Crypto investment giant Grayscale has published a bullish report on the Metaverse, estimating that the “market opportunity” for bringing the Metaverse to the mainstream may be worth over $1 trillion in the next few years. The November report titled “The Metaverse, Web 3.0 Virtual Cloud Economies” was authored by Grayscale Head of research David Grider and research analyst Matt Maximo. The duo explores the burgeoning sector primarily from the perspective of open Metaverse worlds backed by an “interconnected crypto-economy” such as Decentraland. The report highlights that Metaverse platforms integrated with crypto tokens, decentralized finance (DeFi) services such as staking and …

Hong Kong-based gaming and venture capital company Animoca Brands and subsidiary Blowfish Studios have promised users that they will repay 265 ETH (US$1.1 million) stolen in a fraudulent nonfungible token (NFT) sale on D`iscord. The fraudulent minting event occurred at approximately 3 AM AEDT on Nov 19 on the Phantom Galaxies Discord server. It saw 1,571 fake minting transactions over the course of about three hours. Phantom Galaxies is an upcoming Australian game being developed by Blowfish Studios. The Phantom Galaxies Discord server has 94,000 members. In an increasingly common occurrence on Discord, hackers gained control of the official Phantom …

Gala Games' in-house currency GALA rallied by nearly 350% in November, ignoring corrections across the top cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin (BTC). Notably, GALA price surged from $0.088 to $0.42 between Nov. 1 and Nov. 22. GALA's gains primarily came in the wake of a price rally across a majority of gaming and metaverse crypto assets. For instance, MANA, the native token of Decentraland — a blockchain-based virtual world that allows users to create, experience, and monetize content and applications, climbed by more than 30% month-to-date. Similarly, SAND, the native asset of decentralized metaverse project, the Sandbox, more than doubled in prices …

Polemos, a play-to-earn (P2E) gaming guild specialized in NFT games, has raised $2 million in a strategic funding round to focus on its open-world role-playing game. Soon-to-be-launched as an open beta in Q1 2022, Illuvium is an open-world RPG adventure game built on the Ethereum blockchain. Players collect creatures called Illuvials that are represented as tradeable NFTs. The digital characters can be used to battle against other players and complete quests, becoming more powerful with each battle won. On Nov. 19, Polemos announced the funding round that was led by investment firm Delphi Digital and Framework Ventures. Other participants in …

As outlined in a prepared statement obtained by Cointelegraph, Game7 is an upcoming $500 million blockchain ecosystem acceleration decentralized autonomous organization, or DAO, with the goal of onboarding gamers worldwide to the blockchain ecosystem. Entities backing the proposal include BitDAO, Forte, Alameda Research, Mirana Ventures, Warner Music Group, Aleo, Avalanche, Interchain Foundation, Offchain Labs, OP Games, Polygon Studios, and Solana Ventures. Meanwhile, Forte Labs and Magnus proposed its creation. 1/ BIP-5 has passed! @Game7_Official will be established by a diverse group of gaming and technology industry veterans, and will help create a future where blockchain and gaming unites! https://t.co/dZxqjMwpIk pic.twitter.com/Nxd5L4fgyD …

Phil Spencer, Microsoft’s head of gaming, commented on his skepticism towards nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, in an interview with Axios: “What I'd say today on NFT, all up, is I think there's a lot of speculation and experimentation that's happening, and that some of the creative that I see today feels more exploitive than about entertainment." As head executive of Microsoft's Xbox division, Spencer’s words carry weight. Xbox is the game console operating system with the second-largest global market share behind only PlayStation. This gives Xbox a lot of power over the acceptance or rejection of NFT projects into the …

The fortitude of Bitcoin (BTC) holders continues to be tested on Nov. 17 as a number of attempts to push the price to $59,000 and below grow. This level has been well defended by bulls but analysts are still watching for the $63,000 level to be reclaimed as support before saying the "dip" has ended. While much of the recent focus has been on Bitcoin and matters related to exchange-traded funds (ETF), the altcoin market has been providing some relief to and a hand full of tokens rallied toward new all-time highs on Wednesday. Data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro and …

Metaverse gaming tokens Ethverse (ETHV), The Sandbox (SAND), GameSwap (GSWAP), Yield Guild Games (YGG), Axie Infinity (AXS) are the few cryptocurrencies seeing gains on Nov. 17 with Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and most of the market in the red. Best-performing crypto sector The emerging division of the blockchain universe saw its market cap swell by more than 9% in the previous 24 hours and almost 8% in the last seven days to reach $17.42 billion. Its gains came on the back of volatile upside moves in Ethverse, The Sandbox, GameSwap, Yield Guild Games, Axie Infinity, and other markets. Meanwhile, about …

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 …

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 the past 30 years the growth of the internet and digital technology has transformed the way the world operates and today artificial intelligence and machine learning continue to shift the balance of power away from physical labor and more toward a future filled with automation and smart technology. IoTeX (IOTX), a blockchain-based project focused on Internet of Things (IoT) devices and the future of machine learning in the workforce, aims to design an open ecosystem that facilitates interaction between people and machines and over the past month the projects IOTX token has rallied more than 200%. Data from Cointelegraph …

Axie Infinity, a monster-battling NFT game, has been gaining a lot of traction with over $600 million Axies bought and sold in the past month. Each Axie is a non fungible token, or NFT, minted on the Ethereum (ETH) blockchain. Similar in theme to Nintendo's Pokemon series, Axies come in different rarity types, with varying strengths and attributes, with the strongest fetching very high prices on the game's marketplace. Players earn Smooth Love Potions (SLPs) by completing daily quests, defeating monsters, and battling other players in arenas with their Axies. SLPs can then be sold in exchange for various cryptocurrencies. …