#846 A week of hoping and staking
From Pixels to Wildcard
Top 300 Web3 Games Index: ↓3% today, ↓51% YTD
Ronin Games Index: ↓1% today, ↓73% YTD
Immutable Games Index: ↑1% today, ↓54% YTD
AI Gaming Agents: ↑2% today, ↓43% YTD
Jon’s TX Games Index: ↑1% today, ↓55% YTD
Jon’s 2025 Reboot Index*: ↓1% today, ↓53% YTD
*Definitely not investment advice
In any other week, we’d likely be talking a lot more about the potential significance of Nintendo integrating web3 technology into the mobile version of its Pokemon Home app in various European countries.
Or even Epic Games Store’s victory over Apple, with the potential that developers — including web3 game devs — using Epic’s store can now get up to $1 million of gross revenue without paying any platform fees.
But given that so much more has happened, it’s probably best to cap further conjecture and move onto … Pixels.
As discussed in detail in BCGW #197 with Luke Barwikowski, the game launched its new staking system, which enables PIXEL holders to stake their tokens into any of the three games now using the token - Pixels, Pixel Dungeons and Forgotten Runiverse.
In its first iteration, these three will share a monthly emission of 28 million PIXEL tokens, with Pixels getting 20 million. Over time, the amount of tokens each game receives and uses to provide yield to stakers will become dynamic, based on the overall value of each title’s staked tokens.
Eventually more games — including games not using the Ronin blockchain — will be added, with the hope that this will become a strong ecosystem, driving value to the PIXEL token, and also kickstarting a marketing and discovery channel for the games participating.
Sponsored by Hiro Capital: investing 📈 in the future 🔮 of gaming 🎮
As for BCGW #198 that’s already in the bag. I spoke to Playful Studios’ CEO Paul Bettner about the development of its web2 PC game Wildcard and how that evolved into the development of its integrated web3 streaming platform Thousands.
Bettner also spoke to something of the early success of the combined two projects revealing that the most recent stream had generated $77,928 in revenue.
Finally, Nexon announced that its much anticipated MapleStory N will go live on 15th May, although there remains some confusion about which countries will be supported.
Setting up a profile using VPN doesn’t appear to be too difficult though!
Sponsored by Hiro Capital: investing 📈 in the future 🔮 of gaming 🎮
Weekly News roundup
Mavens: Will the consolidation of gaming blockspace continue?
Sky Mavis cuts ties with Ragnarok Monster World.
FSL’s digital Mastercard GMT Pay services goes live.
Ultra announces strategic partnership with web3 banking outfit Vaulta.
Fully onchain game Blob Arena launches into early access on Starknet.
YOAKE & The Seven Deadly Sins anime series unveils second NFT drop.
Coinbase, Animoca and Founders Factory launch UK web3 and AI accelerator.
Animoca Brands expands into MENA, opening its Dubai HQ.
Soneium taps RWA chain Plume to unlock real world asset staking and yield.
As discussed below:
Two Mistakes Carelessness news
Wemade's WEMIX price collapsed by as much as 60% after the five main South Korean exchanges announced its delisting from 2nd June following a decision from the country’s Digital Asset Exchange Association that it does not “meet the criteria for maintaining transaction support”.
This occurred after Wemade’s delayed reaction to the theft of $6.2 million tokens from the Play Bridge cross-chain protocol in February 2025. The token was previously delisted in 2022 over concerns about the number of circulating tokens.
Aside from the Korean exchanges, WEMIX is traded on the Gate, Kucoin and MEXC exchanges amongst others, although Korean outfit Bithumb was its top source of trading.
The WEMIX token is now down 40% during 2025. It hit its all-time-high of almost $25 in November 2021.
Dinos Stomp To Sui news
Despite being a signature NFT release on Solana, including a special mint for Solana Saga phone owners, the Claynosaurz project is moving to Sui as it expands with new characters and the launch of its first game, which is being developed by Gameloft. Previously it had revealed that it was adopting the Walrus protocol, which runs on Sui, to provide fully onchain storage.
Now, it will also launch a new 25,000-strong character collection called Popkins, which will go live via people buying and ripping digital gacha packs called Popkins Unleashed. As well as the mobile game — which will eventually also be released on Sui’s PC gaming console SuiPlay0X1 (see below) — the project’s new reward system will run on Sui.
Gaming Stablecoin news
Stripped down Windows-based gaming OS outfit Playtron has announced it will be launching its Game Dollar stablecoin, which is based on the M0 stablecoin platform, meaning it’s backed by the M token, itself backed by US treasuries. The Game Dollar will be used for purchases, subscriptions and rewards across Playtron’s GameOS ecosystem.
Notably, this OS is what’s being used in the now-sold-out SuiPlay0X1 gaming hardware. Hence the Game Dollar will launch on the Sui blockchain, and expand to other chains in future.
In addition to holding a fixed value (hopefully), the Game Dollar will also be programmable, including offering a yield.
🔗 Additional Links 🔗
Dystopic Netflix series Black Mirror is launching a token and various mini-games alongside an AI agent called Iris. You have to link your X account plus add a Solana and an EVM wallet, or new social wallets will be created for you if you don’t want to use existing ones. Sign up here.
🤖 AI-ditional Links 🤖
Mythical’s DMarket skin trading platform is doing $400 million in annual trading volume, with 20% of that estimated to be traded by AI agents.