Decentralized gaming guild Yield Guild Games (YGG) has partnered with, and invested in, eight new play-to-earn (P2E) blockchain games. YGG lends out nonfungible token (NFT) gaming assets to Guild players so that they can earn rewards from a long list of P2E games without having to front the costs of purchasing the NFTs themselves. The guild boasts assets from widely popular games such as Axie Infinity and Splinterlands. In an announcement shared with Cointelegraph on Nov. 16, YGG revealed that it had backed eight games with “strong play-to-earn models” including Influence, CyBall, Thetan Arena, KOGs SLAM!, MOBOX, Aavegotchi, DeHorizon and …

KuCoin Labs, the company behind the world's sixth-largest cryptocurrency exchange by trading volume with more than 500 crypto assets listed, announced on Wednesday that it would be launching a $100 million metaverse fund for early-stage projects. The money is also available for entities that develop blockchain-based games, nonfungible tokens, and decentralized applications. In addition, Kucoin will also provide business incubation services, branding, incentives, and business partnerships for developers selected into the fund. Johnny Lyu, CEO of Kucoin, said the following in a prepared statement obtained by Cointelegraph: "KuCoin Metaverse Fund will be launched to accelerate the evolution of the Internet …

Animoca Brands' virtual property and gaming firm The Sandbox is opening up part of its Metaverse to players for the first time via a multi-week play-to-earn (P2E) Alpha event. But only a handful of lucky players will get to enjoy the full experience. Sandbox’s virtual gaming world enables users to monetize their time spent in the Metaverse via a play-to-earn model. Players can purchase land and create NFTs within the game, and earn the Sandbox token (SAND) by completing various quests. They can also stake the token. According to a Nov. 17 announcement from the firm, the event will start …

In a bizarre event, a cryptocurrency with the same name as SpaceX's satellite range "Starlink" jumped over 140% as Elon Musk's space technology company launched 53 of them into the Earth's lower orbit. Watch Falcon 9 launch 53 Starlink satellites to orbit → https://t.co/bJFjLCzWdK https://t.co/dgHuF6SIZ4 — SpaceX (@SpaceX) November 13, 2021 Written as StarLink (STARL), the little-known crypto rallied 13.70% on Nov. 13 — the day of the satellite launch, another 69% a day after it, and by up to 27% on Nov. 15. The massive upside move brought STARL's net returns on investment by a little over 140% in …

Nonfungible tokens (NFTs) continue to disrupt the mainstream entertainment industries, with NFT gaming firm Animoca Brands partnering with Korean record label, talent agency and music production company, Cube Entertainment, to build a “K-pop music metaverse.” Announced on Nov. 15, the partnership will see Animoca and Cube work together to create multimedia NFTs celebrating popular actors and K-pop musicians on Cube’s roster. The NFTs will feature images such as artist portraits and album art, and also include digital sound sources such as full-length albums. Yat Siu, the chief executive of Animoca Brands, stated that he cannot wait to begin working with …

Blockchain is a core technology that differentiates itself from other technologies by having solved the double expense with the emergence of the Bitcoin blockchain in 2008. Nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, were driven by blockchain technology which brought scarcity and interoperability to nonfungible tokens. But, what do blockchain technology and NFTs have to do with Metaverse? Why are large companies experimenting with NFTs in Metaverse? The Metaverse The term “metaverse” first appeared in 1992 when Neal Stephenson released his science fiction novel Snow Crash. In this book, humans interact with each other and with software agents such as avatars in a …

The Russian State Hermitage Museum continues diving in the nonfungible tokens (NFTs) industry by debuting its first fully-virtual exhibition of digital art. Shortly after raising over $400,000 via its first NFT auction on Binance in September, the Hermitage is now hosting a free exhibition of NFT artworks existing exclusively in the virtual space, the so-called “celestial hermitage,” or the museum’s digital avatar. Launched on Nov. 10, the Hermitage’s exhibition is called the “Invisible Aether” and is based on the concept of metaverse, allowing users to create digital avatars and surf across the virtual site using PCs, smartphones, virtual reality glasses …

In his monthly crypto tech column, Israeli serial entrepreneur Ariel Shapira covers emerging technologies within the crypto, decentralized finance (DeFi) and blockchain space, as well as their roles in shaping the economy of the 21st century. What’s in a name? A whole metaverse is what one could be led to believe when looking at the buzz around Facebook’s recent transformation into Meta. In reality, of course, there is more to the new name than that — there is also the whistleblower scandal, alongside the previous controversies tarring the company’s image, as well as the encroachment of rivaling social media platforms …

Jules Urbach, the CEO and founder of OTOY, wants to democratize content creation, specifically as it pertains to virtual assets. OTOY’s technology intends to fulfill the promise of an open cloud-based metaverse via the Render Network — the first decentralized GPU rendering network & 3D marketplace built on OTOY's OctaneRender NFT ecosystem. While at the inaugural Solana Breakpoint conference in Lisbon, Portugal, Urbach announced Render Network’s integration with the Solana blockchain, as well as a partnership with NFT minting platform Metaplex. Urbach noted that the project's recent move to Solana happened for a variety of reasons. He mentioned that Solana …

Neal Stephenson, a popular sci-fi writer coined the phrase “metaverse” in his first best-selling and breakthrough 1992 novel, Snow Crash. Now that concept is becoming a reality, and what’s more, you can invest in the metaverses. In Ready Player One, The OASIS is another example of an advanced virtual reality. Numerous other sci-fi authors, such as Ian M Banks, have created and used similar concepts within their novels. Back in September, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was clearly interested in advancing the metaverse. In a recent earnings call, Facebook made it clear that they want to unify communities, creators and eCommerce …

Last week, Facebook rebranded to Meta and announced its plans to kickstart the development of the Metaverse — an entirely new way of interacting and navigating the internet. Now, the Metaverse landscape has a multi-billion dollar corporate behemoth vying for the helm, which has made its future all the more uncertain. Whether we like it or not, major corporations will likely play a major role in how the Metaverse develops and evolves. But will it be plagued by the same problems faced by today’s social media giants, or will decentralized platforms and services take center stage? Related: New industry, new …

Leading technologists believe the internet will soon evolve into the metaverse, a digital experience that offers mind-blowing virtual realities. Within the metaverse, users can be a part of immersive experiences in different virtual spaces, owning and trading things like they do in the real world or traveling to distant parts of the world without leaving the couch. Although just a concept, if the metaverse did become a reality, it could have the potential to transform society and the industry as a whole. Some believe that with the metaverse, participants can be a part of a better version of the world …