Helsinki is proving to be less slushy and more snowy. Still, the trap-and-pony show that is the Slush startup conference is in full force. You always know that’s happening when the passport control person doesn’t ask why you’re in town, but just gives you the once over and says “Here for Slush?”.
Technically, I’m not. I’m here for Future of Gaming, a day-long show about blockchain games that’s curated and sponsored by the likes of Fabric, Backed, Bitkraft and Immutable.
I attended the equivalent show in 2022 and well remember the downdraft arising from FTX et al. It was not a pleasant experience. I think tomorrow will be much better, but hopefully more nuauced too.
As Ilya from Sanctor Capital just tweeted — “I hope we remember the lessons the last couple of years should have taught us”.
I’m less sure. The giveaway is the “should”.
Nevertheless, it will be great to meet up with friends and the usual crowd and swap war stories about how we made it through. For despite all the travails, the thesis remains undiminished.
Blockchain is about letting people — or in this case blockchain gaming is about letting players — own their collective reality, significantly the sort of reality that no-one can take away from them.
In other words, we’re still on the right side of history even if it’s taking some time to incarnate.
Sponsored by Hiro Capital: investing 📈 in the future 🔮 of gaming 🎮
Calendar
Illuvium launches via Epic Games Store — 28th November
Captain Laserhawk’s The Sandbox NFTs mint — 29th November
Nine Chronicles M launches $80,000 prize pool — 29th November
See you at Future of Gaming in Helsinki? — 29th November
Genesis mint for Overworld; priced 0.15 ETH — 15th December
Shrapnel Exploding And Not In A Good Way news
I think the general public would be surprised to hear how much grief is generated by tensions between companies’ founders and shareholders. (If only we had a recent example of a globally recognized outfit that fired its CEO in mysterious circumstances etc etc!) Yet when more mundane news breaks out about such an occurrence, it quickly becomes very technical and hard to parse.
Hence I’ve spend the past couple of hours trying to make sense of what’s going on at Neon Machine, the developer of the highly anticipated extraction shooter Shrapnel.
I wrote it all up the best I can here. N.B. Shrapnel has responded thus on X.
Animoca Goes Big On Telegram news
I wish I was a Telegram power user but I’m not sure I even count as a dilettante; but I’m following the messaging app’s growing blockchain integration with due consideration and so am happy to report Animoca Brands is set to become the largest validator for the TON blockchain; formally The Open Network. It’s a good thing.
The move is part of Animoca’s ongoing collaboration with the Ton Foundation to accelerate gaming on its blockchain and was facililated by what’s interestingly described as the “strategic efforts of Manuel Stotz from Kingsway Capital”; one of Animoca’s investors.
In particular, Animoca will work with infrastructure outfit Ton Play, which provides the tech to enable games built on the Ton blockchain to launch directly through Telegram — c.800 million accounts — as well as the porting of any existing web game directly via a web app. It’s also released a dashboard highlighting onchain activity.
Additional Links
Magic Eden is lauching its own self-custodial wallet, supporting Ethereum, Solana, Polygon and Bitcoin. Initially available as a Chrome extension, it will be released as a mobile app in 2024.
Sky Mavis has rolled out a new reward system for rare Axie holders.
Army of Fortune has minted out 2,222 Founder Keys NFTs from a free mint to a floor price of 0.6 ETH ($1,300) with $1.7 million in 24 hour trading volume.
Creepz NFTs are up 240% this month to a floor of 2.7 ETH ($5,500).
Pudgy Penguins released a $25 influencer box exclusively on Walmart.com.
Alien Worlds is integrated customized avatars; a project originally funded through its Galactic Hubs grants program.
Meet the last minted Avastar…
Nominations for the Top 50 Blockchain Game Makers 2024 are still open.