We have collected the latest GameFi news below so that no opportunity slips from you.
Enjoy the reading and let’s drive the GameFi revolution together.
GAME STUDIOS
Animoca Brands raises US$110 million in funding round led by Temasek, Boyu Capital, GGV Capita: Animoca Brands Corporation Limited (“Animoca Brands” or the “Company”), the company advancing digital property rights for the open metaverse, today announced that it has closed a strategic funding round for US$110 million (approximately A$159 million) from the issuance of convertible notes (“Notes”) to a small number of institutional investors at a conversion price of A$4.50.
Square Enix becomes a validator for blockchain gaming firm Oasys: Square Enix will help provide the security and computing power for Oasys’ proof-of-stake blockchain network, enabling it to do transactions for its gamers. Oasys says its blockchain is environmentally friendly, and Square Enix is one of 21 initial node validators on its platform. As part of this initiative, Square Enix and Oasys will explore the feasibility of harnessing user contributions in the development of new games on the Oasys blockchain.
Mythical Games launches Web3 title Blankos Block Party on the Epic Games Store: Mythical Games launched its Blankos Block Party on the Epic Games Store, making it the first Web3 game to launch on the platform co-developed by Mythical Games and Third Kind Games, Blankos Block Party is a multiplayer party game set in an online world, with a focus on custom art design, world-building, collecting and personalizing unique Blankos characters. The game is free-to-play and available to download today in early access with the full game launch on September 28, which will feature Blankos Block Party’s Season One content.
MyMetaverse and Enjin bring playable NFTs to Grand Theft Auto V and Minecraft servers: MyMetaverse is a game development company specializing in creator-led metaverses with play-and-earn economies. The MyMetaverse “MetaHome” NFT collection is the first minted on Efinity, an NFT para-chain built on PolkadotThe NFTs are usable in MyMeteverse’s full suite of games, including servers set up by players for Minecraft and Grand Theft Auto 5.
The Sandbox's first Metaverse weeding: 1-Group, Smobler Studios, and the Sandbox are taking virtual reality to the next level by utilizing the metaverse not simply for gaming, but for holy matrimony. The first ever metaverse wedding was held in The Sandbox as well as in real life as a collective virtual shared space.
COMMUNITY
Discord adds Forum Channels for more specific uses: Discord is a portfolio company of Griffin Gaming Partners. Forum Channels provide a venue for smaller, more focused conversations. Organized in a central hub, Forum Channels are for specific discussions that would otherwise congest more general channels. Moderators can create as many Forum Channels as they want and restrict each to specific users.
Twitch and YouTube show modest August growth, according to StreamElements: Twitch reached 1,865M hours watched, while YouTube Gaming reached 305M hours in AugustViewership had declined in 2022’s earlier months, especially when compared with 2020 and 2021.
BLOCKCHAINS
The Merge Was a Success. Crypto Still Has Problems: The Ethereum Merge has succeeded without a hitch, making this week less eventful (thankfully) than it could’ve been. Here are some of the highlights after the biggest software upgrade in the history of crypto.
Binance: BUSD Auto-Conversion: Binance announced that it will begin auto-converting USDC, USDP, and TUSD to BUSD on stablecoin pairs to provide "greater trading liquidity and a better user experience" on Sept. 29, 2022. Users will still be able to deposit and withdraw USDC, USDP, and TUSD to the Binance exchange. Still, any trading will be denominated in BUSD, with Binance performing the auto-conversion in a way that is abstracted from end users.
METAVERSE
Analysts estimate that Apple's forthcoming headset will cost around $2,000-$2,500 and that Meta's Quest Pro headset will debut for approximately $1,500. According to these estimates, the next-gen of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) headsets are far more expensive than Meta's popular — and affordable — $400 Quest 2 HMD.
Buddhist metaverse in development at Kyoto University includes AI Buddha: Japanese scholars are recreating the nation's Buddhist temples in the metaverse. Once complete, visitors to the so-called "Teraverse" will be able to visit far-away temples and converse with an AI-powered "Buddhabot.”
Fendi Unveils Their Latest Collaboration With Meta Featuring Two Iconic Augmented Reality Experiences: Meta and Fendi have partnered to promote the clothier's "Faster Sneakers" in AR
MARKET DATA
The State of Web3 in 2022 (DuneCon).
- 2.5m wallets are active daily across web3. A flat wallet count likely means relatively constant GDP in the ecosystem. We need more products to attract new users to bring in more GDP.
- Binance, Solana, Polygon, & Ethereum wallets represent more than 80% of those daily active users.
- Centralized exchanges manage roughly 100m total active wallets. Trading volumes are down 60% which is mainly driven by asset price reductions.
- DEX average transaction size declined from $8k to $1.4k.
- Centralized & decentralized exchanges trade at the same multiple & move-in lock step.
- NFT buyers outnumber DEX traders by about 35:1 over the last 6 months but the traded volume is roughly equal between the two groups.
- NFT trading volumes have fallen 97% from the top.
- 40% of NFT buyers use Solana. Because the average Solana NFT is worth 10% of the average Ethereum
- NFT, Ethereum retains 90% of NFT traded value.
- L2s (Arbitrum & Optimism) account for 30-40% of all transactions on Ethereum, but consume only 2% of the total gas, cementing their value.
- About $250m flows into L2s each month.MEV (maximum or miner extracted value) has tapered off due to FlashBots’ searchers.
- Lower MEV means users pay lower fees when they trade because the market is more efficient.
- Developers push about 300,000 smart contracts to Ethereum every month, a figure that has been flat for the last five months.
- Roughly 5,000 developers push code to web3 every week, down 20% from the beginning of the year. This number needs to increase significantly for the ecosystem to thrive.
- Web3 companies (aside from L1s) have begun to trade at similar multiples to their web2 counterparts.
- Web3 multiples are increasingly correlated to revenue. The investor community has matured its understanding of how to value a web3 company. This milestone will begin to shift the early & late stage private markets’ valuations. This is why marketing will become so critical in the next 12 months.
About Kayros
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