Crypto Stories: Spells of Genesis card game resurges in popularity as sales skyrocket

March 3, 2022 Coin Telegraph

The latest episode in Cointelegraph's Crypto Stories series' walks viewers through the history of the pioneering blockchain mobile game as told by its creator.

Cointelegraph interviewed Shaban Shaame, CEO of EverdreamSoft, whose company produced what is considered to be the first blockchain-based mobile game called Spells of Genesis, or SoG, in 2015. This trading card game launched at a time when few investors and gamers saw the value in blockchain gaming or even Bitcoin, and it faced heavy competition from AAA game producers who shifted to a free-to-play model.

Originally, players who reached a certain level could mint in-game cards as tokenized digital assets on the Bitcoin blockchain using the Counterparty protocol. After years of stagnating sales, however, SoG became compatible with the Ethereum blockchain in 2020. It wasn't until mid-2021 that NFT collectors put the game's rare NFT cards back on the map and sales began trending upwards.

Other blockchain games like CryptoKitties, that allows players to collect, breed and trade virtual cats, had been in the spotlight. The CryptoKitties NFT collection came to the market in 2017 and is largely given the credit of showing collectors and gamers that in-game asset ownership was added value. At the time of publication, CryptoKitties ranked 15th in top most traded collections on OpenSea in terms of volume.

As an early blockchain aficionado, Shaame admitted he "found a new family" with the crypto community made up of people who are "genius and a bit crazy." He likened Bitcoin's invention to that of the internet's and he set out to create on-chain collectibles that could survive the game's life. Always believing that SoG trading cards would go up in value, Shaame envisions those cards displayed in a museum 50 years into the future.

Shaame admitted he was not prepared for the sudden recent spike in usage and price. At the end of the video, he revealed he has another project in the works with plans to "revolutionize the use of computers" in hopes of "changing lives."

Cryptopedia: What is the Metaverse and how will it alter the internet?

February 23, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

This short explainer gives viewers an overview of how blockchain technology powers the Metaverse and its economic potential.

Cointelegraph's Jackson DuMont, Director of video, tackles the topic of the "next big thing:" the Metaverse. He explains the who, what, why behind the Metaverse and deep dives into how its blockchain technology has the potential to alter the online lives of internet users.

The term was originally coined by Neil Stephenson in his 1992 novel Snow Crash. Although not a new concept, recent increased activity and developments within the collaborative virtual spaces have turned it into a new economic virtual realm that rivals the current physical economy.

"The metaverse is exactly like the current version of the internet," but it's on its way to becoming fully immersive, explained Dumont, especially thanks to tech and social media giants like Meta and Microsoft playing a big role in its evolution. In Meta's case, it has invested billions of dollars and is positioning itself at the center of the "multi-billion dollar eden" while racking up the profits.

Some of the features that the Metaverse looks to improve upon within cyberspace includes user privacy, data protection, trestles transactions and unchangeable record keeping. That's where blockchain technology comes in. Metaverses operate on the same values that blockchain-based systems run on, such as permissionless access, censorship resistance, security and decentralization,

"Blockchain and crypto assets are fundamental to creating a safe virtual reality. And NFT technology will also be the foundation for property ownership in the metaverse."

Decentraland and The Sandbox are examples of metaverses that have seen the most virtual real estate and NFT sales within the past year. Dumont points out, however, that in order for the general Metaverse to be more widely adopted, interoperability between individual virtual worlds is key. This means that users would be able to move from one virtual space to another using the same avatars and digital items while bridging a metaverse life from Ethereum to Solana for example.

What unites all of the metaverses, that for now are operating separately, is one larger community with a common shared vision: to build a new internet infrastructure that can support the Metaverse. Outstanding challenges include developing augmented and virtual reality devices with higher internet speeds and superprocessors that handle hyper-realistic graphics.

The video ends with a lofty statement: "Humanity is in the midst of creating the most complete alternate reality to ever exist." But how long will society have to wait to fully immerse itself into this fantasy?

SafeMoon pump and dump lawsuit targets Jake Paul, Soulja Boy, and others

February 20, 2022 Coin Telegraph

California

The new proposed class action alleges that SafeMoon recruited a number of celebrities to lure investors in with misleading promotions.

A new class-action lawsuit demands a jury trial against A-list celebrities and social influencers for their alleged participation in a classic pump and dump scheme relating to SafeMoon tokens.

SafeMoon, a Binance Smart Chain-native cryptocurrency, allegedly recruited a number of celebrities to lure investors in with misleading promotions. Some of the prominent names roped in by the class action include musicians such as Nick Carter, Soulja Boy, Lil Yachty and YouTubers Jake Paul and Ben Phillips.

According to the lawsuit, SafeMoon and its subsidiaries mimicked real-life Ponzi schemes by misleading investors to purchase SafeMoon tokens under the pretext of unrealistic profits.

Citing the ecosystem’s ‘burn’ and ‘tokenomics’ as a key driver for SafeMoon’s price potential, the recruited celebrities allegedly convinced their followers to invest in the token.

Furthermore, the lawsuit points out numerous instances where the recruited celebrities successfully hyped the token enough to artificially increase the trading volume and price. While SafeMoon witnessed multifold growth over several months, the sudden departure of the company’s C-suite executives was when the token prices started plummeting, as evidenced by the graph below (marked in yellow):

The lawsuit alleges a ‘slow rug pull’ attempt from the involved celebrities, implying a slow sell-off of holdings as the trading volume from retail investors remains inflated:

“The Promoter Defendants’ improper promotional activities generated the trading volume needed for all the Defendants to offload their SAFEMOON Tokens onto unsuspecting investors.”

The lawsuit looks to represent and compensate all individuals who bought SafeMoon tokens since March 8, 2021 and were victims of the alleged rug pull attempt.

One of the biggest highlights of Super Bowl 2022 was the crypto commercials. Amid the craze around the advertisements, crypto exchange Binance launched a marketing campaign to warn investors against the incoming crypto hype fueled by mainstream celebrities.

Superstars ≠ crypto experts.

Music artist @JBALVIN says “do your own research”.

On 2.13 when big names try to give you crypto advice — sound #CryptoCelebAlert and grab 1/2222 NFTs of basketball star @JimmyButler!

Learn more ⬇️https://t.co/3rC7r0uJ8M pic.twitter.com/Hml8AN2aEs
— Binance (@binance) February 7, 2022

As Cointelegraph reported, Binance's ultimate aim with this campaign was to direct new users to its own platform, as well as to the educational crypto primer tools on its website.

Youtube Seeks Web3 Director With Experience Trading Crypto, According to Recent Job Listing

February 16, 2022 Bitcoin.com

YouTube Is Hiring an Executive to Lead Web3 Strategy

February 15, 2022 The Crypto Briefing

Content Subscription Service Onlyfans Adds Ethereum-Based NFT Profile Feature

February 12, 2022 Bitcoin.com

Crypto Stories: Gavin Wood discusses why he decided to code Ethereum

February 11, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Coding

The latest episode of Cointelegraph's YouTube series tells the story of Gavin Wood, co-founder of Ethereum and founder of Polkadot and Kusama networks.

Among the original founding fathers of Ethereum (ETH) is Gavin Wood, who joined a group led by Vitalik Buterin that set out to build Bitcoin's competition. Wood is the computer scientist who wrote the first smart contracts for the Ethereum blockchain back in 2014. In an exclusive interview with Cointelegraph, Wood admitted that at the time, he just needed a job.

A self-described "technologist at heart," he knew coding was his calling and made the "obvious" switch from building LEGO bricks to writing blocks of code from an early age.

He first discovered Bitcoin via The Silk Road, the online black market that ran from 2011 to 2013. The cryptocurrency originally "took his fancy" for being "a purely algorithmic mechanism for human cooperation and interaction" that, according to Wood, "allows for the creation of social structures that we haven't seen yet."

He realized there might be a job opportunity for him and started networking. After a meeting with Johnny Bitcoin, Wood was hired with the task of helping Buterin take Ethereum from white paper to a functioning blockchain. His hope in creating Ethereum was to affect change in society for the better.

"This is [the] technology that is being used to build the new world — the world that's going to drive human civilization for the rest of this century, at least."

The video ends with words by Wood from another interview at a July 2014 conference in Hong Kong in which he suggested to Cointelegraph that economic institutions could be substituted by Ethereum. Almost eight years later, economic and financial institutions are indeed being disrupted not just by Ethereum but by the constantly evolving blockchain and cryptocurrency technology.

Wood ended up leaving the development team at Ethereum to eventually found Polkadot (DOT), a sharded multi-chain protocol, and Kusama (KSM), used as a test network on the Polkadot chain.

YouTube sees ‘incredible potential’ in NFT video sales despite backlash threat

February 11, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

“There’s a lot to consider in making sure we approach these new technologies responsibly, but we think there’s incredible potential as well,” said YouTube Chief Product Officer Neal Mohan.

YouTube is looking at NFT integrations to provide new methods for creators to engage with fans and develop additional revenue streams.

The news comes just a few weeks after YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki hinted that the platform can use Web3 “as a source of inspiration” for growth and possibly adopt NFTs on the website.

In a Feb. 10 blog post, YouTube's Chief Product Officer Neal Mohan outlined a long list of new products, tools and features that the firm intends to roll out in 2022, with Web3 tech, blockchain, NFTs and the Metaverse all getting mentioned.

Mohan stated that YouTube is actively seeking out new ways to provide additional support and options for its two million partnered creators after receiving feedback from the community.

After referencing that creators often struggle with coming up with new content ideas or figuring out what will be successful on the platform, Mohan pointed to Web3 tech such as NFTs as a potential solution:

“Web3 also opens up new opportunities for creators. We believe new technologies like blockchain and NFTs can allow creators to build deeper relationships with their fans. Together, they’ll be able to collaborate on new projects and make money in ways not previously possible.”

In potential ways that creators could utilize NFT tech, Mohan suggested they could tokenize their videos, photos, art and experiences as a way to engage with fans.

“There’s a lot to consider in making sure we approach these new technologies responsibly, but we think there’s incredible potential as well,” he said.

Mohan also paid tribute to the current major buzzword of the moment — “Metaverse”— as he outlined that viewers could expect some new ways to experience content via virtual reality. The YouTube exec stated that the firm will first tackle gaming, but did not reveal any specifics at this stage.

“Finally, we couldn’t have a piece about innovation without touching on the Metaverse! We're thinking big about how to make viewing more immersive. The first area in which you can expect to see an impact is gaming, where we'll work to bring more interactions to games and make them feel more alive.”

“It’s still early days, but we’re excited to see how we can turn these virtual worlds into a reality for viewers,” he added.

A major tech firm like YouTube outlining any plans to do with NFTs is courageous in the current climate considering the numerous times a public backlash has occurred following NFT announcements from firms such as Discord, Ubisoft and Team17 .

Common arguments from opponents include framing NFTs as cash grabs, scams, or responsible for environmental damage due to mining practices of some cryptocurrencies. Reporter for the left wing UK media outlet The Independent, Adam Smith highlighted the public perception among progressives against NFTs earlier today on Twitter, stating that:

“A YouTube spokesperson told me they have nothing more to share on huge environmental damage that NFTs cause even though Google is ‘dedicated to sustainability’ so that's great.”

He then offered a chance for YouTube or Google employees to complain to him for an article.

Proponents would of course point out that NFTs don't cause "huge environmental damage" at all, as the blockchains they are tokenized on would use the same amount of electricity regardless of whether NFTs are traded on them or not. And while the backlash is centered on the electricity consumption of proof of work blockchains, other chains hosting NFTs run on proof of stake which is more than 99% more energy efficient.

My Youtube content is not meant to be owned. That's why I make it available FREE. Who the hell thinks this is a good concept?

I am so tired of this garbagehttps://t.co/3kjKzTnCjw
— Brad Lynch (@SadlyItsBradley) February 10, 2022

Video-Sharing Giant YouTube Says Its Ready To Embrace This Sector of the Crypto Market

January 28, 2022 The Daily Hodl

Polygon (MATIC) sees a strong oversold bounce after $250B crypto market rebound

January 26, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Polygon (MATIC) sees a strong oversold bounce after 0B crypto market rebound

Bitcoin

MATIC price secured a near 40% gain as crypto market sentiment improves in the wake of a notable $250 billion relief rally.

Polygon (MATIC) emerged as one of the best performers among high-ranking cryptocurrencies on Jan. 26 as the price rose nearly 17% to reach an intraday high at $1.825.

The gains surfaced amid a synchronous rebound across the crypto market that started on Jan. 24. In detail, investors and traders poured in over $250 billion across digital assets, benefiting Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and many others in the process.

*Performance of the top-fifteen cryptocurrencies in the last 15 days. Source: TradingView*

Polygon, a secondary scaling solution for the Ethereum blockchain, also cashed in on the crypto market rebound. The valuation of its native token, MATIC, rose from as low as $9.77 billion on Jan.24 to as high as $13.58 billion two days later.

Meanwhile, its price jumped from $1.312 to $1.825 in the same period — that's nearly a 40% gain in just three days.

Fed meeting and high-profile hiring

The latest bout of buying in the Polygon market appeared ahead of a Federal Reserve announcement about its interest rate increase scheduled to come on the afternoon of Jan. 26.

In detail, cryptocurrencies have also been through several whipsaws in recent months over expectations that the U.S. central bank would embark on a series of interest rate hikes to fight inflation. Similarly, stock markets have suffered because of the prospect of the Fed's shrinking balance sheet and higher rates.

According to Luca Paolini, the chief strategist at Pictet Asset Management, people may have expectations that the recent turmoil in the stock market and a rising rift between Ukraine and Russia that has drawn in NATO allies' focus may have the Fed tone down its rate hike rhetorics.

Waiting for the FED to speak today.
— David Gokhshtein (@davidgokhshtein) January 26, 2022

Nonetheless, Polygon managed to outperform top rivals like Bitcoin and Ethereum in terms of intraday gains, and it appears a high-profile hiring was the core reason behind it.

As Cointelegraph reported on Jan. 25, YouTube's head of gaming, Ryan Watts, left the streaming giant to join Polygon Studios , a gaming and nonfungible token (NFT), backed by the namesake layer-2 protocol's $100 million fund.

The news seemingly boosted investors' appetite for MATIC, prompting it to do better than other large-cap cryptocurrencies.

Huge news for $matic https://t.co/uNFO6MtddN
— Lark Davis (@TheCryptoLark) January 25, 2022

Key support levels held

MATIC's sharp rebound placed the price back above its 200-day exponential moving average (200-day EMA; the blue wave in the chart below), a level significant for its role in limiting the market's downside bias.

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

On Jan. 25, MATIC bulls attempted to reclaim the 200-day EMA as support almost a week after losing it. The drop-and-bounce around the blue wave looked very similar to the price action in the July–August period last year, wherein closing above it had led to a 200%-plus price rally.

The fractal shows strong buying sentiment among MATIC traders near the 200-day EMA.

Therefore, should the price stay above the support, its likelihood of continuing its uptrend appears higher. Nonetheless, the bullish momentum risks exhaustion near MATIC's descending trendline resistance, as shown in the chart above.

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.

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Fed meeting and high-profile hiring

Key support levels held

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