The week of Pengu and AI agents
That was that!
The ramifications of Pudgy Penguins’ massive PENGU token launch are still reverberating around the industry.
Pudgy NFT holders got $85,000-worth of PENGU at the token’s launch price, although it’s down substantially since. But it wasn’t just Pudgy holders who did well. I also picked up a surprising amount of PENGU just by holding various other NFTs.
It was a total bonus, although I am somewhat sad I sold my Pudgy a couple of years ago before the Luca Netz reboot. 😭
But let’s look forward!
Of course, the next meta is all about AI agents in gaming so it’s no surprise that Xterio’s vision statement for 2025 is all about its AI projects, including current chat-to-airdrop Befriend AI event plus ‘Pixels-with-AI-agents’ mashup Palio, due in early 2025.
Not AI related, but another project hoping to set itself up for success in 2025 was Shrapnel.
The extraction shooter tweaked the executive team of developer Neon Machine, bringing in a new CEO and saying it will soon announce new funding.
However, I suggested this was probably more about settling the nasty lawsuit with its original shareholder, which has been dragging on since late 2023.
As for not keeping up with the times, that award goes to Forte, which finally released its blockchain compliance platform. Called the Forte Rules Engine, I archly suggested it had come two years too late.
Designed for the Gary Gensler’s banhammer SEC era, it’s arrived in Trump boom times when it looks like anything goes.
Not always but sometimes, timing is everything,
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Weekly Roundup news
Ubisoft’s Captain Laserhawk The G.A.M.E. goes live to NFT holders.
Fableborne’s season 3 generated $540,000 from 149,000 players.
Pixels expands PIXEL utility with new game Pixel Dungeons.
Zentry’s Ragnarok Landverse is launching on Ronin in Q1 2025.
Ronin RPG Kaidro launches KDR token and new cinematic trailer.
Big Time reveals $150 million Open Loot Fund.
BGA releases its 2024 state of the industry report.
XPLA reveals 9 game slate for 2025.
Esports platform Coliseum launches $2 million fund.
Gamee launches its own decentralized ad network.
Bitcoin payments outfit ZBD receives first EU MiCAR approval.
As discussed below:
Animoca Revenue news
Animoca Brands has released its unaudited financials for Q2 and Q3 2024. Highlights from Q3 included bookings worth $68 million consisting of:
$25 million from its advisory and node operations,
$39 million of revenue via token sales and IAPs etc from its subsidiaries,
$5 million in realized gains and fees from Animoca Ventures.
Q3 operating expenses were $59 million.
The company has $248 million in cash and stablecoins, $330 million in third party assets, and $1.6 billion in off-balance sheet reserves including its SAND, MOCA, EDU and TOWER tokens.
More AI Agents news
Yuga-adjacent game dev Faraway has launched what’s being called the first AI agent “specifically designed for blockchain validation”. Created via the Virtuals platform, AgentJ3ff has already launched its own J3FF memecoin on Base, which was airdropped to wallets holding various NFTs including HV-MTL, Bored Apes and Mutant Apes.
And when Faraway’s Fchain goes live in 2025, J3FF will also run one of its validator nodes so more airdrops to come perhaps?!
Illuvium Future news
Demonstrating some of the hubris of blockchain game projects, and despite raising over $150 million in funding, Illuvium CEO Kieran Warwick has confirmed that the project will need to raise more capital in Q1 2025. Still, he seems pleased he’s reduced the monthly burnrate to $900,000!
Of course, having no previous experience in game development, it’s not a surprise that Illuvium has experienced plenty of troubles. It peaked at over 250 staff in the good times and is still attempting to develop three interlinked games. At least, the decision has been made to focus all development on open-world PC game Illuvium Overworld in 2025.
And yet — demonstrating some of the bounce-back-ability of blockchain game projects — and despite its ILV token being priced lower than its 2021 $50 launch price, the Illuvium treasury is still worth over $70 million.
In other words, the fat lady is not yet singing.
Additional Links
The Sandbox’s alpha 4 had 580,778 unique players, who claimed 15.5 million SAND tokens — worth $8 million.
The Apecoin DAO claimed 15 million PENGU tokens; currently worth $410,000.
On future token hopes, Doodles are up 483% from their November low of 1.2 ETH; now with a floor price of $25,000.
Wild Forest has added 300,000 WF tokens to its staking rewards pool.
Beam has sold $37 million-worth of nodes.
Immutable’s daily gem quest now drops random amounts of gems.
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