Since September 2021, Australian play-to-earn blockchain gaming company SolChicks has raised A$77 million from venture capital and institutional investment funds, as well as hiring more than 100 staff.
Powered by the high-speed Solana blockchain, SolChicks is scheduled for an “alpha” mini-game release next month and an official release exactly a year after its founding.
SolChicks Joins Seoul Stars and Angrymals in the Catheon Gaming Stable
A pair of Australian finance graduates, chief executive William Wu – based in Shanghai – and CEO Lewis Grafton of Sydney have in six months grown SolChicks into a game studio with two other titles. The duo’s Catheon Gaming team (and parent company) is based in Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore.
Catheon’s other games are the Korean-themed Seoul Stars, a “sing-to-earn” game endorsed by K-pop stars, and Angrymals, a player-versus-player fortress defence strategy mobile game inspired by Angry Birds and Worms. But SolChicks is the flagship, said to be similar to traditional RPG titles such as Darkest Dungeon or Diablo, except that the players are “cute chicken characters” that can be bought and sold as NFTs on Solana.
How the Game Works
NFT characters are stored in a digital wallet (the developers recommend Phantom or SolFlare). There are only 10,000 unique origin SolChicks, but players who own two will be allowed to breed them to produce SolEggs. Breeding SolChicks creates unique NFTs that can be sold in the marketplace for profit.
The original SolChicks fall into one of five categories based on the rarity of their attributes. Players can progress their SolChicks through 60 levels, from Tutorial, through Fledgling and Progression, and finally Endgame.
SolChicks are highly customisable based on their primary and secondary stats, which can be improved through buying and adding NFT attributes. Players are urged to “bond” with their SolChick – they need to regularly “feed” it and participate in PvP (player versus player) battles with it to gain experience.
What Players Can Earn
Players are ranked on a weekly basis according to their level and achievements, and rewarded with CHICKS tokens. Users can earn the in-game currency SolCoins, and may also sell and trade their in-game assets and rewards as NFTs.
SolChicks has over 350,000 followers on Twitter and says its community consists of 700,000 across 20 countries. The demo version of the game is currently available to all aspiring players through the SolChicks website.
🔥🔥 HOTTEST SALES OF THE PAST 24 HOURS 🔥🔥
🥇 3700 for 94 SOL ($8397 USD) 🥈 5403 for 80 SOL ($7146 USD) 🥉 4885 for 17 SOL ($1518 USD)
A new report has found the estimated number of daily active users on the Solana blockchain has surged around 300 percent since the last network update in September 2021.
SOL daily active accounts. Source: OurNetwork
The report from OurNetwork – a substack newsletter that covers the Solana ecosystem – used Solana’s unique daily active signers figure as a proxy for daily active users: this figure peaked at 299,000 in late January but has since dropped off to around 232,000.
Unique signers peaked at 299,000 in late January, but tapered off a bit to 232,000 after the network’s most recent bout with degraded performance. Solana’s long-term uptrend has recently been bolstered by its two top wallets – Solflare and Phantom – launching their own iOS mobile apps, along with strong consumer participation in the Solana NFT market.
OurNetwork report
Solana Ecosystem Sees Sustained Growth
This increase in Solana daily active signers follows a general long-term uptrend in usage of the blockchain since mid-2021. The NFT market in particular has been a strong driver of growth for Solana. Since the June 2021 launch of the Metaplex protocol, the number of unique NFT owners on the network has grown from 28,000 to almost 2.5 million:
SOL unique owners. Source: OurNetwork
User Growth Despite Outages, Security Concerns
Somewhat surprisingly, the growth in Solana users continues fairly consistently despite relatively frequent and major disruptions to the network.
Already, in the first two months of 2022 Solana has seen multiple outages either due to DDoS attacks or the network being over-taxed by legitimate users.
In a sure sign that the non-fungible token bubble has burst, if only temporarily, interest in NFTs has almost halved in the past month.
Worldwide Google Trends (GT) data shows that interest in NFTs plunged by 45 percent in terms of internet searches. During the second week of January, the search query “NFT” sat comfortably at 100, the highest trend score a query can register on GT. This week, however, the data shows an overall score of just 55.
Sales Down Almost 30%, Solana the Only Gainer
Overall sales slipped by 29.35 percent last week, translating to losses of more than 7 percent. Out of 12 different NFT-supporting blockchains, Solana was the only gainer in terms of sales during that period. Rounding out the top five were Ethereum, Ronin, Flow and Avalanche.
The biggest seven-day sales losers included Binance Smart Chain (down 76.68 percent) and Avalanche (-54.56 percent). Topping the sales list, according to cryptoslam.io, was 3Landers with US$40.8 million, followed by Tubby Cats ($35.9m), Invisible Friends ($32m), Mfer ($23.7m) and Bored Ape Yacht Club ($23.68m).
OpenSea Tops Marketplace Sales
Dappradar.com statistics indicate that OpenSea was the top NFT marketplace in terms of sales last week, followed by LooksRare, BloctoBay, Ronin’s Axie Infinity, and Solana’s Magic Eden.
Many continue to question the value of NFTs, with the tokens serving no purpose besides being able to be bought or sold. Thus owners tend to hold onto NFTs in the hope their value increases. In October last year, Singapore-based decentralised derivatives exchange SynFutures launched NFTures, a product that allows users to short, or bet against, the future prices of NFTs. Hopefully a few got on board ahead of this latest slump.
Let’s take a closer look at today’s altcoins showing breakout signals. We’ll explain what the coin is, then dive into the trading charts and provide some analysis to help you decide.
1. Eos (EOS)
EOS is a platform designed to allow developers to build decentralised apps. The project’s goal is relatively simple: to make it as straightforward as possible for programmers to embrace blockchain technology and ensure the network is easier to use than rivals. As a result, tools and a range of educational resources are provided to support developers who want to build functional apps quickly. EOS also aims to improve the experience for users and businesses. While the project tries to deliver greater security and less friction for consumers, it also vies to unlock flexibility and compliance for enterprises.
EOS Price Analysis
At the time of writing, EOS is ranked the 47th cryptocurrency globally and the current price is US$2.19. Let’s take a look at the chart below for price analysis:
EOS has been in an overall decline for the last 10 months and has reached 87% below its mid-May 2021 high.
Just above the current price, near $2.1364, might be the bears’ first line of resistance in the upcoming weeks. This level is near the 9 EMA and consolidation highs that formed after the low sweep at $1.9940.
A slightly larger rally toward the February open is possible. Resistance could be found between $2.2760 and $2.4306, with the lower half of this range possibly proving stronger. This range has confluence with the 40 EMA and accumulation area for the early February run on bears’ stops.
While less likely, a more extended rally might reach probable resistance near $3.2716. This area is in the upper half of a significant consolidation area on higher-timeframe charts.
Bulls might find support beginning near $1.7000 – perhaps if traders “sell the news” of the Mandel 3.0 release. However, $1.4200 to $1.2142 could offer a higher probability of a short-term bottom before a more substantial bounce. Higher timeframes show inefficient trading in this zone, as well as in another possible support beginning near $0.9000.
2. Solana (SOL)
Solana SOL is a highly functional open-source project that banks on blockchain technology’s permissionless nature to provide decentralised finance (DeFi) solutions. The Solana protocol is designed to facilitate decentralised app (DApp) creation. It aims to improve scalability by introducing a proof-of-history (PoH) consensus combined with the underlying proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus of the blockchain.
SOL Price Analysis
At the time of writing, SOL is ranked the 9th cryptocurrency globally and the current price is US$95.27. Let’s take a look at the chart below for price analysis:
SOL has retraced 71% from its November all-time high and reached possible support last week near $75.3450. Resistance might begin near $89.2450, which has confluence with the 9 and 18 EMAs.
A more substantial rally might reach near the swing high at $105.9075 and the 40 EMA. This high is less likely to break if bears plan to continue the downtrend without a lengthier consolidation.
While not highly probable in the current market conditions, a more animated move upward could reach a wide resistance area between $122.0000 and $147.9425. This zone is where the last movement down accumulated positions before breaking down.
Possible support rests near $75.3450, which showed sensitivity on the last test. While it could provide support again, the higher-timeframe bearish trend is more likely to propel the price into an inefficient area between $66.1000 and $54.7225. If the price reaches this zone, the May 2021 swing high near $58.4425 might mark a more sensitive level.
An eventual break of this support might target $42.8725, where the price consolidated during the summer before beginning its last bull run.
3. Syscoin (SYS)
Syscoin SYS is a full Layer-1 and Layer-2 blockchain solution built to combine industry-proven technology to support cutting-edge applications all in one network. The project’s goal is to build a protocol that transforms the blockchain experience and combines the best of Bitcoin and Ethereum. Through Bitcoin merge-mining, Syscoin transforms Bitcoin’s Proof-of-Work security and decentralisation into a functional and scalable solution. Syscoin’s token platform currently features custom notary API, Fungible Tokens, NFTs, and Fractionalised NFTs.
SYS Price Analysis
At the time of writing, SYS is ranked the 138th cryptocurrency globally and the current price is US$0.6116. Let’s take a look at the chart below for price analysis:
Early January 2022 created the all-time high in SYS before its retracement, which reached 70% by last week.
A sharp weekly rally might have formed possible resistance near $0.688700, where higher timeframes show a small inefficient area.
Slightly lower, an area from $0.596187 to $0.629302 might also provide resistance. This area shows significant rejection of bulls by bears and has confluence with the 18 EMA.
While less probable in the current market conditions, a more significant rally could reach the February monthly open near $0.596187. This area saw consolidation before the recent drop and shows signs of inefficient trading.
From $0.528137 to $0.471303, price structures near the recent swing low could offer some support and perhaps form the lower end of an upcoming consolidation range.
A break through this support might be targeting the midpoint of Q2 2022’s accumulation near $0.309023, where higher timeframes suggest bulls’ stops might provide an attractive target for bears.
These coins have high liquidity on Binance Exchange, so that could help with trading on AUD/USDT/BTC pairs. And if you’re looking at buying and HODLing cryptos, then Swyftx Exchange is an easy-to-use popular choice in Australia.
A New York City vending machine is now allowing users to purchase NFTs with fiat currency. Having closed a US$3 million seed round last month, the bold new project from Neon brings a Solana-based NFT marketplace to the real world:
There’s a Vending Machine in New York City Selling Solana NFTs —
With the goal of simplifying the NFT purchasing process, Neon’s co-founder and CMO Jordan Birnholtz collaborated on the idea with a summer intern in mid-2021 and soon came to the realisation that when it comes to ease of use, a vending machine ticks all the boxes.
We built it because it shows how powerful and easy it can be to support digital artists, and to demystify the process of getting an NFT.
Jordan Birnholtz, co-founder and CMO, Neon
Crypto Support is Coming
The vending machine is mounted within a shallow shopfront, highlighted by neon lighting. Users can make a purchase with a credit card and scan a QR code stored within the dispensed envelope to claim their NFTs online. Last month’s seed round closed a US$3 million profit and Neon intends to support crypto payments in future.
Being featured in Yahoo Finance? I can finally prove to my mom that I am NOT a disappointment! https://t.co/H2rZw2aTn0
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) is rumoured to be launching an NFT marketplace of its own after it reportedly filed an application with the US Patent and Trademark Office.
As NFTs and cryptocurrencies develop, the financial sector is changing and updating its services to keep up. Mastercard has plans to offer consulting services for all things crypto this year. The brand’s payments-focused consulting service intends to expand its brief by catering to open banking, open data, crypto and digital currencies, and ESG.
Thru Tues: airdropping to active wallets (in last month) who connected email / discord by today
Wed: airdropping to active wallets from last month who connect email / discord by EOD tmr
That will be the end of our 1st drop
If you can't connect email/discord, refresh or DM us
— Magic Eden 🪄 Solana's Leading NFT Marketplace (@MagicEden_NFT) February 22, 2022
feeling something in the air…drop
— Magic Eden 🪄 Solana's Leading NFT Marketplace (@MagicEden_NFT) February 22, 2022
The airdrop will provide recipients with access to the coming DAO, called MagicDAO. Magic Eden said the new DAO would help strengthen the wider Solana NFT ecosystem and allow its community to help guide future expansion:
Read about our #MagicTicket airdrop + @TheMagicDAO@TheMagicDAO's purpose is to work together w/ the community to create a stronger Solana NFT ecosystem
— Magic Eden 🪄 Solana's Leading NFT Marketplace (@MagicEden_NFT) February 22, 2022
Since its launch in September 2021, Magic Eden has rapidly grown to become the dominant NFT marketplace on the Solana network. In its first five months, Magic Eden has already attracted over 410,000 users and racked up over US$700 million in trading volume.
NFT Access-Based DAO
Unlike most DAOs, MagicDAO doesn’t have an associated token – rather, it’s being referred to as an NFT-gated DAO. This model uses NFTs, known as Magic Tickets, to grant membership to the DAO at one of three tiers based on when members made their first transaction: OGs, degens and normies.
The various tiers will give members a range of rights in the DAO and access to different perks such as free merch, access to participate in hacker challenges, NFT collection whitelists, and entry to online founder AMAs.
Governance Remains With Team For Now
Initially, governance will remain largely centralised within the Magic Eden team with a view to increasing community participation in the future. Members of MagicDAO will be able to vote on less important issues – such as which collections to feature on the homepage – but important governance decisions will continue to be made by the team for the foreseeable future:
In the beginning, Magic Eden’s team will be more heavily involved in decision-making since we want to start slowly and make sure MagicDAO is successful. Over time, we hope the community will play a larger role.
Magic Eden statement on MagicDAO
The seed funding for the DAO is 1000 SOL, sourced from Magic Eden fees; ongoing funding will come from a 5 percent levy on creator royalties and secondary sales, and 2 percent of trading fees on Magic Ticket.
The launch of MagicDAO follows the recent launch of OpenDAO, a DAO that aims to protect buyers and strengthen the NFT community on the Ethereum blockchain. This may be part of a larger trend, which sees the NFT market maturing and taking more seriously its responsibilities to investors.
Let’s take a closer look at today’s altcoins showing breakout signals. We’ll explain what the coin is, then dive into the trading charts and provide some analysis to help you decide.
1. Polygon (MATIC)
Polygon MATIC is the first well-structured, easy-to-use platform for Ethereum scaling and infrastructure development. Its core component is Polygon SDK, a modular, flexible framework that supports building multiple types of applications. The MATIC token will continue to exist and will play an increasingly important role, securing the system and enabling governance.
MATIC Price Analysis
At the time of writing, MATIC is ranked the 16th cryptocurrency globally and the current price is US$1.68. Let’s take a look at the chart below for price analysis:
Since its January low, MATIC has been in a steady bullish trend – printing a 60% gain by early February. The price found support near $1.62, at the 78.6% retracement level, during mid-January’s decline.
Last week’s sharp impulse up might have marked the start of a new bullish swing. If so, higher timeframes suggest that $2.12 near the 61.8% retracement, and the 9, 18 and 40 EMAs, may see interest from bulls. The price could reach lower, near $1.57, and still find support.
Currently, the price is contesting a region between $1.80 and $1.61. Closes over this level could confirm it as new support, leading to a move higher.
However, bulls are contending with probable resistance near $1.77, while $1.84 is also likely to be sensitive with the nearest support and resistance this close together.
2. Solana (SOL)
Solana SOL is a highly functional open-source project that banks on blockchain technology’s permissionless nature to provide decentralised finance (DeFi) solutions. The Solana protocol is designed to facilitate decentralised app (DApp) creation. It aims to improve scalability by introducing a proof-of-history (PoH) consensus combined with the underlying proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus of the blockchain.
SOL Price Analysis
At the time of writing, SOL is ranked the 8th cryptocurrency globally and the current price is US$93.63. Let’s take a look at the chart below for price analysis:
SOL retraced nearly 45% from its high before finding a low during last week. Since then, the price has been sweeping stops on both sides of its local range as the current consolidation sets up the next move.
Aggressive bulls might bid near $90.34, although a sweep of the stops near $86.61 could reach below the next swing low into possible support near $80.12. A continued downtrend may run into the weekly gap near $76.24.
Some bears may add more shorts near $98.87, although a push to $110.66 is reasonable. A daily candle close over the swing high near $128.04 could suggest that a longer-term trend reversal is in play, with bulls possibly entering on a retracement near $143.62 for monthly high prices.
3. Cardano (ADA)
Cardano ADA is a proof-of-stake blockchain platform whose stated goal is to allow “changemakers, innovators and visionaries” to bring about positive global change. The open-source project also aims to “redistribute power from unaccountable structures to the margins to individuals”, helping to create a society that is more secure, transparent, and fair. Cardano is used by agricultural companies to track fresh produce from field to fork, while other products built on the platform allow educational credentials to be stored in a tamper-proof way, and retailers to clamp down on counterfeit goods.
ADA Price Analysis
At the time of writing, ADA is ranked the 7th cryptocurrency globally and the current price is US$1.05. Let’s take a look at the chart below for price analysis:
ADA‘s nearly 55% drop from its mid-January highs found a low near $1.05 last week before closing over a short-term high.
This daily close over the high could signal a shift in market structure that may reach probable resistance near $1.25. A sustained bullish move may target the swing high at $1.35. If this stop run occurs, a run beyond the high into probable resistance near $1.44 and $1.53 is possible.
Bulls could buy a retracement to possible support near $1.00, just above the monthly open. A bearish turn in the marketplace may propel the price toward possible support near $0.9625.
However, relatively equal lows near $0.9218 and $0.9022 provide an attractive target for bears if the market resumes its bearish trend. A run on these lows might find support between $0.8647 and $0.8492.
These coins have high liquidity on Binance Exchange, so that could help with trading on AUD/USDT/BTC pairs. And if you’re looking at buying and HODLing cryptos, then Swyftx Exchange is an easy-to-use popular choice in Australia.
XRP marched from 60 cents to 90 cents in just five days, reaching the #6 rank with a market capitalisation swelling to more than US$42.26 billion amid developments in the ongoing Ripple vs SEC case.
If you ignore stablecoins Tether and USD Coin, Ripple is now the world’s fourth-biggest cryptocurrency behind Bitcoin, Ethereum and Binance Coin.
For those who don’t know what all the beef is about, Ripple has been dragged into court after the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a suit in December 2020. Ripple stands accused of selling US$1.3 billion in XRP in unregistered offerings between 2013 and 2020.
The SEC alleges that the token is a security and therefore Ripple has broken the rules. It seems, however, that the SEC has broken quite a few rules of its own, having been accused of “deleting” material relevant to Ripple’s lawsuit.
The latest news in the case against Ripple has been bullish for the price of XRP as things look up for the defendants in the court of law.
Key Evidence Unsealed to Favour Ripple
As the case unfolds, sealed documents submitted by Team Ripple are set to be made public by February 17. The SEC argues that the documents show Ripple was well aware of the risk that XRP would be deemed a security under federal law. Ripple rebuts this profusely and says the documents show that its legal team had ultimately concluded its tokens were not securities.
Two memos were attached as sealed exhibits in the motion to dismiss the SEC case by Ripple founder and chairman Chris Larsen. Ripple has previously argued that documents sent to prospective investors in 2012 did not refer to XRP as investment contracts or securities. These documents are to be unsealed as per the ruling by US District Judge Analisa Torres.
According to Ripple general counsel Stuart Alderoty, the documents “will show that in 2012 Ripple received a legal analysis that XRP was not an investment contract”.
This will not be the last time we will see news around the case cause speculation and buying pressure, thus pumping XRPs price. Crypto News Australia reported last year how XRP surged over 100 percent in a month following its last court victory against the SEC.
Solana (SOL) has been hit extra hard during the new year’s crypto sell-off with the chain also experiencing downtime and duplicate transactions, resulting in an outcry from the community.
Solana Down With the Rest of the Market
Solana (SOL), one of the top 10 crypto projects by market cap, has seen a 42 per cent drop in price during the past week, and is now nearly 70 per cent down from its all-time high of US$260, set on November 6.
Since the beginning of the year, the market has been in a downward spiral with most coins shaving off a good 30/40 percent, and Bitcoin (BTC) down nearly 50 percent from its own all-time high, also in November.
Solana/USDT price chart. Source: CoinMarketCap
Solana’s Chain Congestion
During this time, many people have been trading, using DeFi, and looking for liquidation bounties, causing a considerable increase in transaction volume. Because of this, Solana has experienced some performance problems on the chain caused by “excessive duplicate transactions” and “high levels of congestion”:
Quick 🧵 on our understanding of the current issues & fixes: Due to market volatility many leveraged positions on DeFi become eligible for liquidation. Liquidation can be triggered by anyone on an eligible position, if one liquidates an eligible position one receives a bounty…
Users looking for bounties have been racing to close eligible positions, some even using bots to look for them. With the market in its current state, the liquidation bounty race has caused a flood of duplicate transactions that need to be corrected by validators while still processing the increased load.
During January, the network has experienced a few days when there have been “partial outage(s)”, one lasting up to 17 hours, leaving users up in arms. The chain also went through a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, which also caused downtime and a major slowdown of the network:
Every time the load 10xes there are new challenges. One solution is to not let the load 10x by constraining supply, but that is short sighted. The stage we are at in crypto is that there are maybe 5m humans that sign txs on a monthly basis. Gotta get that to 50m and 500m asap
From Solana’s side, it has sent out update 1.8.14 to deal with the worst of the problem, with more improvements expected to roll out in the next eight to 12 weeks.
Complex Transactions Slowing Down Networks
According to Solana Status, “The last 24 hours have shown these systems need to be improved to meet the demands of users, and support the more complex transactions now common on the network”. With the increase of complex transactions in the mix, Solana validators are struggling to keep on top of the constant flow of user demands.
According to Emin Gun Sirer, chief executive of Ava Labs, Avalanche (AVAX) has held up well, describing its chain performance as “solid” during the recent stress test:
When prices move, people need to interact with chains. It's absolutely essential for smart contract platforms to handle load gracefully. Otherwise lending platforms can force people into needles liquidations and cause much pain.
Virtually all digital assets are in the red following sharp declines that began last Thursday and continued into the weekend. An estimated US$1.3 billion in leveraged long positions was liquidated amid a correction that saw the crypto market capitalisation (market cap) drop close to 50 percent from its November high.
On November 9th, CryptoMarket hit 3 Trillion and now it’s only of 1.5 Trillion, down by 50%. It’s not being bullish or bearish, it’s the fact.#Bitcoin#marketcrashpic.twitter.com/YuFFdJJhme
Over the course of a few days, billions were wiped out across the board, with few exceptions. Of the top 100 cryptocurrencies by market cap, DeFi tokens were hit hardest:
Top 10 worst performing digital assets over past seven days. Source: CoinMarketCap
The top 10 cryptos by market cap fared somewhat better, although Solana’s 36 percent decline over the week is also partially due to it suffering another, yes another, DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attack.
Top 10 digital assets by market cap over past seven days. Source: CoinMarketCap
What Happened?
As the US Federal Reserve recently signalled its intent to tighten monetary policy in 2022, market sentiment shifted from risk-on to risk-off.
Risk-on assets are those with higher volatility, to the upside as well as the downside. These include assets like equities and crypto. Generally speaking, value stocks tend to be less risky than tech stocks. And Bitcoin is widely considered less risky than other digital assets.
Risk-off assets, by contrast, are assets with low volatility and therefore perceived as less risky. These are things like government bonds and cash, which don’t tend to fluctuate sharply in value.
With the broader market going risk-off, a Wall Street-induced equity sell-off saw close to US$500 billion in market cap erased over the course of five days. This move was amplified by a cascade of leveraged long liquidations, an all-too-familiar sight in the crypto markets:
Just another day in crypto folks. $BTC led liquidations. Total mkt cap currently about $1.83T
As long as you’re not leveraged, we can ride this out. Hope everyone is ok ❤️
As Bitcoin increasingly is viewed as risk-on in the short term, a fascinating positive correlation has emerged between the NASDAQ (a technology-focused index) and Bitcoin.
If you compare the NASDAQ to Bitcoin and then compare Bitcoin to the DeFi tokens, it’s evident that the further you go out on the risk curve, the harder you get hit when market sentiment goes risk-off:
Yep. The whole market is crashing. It happens. Crypto will get hit the hardest as the highest risk asset that people sell off first. Things will normalize.
While some may be feeling the Monday blues from the past few days’ crypto carnage, others will look at it similarly to the May 2021 sell-off, which in hindsight represented a great buying opportunity. Of course, hindsight is 20/20.
