YGG-backed Oasys blockchain hopes to take P2E gaming mainstream

February 17, 2022 Coin Telegraph

“Gaming is the best use case the world has ever seen for blockchain and I believe we will see 10 million wallets interacting with blockchain games before the end of this year,” said Oasys founding member Gabby Dizon.

The team behind the new gaming-focused proof-of-stake blockchain Oasys say that it’s been designed to increase mainstream play-to-earn (P2E) adoption.

The Singapore-based firm (Oasys PTE. LTD) behind the new chain touts its scalability, eco-friendly PoS blockchain, “zero gas fee experience” and the portability of digital assets between different projects built on the blockchain as key drawcards for developers and users.

The founding team includes a host of names from top crypto and gaming firms including Bandai Namco Research president and CEO Hajime Nakatani, Sega Corporation co-COO Shuji Utsumi, double.jump.tokyo CEO Hironobu Ueno, Thirdverse CEO Hironao Kunimitsu and Yield Guild Games (YGG) co-founder Gabby Dizon.

The Oasys blockchain officially launched on Feb. 7 and has partnered initially with 21 gaming and Web3 tech companies to act as validators, with Dizon’s crypto gaming guild YGG signed on as one of the first.

As part of the launch last week, Sega Corporation’s Utsumi highlighted the importance of building a scalable blockchain gaming ecosystem that also recognizes “the need to have an eco-friendly platform that takes into account important societal and cultural considerations.”

The much debated environmental impacts of proof of work blockchains have been a bone of contention for many in the traditional gaming community, who have pushed back against several firms that have started to make moves into the NFT sector.

Speaking with Cointelegraph, YGG co-founder Dizon echoed Utsumi’s environmental sentiments when he stated that:

“For developers, there will always be trade-offs in choosing the right blockchain to build on and each one is focused on solving different challenges and optimizing certain features. Oasys is focused on improving user experience for gamers through scalability while also reducing environmental impact.”

While Dizon was tight-lipped on any upcoming announcements or partnerships, the YGG co-founder stated that the Oasys team's ties to Japan via its founders would help create “a gateway to the blockchain for major Japanese IP.”

“Japan has always been a world leader in gaming and its cultural influence has had a huge impact in shaping the industry as we know it today,” he said.

Speaking on the blockchain gaming sector in general, Dizon bullishly predicted that the market could see more than a 7X increase on the 1.4 million active wallets that interacted daily with blockchain gaming apps as of late 2021.

“Gaming is the best use case the world has ever seen for blockchain and I believe we will see 10 million wallets interacting with blockchain games before the end of this year,” he said.

Oasys head of marketing Kokushi Hattori said that the company expects numerous mainstream gaming companies to launch P2E games in 2022, and its gaming blockchain was developed to be at the forefront of the “explosive growth” of the sector:

“To realize that prediction, Oasys decided to lead rather than follow and optimize itself and its architecture to support mainstream adoption starting with gamers and ending with consumer users.”

“In the near short term, our main focus will be to attract game developers, content creators and gamers to start building early adoption among the gaming community so gamers can connect, create and play within the Metaverse,” he added.

Yield Guild Games Raises $1.45M for Philippine Typhoon Relief

February 1, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Yield Guild Games Raises .45M for Philippine Typhoon Relief

Central Visayas

The relief fund has been used to purchase essential goods like medicines, power generators, and canned food for affected communities in the Philippines.

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 Report for Typhoon #OdettePH relief efforts is up! @yieldguild raised $1.45M and has so far disbursed a total of $992K to date. Meanwhile, our direct financial assistance program has helped 3K+ households begin to rebuild ❤️ https://t.co/GMdu8OjfxP
— YGGPilipinas (@YGGPilipinas) January 31, 2022

The Filipino division of the play-to-earn gaming guild “YGG Pilipinas” announced the relief operation a day after Typhoon Odette hit the country, quickly raising $110,000 in a number of crypto tokens including SLP, AXS, ETH, WETH, and USDC by the end of the day.

Getting close to the 6,000,000 peso ($110K) mark in crypto donations. We'll continue to raise funds all throughout the weekend while we find and assign key community leaders in each affected city. #OdettePH https://t.co/HgKjzw3h7v
— YGGPilipinas (@YGGPilipinas) December 17, 2021

YGG Pilipinas Country Manager Luis Buenaventura led the initiative. He explained to Cointelegraph that the Philippines represents the largest portion of the YGG community, so Odette was close to their hearts.

“We’re Filipino-led; many of the senior staff reside here in the Philippines and indeed the largest portion of the global play-to-earn community is based here, which is why so many of the play-to-earn projects came out to contribute to the cause when they saw the extent of the typhoon damage.”

“Our community is as important to us as our core team, and many of them were either driven from their homes or have been living without running water or power for a month now,” he said, adding that many staff members were living in areas badly affected by the typhoon.

Aside from funds collected by the YGG community, a number of others in the broader Web3 community also got involved. Co-founder of NFT play-to-earn game Axie Infinity Jeffrey “Jihoz” Zirlin donated 1,000 AXS ($55,400) to the relief fund on Christmas day. He said:

“As we work together to help our brothers and sisters in the Philippines recover and rebuild, we remember that this is what our community is about."

YGG co-founder, Gabby Dizon, said that the relief effort showed the power and unity of the Web3 gaming community. “This is our testimony that we are more than just a community of gamers,” he said.

Meanwhile, players of the play-to-earn game DeFi Kingdoms (DFK) also voted to donate a total of $500,000, with the developer team chipping in an additional $250,000.

Since some of the people who were affected by Odette needed cash more urgently than relief goods, YGG also launched an aid project “Crypto Ayuda” to send cash aid to individuals who needed direct assistance.

Recent estimates claim that Typhoon Odette affected around 9 million people, with nearly 325,000 remaining displaced to date. The Typhoon damaged over 50,000 homes and $260 million worth of agricultural goods.

Metaverse gaming tokens Ethverse and Axie Infinity avoid crypto downtrend

November 17, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Axie Infinity

Metaverse gaming tokens, including The Sandbox’s SAND and Axie Infinity’s AXS, have bucked the downtrend in Bitcoin and Ether.

Metaverse gaming tokens Ethverse (ETHV), The Sandbox (SAND), GameSwap (GSWAP), Yield Guild Games (YGG) and 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 capitalization 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.

*Gaming tokens' performance in the past 24 hours and seven days. Source: Messari*

Meanwhile, about 140 tokens belonging to the decentralized finance sector delivered combined losses of almost 10% in the last seven days.

*Crypto sector performance in the last seven days. Source: Messari*

However, the overall crypto market cap dropped by more than 14.50% to $2.47 trillion.

InterHedging tactic?

Gaming tokens fared not only better in terms of the United States dollar but also against BTC and ETH in the previous 24 hours.

For instance, SAND, the native token of The Sandbox’s virtual world — where players can build, own, and monetize their gaming experience — rose more than 27% against Bitcoin and Ether. What’s more, ETHV, a relatively unknown NFT asset, also more than doubled against the top two cryptos.

*SAND/USD daily price chart. Source: TradingView*

The capital flow from top crypto assets to the crypto-enabled gaming sector coincided with a flurry of optimistic updates.

That included Andreessen Horowitz leading a $5-million funding round for Seattle-based blockchain gaming startup Irreverent Labs and Polygon’s announcement of organizing a $100,000 hackathon to motivate developers to build and showcase games running on blockchains.

In another event, shares of Korea-based online gaming company WeMade soared by more than 400% to reach a market capitalization of over $5 billion on Nov. 15.

*WEMADE daily price chart. Source: TradingView*

The firm’s gains appeared after the launch of its blockchain-based game MIR4, which, like Axie Infinity and The Sandbox, allows players to earn cryptocurrencies by converting in-platform items into liquefiable digital assets.

On the whole, the blockchain gaming sector appears to be carving its own niche. Arjun Kalsy, vice-president of growth at Polygon, stated:

“With the Web3 paradigm of play-to-earn, where gamers can monetize their time and in-game achievements, this market is set to grow multifold in the coming years.”

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.

Half of unique active crypto wallets played a blockchain game in Q3

October 15, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Axie Infinity

In-game NFTs have generated $2.3 billion in sales over the past three months and Axies are the top sellers.

The number of crypto wallets participating in blockchain games has surged in recent months according to new research.

According to DappRadar’s Q3 ‘Blockchain Game Report’, unique active wallets connected to gaming decentralized applications reached a total of 754,000 for the period. This represents almost half of the industry’s activity with the blockchain industry registering 1.54 million daily unique active wallets on average over the three-month period.

The unique active wallet metric refers to unique addresses that interact with a given smart contract, so it does not necessarily translate to daily active users.

The increase in gaming activity has been largely driven by the play-to-earn movement and in-game nonfungible tokens. These in-game NFT collectibles generated $2.32 billion in sales during Q3, the research stated, adding that this represents 22% of the total NFT trading volume for the period:

“In the midst of all the euphoria around Ethereum collections like CryptoPunks and Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), the role that NFT in-game items played, may be overlooked.”

Around $10.67 billion in trading volume was recorded for the NFT space from July to September, an increase of just over 700% from the previous quarter.

The Axie Infinity metaverse has been one of the major driving forces for blockchain gaming. Players collect and raise “Axies” which are virtual creatures that can be used in player-versus-environment (PvE) and player versus player (PvP) battles in the game.

Axie Infinity amassed $2.08 billion in trading volume in Q3 and has currently hit $2.55 billion in total volume. DappRadar reports that there have been more than 6.7 million sales to date, and the current 24-hour volume is $15.2 million.

NFT tracker CryptoSlam lists Axie Infinity as the top-selling collection by sales volume over the past 30 days with $504 million.

In late September, Axie Infinity enabled staking for its native AXS token which adds an additional layer of passive income on top of Axie’s play-to-earn potential. The move ignited AXS trading and drove prices to an all-time high of $155 on Oct. 4. The token has gained 743% over the past three months.

Play-to-earn gaming societies such as Yield Guild Games, which raised $12.5 million in a 30-second IDO (initial DEX offering) in July, have also seen massive momentum in recent months.

The Guild has been actively adding play-to-earn games to its growing ecosystem recently including Thetan Arena, CyBall, Influence, Merit Circle, and Star Atlas so far this month alone.

Gone in 31 seconds: Yield Guild Games’ IDO raises $12.5M from just 32 participants

July 28, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Gone in 31 seconds: Yield Guild Games’ IDO raises .5M from just 32 participants

Coin Telegraph

The $12.6 million initial DEX offering of play-to-earn collective, Yield Guild Games, sold out in just 31 seconds to just 32 participants.

Yield Guild Games (YGG), a collective of play-to-earn gamers, completed its initial DEX offering via SushiSwap’s Miso platform in under a minute earlier today.

The offering saw YGG raise roughly $12.5 million on July 27, with the token sale distributing 25 million tokens or 2.5% of the project’s 1 billion token supply via a dutch auction. The YGG tokens were sold for roughly $0.50 each.

Disappointed investors criticized the sale after 32 wallets exhausted the allocation in 31 seconds, even though YGG’s Discord membership exceeds 47,000.

A single address appears to have been able to nab 4.5 million tokens or 18% of the coins available in the offering, although onlookers have speculated the purchaser was likely a pool.

32 participants / Biggest ape (looks like a pool) did 4.5milly pic.twitter.com/EpR69WXKTT
— Darren Lau (@Darrenlautf) July 27, 2021

YGG co-founder, Gabby Dizon told Cointelegraph the project has been in touch with some of the buyers, noting the purchasing addresses represented groups of long-term community members who had “[pooled] capital together for a large purchase.”

“So it's not just 32 whales that bought in, it was 32 wallets that represented different groups of long term believers of our vision.”

Dizon also noted the token is scheduled to begin trading on SushiSwap later today with plenty of liquidity, providing investors additional opportunities to access the YGG token.

In a blog post, Dizon thanked the project’s community for its support and participation, stating: “We are looking forward to kicking off our community airdrop where YGG tokens will be given to the most active and engaged members of our guild, especially those who have been with us from the beginning.”

Moving forward, Yield Guild Games will soon complete a community airdrop distributing tokens to its most active members. The project will also launch a community mining program soon.

YGG also intends to expand its sponsorship program, which facilitates the donation of Axie Infinity in-game currency Small Love Potion (SLP) to YGG players for breeding Axies — collectible fantasy creatures that inhabit the game.

Last month, YGG raised $4 million in a Series A funding round featuring participation from Mechanism Capital, ParaFi Capital, and lead investor Bitkraft Ventures.

YGG

Best-performing crypto sector

InterHedging tactic?

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