The Metaverse is quickly becoming one of the biggest trends of 2022. Recent data found that the metaverse sector currently has a market capitalization of over $26 billion. While impressive, new capabilities are also being added to virtual worlds to create more immersive experiences. For example, metaverse communities that cater to creatives are starting to unfold, allowing users to customize their own interactive experiences. Although this is still an emerging concept, the incorporation of music appears to be one of the defining characteristics of social metaverse environments. Music as NFTs For instance, music in the form of nonfungible tokens (NFTs) …

The stock price of popular video game store chain GameStop (GME) surged roughly 13% in one day amid rumors circulating online regarding a partnership with Microsoft to work on NFT gaming. At the time of writing, GME sits at $115.60 as of market close on Feb. 8 and has also held around that level in after-hours trading according to data from TradingView. GME started February at around the $100 region and has been pumping this month on the back of GameStop’s partnership with NFT focused Layer-2 Ethereum scaling solution Immutable X to develop its upcoming NFT marketplace. As part of …

The price of the Axie Infinity (AXS) token has surged by nearly 40% in three days. AXS rallied to over $65, its best level in more than two weeks, as Axie Infinity revealed a revamped reward structure for its player-vs-player (PVP) competition round. In detail, the play-to-earn startup expanded its number of leaderboard slots to 300,000 and boosted the amount of AXS rewards to 117,676 from the earlier 3,000 for the next season. "This will supercharge the competitive Axie scene and create more demand for quality Axie teams in the ecosystem," Axie Infinity explained, adding that their move would create …

With the opening ceremony of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics completed and all competing athletes currently in China, two members of Congress are warning of the potential dangers of using digital yuan at the events. According to a Friday report from Reuters, Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Feb. 3 expressing concern that the Chinese government could use the games to promote greater adoption of its central bank digital currency, the digital yuan. The country has been conducting trials of the CBDC since April 2020, later announcing …

The Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival has partnered with FTX US to launch a series of NFT collectibles that includes tokenized lifetime access passes to its annual music festivals. The iconic music festival is held over two consecutive three-day weekends every April in California, and is being headlined by Harry Styles, Billy Eilish and Ye (the artist formerly known as Kanye West) in 2022. The partnership was announced on Feb. 2 and it will see the duo launch a Solana-based Coachella marketplace and NFTs that offer real world and virtual benefits. Coachella FTX One of a kind NFTs for …

Yield Guild Games (YGG) has raised $1.45 million to support people affected by December 16's Typhoon Odette in the Philippines, with nearly $1 million already dispersed to people in need. The funding was used to purchase essential goods like medicines, power generators, and canned food, which were turned over to the Philippine Army and Navy and non-profits to distribute among affected communities. There is still about $458,000 worth of crypto and tokens that have been donated to the relief fund but they have yet to be converted to fiat currency for deployment, according to a representative from YGG. Our Transparency …

Nicolas Pouard, VP at Ubisoft's Strategic Innovations Lab, commented on the negative gamer feedback that Ubisoft received after introducing Quartz and Digits, in an interview with Finder. "It's a reaction we are accustomed to. I think it's great because it shows how engaged our players are and how passionate they are about their hobby and gaming in general. And looking at that, I think it's reassuring." In the interview Pouard goes on to clarify that Quartz and Digits are a "matter of personal choice" for players who "at no point" will be forced to use them. In Pouard's explanation of …

In a blog post published Wednesday, Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum (ETH), expressed his wishes to make nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, soulbound as with the namesake item class in popular MMORPG World of Warcraft, or WoW. In outlining his reasons, Buterin explained that if someone shows they own an NFT that is obtainable by doing X, such as attending an auction, it is not possible to tell if the person actually obtained it from the auction themselves in attendance or simply bought the NFT via the secondary market. An example of a soulbound item in WoW | Source: Blizzard Watch …

The first computer games were developed in the late 20th century with the sole purpose of entertaining their audience. One of the first goals was to distract players from their routine work and provide them access to a fantasy world. Very soon, games began to compete for users' time against traditional forms of entertainment, such as movies, circuses, theater performances, zoos, etc. Planet Earth entered the new millennium with a population of over 6 billion people, and the forecast is that this number will reach 8 billion as early as 2023. If we assume that computer games will cease to …

Microsoft Crop. is acquiring gaming giant Activision Blizzard Inc. for $69 billion as part of a move to ramp up its gaming and Metaverse plans. Activision Blizzard is home to a long list of iconic gaming franchises such as Call of Duty, Overwatch, Candy Crush, World of Warcraft and Tony Hawk’s Pro-Skater. Following the deal, its games are set to be added to Microsoft Xbox’s Game Pass service that has 25 million subscribers. According to a Jan. 18 announcement from Microsoft, the firm will acquire Activision Blizzard for $95.00 per share at a valuation of $68.7 billion. The deal is …

Following the announcement that Facebook’s parent company would be rebranding in a shift towards the Metaverse, many projects have started similar initiatives entering the virtual space, from buying property to testing the limits of what this universe has to offer. Visit Disneyland… in the Metaverse? The entertainment company behind some of the most popular theme parks in the world recently had a patent approved for a “virtual-world simulator in a real-world venue.” Though the Los Angeles Times reported that Disney had “no current plans” to use the simulator in the near future, the application does suggest Disneyland and Disney World …

January 2022 continues to be rough for crypto investors as current markets see turbulent fluctuations in the price of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Some have attributed the slump to recent federal intentions to introduce new rate hikes, and the political turmoil in Kazakhstan which significantly lowered the hash rate of bitcoin. On Jan. 14, the price of Bitcoin dipped below $42,000 as traders continued to hold out hope for bullish signals. NFT trading and blockchain games on the other hand seem to have resisted the dip. According to reports from DappRadar, NFT transactions continued to increase amidst declining crypto prices. …