Metaverse tokens are vastly outperforming every other crypto category in the current bearish condition, up by nearly 400% year on year. Leading the gains are Decentraland’s MANA (up 41%), The Sandbox’s SAND (up 470%), Axie Infinity’s Axie Infinity Shards (AXS) (up 511%), and Stepn’s GMT (up 746%), according to data from Kraken Intelligence and CoinGecko’s May 2022 market report. Metaverse tokens can be used to pay fees, buy land and participate in governance. The #NFT boom of 2021 has not only drawn mainstream attention to digital art investments, it has also popularized the crypto metaverse. Kraken Intelligence's report takes a …

Open-world blockchain game Illuvium managed to keep the average transaction fee for its nonfungible token (NFT) Land at about $20 by holding a Dutch auction on the Illuvium X layer-2 scaling solution. The price to mint the NFTs was a fraction of the cost users paid to mint in Yuga Labs’ Otherside sale. Illuvium reports that users spent only $350,000 in fees in total to mint nearly 20,000 plots of Land worth about $72 million, all without any reported network errors. By contrast, the Otherside sale was plagued with issues. Users paid an average of $6,000 in gas fees and …

South Korea, a nation known for its strict crypto regulatory stance, is betting big on the Metaverse. The government will invest over 223.7 billion won ($177.1 million) directly in various Metaverse projects. The decision to invest in nascent Metaverse tech makes South Korea one of the first national governments to do so. The investment came under the "Digital New Deal" program set up to invest in emerging technologies. The program is headed by South Korea's Ministry of Science and Information and Communication Technology led by Lim Hyesook, who called the metaverse “an uncharted digital continent with indefinite potential,” indicating the …

Bitcoin (BTC) and the broader cryptocurrency market have provided very little comfort in recent weeks, as macroeconomic headwinds and the implosion of the Terra ecosystem continue to reverberate. But, if we look beyond the immediate price action, we observe an industry that continues to grow and evolve, as well as attract sizable capital investments from major funders. The latest edition of venture capital (VC) Roundup highlights the continued growth of Web3 gaming, metaverse applications and even decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols. Related: Crypto Biz: Smart Money is betting big on Web3, layer 2, May 19-25 Andreessen Horowitz backs Irreverent Labs Blockchain …

Nonfungible tokens (NFT) and blockchain technology have developed an unfortunate stigma in some sections of the community for being bad for the environment. But, could that perception be changed by integrating carbon offsets into NFT gaming? GameFi, or gaming finance, marries NFTs and gaming. Blockchain games account for nearly $12 million in daily volume from over a million gamers, according to app tracker DappRadar. Toucan Protocol chief operations officer Rob Schmitt thinks that volume and those users could be harnessed to benefit the environment. Schmitt told Cointelegraph that using carbon offsets as an element in blockchain games could create “by …

Yield Guild Games (YGG) has released its Community Update for Q1 2022, revealing that total scholarships rose 39% overall as the guild continues to farm copious amounts of the Axie breeding Smooth Love Potion (SLP) token. The Community Report shows that the month-on-month growth of scholarships in YGG has been strong despite a downturn in the market. January saw 50.13% growth, February saw a 28.8% increase, while March had 41.93% growth fueled by new partnerships and the rollout of SubDAOs. By the end of March, the guild had 29,458 scholarships, mostly from Axie Infinity. SubDAOs are decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO) …

You’ve seen it before. An amazingly talented gaming founder teams up with a top-tier studio, promising to create a wondrous game experience built on the industry’s most powerful engines. But then, it happens: It’s paired with a dubious shitcoin that launches well before even a morsel of game content drops. In the not-so-distant past, mainstream media may have referred to the hype-fueled crypto bull market — but, with Bored Ape floor prices still in the clouds, we’ll respectfully call it what it is: the monkey run. Market volatility aside, Metaverse evangelists still claim that Web3 finance will revolutionize the way …

A new survey has found that over 80% of people surveyed would be motivated to take up more physical exercise if they were paid in cryptocurrency for their efforts. The survey, which was conducted by fitness website FitRated, asked 1,001 Americans for their thoughts on blockchain-related fitness technology. The survey found that a staggering 40% of people surveyed would be willing to cancel their current physical gym membership for one in the Metaverse. 81% of respondents would be more motivated to stay fit if they were incentivized by cryptocurrency payments. Previously, a study conducted by the National Bureau of Economic …

Crypto gaming has grown in popularity as more players collect and trade digital assets, generating a dependable income for game developers and creating value for players. In a recently published report, Cointelegraph Research shows how Axie Infinity gamers in the Philippines were able to earn their regular monthly salary in 2020 simply by playing the game, at a time when measures to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic brought economic hardship to the country. Axie Infinity is a powerhouse of play-to-earn (P2E) blockchain gaming, not unlike Bitcoin’s (BTC) status as the powerhouse of cryptocurrencies. Like Bitcoin, it has the …

Sorare is where fantasy soccer and cryptocurrency meet. For soccer fans, this is a way to be competitive off the field and invest heavily right away. Users can play the game online in their browser or download the Sorare app. In this article, you will read all about what exactly Sorare is and how it works. What is Sorare? Sorare is a blockchain-based fantasy soccer game adored by many soccer fans worldwide. The founders of the platform want to give fans the opportunity to develop and play the game, even when they can’t play it on the field. Users can …

Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) has launched a $600 million fund dedicated to gaming startups with a focus on Web3, saying it believes “Games infrastructure and technologies will be key building blocks of the Metaverse.” Dubbed Games Fund One, the fund will invest in three main areas: game studios, consumer applications — which support player communities, with Discord used as an example — and gaming infrastructure providers. The a16z team said “The coming Metaverse will be built by games companies, using games technologies” and that the industry has already “solved many of the problems that need to be solved …

Web3 gaming and entertainment company Metatheory founded by Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin has raised $24 million in a Series A funding round on Monday. The round was led by crypto capital venture firm Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), with participation from Pantera Capital, the venture arm of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, FTX Ventures, and other venture firms, according to the announcement. Metatheory was launched in November 2021 around one year after Lin left Twitch, where he wrote in a Medium article at the time that he was creating the gaming company and also a blockchain game called DuskBreakers. Lin was quoted in …