As I have exposure to both parties, I’m not going to attempt to adjudicate into the rights and wrongs of the situation, but a proposed change via Merit Circle’s governance process highlights the increasingly complex situation around guild operations.
In this particular example, one anonymous MC member has proposed that YGG’s $175,000 investment into Merit Circle be refunded and its MC tokens removed because of “the lack of value YGG has provided the DAO”.
I don’t know how true the elements in the document are but while early stage investors such as Maven11, Mechanism Capital and DeFiance Capital have detailed their involvement in improving Merit Circle’s operations, the writer isn’t convinced that YGG has done anything for Merit Circle beyond some social media posts.
It’s also significant to see that these early investors are said to have acquired their MC tokens for $0.032, which if true means that even with the token down 91% from its all-time high at around $1, early investors are still up around 3,000% — indeed more if they’ve staked their tokens for a current return of 86% or 380% if providing liquidity to Uniswap.
If nothing else, this sort of exchange underlines the stresses that guilds are now undergoing both internally and as a sector; something that will heighten if the bear market continues.
For even if guilds aren’t directly competing in terms of scholars — and in this case I don’t think they are because Merit Circle isn’t really about scholars in the way YGG is — they are competing in terms of getting into game investment rounds and indirectly in terms of retail crypto investors’ attention.
I also don’t think it’s a coincidence in terms of the timing of this proposal that Merit Circle has leap-frogged YGG to become the largest guild in terms of its market cap — $114 million today compared to YGG’s $58 million.
Finally, it’s also interesting to see the complaint about how YGG’s launching of its subDAOs such as YGG SEA and IndiGG, which are raising their own capital via token IDOs is diluting the market.
Personally, however, I’d be cautious about assuming these complaints are deeply felt among the general Merit Circle community, let alone its leadership. This feels more like chippy internal positioning Merit Circle as the #1 guild compared to YGG, which still has a higher general profile.
Even if the proposal passes, I can’t see there’s a legal way to just eject YGG’s investment, which wasn’t predicated on providing addition value to Merit Circle beyond its capital.
But I do think YGG’s seeming lack of a serious response to this sort of attack is suggestive of wider issues in that these online organisations have raised a lot of capital on a vision but don’t have much experience in running day-to-day operations — let alone an investment portfolio — beyond injecting scholars into Axie Infinity.
Clearly that’s something which needs to change in the coming months, which means someone’s going to have to answer the question, without Axie Infinity (or a P2E equivalent), what’s the point of a guild anyway?
Funding news
Mobile virtual platform turned metaverse BUD has announced a $36.8 million Series B funding round, which was led by Sequoia Capital India. Existing (mainly Chinese) investors from previous round including its $15 million Series A extension — announced in February — also participated; notably Qiming, Source Code, GGV and Sky9.
Founded by two former Snap engineers, BUD is looking to add NFTs to its UGC model, which sees users creating social and interactive experiences. It claims 15 million have been created to-date.
Price In Fiat news
Skyweaver was the first game to use stablecoins for its marketplace and it looks like other companies are now thinking about how to deal with price volatility. Decentraland has announced that its Wearable Publication Fee is now going to be $500 not 500 MANA tokens as previously set.
Over the past month, the price of MANA has dropped from around $2 to as low as $0.75, now around $1 — so the actual price is about the same in MANA or USD but it’s the principal of the thing.
Atari Blockchain news
Despite Atari’s involvement in blockchain since 2018 I can’t say I have any clue what its web3 strategy actually is. At various times it’s been hotels, casinos, The Sandbox, retro consoles with NFTs, Atari-branded NFTs, all of the above…
Of course, there’s also the ATRI token — down 99.5%, pretty much at an all-time low.
Still good to know that Atari has “reaffirmed its commitment to blockchain” with the announcement of Atari X, “an initiative that consolidates Atari’s blockchain interests into a unified operation that is wholly controlled by Atari”, and which will launch “a new branded token”.
Product news
Mythical Games has announced NFL Rivals, a blockchain-based sports management title in development alongside the NFL and NFL Players Association that’s due to launch on the Mythical Platform for web and mobile in early 2023.
Ahead of the launch, 32 collections of generative 3D NFL franchise-themed NFTs - which appear to be helmets and accessories — will be released in a series of drops called Rarity League, which will provide owners with access to special events, in-game rewards and other unique features.
As for the game itself, players will be able to “own, collect and trade” NFTs of their favorite players through what Mythical is labelling a “play-and-own game experience”.