ICYMI - Last week in crypto: Metaverse/GameFi on the rise, Trump NFTs up 800%

Hello, Bitcoin at 21K🥰

Last week, the NFT and Gamefi industry sparked a lot of buzz around web3 communities as adoption is projected to reach an all-time-high when institutions explore the sector. Trump NFTs sales spiked to over 800%, NeoPets raised $4 million to build the metaverse and Genesis filed for bankruptcy.

NFT/GameFi trends in 2023: Industry sparks interests from big players

Executives working in the nonfungible token (NFT) gaming sector are optimistic that more traditional gaming firms will enter the space this year despite the bullying that players inflict on those companies dipping their toes into NFTs.

A variety of industry experts shared their perspectives on the relevance of NFT gaming models like play-to-earn (P2E) and move-to-earn (M2E) as well as the entry of mainstream gaming companies into the space.

The co-founder of Sky Mavis, the studio that created the well-known P2P game Axie Infinity, Aleksander Larsen stated that it won't be long before additional major players enter the market. Larsen thinks that these companies will hold off until they see a game bring in billions of dollars, though.

Traditional gaming studio adoption ranked second in factors affecting the advance of blockchain gaming. Source: BGA report

The Sky Mavis executive acknowledged that the P2E model is currently flawed when asked about its applicability in 2023. He described in detail:

“As the pioneers behind the first play-2-earn game, I can say with confidence it does not work in its current state. Games need to be fun first with a solid economy backing, which can enable some players to earn.”

Larsen's ideas were echoed by Zoe Wei, senior business director at BNB Chain. The executive claimed that additional testing and research were required to make the majority of games' token economies sustainable.

Wei complained that the emphasis was too much on the earning system and not enough on how much fun the games were to play. Wei still believes that P2E and M2E concepts will be applicable in 2023, despite the need for further development.

Wei added his thoughts on the traditional game producers entering the market in addition to the NFT gaming models. For game developers and players, Wei sees "undeniable benefits" from blockchain technology and NFTs. "Over the past year, we have already seen countless gaming studios enter Web3, and this is a trend that will continue into 2023," he continued.

Carlos Pereira, a partner at Bitkraft Ventures, a venture capital firm that specializes in the gaming industry, is also certain that more gaming businesses will launch this year. He outlined that:

“In 2022 we saw many funding rounds related to spin-off type projects from traditional U.S. and Europe gaming businesses and we expect the trend to continue, with some high-profile public launches in 2023.”

While western companies are swooping in but are "being more cautious with their PR," Pereira also noted that Asian gaming firms are more open in their push for cryptocurrencies. However, the executive feels that the trend will go on in the same pattern.

The executive argued that the initial iteration of the P2E concept should be phased out when questioned about it. We hope that this play-to-earn program's initial implementation is permanently forgotten, he added. As a business model, Pereira contends that such a concept is absurd because there is no way to draw in players who would be willing to pay to play.

Alex Altgausen, the co-creator of the NFT game Banksters, predicted that other trends in NFT gaming in 2023 would be higher standards among community members. Altgausen claims that 2021 and 2022 served as filters, exposing NFT games that are only designed to exploit players. According to Altgausen:

“The era of anyone with a cute website and a game promise has ended.”

As a result, investors in NFT games will be able to carefully consider their investment decisions starting in 2023. They will be able to look at assets, product development, partnerships, and media footprints.

“Touch the metaverse” - Researchers tell Web3 community

A group of scientists from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have developed a set of haptic gloves they hope will introduce the sense of touch into the metaverse. “Impossible is Nothing” - Web3 said, Well said. 

The HaptGlove is an untethered, lightweight glove that will make it possible for users of the metaverse to interact with virtual objects in a much more lifelike way by simulating touch and grip.

A professor who is working on the HaptGlove. Source: NUSnews.

When wearing the HaptGlove, users are able to feel when their virtual avatar's hand touches something and determine the object's shape and hardness due to the HaptGlove's restrictions on the user's finger positions.

The HaptGlove, according to NUS, will also be helpful in other fields, such as education and medicine, by enabling surgeons to practice operations in a "hyper-realistic environment" or providing students with first-hand knowledge.

The idea of haptic gloves is not new; Meta is currently developing their version. In contrast to other gloves on the market today, NUS asserts that its gloves can give users a much more realistic sense of touch.

Virtual reality is such a young technology, it has been claimed by those developing metaverse games, that it is challenging to include it in these products. The Sandbox and Decentraland, two already released games, have not yet released specific VR clients.

Trump NFTs daily sales spike by 800%

The nonfungible token (NFT) trading card collection of former US President Donald Trump has recently seen a sharp increase in daily sales volume.

According to market metrics aggregator Cryptoslam, sales volumes in January 18 and 19 increased by 800% and 600%, respectively, over those in January 17.

Following reports that the former president was looking to rejoin Facebook and Twitter ahead of the 2024 presidential election campaign, some pundits think the renewed interest may be related to his impending return to social media networks.

On December 15, a set of 45,000 trading cards with a self-help theme went on sale for $99 each.

One-on-one dinners, zoom calls, and rounds of golf with the Former US President were among the "1000s of prizes" offered in the sweepstakes that collection buyers were automatically entered into.

In a short period of time, they were completely sold out and had daily sales volumes of over $3.5 million, but by the end of 2022, they had fallen to a baseline of about $26,000.

Neopets raise $4 million to build the metaverse

With plans to build its own metaverse, the popular virtual pet website Neopets, which gained popularity throughout the 2000s, has raised $4 million from investors in the gaming and blockchain industries.

The money is being provided by a number of businesses, including the venture capital firm Polygon Ventures, the investment firms Hasket Capital and IDG Capital, the gaming company NetDragon Websoft, and the Blizzard fund, which is run by Ava Labs.

The "Neopets Metaverse" will, according to the announcement, be a play-and-earn virtual pet game based on the original that will let users "raise, care for, customize, and battle with their Neopets" on the blockchain.

The announcement from Xao Xiao, investment director at HashKey Capital, states:

“We believe that GameFi plays a crucial role in the larger metaverse narrative, serving as the interactive layer in the value chain and a key driver of traffic across Web2 and Web3.”

Neopets was established in 1999, and the company believes that Neopets Metaverse will "put the magic of Neopets in a positively new light to long-time players, bring new players into the Neopets world, and bring new players into the Neopets world."

However, the announcement received a negative response from the community, with some opining that the previous attempt to establish a Neopets metaverse was a failure.

Back in November 2021, the company allegedly launched an NFT collection using the Solana network, which went so horribly that the hashtag #NoNeoNFT began to trend on Twitter.

SSV Network DAO Launches $50 Million Ecosystem Fund 

Ssv.network DAO, an open-source and decentralized protocol has established a $50 million Ecosystem Fund in order to aid in the creation of applications based on Distributed Validator Technology ("DVT").

According to a press release, the project received funding from a number of business investors, including DCG, OKX, HashKey, NGC, Everstake, HackVC, GSR, Chorus.One SevenX, and 1kx.

The fund, according to ssv.network, is the first to be exclusively devoted to DVT use cases, and its main goal is to "solidify DVT as critical Ethereum infrastructure."

What’s a DVT? 

One of the main advancements on Ethereum's roadmap is DVT. On the Ethereum network, the DVT infrastructure primitive allows non-trusting parties to share validators' keys. The system depends on a network of nodes that work in unison to produce ETH rewards for stakers.

DVT ensures a comparable level of protection for smaller validators that a larger validator would have while providing high availability and lowering infrastructure costs for larger validators.

Alon Muroch, a Core Contributor at ssv.network, commented on the development.

More than 20 businesses are already constructing on top of the DVT protocol developed by ssv.network, and it is anticipated that number will rise with the opening of the $50 million Ecosystem Fund, according to Muroch.

Genesis Files for Bankruptcy

Not again, I thought we left this sh*t in 2022. 

Genesis, a deeply disturbed cryptocurrency lender, has declared bankruptcy.

The company was severely exposed to two businesses that had spectacular failures in 2022, leading to the Chapter 11 proceedings.

Two of them were FTX and the cryptocurrency hedge fund Three Arrows Capital.

As the disease spread throughout the sector, Genesis found itself in serious financial trouble and was forced to halt withdrawals last November.

It owes 340,000 users of the Earn program run by Gemini, an exchange owned by Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, an estimated $900 million.

Overall, Genesis and its affiliates calculate that it has between $1 billion and $10 billion in liabilities and 100,000 creditors.

The staggering sum of $3.5 billion is owed to the 50 largest creditors.

Genesis was a component of Digital Currency Group, a sizable cryptocurrency company that is also the owner of numerous other companies, including the news outlet CoinDesk.

'Sunlight is the Best Disinfectant'??? 🤔

The bankruptcy is a "crucial step," according to Cameron Winklevoss, who has been publicly sparring with DCG CEO Barry Silbert on Twitter, to ensure that Gemini can recover assets for its customers.

He reiterated that Silbert has persisted in refusing to give creditors a fair deal, and he added:

"Crucially, the decision to put Genesis into bankruptcy does not insulate Barry, DCG, and any other wrongdoers from accountability."

Winklevoss also stated that his business has been preparing to directly sue DCG, Silbert, and others. He warned:

"Unless Barry and DCG come to their senses and make a fair offer to creditors, we will be filing a lawsuit against Barry and DCG imminently."

In addition, he promised to "use every tool at our disposal in the bankruptcy court to maximize recovery for Earn users" and expressed the hope that the court proceedings would produce a thorough account of what transpired.

“Sunlight is the best disinfectant”

3AC Founders Want to Launch a New Crypto Exchange

Su Zhu and Kyle Davies are looking for $25 million to launch GTX.  Can you believe these guys?

Su Zhu and Kyle Davies plan to open their own exchange in order to take advantage of the surging cryptocurrency claims market. The crypto sphere is unimpressed.

What is GTX?

Three Arrows Capital is preparing to make a sort of comeback.

Su Zhu and Kyle Davies, co-founders of 3AC, are attempting to raise $25 million in order to launch GTX, a brand-new cryptocurrency exchange. Mark Lamb and Sudhu Arumugam, co-founders of CoinFLEX, are partners with them in this endeavor.

The pitch desk claims that GTX will make it possible to trade crypto claims, which the document refers to as a $20 billion market, in cases involving FTX, Celsius, BlockFi, Mt. Gox, and other insolvent crypto companies. The GTX team then intends to broaden its product line to support trading in stocks, cryptocurrencies, and foreign exchange.

In the wake of the Terra collapse, Zhu and Davies' crypto hedge fund, 3AC, blew up in June 2022, causing a massive ripple effect throughout the cryptocurrency industry and forcing several crypto lenders into bankruptcy. Unrepentant, the two co-founders have resisted working with liquidators and creditors to the point where the Singapore Supreme Court and the U.S. Department of Justice have recently served them with subpoenas via Twitter.

The crypto exchange CoinFLEX, on the other hand, was the one that lent Bitcoin enthusiast Roger Ver $47 million and later attempted to monetize its bad debt by releasing a token called rvUSD. The decision to reduce some of its workforces was made as a result to pay for the company's restructuring.

Fool me once, Fool me twice

Unsurprisingly, the crypto community did not favor the GTX pitch desk. According to Wintermute CEO Evgeny Gaevoy;

"If you are investing into CoinFLEX/3AC ['s] 'exchange,' you might find it a little more challenging to work with Wintermute in the future (on the relationship-building side).

"Similarly, we won't be taking part in venture rounds where these guys are about to join the cap table, so founders beware," the statement continued.

Nic Carter, a co-founder of Castle Island, expressed a similar sentiment. There are costs involved with placing "contrarian" "comeback story" bets on anyone, even dishonored fraudsters at the bottom of the barrel.

He tweeted;

"Got rugged on FTX? Want to get rugged twice over? Come entrust your FTX claims to us. We have a track record of... well, we have a track record."