’s metaverse plans with the “Mesh” upgrade to its Teams service, which involves personalised digital avatars and immersive spaces in the metaverse, due later this year.

Microsoft’s latest move also comes as no surprise after Facebook rebranded itself as Meta a month earlier, heralding its own foray into the metaverse. Interestingly, The Wall Street Journal reported last week that 100 employees from Microsoftā€™s augmented reality team have departed over the past year to join Meta.

US retail giant Walmart also signalled its intentions to enter the space this week by announcing its plans to make and sell virtual goods.

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Crypto Art Crypto News Metaverse NFTs

Turn Street Graffiti into NFTs? ‘NFT Hack 2022’ Throws Up Some Interesting Ideas

Of all the innovative ideas put forth at this week’s NFT Hack 2022, minting street graffiti as non-fungible tokens is quite possibly the wackiest.

Graffiti Mint is a decentralised application (dApp) that aims to digitise, mint, and monetise graffiti events. It integrates ERC1155 NFTs for 4-tier season passes for event supporters and ERC751 contracts to mint street art produced in graffiti events at city parks as NFTs.

Event supporters get an OG (Original Gangster) NFT from each artwork made at events from their season pass, while artists earn funds from the auction of Event Edition NFTs and a percentage of the OG NFT sales.

Last year, Australian street artist Lushsux gained international recognition for his large mural paintings depicting internet meme culture. Melbourne-based Lushsux has since become one of the highest-paid artists in Australia, selling his NFTs for over A$500,000 each.

Also showcased at NFT Hack 2022 (January 14-16):

Charisma, a tool that “reads” your personality by analysing your wallet’s NFT assets and your on-chain activity;

OxPhotos, a stock photography marketplace that puts creators first, where NFTs become future cashflow-positive assets that can be traded on other NFT marketplaces; and

Cropsin, a platform that pays creators in crypto to place independent music artists’ songs in their videos and invests in album art, songs, tickets, metaverse merch and song royalty NFTs.

For a comparison, see Crypto News Australia‘s guide to the top 10 NFT art projects of the past few years.

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Blockchain Crypto News Cryptocurrencies Metaverse NFTs Tokens

Walmart is Quietly Preparing a Push into the Metaverse

Not wanting to miss out on the multi-trillion-dollar metaverse market, US-based retail giant Walmart is pressing on with its plans to make and sell virtual goods.

The world’s second-largest retailer (recently outranked by Amazon) is planning to launch a collection of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and create its own cryptocurrency.

New Trademark Applications Show Metaverse Intent

On December 30, Walmart filed several new trademarks that indicate its intent to build a virtual Walmart store within the metaverse and allow users to shop for electronics, home decorations, personal care items, toys, sporting goods, and a range of other products available in Walmart stores, offering its own virtual currency as a means of payment.

Walmart trademark application.

Walmart even has plans to offer a crypto wallet, described in its trademark application as: “Downloadable software for use in managing portfolios of digital currency, virtual currency, cryptocurrency, digital and blockchain assets, digitised assets, digital tokens, crypto tokens, and utility tokens; downloadable software for electronic wallet services; downloadable e-wallets.”

Source: Gerben Intellectual Property

Shopping in Walmart in the Metaverse

Watch the video below to get a glimpse of what shopping in Walmart in the Metaverse might look like:

The buzz around the metaverse went ballistic after Facebook announced it was changing its company name to Meta last October. Since then, big businesses across different sectors have been amping up their own efforts for how they can adapt to exist in a virtual 3D world.

Nike entered the Metaverse after acquiring the virtual sneaker company RTFKT (pronounced ā€œartifactā€) and teaming up with Roblox to create an online world called Nikeland, following other big sports footwear names such as Adidas and Asics who had already launched their own NFT collections last year.

Many other big brands are also racing to stake their claim in the metaverse. Last week, Crypto News Australia reported that Samsung will open a virtual store hosted in Decentraland. The metaverse is becoming the future frontier for retailers and promises a whole new world of financial opportunities.

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Blockchain Crypto News DeFi Gaming Metaverse NFTs

5 Interesting NFT Projects for 2022

Last year saw explosive growth in the non-fungible token (NFT) market, with interesting and innovative projects popping up left, right, and centre. The new year already looks promising with exhilarating projects up for launch in 2022.

We’ve compiled a guide to five of the more interesting projects set for 2022, as we did for projects launching in December and for five Christmas-themed NFT projects.

Expantum: The Game

Expantum balances tokenomics and gameplay.

Expantum is a next-generation play-and-earn strategy game that uniquely balances cutting-edge tokenomics and fun gameplay and is built on the Ethereum blockchain. In the Expantum metaverse, players can prove themselves as outstanding leaders at all stages of the game, and can build provinces and capitals while organising continuous production and supply of resources. Players can choose an optimal composition of an army and customise their set, creating alliances with other players for the sake of victory.

GANime

GANime: anime characters based on AI-generated NFT videos.

GANime is on-chain machine learning-generated anime characters built on the Ethereum blockchain, based on AI-generated anime NFT videos. Its creators call it fun and accessible for all.

Solice Metaverse

Solice: an interconnected metaverse of virtual worlds, NFTs and communities.

The Solice Metaverse is the first cross-platform virtual reality metaverse on the Solana blockchain where users can play, build, own, socialise and monetise their virtual experiences. Solice is an interconnected metaverse of virtual worlds, NFTs and communities with the aim of improving overall user experience.

Illuvium

Illuvium: join the quest to hunt and capture deity-like creatures.

An open-world RPG adventure game built atop the Ethereum blockchain, Illuvium is a journey across a vast landscape on a quest to hunt and capture deity-like creatures called Illuvials. More than 100 Illuvials populate this alien world, each possessing different affinities, classes and abilities. Creatures can be captured, fused and upgraded to more powerful forms.

Opulous

Opulous brings DeFi to the music industry and a fairer payment method for artists.

Opulous, built for creators and inventors, brings DeFi to the music industry, changing how artists access funding as well as providing a launchpad for the first music copyright-backed NFTs. Opulous offers DeFi loans backed by future royalties that will replace the unfair deals traditionally forced on promising new artists. The project is powered by cryptos, using future-proof blockchain and smart contract technology to connect investors and artists like never before.