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.
Related:40,000-member players guild raises $6M to make P2E gaming easier
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 (ETHV), The Sandbox (SAND), GameSwap (GSWAP), Yield Guild Games (YGG), 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 cap 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 DeFi 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, dro by more than 14.50% to $2.47 trillion.
InterHedging tactic?
Gaming tokens fared not only better in the U.S. dollar terms 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 a 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.
Related: Axie Infinity guild CGU helps players enter the fantasy play-to-earn NFT game with ‘scholarships’
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.
Decentralized gaming guild Yield Guild Games (YGG) has partnered with, and invested in, eight new play-to-earn (P2E) blockchain games.
YGG lends out nonfungible token (NFT) gaming assets to Guild players so that they can earn rewards from a long list of P2E games without having to front the costs of purchasing the NFTs themselves. The guild boasts assets from widely popular games such as Axie Infinity and Splinterlands.
In an announcement shared with Cointelegraph on Nov. 16, YGG revealed that it had backed eight games with “strong play-to-earn models” including Influence, CyBall, Thetan Arena, KOGs SLAM!, MOBOX, Aavegotchi, DeHorizon and Genopets.
Sarutobi Sasuke, YGG’s head of partnerships, emphasized that the guild seeks out games with strong community involvement and “fair gaming economies.”
“The team reviews the gameplay and game economics to ensure that the games have a robust and fair game economy that rewards players adequately for the time and effort put in by them,” he said.
YGG has snapped up a wide range of NFT assets from the games such as tokenized plots of land and avatars. While some of the gaming projects are in their formative or pre-launch stages, others are already on the market such as Aavegotchi and Mobox.
Aavegotchi is an Ethereum-based NFT project inspired by the popular Japanese virtual pet game Tamagotchi. Mobox is a Binance Smart Chain-based gaming platform that builds yield farming structures into its games. According to Coingecko, Aavegotchi (GHST) and Mobox (MBOX) have a market cap of $145 million and $340 million each.
Microsoft gaming exec cautious of NFTs
While many popular brands and companies have jumped wholeheartedly on the NFT bandwagon, Microsoft’s head of gaming Phil Spencer said he is cautious about integrating the tech with the Xbox Store.
During a Nov. 17 interview with Axios, Spencer stated that, while NFT gaming is on the “up,” he has witnessed a lot of unsavory behavior in the sector:
“What I’d say today on NFT[s] is, I think there’s a lot of speculation and experimentation that’s happening, and that some of the creative that I see today feels more exploitive than about entertainment.”
He conceded that not every NFT game is exploitative and that the sector is “kind of in that journey of people figuring it out.”
“And I can understand that early on you see a lot of things that probably are not things you want to have in your store,” he said.
Spencer said that if Xbox does opt to list NFT games in the Xbox Store, it will actively weed out anything that it deems as not beneficial to the user, noting that “we don’t want that kind of content.
Quiznos starts NFT side-hustle
United States-based fast-food sandwich giant Quiznos has taken the plunge into NFTs via a partnership with Crypto.com.
The firm’s debut NFT collection named “Out of this World” featured five open editions NFTs or “sandwich coins” depicting astronauts in space either holding or hunting for top digital assets such as Dogecoin (DOGE), Ether (ETH) and Bitcoin (BTC).
The sale was hosted on Crypto.com and ended on Nov. 16, with the drop generating around $176,975 from a total of 4,403 NFT purchases.
In a Nov. 15 announcement, Quiznos said that proceeds from the sale would go to World Central Kitchen, a nonprofit that provides free food to communities in times of crisis.
“We are delighted that Quiznos chose our platform to launch this NFT campaign in support of efforts to help those in need at a critical time for our planet,” said Crypto.com’s executive vice president and global head of NFT Joe Conyers III.
“We view this as a fun way to connect our community with a beloved food brand and terrific cause,” he added.
Related:Miramax sues Tarantino over ‘money grab’ Pulp Fiction NFTs
Ice Cube drops ice-cold NFTs
Rap icon Ice Cube is set to drop a series of NFTs on Nifty Gateway on Nov. 17 in collaboration with digital artist Trevor Jones.
The collection consists of four 1:1 editions depicting oil paintings inspired by Ice Cube’s life story, three limited editions of varying rarity featuring digital portraits of the rapper-backed new original songs, and one open edition exclusively available to holders of Jones’ previous NFT drops on Nifty Gateway.
Ice Cube said he wanted to do something legit rather than just cash in.
“While people tried to rush me into the NFT space when they first exploded almost a year ago, I wanted to do something legitimate and create artwork I would be as proud of 20 years from now as I am about these pieces today,” Ice Cube said.
The sale will close on Nov. 18, prices vary from $1,400 to $15,000 for the limited and open editions, while an opening bid price for the one of one editions hasn’t been specified.
Other Nifty News
Virtual property and gaming firm The Sandbox is opening up part of its Metaverse to players for the first time via a multi-week play-to-earn Alpha event starting on Nov. 29.
Cointelegraph reported on Nov. 16 that Google’s keyword search data shows interest in NFTs has surged to record levels, with traffic beating out search terms pertinent to many crypto assets ranked among the top ten.
Yield Guild Games is the biggest play-to-earn gaming guild in crypto, with over 87,000 guild members.
It’s structured as a DAO that invests in revenue-generating in-game NFT assets.
It purchases in-game NFT assets and rents them out to players for a percentage share of the revenue earned from playing crypto games.
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Yield Guild Games is a play-to-earn blockchain gaming guild structured as a decentralized autonomous organization. It focuses on investing in revenue-generating NFT assets used in virtual worlds and blockchain games.
What Is Yield Guild Games?
A GameFi and DAO revolution is unfolding, and Yield Guild Games (YGG) is at the forefront of the movement.
The raw economic potential unlocked by merging gaming with cryptocurrencies can not be overstated. Video gaming is a $160 billion industry with an estimated 3.24 billion gamers around the world. Many passionate gamers dream of getting paid to play games. However, until now, that dream has only been achievable for an extremely small subset of players—the cream of the crop professionals that win tournaments. Most games are too small to even attract professional players.
NFTs and play-to-earn gameslike Axie Infinity have exploded in popularity in 2021. Collectively dubbed “GameFi,” these Web3-native projects represent the cross-section between gaming and DeFi. For the first time, they have made the dream of making a salary from gaming accessible to anyone with an Internet connection and the inclination to get started, including casual gamers that wouldn’t otherwise stand a chance at earning any money.Axie’srise in 2021 has revealed a huge demand for crypto-based, player-owned games where the actual financial beneficiaries are not the game developers or publishers, but the players themselves.
Being able to own and freely trade in-gameNFTassets for crypto and fiat currencies means that players can now capitalize on their time and skills by playing games. As a result, the crypto space has seen gamers and crypto natives begin to organize in communities to leverage the power of groups and supercharge their earnings. Presently, the largest of these communities isYield Guild Games (YGG), a gaming guild structured as a DAO focused on investing in yield-generating NFT assets used in virtual worlds and play-to-earn games.
Alexei Udall, head of partnerships at YGG, says that the idea for the project evolved out of the Axie Infinity scene, which grew exponentially in the Philipines during the COVID-19 crisis. “Initially, we were building out these Axie scholarships, which are yield-generating game assets that could be distributed among communities for the shared benefits of the community and the underlying guild,” Udall tells Crypto Briefing.
Seeing the potential of the play-to-earn trend early on, and how it could change people’s lives, Gabby Dizon, Beryl Li, and a team member who goes by the name Owl of Moistness, co-founded YGG in order to organize gamers into a powerful cross-game gaming guild that could leverage its collectively-owned game assets to become a dominant force in the booming play-to-earn scene.
The value proposition of YGG is straightforward. The DAO invests in-game assets that allow it to earn some form of revenue. For example, in virtual worlds like The Sandbox or games like Ember Sword and Splinterlands, YGG functions like a traditional real estate investment trust (REIT)—only in the Metaverse, where it buys virtual properties like LAND in The Sandbox and rents them out to generate cash flows for the shared benefit of the DAO.
Source: Yield Guild Games
In the case of Axie Infinity, in addition to owning virtual property, YGG generates revenue by breeding and renting large numbers of Axies to players. The players then use Axies in-game to earn Smooth Love Potion (SLP) tokens. The income from SLP is shared between the guild, scholarship providers, and players, with 70%, 20%, and 10% going to each respectively. With games like Guild of Guardians, YGG plans to buy Mythic Guild and Legendary Heroes NFTs and then rent them out to guild members for a portion of the in-game revenue generated from them.
DAO Structure and Revenue Share
YGG is best described as a hybrid decentralized entity that is part cross-game gaming guild and part community-governed investment fund.
Traditionally, gaming guilds have always represented in-game groups consisting of players united over a common in-game goal. For example, in multi-player role-playing games like World of Warcraft, players join in-game guilds to improve their chances of successfully raiding the most challenging instances, killing the toughest bosses, and acquiring the best gear.
YGG innovates on this idea by constituting a decentralized, “supragame” guild spanning many play-to-earn games. “We share a resemblance to traditional guilds in the gaming space,” says Udall, “but we’re less centric to one game and more open to a wide array of games.” The common goal of the guild is to leverage guild-owned NFT assets to generate as much revenue for itself as possible.
To achieve this goal, YGG is structured as a DAO, whereby guild members can make proposals and vote on the organization’s direction, including how investments are made or how revenue is shared. YGG will also implement various staking vaults, where each vault will accrue income streams from one or more games. For example, one of the vaults could be dedicated to income from breeding and selling Axies, while another to the revenue from renting virtual real estate NFTs in The Sandbox or Ember Sword. YGG will eventually also implement a vault stewarding the full range of revenue streams collected by the DAO, suitable for more passive investors seeking broad exposure to the play-to-earn market.
Source: Yield Guild Games
YGG has become the largest community in the play-to-earn gaming space since the guild launched in the first half of 2021. YGG’s core team currently totals more than 30 people, while the community counts over 87,000 members and 5,500 Axie scholars. According to Udall, this is only the beginning. YGG wants to build a global economy of play-to-earn games and become the largest guild the gaming community has ever seen. He says:
“We’re expanding across many different verticals simultaneously: investing heavily into new games, partnering with upcoming projects, building out guild mechanics, and growing our esports community, amongst other things. We’re aiming to become an extremely global operation, with subDAOs deployed across many different geographies.”
The subDAOs Udall refers to represent smaller, more tight-knit organizations operating under the YGG umbrella that will either specialize in specific games or be governed by distinct local communities. The idea is to boost the operational effectiveness of the YGG DAO by introducing compartmentalization and specialization. For example, the Filipino play-to-earn gaming community could organize and semi-autonomously operate as a separate YGG subDAO, coordinating with and siphoning a portion of its revenues to the core YGG DAO.
The Future for YGG
As the first global gaming guild and DAO operating as an NFT investment fund amid an explosion in play-to-earn gaming, YGG is in a strong position. The virtual real estate in play-to-earn games like Axie Infinity is scarce, meaning that if the games see wider adoption, the real estate could become more valuable in the future.
Additionally, in-game guilds could prove to be powerful as the Metaverse expands, especially if they include skilled players with significant backing. It’s worth noting that play-to-earn also often means pay-to-win. In other words, the reward dynamics of play-to-earn games are skewed towards guilds and players that have the means to invest the most in in-game purchases.
Despite YGG’s huge promise, stewarding such organizations is not all fun and games. Udall says that the rapid proliferation of play-to-earn projects dilutes the quality of the games being built and attracts nefarious actors to the space. Gamers can often become emotionally invested in the games they play even if no money is involved. In some cases, developers have scammed players and investors, causing damage to the entire scene.
Udall also thinks that regulation is a potential risk for the sector. “Intrinsically there’s nothing really wrong with regulation, as long as it’s done in a way that doesn’t destroy the whole ecosystem,” he says, explaining that while he’s not particularly worried, he remains cautious of possible regulatory developments.
Yield Guild Games is the first project of its kind in the space, but it’s unlikely to be the last. As the play-to-earn gaming scene evolves, gamers and investors will also start to evolve, finding more innovative ways to win and earn from gaming. It’s currently the largest DAO and gaming guild in the play-to-earn scene. However, as competition ramps up, it’s not unlikely that other communities will adopt the same mindset and iterate on YGG”s idea to compete for ultra-scarce real estate in the Metaverse. Let the games begin.
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The information on or accessed through this website is obtained from independent sources we believe to be accurate and reliable, but Decentral Media, Inc. makes no representation or warranty as to the timeliness, completeness, or accuracy of any information on or accessed through this website. Decentral Media, Inc. is not an investment advisor. We do not give personalized investment advice or other financial advice. The information on this website is subject to change without notice. Some or all of the information on this website may become outdated, or it may be or become incomplete or inaccurate. We may, but are not obligated to, update any outdated, incomplete, or inaccurate information.
You should never make an investment decision on an ICO, IEO, or other investment based on the information on this website, and you should never interpret or otherwise rely on any of the information on this website as investment advice. We strongly recommend that you consult a licensed investment advisor or other qualified financial professional if you are seeking investment advice on an ICO, IEO, or other investment. We do not accept compensation in any form for analyzing or reporting on any ICO, IEO, cryptocurrency, currency, tokenized sales, securities, or commodities.
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HaloDAO, a stablecoin marketplace protocol, is working with Yield Guild Games (YGG) to enable YGG community members to support simpler cash outs in local regions with its updated V1 stablecoin optimised AMM on Ethereum and Polygon. There will be a huge focus on expanding access to Singapore and the Philippines and other high-growth regions. The objective of stablecoin support is to build out a Play-to-Grow model, whereby the gamers are empowered to go a step further from earning by allowing them to grow those earnings with yield farming and access other DeFi applications.
In the current Play-to-Earn model there exist cooperative organizations (called Guilds in the case of Axie Infinity) which enable people without the startup capital to participate in crypto gaming of all kinds. YGG follows this model and has enabled over 4,700 scholars to earn more than 61 million SLP to date. Since its inception, players have reported earning upwards of $400, which has proven to be crucial for families throughout the lockdown period. This is especially true in areas where earning opportunities are limited—YGG and crypto gaming in general have the power to change many lives.
After scholars earn their SLP, they usually either hold onto it or search for ways to cash it out—the latter of which is one step HaloDAO plans to improve. Instead of simply selling all of their earnings into fiat, the project’s P2G model enables scholars and other crypto gamers to convert that income into their local stablecoins and earn yield.
HaloDAO and YGG are building financial tools and integrating with Discord to allow users to track their performance, gain yield on top of their earnings, invest in their own scholar teams, and more. The two organizations embrace the entrepreneurial spirit of play-to-earn gamers and enable them to do more with their hard-earned income. YGG founder Gabby Dizon said of the collaboration:
“YGG is helping people from all over the world gain equal access to the income-earning opportunities in crypto, and this collaboration with HaloDAO DeFi products improves their income-earning capacity.”
HaloDAO is currently working with various local currency stablecoin issuers and synthetic stablecoin protocols to target the regions of South-east Asia (Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore), Latin America, Europe, United Kingdom, and Hong Kong to support the use of these local stablecoins within decentralized finance.
Together, HaloDAO and YGG can create a future in which players can invest, earn and spend crypto easily—building a better future for their families.
For more information, contact Jun Yong at [email protected]
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The information on or accessed through this website is obtained from independent sources we believe to be accurate and reliable, but Decentral Media, Inc. makes no representation or warranty as to the timeliness, completeness, or accuracy of any information on or accessed through this website. Decentral Media, Inc. is not an investment advisor. We do not give personalized investment advice or other financial advice. The information on this website is subject to change without notice. Some or all of the information on this website may become outdated, or it may be or become incomplete or inaccurate. We may, but are not obligated to, update any outdated, incomplete, or inaccurate information.
You should never make an investment decision on an ICO, IEO, or other investment based on the information on this website, and you should never interpret or otherwise rely on any of the information on this website as investment advice. We strongly recommend that you consult a licensed investment advisor or other qualified financial professional if you are seeking investment advice on an ICO, IEO, or other investment. We do not accept compensation in any form for analyzing or reporting on any ICO, IEO, cryptocurrency, currency, tokenized sales, securities, or commodities.
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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.
Yield Guild Games has launched its new community token. However, only 32 addresses have bought the entire supply.
Whales Buy YGG Token on Launch
The popular play-to-earn gaming guild Yield Guild Games launched its YGG community token via an initial DEX offering (IDO) Tuesday. Within seconds of the IDO going live, the entire offering of 25 million tokens was bought by only 32 different addresses for a combined value of $12.5 million. Of the 32 buyers, the largest single buy came in at 4.5 million tokens, presumed to be from a pool.
Many hopeful buyers took to Twitter to voice their frustrations of being locked out of participation.
@YieldGuild $YGG sold out within seconds with just 32 participants. It was over even before my “Approve” transaction got through :(. pic.twitter.com/P0lW0yxBrZ
— Beyond🏛Mimesis (🍄,🍄) (@BeyondMimesis) July 27, 2021
According to an official blog postannouncing the offering in June, the aim of the YGG token launch was to decentralize ownership of the guild to stakeholders and players. However, of a maximum of 87.9 million tokens, 25 million have been bought by 32 whales during the IDO. Yield Guild Games will distribute the remaining 62.9 million tokens to current guild members for their participation in the YGG community to date.
Conducted on SushiSwap’s MISO platform, the IDO was run using a Dutch auction method, where the price drops until all tokens are sold. IDOs often use this method to avoid token scalping and to give smaller-scale investors a chance to buy. This time, it seems the initial price of the token was set too low, as whales proceeded to buy the entire offering in a matter of seconds. Tokens were initially priced at $0.50.
Source: MISO Marketplace
It’s likely that many have taken an interest in YGG following the surge in popularity of the play-to-earn game Axie Infinity. Over the last month, Axie Infinity has become the most profitable blockchain protocol, generating over $135 million inrevenue and attracting more than 350,000 daily users. As Yield Guild Games is one of the biggest scholarship providers for Axie Infinity, the game’s success should also translate into guilds organizing around it.
Disclaimer: At the time of writing this article, the author owned BTC and ETH.
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The information on or accessed through this website is obtained from independent sources we believe to be accurate and reliable, but Decentral Media, Inc. makes no representation or warranty as to the timeliness, completeness, or accuracy of any information on or accessed through this website. Decentral Media, Inc. is not an investment advisor. We do not give personalized investment advice or other financial advice. The information on this website is subject to change without notice. Some or all of the information on this website may become outdated, or it may be or become incomplete or inaccurate. We may, but are not obligated to, update any outdated, incomplete, or inaccurate information.
You should never make an investment decision on an ICO, IEO, or other investment based on the information on this website, and you should never interpret or otherwise rely on any of the information on this website as investment advice. We strongly recommend that you consult a licensed investment advisor or other qualified financial professional if you are seeking investment advice on an ICO, IEO, or other investment. We do not accept compensation in any form for analyzing or reporting on any ICO, IEO, cryptocurrency, currency, tokenized sales, securities, or commodities.
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While games such as World of Warcraft originally blurred the line between in-game economy and real money, games on the blockchain take this to the next level.
And for many, this innovation is earning them a real living.
Play Games, Get Rich
The rise of competitive gaming has led to a new wave of professional gamers who earn a comfortable living from online tournaments and a loyal fan base. The phenomenon has been ongoing, but amidst global lockdowns, the “play-to-earn” trend has enjoyed even more traction.
Crypto-based games are no different, says co-founder ofYield Guild Games, Gabby Dizon. He said:
“At its core, YGG is a community of play-to-earn gamers. So you could think of it as a World of Warcraft guild, for example, but we operate across several games, and we also invest in yield-generating NFTs within those games and lend our in-game assets out to our player base.”
Users log into the guild’s discord group every day, play games, earn rewards, and exchange those for real money on platforms such asUniswap. The most popular game is calledAxie Infinityand features battles between the small Pokémon-esque creatures called “Axies.”
Unlike traditional gaming, Axies are blockchain-based and unique. Just as Bitcoin ushered in scarce digital value, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the Ethereum blockchain add value toart,music, andgaming.
The battles pit different Axies against one another. Each creature comes with its own strengths and weaknesses that each player must be aware of to win.
Meet the official Crypto Briefing Axies. Users can see their Axies through apps likeZapper.
Registering to Axie Infinity is free, but to play the game, users will need at least three Axies.
The creatures are not cheap, ranging from around $100 on Axie Infinity’smarketplaceto the most expensive Axie ever at over $500,000. Still, users can quickly earn the initial investments back through regular gameplay.
“Axie Infinity players can earn by battling, breeding, and trading NFT creatures called Axies. When you win an Axie battle, the reward is an in-game token called Small Love Potion or SLP for short. SLP is an important in-game token because it is required if you want to breed Axies. But if players are not in the business of breeding Axies, they can sell their SLP via a liquidity pool on a decentralized exchange such as Uniswap. Axie breeders buy the SLP so that they can breed more Axies to sell to other players,” explains Dizon.
A small love potion is worth around$0.06at press time, and players can expect to win roughly ten of these when they win a game against another player. And in some parts of the world, enough wins is plenty to make a living.
Axie Infinity has become such an important social phenomenon in the Philippines. In the country where YGG started, there are nowlocal solutionsfor buyers and sellers to exchange without Uniswap.
Through an organization like YGG, gamers can easily start playing by being loaned three Axies. In time, they return the original loan and then start earning money by selling in-game items.
The combat in Axie Infinity is not all there is to the game. One of the most fascinating sides of Axie Infinity is not the combat but the breeding system of the Axies. Each Axie is stored in the Ethereum wallet of its owner. Provided the player holds enough small love potions, different Axies can breed together to create new ones.
These new Axies can be selected based on their combat skills, hence why certain Axies fetch incredible prices.
NFT Gaming: More Than a Trend
Axie Infinity is not the only game on the blockchain, though.
Players and investors have different options when it comes to investing that each come with their own advantages. One option is to invest in land in a certain game and develop it to create yield. Plots of land in popular virtual worlds or “metaverses” such asDecentralandcan be bought and sold and developed to create profit.
Decentraland will soon host avirtual music festivalfor which users can already buy tickets on the blockchain.
Recently, YGGraised $1.3 millionfrom VC firms such as Delphi Digital to continue investing in the games they love. They will use the fund to purchase various NFTs representingplots of virtual landand game assets. YGG not only wants to continue investing in Axie Infinity but also positions itself to be a mainstay in all games and metaverses on the blockchain.
“We intend to develop this land and build on it, and then, the revenue generated and the profit earned from those investments will be shared with our guild. The vision is to create the largest virtual world economy by onboarding millions of players to the metaverse while taking yield-generating stakes and optimizing our investments into significant assets within virtual world economies. Our guild already spans several different games and we’re giving opportunities for players to make a living doing what they love,” said Dizon.
The most expensive Axie ever sold at 300 ETH.
The best-ranked players each season get a share of AXS, the native token of Axie Infinity. This token has a total market cap of almost $300 million,according to CoinGecko, so the rewards for the very best players are substantial.
The Future of NFTs
Since 2003, pro-gamers of Starcraft have been organized in teams and made gaming their day jobs. These were only a very select few players though, Axie Infinity flips that earning model on its head. The top players can earn large sums, but any regular user can make $20 a day farming the small love potions. The money earned while playing Axie Infinity is much more equitably distributed too.
While $20 a day might not be substantial in the U.S., in the Philippines, where median income was$277/month in 2018, this can representmore than doublethis average salary. In the places hard-hit by Covid, this can be a life-saving solution. Gazon said:
“Particularly for players in emerging economies, where job opportunities are limited and government relief following the COVID-19 lockdowns has been limited, the play-to-earn movement is changing lives for the better to deliver economic empowerment in its truest form and allow people to take control of their own financial potential. We’re already seeing this happen in places like the Philippines, Indonesia, and Venezuela, and I expect the movement will continue to spread rapidly.”
NFTs are having a large impact on the internet’s business models because now people can monetize their content in a way that was impossible before crypto. Rock bands, painters, performance artists are all releasing NFTs, and the impact for content creators can’t be understated.
Gaming is a different beast altogether though, earning money through games is not a new phenomenon, but the play-to-earn model’s democratization is unique to blockchain technology.
The real ownership of game assets uniquely allows games’ economies to be tied to real-world financial assets with liquid markets. For now, Axie Infinity allows thousands of players to earn a living by playing their game, and collectives like Yield Guild Games are cashing in on this trend. But the universe of blockchain-based games is only getting started.
Imagine playing a quick game on public transport and buying your coffee with the profits. Whether it’s Axie Infinity or something else, the NFT revolution is coming to gaming.
Disclaimer: The author held ETH at the time of writing.
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