A week of questions
From MapleStory Universe to Scape and Telegram
It’s the last week of summer perhaps but there have still been topics of substance to discuss.
One yet to be resolved is how the arrest of Telegram CEO Pavel Durov will pan out, both for Durov himself — who conspiracy theorists are now labelling a Kremlin stool pigeon — or Telegram and its now-integrated TON blockchain.
For the record, the TON price is down 20% on the week, while the blockchain’s unofficial memecoin NOT is down 27%, making it the worst performer in the top 100 cryptos.
In more positive news, Nexon released some details about MapleStory Universe’s tokenomics, which while highly confusing, did also highlight some solid fundamentals.
I was particularly happy to see that its NXPC token will be rewarded to the community for their support rather than sold to investors.
But, in general, there were more questions than answers…
Finally, I tried to find out more about Swedish developer Ringtail Interactive, which has been secretly working on its innovative Lemur networking stack since 2017. It’s now also revealed a blockchain-based UGC-focused social gaming platform which uses the tech.
Called Scape, it’s released a 5,000 NFT collection, which will give holders early access to the platform as it works towards an official release in the coming months.
Again, the news generated a lot of questions. Nevertheless, it’s good to see new companies brimming with innovation and ambition entering the sector.
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Weekly News roundup
Sui boosted by announcement of Darktimes and Brave Frontier Versus.
Immutable-based idle RPG Immortal Rising 2 hits 400,000 pre-registrations.
NFL Rivals is the official mobile game of the Kansas City Chiefs.
Proof of Play launches Boss chain to scale Pirate Nation.
Web2 game Maelstrom is coming to Oasys-based L2 chain Uprising.
GameSwift is enabling users to access LLMs locally by integrating Fetch.ai.
Double Jump Tokyo announces a $10 million Series D.
Gameplay Galaxy announces a $11.2 million seed extension for the launch of its mobile game Trials Xtreme Freedom.
As discussed in a lively conversation below:
Funding news
Incubated by Everest Venture Group and consisting of executives from Mugen Interactive, mobile web3 game Legend of Arcadia has announced a $4 million seed round. The card-based RPG is currently in its pre-launch campaign, running a Telegram mini-game, which has attracted over 100,000 players. Likely the round is related to the game’s formal Q4 2024 launch, and the launch of its ARCA token.
It was a very busy round too, with 14 entities publicly announced ranging from usual suspects such as Animoca, The Sandbox’s Sebastien Borget, OKX Ventures and Mysten Labs — the game runs on its Sui blockchain — to a wide range of degens such as Arche Fund, SNZ Capital, Panony and Cryptonite Capital.
Tweet Of The Day
VC LongHash’s Shi Khai Wei predicts many blockchain game projects are planning to fail by relying on better market conditions to dump their meaningless tokens… (NB this is my Straussian reading of the tweet).
Vitalik On Token Issuance news
Following on from the above, read what Vitalik says about the sustainability of DeFi yield and apply it to blockchain gaming tokens planning to launch in Q4 24…
Additional Links
Post-launch of its Boss chain, 92% of Pirate Nation’s transactions have migrated from the original Apex chain.
GOAT Gaming has seen 100,000 users generating 2 million onchain transactions.
Mythical Games’ CEO John Linden says about 20% of NFL Rivals’ players have “upgraded their game-supplied wallet to a proper web3 wallet”.
From the brains behind Miniclip’s 8 Ball Pool comes the pre-launch beta for Pool Masters. Check it now, maybe using my referral code.
Check out the Big Blockchain Game Report Q2 2024 👀 here.