1. Home
  2. Animoca Brands

Animoca Brands

Animoca Drives into Crypto Racing Games With Latest Acquisition

The NFT and Metaverse investment firm plans to continue building out its REVV Motorsport ecosystem with a Metaverse-first approach.

Gaming and venture capital firm Animoca Brands has completed its landmark acquisition of Eden Games, publishers of the Gear.Club, Test Drive series, and other popular racing games.

Eden Games is a France-based firm that was founded in 1998. Engine Gaming and Media sold its 96% stake in the company to Animoca for $15.3 million on April 7.

With the acquisition, Animoca plans to enhance its REVV Motorsport (REVV) ecosystem by taking a “Metaverse first approach” to new and existing gaming titles, as tweeted by Animoca chairman Yat Siu on April 12.

It also hopes to introduce new blockchain-based racing games. Eden Games has partnerships within the automotive industry with the likes of BMW, Bugatti, Porsche, and others which should help Animoca build out a more robust suite of games for racing game aficionados.

The REVV Motorsport ecosystem includes the eponymous racing games on the Ethereum scaling solution Polygon, MotoGP: Ignition, Formula E: High Voltage, and Torque Drift. All the games are blockchain-based and integrate nonfungible tokens (NFTs).

By inserting its NFT products into sports, Animoca will be able to capitalize on Deloitte’s estimated $2 billion in sports NFT transactions in 2022.

Co-founder and chairman of Animoca Brands Yat Siu said in an April 11 statement that the acquisition would “add value to the REVV community and the racing metaverse” by way of its many assets in the racing world.

Animoca has been busy building out its own racing game ecosystem and is looking to fill the void created by its F1 Delta Time game shutting down on March 15 after losing its license with the Formula 1 racing brand. There is no word yet on what new titles may be under development as a result of the new acquisition.

Related: Blue Chip and Metaverse NFTs propel growth of NFT Market, says Nansen report

F1 racing is a popular sport in the crypto industry with at least eight crypto companies, including exchange Binance, Crypto.com, and the Ethereum scaling solution Fantom, currently sponsoring teams. From a business perspective, its popularity makes perfect sense considering about one billion global fans are expected to view races throughout the 2022 season.

Animoca Brands is one of the most active investors in the NFT and Metaverse spaces. Its other holdings include The Sandbox (SAND) and Axie Infinity (AXS).

Crypto sentiment index drops to October levels as Bitcoin dips under $92K

Sky Mavis Raises $150 Million in Financing Round Led by Binance to Refund Users Affected by the Ronin Bridge Exploit

Sky Mavis Raises 0 Million in Financing Round Led by Binance to Refund Users Affected by the Ronin Bridge ExploitSky Mavis, the company behind the play-to-earn (P2E) game Axie Infinity, announced it has raised $150 million in a funding round to replenish the funds the company lost in the Ronin Network exploit. The funding round — which was led by Binance and had the participation of companies like Animoca Brands, a16z, Dialectic, Paradigm, and […]

Crypto sentiment index drops to October levels as Bitcoin dips under $92K

BAYC’s ApeCoin up 50% this week as its creator raises $450M in new funding

APE has closed above a key interim support level, raising its possibilities to extend its rebound move.

ApeCoin (APE) continued its rebound move Thursday as the firm behind it raised hundreds of millions of dollars in a funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz.

APE's price surged 7.5% intraday to reach around $14.50 per piece. Notably, the token's upside move came as a part of a retracement rally that started at the beginning of this week when it was changing hands for as low as $9.50.

That pushed APE's week-to-date profits up by 50%, making it one of the best-performing digital assets since March 21.

APE/USD daily price chart. Source: TradingView

Big VC booster

To recap, ApeCoin digital currency came to existence on March 17, via an "airdrop" backed by Yuga Labs, the creator of the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), a collection of nonfungible tokens (NFT) popular among celebrities, sportsman, and venture capitalists alike for its so-called status symbol.

Yuga Labs dropped 150 million APE — out of the total 1 billion created — among the owners of the Bored Ape NFTs, with each getting 10,904 tokens, worth over $158,000 as of Thursday, for "free."

Meanwhile, owners of rarest BAYC NFTs, the "Mutant Apes," received 2,042 APE, which costs around $30,000 as of today's price.

The firm projects APE as a governance and utility token to allow its holders to oversee and manage the so-called ApeCoin DAO, a decentralized autonomous organization. As a result, holding an APE gives users the right to vote on decisions proposed within the BAYC ecosystem.

"It will serve as a decentralized protocol layer for community-led initiatives that drive culture forward into the metaverse," reads an excerpt from the ApeCoin's official website.

Interestingly, Yuga Labs gave entities, including Andreessen Horowitz and Animoca Brands, that helped it launch APE about 14% of its total supply, worth about $2 billion at today's prices. On Tuesday, the the firm raised $450 million from the same venture capitalists to value at $4 billion.

Crypto exchange FTX also contributed to the funding round, which, as Yuga claimed, would be used to expand its development team and to oversee their coming joint ventures, including a metaverse project called "Otherside."

Yuga may also use the capital to make Bored and Mutant Apes into bigger brands with some of them debuting on luxury goods and a play-to-earn game that may involve APE tokens.

What's next for APE

ApeCoin is a week old so — technically — it does not have enough historic data to anticipate future price movements.

Related: ApeCoin announcement surges BAYC floor price to near-ATH before correction

Nonetheless, switching to lower-timeframe charts shows APE trending upward inside a parallel ascending channel with traders buying when the price hits the lower trendline and selling when it hits the upper trendline.

As a result, APE's ongoing rebound move could have it extend its upside momentum toward the channel's upper trendline near $15, coinciding with another resistance level from March 18-19.

Meanwhile, APE has also been attempting to reclaim $14.25 as its interim support. Failing to do so could risk an early pullback move toward the channel's lower trendline, also coinciding with its 20-hour exponential moving average (20-hour EMA; the green wave) near $13.50.

The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.

Crypto sentiment index drops to October levels as Bitcoin dips under $92K

Animoca Brands targets social media giants in latest Web3 expansion plans

“You will continue seeing us take that approach as we sort of, you know, try to shepherd companies into Web3,” said Animoca Brands chairman and co-founder Yat Siu.

Animoca Brands co-founder and chairman Yat Siu stated that his firm will continue to “shepherd companies into Web3” to speed up the evolution of the internet into an open Metaverse.

Siu has long advocated for the broader concept of an open Metaverse as opposed to a closed one that is dominated by large centralized Web2 companies. Central to Siu’s argument is that decentralized Web3 platforms and tech such as NFTs offer users a chance to maintain ownership rights over their data and content online, instead of it being controlled and utilized by firms such as Meta (formerly Facebook).

Siu made his latest comments while speaking on day three of the Australian Blockchain Week event earlier today. During his discussion hosted by Caroline Bowler — the CEO of local crypto exchange BTC Markets — the NFT proponent covered several topics including, the true value of Yuga Lab’s BAYC NFTs, the limitations of Web2, and Animoca’s ever-growing portfolio of companies and investments.

When questioned on Animoca Brands’ roadmap moving forward, Siu said that the firm is still “super early” in its long term goal of building an open Metaverse, but emphasized the importance of speeding up the process due to the risk of having large centralized firms dominating the virtual sphere:

“You will continue seeing us take that approach as we sort of, you know, try to shepherd companies into Web3. A lot of this is driven by ‘how do we accelerate the adoption of web3?’ because one of the bigger risks as we see it, is that if people don't move into space quickly enough then inadvertently we will perhaps also create another kind of elite.”

Adding to his point, Siu sounded the alarm bells on major firms that don't want the decentralized and open Web3 movement to happen, as he argued that many of their business models are built around the monetization of user data.

“There are very large centralized organizations who don't want this to happen because they make money from our data. [from their point of view] Data is not a property that we should own. Data is a property that they should own and they can manipulate because that's how the entire business is constructed,” he said, adding that “they're the ones that we have to worry about from our perspective.”

Related: How NFTs create a 'beautiful cycle' between artists and fans

A major way to counter the centralized Metaverse firms according to Siu, is to onboard as many as possible onto Web3 until it develops into a sort of “global trade framework,” as users will become accustomed to the freedom and ability to own a stake in the space.

He again warned that a move in the opposite would provide strengthen centralized firms and give them a stronger grip over the metaverse space in the future, prolonging what has already taken place in the web2 era:

“If most of us decide to, you know, just exist in a closed metaverse or in a closed ecosystem entirely, then actually we live by their rules. And it would be hard to break out because they end up sort of manipulating and controlling that network effect, as we have seen today with some of the large tech companies.”

Crypto sentiment index drops to October levels as Bitcoin dips under $92K

Animoca Brands, Yuga Labs Tease Bored Ape Secret Project ‘Powered by Apecoin’  

Animoca Brands, Yuga Labs Tease Bored Ape Secret Project ‘Powered by Apecoin’  Since the token was launched roughly three days ago, the digital currency apecoin (APE) has been a topical conversation within the cryptocurrency community on forums and social media. So far, just over 82% of the claimable APE has been claimed and 13,672 unique addresses have received APE from the airdrop. Meanwhile, the Bored Ape Yacht […]

Crypto sentiment index drops to October levels as Bitcoin dips under $92K

British Investment Bank HSBC Joins Metaverse via Sandbox, Animoca Brands Partnership

British Investment Bank HSBC Joins Metaverse via Sandbox, Animoca Brands PartnershipThe British multinational investment bank and financial services holding company, HSBC, has revealed it has partnered with the blockchain virtual gaming platform The Sandbox. According to the platform’s parent company, Animoca Brands, HSBC is the first global financial services provider to enter The Sandbox metaverse. HSBC Steps Into the Metaverse Over the last 12 months, […]

Crypto sentiment index drops to October levels as Bitcoin dips under $92K

Immutable Raises $200 Million in Temasek-Led Series C, NFT Startup Now Valued at $2.5 Billion

Immutable Raises 0 Million in Temasek-Led Series C, NFT Startup Now Valued at .5 BillionFollowing the startup’s partnership with Gamestop, the Sydney-based blockchain firm Immutable announced it raised $200 million in a Series C financing round led by Temasek. The company is now valued at $2.5 billion and Immutable plans to use the funds to scale the startup’s gaming studio. Immutable Raises $200 Million, NFT Startup Aims to Bolster […]

Crypto sentiment index drops to October levels as Bitcoin dips under $92K

Gaming Giant Animoca Brands Reveals Ban Against Russian Users, Co-Founder Compares Russia to North Korea

Gaming Giant Animoca Brands Reveals Ban Against Russian Users, Co-Founder Compares Russia to North KoreaBlockchain gaming firm Animoca Brands has revealed the company is breaking ties with Russian users following the Ukraine invasion that started seven days ago. Animoca Brands co-founder Yat Siu noted in an interview that the company received legal advice about the situation and the Animoca executive compared the newly sanctioned Russia to North Korea. Animoca […]

Crypto sentiment index drops to October levels as Bitcoin dips under $92K

BitsCrunch raises $3.6M in funding for NFT analytics tools

Several high-profile investment firms contributed to the funding round, suggesting interest in the space is far from waning any time soon.

Crypto and nonfungible token (NFT) ecosystem analytics firm BitsCrunch has secured $3.6 million in a funding round led by Animoca Brands, Coinbase Ventures, Crypto.com Capital, and others.

BitsCrunch uses AI-based analytical tools to determine the fair price of NFTs, identify wash trading warnings, and determine whether an NFT is a copy or forgery of the genuine asset. The company is based in Germany and India.

The firm believes that investors in the continually growing space need better access to data that will protect them from fakes and getting fooled by ingenuine trading volume.

BitsCrunch CEO Vijay Pravin Maharajan told Cointelegraph on Feb. 25 that his company currently supports NFTs on Ethereum (ETH), Polygon (MATIC), and Avalanche (AVAX), but that he plans to use funds "to expand the team that can focus on securing many prominent blockchains like Solana (SOL), Polkadot (DOT), Algorand (ALGO), and others." 

The firm stated in a Feb. 24 tweet that it hopes the new additions will make the “whole ecosystem more trustworthy & secure for the community.”

Animoca Brands, the round’s leading investor, has been one of the most prolific VC firms investing in the NFT space. Last month it was valued at $5 billion due to the level of profit in its investment portfolio, which includes Axie Infinity, The Sandbox, and many other NFT-based projects.

Animoca co-founder Yat Siu stated in a Feb. 25 announcement that BitsCrunch is in a good position to assist investors in making informed investment decisions. He added that it can “contribute meaningfully to the safety and security of the emerging open metaverse.”

The amount of funds raised for NFT projects just over the past 30 days suggests that demand remains high for development in the field. Crypto fundraising tracker Airtable shows at least 27 other NFT projects have raised a collective $251 million since Jan. 25.

Related: Monster Energy files NFT and metaverse trademark applications

Although the all-time leading NFT marketplace, OpenSea, has suffered from reduced trading volume interest in the asset class has not faded. Much of the trading volume for the most popular asset other than ETH on Ethereum appears to have shifted from OpenSea over to the LooksRare marketplace because of its lower fees and greater returns for investors.

Crypto sentiment index drops to October levels as Bitcoin dips under $92K