It looks like I have at least three more podcasts to record in 2023 and already the first shows are being pencilled in for 2024, but the most recent episode — just released — is Blockchain Gaming World #147 in which I spoke to Find Satoshi Lab’s COO Shiti Manghani.
Best known for its move-to-earn app STEPN, which serendipitously timed its launch on Solana a couple of months following the peak price of the SOL token in early 2022, Find Satoshi Lab has experienced a broadly similar trajectory as Sky Mavis and Axie Infinity — excluding North Korean hackers.
The two companies are also similar in their vision to build out an ecosystem: Sky Mavis with its own gaming-focused Ronin blockchain and FSL leveraging the reach of STEPN to launch its own DEX called DOOAR and an NFT marketplace and launchpad called MOOAR.
More significantly for the podcast, it’s going to be launching its first pure gaming experience on Polygon — a mobile social game called Gas Hero — in December.
And all these apps use the GMT token as their anchor point.
It’s a compelling model and one that FSL is looking to further build on with the release of additional apps in 2024.
As ever you can read an edited transcript of the podcast on BlockchainGamer.biz.
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Calendar
Nine Chronicles M goes live — 22nd November
Rumble Racing Star enters open beta — 22nd November
Gas Hero’s community test starts — 27th November
Illuvium launches via Epic Games Store — 28th November
🆕 Captain Laserhawk’s The Sandbox NFTs mint — 29th November
See you at Future of Gaming in Helsinki? — 29th November
Matt Levine On Binance news
Neatly summarized by Bloomberg’s top cat: third story in.
Broadly speaking the US government has two objections to Binance Holdings Ltd.:
Binance is a crypto exchange, and the US Securities and Exchange Commission thinks that crypto exchanges are more or less illegal under US law.
Binance, as a crypto exchange, provides a way for people to move money internationally, and the US Department of Justice thinks that Binance lets bad people move bad money to and from bad countries.
The SEC can’t put you in jail, but the Justice Department can.
But as I pointed out in yesterday’s email, aside from the SEC stuff, HSBC was fined $1.9 billion in 2012 for supplying banking services to Mexican drug cartels and the usual array of US-sanctioned countries such as Iran and North Korea. I’m not saying it’s right, just that pretty much every financial institution is doing this on some level, even perhaps the US State Department.
Binance Labs Repayment news
The venture arm of Binance — Binance Labs — which raised external money for its most recent $500 million fund is now reported to have returned unspend funds to its external LPs. $150 million was originally raised from outside sources but it seems that around half of this was returned during the summer.
At one point, Binance Labs’ total AUM was reckoned to be as high as $9 billion via 200 investments. In terms of games, its better investments include Mythical Games, Xterio, Tatsumeeko, Planetarium and NOD Games. It also invested in a bunch of degen projects.
NFT Rental Now Live In Hunters On-Chain news
Additional Links
Wildcard’s CEO Paul Bettany is talking up the esport game’s Watch to Airdrop mechanic!
Sky Mavis has bought back rewards into its legacy Axie Infinity Classic game including an AXS-based leaderboard.
Immutable will start migrating Gods Unchained accounts to its new Immutable Passboard wallet from 30th November.
The Neo Tokyo Citizens NFT collection is up 350% in the past month to a floor of $38,000.
Ultra has released an updated client using Electron, which will result in faster updates, cross-platform compatibility and better UX.
Merit Circle has acquired a stake in LATAM-centric influencer marketing outfit Snackclub.
Nominations for the Top 50 Blockchain Game Makers 2024 are now open.