Tag: Update

The US government has published the ‘first comprehensive framework for the responsible development of digital assets’. What new laws should we expect?

The United States has taken another step for the regulation of cryptocurrencies. On the 16th of September 2022, a document entitled ‘White House Releases First Ever Comprehensive Framework for Responsible Development of Digital Assets‘ was published on the White House website. It is a report summarising the investigations into the crypto sector carried out by nine federal agencies over the past six months, which will be used to implement a legislative plan. The work is the result of President Joe Biden’s executive order issued on the 9th of March of this year. It asked federal agencies to outline guidelines for regulating the industry based on six areas of focus such as consumer protection, promoting financial stability, and financial inclusion.

Over the past six months, agencies across the US government have worked together to develop guidelines and policy recommendations on these issues: from the Treasury Department to the Justice Department,. Let’s take a look at the highlights of the document!

What is the White House document about?

The document drawn up by the federal agencies is divided into seven sections. From their titles, you can already guess the content presented by the White House. A series of actions that will soon take the form of laws and guidelines:

1. Protecting consumers, investors and businesses;
2. Promoting access to safe and affordable financial services;
3. Fostering financial stability;
4. Advancing responsible innovation;
5. Reinforcing our global financial leadership and competitiveness;
6. Fighting illicit finance;
7. Exploring a US Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).

Which crypto laws are essential?

The paper starts with a significant figure: 16 percent of American adults have already purchased digital assets. This figure is accompanied by a stance: digital assets are defined by the US government as ‘potential opportunities to strengthen US leadership in the global financial system’, as well as in the field of technological innovation. Federal agency reports explicitly promote research and development in the area of next-generation cryptography, transaction programmability, cybersecurity, and privacy protection. The document expresses great confidence in cryptocurrencies as a resource, but at the same time calls for measures to counter the risks associated with digital assets.

The main risks identified by the federal agencies are volatility and the danger of scams: “outright fraud, scams and theft in the digital asset markets are on the rise: according to FBI statistics, reported monetary losses from digital asset scams were nearly 600% higher in 2021 compared to the year before.” In this context, reference is also made to the lack of crypto regulation that has led to huge losses for consumers following the collapse of the Terra (LUNA) ecosystem. In addition to volatility and the danger of scams, there are also the risks of possible money laundering and the use of funds for illicit activities. According to the White House document, all this must be monitored to ensure the safe use of digital assets. In short, we need laws that promote innovation and at the same time contain the risks.

Proposals such as instructing the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to ‘aggressively pursue investigations and enforcement actions against illegal practices in the digital asset sector’ have been made in this regard. Also, a call for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to redouble its efforts to monitor consumer complaints and to enforce against unfair, deceptive or abusive practices has been made. Finally, proposals were also made for a series of initiatives for financial education and literacy, to raise awareness of the use of cryptocurrencies and to learn how to spot fraudulent practices.

The US is preparing a plan to be ready for any eventuality, and the document published on the 16th September presents all the issues that the legislation will then target.

The digital economy is an asset for all

One interesting aspect that emerged from the White House document is the realisation that the digital economy is a real opportunity for Americans: ‘Today, traditional finance leaves too many people behind. Roughly 7 million Americans have no bank account. Another 24 million rely on expensive nonbank services, such as cheque cashing and money orders, for everyday needs. And for those who do use banks, paying with traditional financial infrastructures can be costly and slow, particularly for cross-border payments’. To encourage the spread of digital services, the US plans to develop instant payment systems and networks for digital assets that are usable, inclusive, fair, and accessible to all.

The CBDC of the United States, a work in progress!

The report also features a section entitled ‘Exploring a US Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC)’. The US is therefore considering a digital form of the US dollar that ‘has the potential to offer significant benefits’. In what sense? A Central Bank Digital Currency “could enable a payment system that is more efficient, provide a foundation for further technological innovation, facilitate faster cross-border transactions, and be environmentally sustainable. It could promote financial inclusion and equity by providing access to a wide range of consumers.” The project for the CBDC appears to be on track, although the federal agencies believe that further research and considerations should be carried out, especially on the technological level.

Criticism of the Biden administration report

The White House’s publication has prompted criticism and objections from some crypto industry members and opposition politicians. They called the document drafted by federal agencies ‘outdated and unbalanced’ and unsuitable for building a legislative framework. The Blockchain Association, which works to raise awareness and improve policy in the crypto world, believes the report lacks “substantive recommendations”. Blockchain Association Executive Director Kristin Smith explained that the federal agencies’ reports are “a missed opportunity to consolidate US leadership in cryptocurrency,” and criticised them for focusing too much on the risks of cryptocurrency. Sheila Warren of the Crypto Council for Innovation, another crypto promotion organisation, said the report does not provide clear policy guidelines. Patrick McHenry, a Republican member of the House Financial Services Committee, offered a criticism in the same vein. He claims that the document is too vague: ‘with clear rules, this innovative technology [cryptocurrencies] can revolutionise our financial markets, modernise our payments system infrastructure, and provide new opportunities for consumers’. Regarding the US CBDC project McHenry explained that ‘Republicans have always said that the benefits of a potential US CBDC must outweigh the risks: these reports fail to demonstrate this’.

A benchmark for international crypto regulation?

The White House document and the framework that will follow could be the inspiration and guide for many other countries. This is certainly Biden’s aim. In the text, you can read that the US explicitly intends to be an example for the regulation of digital assets: ‘US agencies will leverage US positions in international organisations to communicate US values related to digital assets. U.S. agencies will continue and expand their leadership role in digital asset work at international organisations and standard-setting bodies, such as the G7, G20, OECD, FSB, Financial Action Task Force (FATF), and the International Organisation for Standardisation.” All while trying to convey the US values of privacy, free markets, financial stability, consumer protection, and environmental sustainability.

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Discover the Web3 platform dedicated to music and developed by Gala Games. With music NFTs, create your own playlists and get GALA crypto!

Gala Games is a game development platform created in 2019 by Eric Schiermeyer and Michael McCarthy. It aims to offer a dedicated crypto gaming ecosystem where developers can work with ease and where users can have full control (including economic control) of game resources. On the Gala Games web app, you can download Web3 games and exchange NFT game items. In just a few years, Gala’s crypto has climbed to fourth place in the ranking of the most capitalised tokens in the crypto gaming industry (compiled by the research platform Messari.io). In this ranking, the top three places are occupied by The Sandbox, Axie Infinity and Enjin, respectively.

Gala Games has recently broadened its horizons: after crypto video games, Gala is ready to make its mark in the field of music and film as well. Its expansion is aimed at the entire entertainment sector. In this regard, Gala Music and Gala Film were born. Read on to find out about these innovative dapps!

Gala Games, the crypto gaming paradise

Gala Games is a platform where creating and playing video games earns rewards in Gala crypto. The way Gala Games works is similar to the well-known web platform for digital content distribution: Steam. However, it is also possible to buy and sell items, skins and objects in the form of NFTs on Gala. These items can then be used within the crypto games available on Gala. The games available on Gala are not (and will not be) entirely developed by the platform, but can and may also be developed by third parties.

The two most anticipated titles still in development are Mirandus and Grit . Mirandus is a fantasy RPG in which players have absolute freedom of choice: they can explore the wilderness on their own, try their luck against forest monsters, or join one of the five monarchs who control the kingdom of Mirandus. Grit, on the other hand, is a battle royale game set in the Wild West and developed in collaboration with gaming giant Epic Games. This video game has been presented as a sort of fusion between Fortnite and Red Dead Redemption. Survivors of gunfights on horseback or chases after speeding trains are the only winners in this game. The partnership with Epic Games has drawn attention to Gala Games, who is meanwhile making waves for their cutting-edge proposals for music and film on blockchain.

How Gala Music works: decentralised streaming

“Web3 is the next evolution of the internet”, is the introduction of a blog post edited by the crypto platform Gala. When talking about the evolution of the internet, one cannot leave out one of the sectors for which the internet is most used: the entertainment sector. And Gala is not backing down! With this in mind, the Gala Games team is working on two more platforms: Gala Music and Gala Film. How do they work? Gala Music is a Web3 platform where music can be rented, shared and listened to. Gala Music is based on what is called a Music Node, which is a real node for creating a network of shared music. A ‘Node’ is a term widely used in the crypto world. It refers to devices that connect to the interface of a blockchain and contain all transactions that have been recorded on that network. More generally, a ‘node’ can mean a participant in a network. In this example, we are talking about devices connected to the Gala Music network, which do not contain transactions but do contain music NFTs. In a nutshell, Gala Music’s Music Nodes contain music recorded on the blockchain. You can think of them as a kind of jukebox that everyone can access.

When you decide to use Gala Music, you open your own Music Node, which you customise by purchasing music NFTs from the store. Users will get Gala crypto in proportion to the plays their node generates. If you do not want to buy your own node, you can purchase NFTs and rent them to Music Node operators in exchange for a portion of the rewards generated.

Rewards in GALA are not only distributed to music NFT owners and node owners, but also to the artist who created the song.

There are two types of music nodes: Player Nodes, the mechanism of which we have just described and Fan Nodes, dedicated to specific artists through which you can obtain a range of benefits such as exclusive NFTs. Among the artists on the platform are some big names, such as the rock group Kings of Leon and the Mount Westmore rap crew consisting of Snoop Dog, Ice Cube,Too Short and E-40. The first drop of 25,000 Player Nodes took place in February 2022, and the cost per node was around $1,200.

Gala Film functions in a similar way to Gala Music, but instead of Music Nodes, you will find Film Nodes. The first Gala Film nodes are still available for purchase, at a price of 106,000 Gala, so approximately 5,000 €.

Gala and Web3: power to the artists and content creators!

The system designed by Gala for both platforms, Gala Music and Gala Film, goes beyond rewarding NFT owners and Node operators. It also distributes most of the rewards directly to the artists. Keyword: creator economy!

The two systems, respectively renamed watch-to-earn and listen-to-earn, aim to overcome the current economic model for content creators and artists. The streaming platforms of Web2 no longer seem suited to rewarding content creators. Web3 is here for that: you can monetise everything you create and produce online! The Internet will be in the hands of those who actually create its value, all thanks to the decentralisation enabled by blockchain.

With Gala Music and Gala Film, new talent will also be involved. Thanks to these platforms, emerging artists will be facilitated to get in touch with new fans in an easier way.

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The Cardano Foundation developers have announced the date for the hard fork: the Vasil update arrives on the 22nd of September 2022!

For major crypto projects, this September 2022 is the month to look to the future and get up to speed. The event on everyone’s mind is definitely Ethereum’s The Merge. However, Cardano and its crypto ADA (developed by one of Ethereum’s own founders, Charles Hoskinson) are ready to begin the Vasil update. The main goal of the update, or hard fork, is to increase the speed and scalability of Cardano‘s blockchain and make it generally more powerful and cheaper. These improvements are aimed at facilitating the development of decentralised applications (DApps), especially in the area of Decentralised Finance (DeFi), and increasing the possibilities of use cases for ADA. Let’s discover what is new with the Vasil update, coming at the end of September!

Cardano’s Vasil update arrives on the 22nd of September 2022

After some problems on the testnet that were solved efficiently and quickly by the Cardano team, the date for the hard fork of the ADA crypto blockchain has finally been announced. The Vasil update will take place on the 22nd of September 2022. Cardano is a blockchain created in 2015 and based on the Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism. This allows it to be highly scalable, meaning it can handle a large number of transactions per second. On the other hand, a hard fork is an update of a protocol in which very radical changes are implemented to the point of making it incompatible with previous versions.

But where does the Vasil update coming on the 22nd of September 2022 fit on Cardano’s roadmap? The Cardano roadmap is divided into five macro-phases, each of which has a main objective. At the moment, we are in the phase called Basho which wants to improve the scalability of the network as its primary objective. In other words, increasing the number of users who use it every day without worsening performance or making it more expensive. The Vasil hard fork will happen automatically: users with ADA crypto or using DeFi DApps on Cardano’s blockchain should not even notice it. Vasil will in fact be implemented using Cardano’s hard-fork combinator (HFC), an innovative technology that enables protocol transitions and updates without interrupting the smooth operation of the network.

Why is the update named as such? The name Vasil was chosen to pay homage to Vasil St. Dabov a Bulgarian developer who was the Chief Blockchain Advisor of a software research and development company named Quanterall before his passing in December 2021. Vasil St. Dabov was a very active member of the crypto community and an ambassador for Cardano. The date of the update is also symbolic, as the 22nd September coincides with the day on which Bulgaria, St. Dabov’s birthplace, celebrates its independence from the Ottoman Empire.

What changes will be implemented for Cardano users and developers?

Vasil will provide some key functionalities to enable the launch of further projects on Cardano. At the same time, it will offer an upgrade path (with increased speed, transactional capability and more powerful scripts) to existing DApps. Specifically, Vasil will modify the transaction validation and transmission system with a mechanism called Diffusion Pipelineing. With this mechanism, blocks will be added to the network when they are created and not only when they are complete. This optimises the timing of block validation and enables Cardano’s blockchain to not only guarantee faster transactions, but also to increase its security by making possible attacks much more complex.

However, the update was also designed with the developers in mind, i.e. those involved in creating decentralised applications on the network.

With Vasil, the programming language with which smart contracts are written on Cardano’s blockchain called Plutus will also be updated. The hard fork will give rise to Plutus V2, which will enable developers to develop more efficient and cost-effective DApps (from a transaction perspective).

To date, Cardano ranks 29th among all the blockchains in terms of volumes traded on its platforms, of which there are currently only twelve. The current total blockchain value (TVL) is around $80 million. We will see if the Vasil update, due on 22 September 2022 will help Cardano’s network make its way into the big world of DeFi and increase the use cases of crypto ADA.

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We present stablecoins arriving in 2022 as well as those in crisis. What happened to FEI and aUSD? What are the plans for Curve and Aave?

The desire of DeFi platforms to create stablecoins is certainly one of the trends of the moment. Stablecoins are cryptos that remain pegged to the price of fiat currencies, usually to the value of the dollar. They fall into two categories: algorithmic ones and those that base their value on reserves of funds that serve as the underlying collateral. The former maintain their peg to the dollar price through algorithmic trading systems, such as seigniorage. The latter, on the other hand, manages to maintain a stable price by holding reserves of currency in a 1:1 ratio with the tokens issued. 

Collateral-backed stablecoins are in turn divided into two subcategories, centralised and decentralised collateralised stablecoins. The main difference between the two types relates to the type of currency that acts as collateral. For centralised stablecoins, the collateral is made up of fiat currency, usually US dollars or equivalent financial instruments. By contrast, for decentralised stablecoins, the collateral is composed entirely of other cryptos. The most famous centralised stablecoins are USDT and USDC. However, it is the decentralised stablecoins that are stealing the show within the DeFi sector nowadays. Let’s look at the new stablecoins coming in 2022 as well as those going through a period of crisis.

New decentralised stablecoins on the way: Curve, Aave and Shiba

A few weeks ago, Aave, a DeFi ecosystem specialising in decentralised loans, published a proposal to create its own stablecoin. This provoked a quick response from one of their most famous competitors Curve finance, who announced their own stablecoin. Curve is one of the most famous and widely used DEXes in the industry. The announcement was made quietly, unlike Aave’s, and was not posted on the platform’s social networks. It was made by the CEO and founder of the world’s most widely used DeFi protocol, Michael Egorov, during a crypto-themed summit. In addition to announcing the launch, Michael Egorov stated that Curve’s stablecoin will operate according to the over-collateralisation mechanism and will be fully decentralised.

The information so far is not very detailed, but it is rumoured that the overcollateralisation mechanism will be similar to the one used by Maker DAO with its DAI stablecoin and which Aave plans to implement with GHO. Another ecosystem, completely different from Curve, has announced that it too is working on a stablecoin: Shiba Inu is planning to create a Defi ecosystem complete with everything a user could ever want. After Shiba‘s decentralised exchange, Shibaswap, there should soon be a metaverse and the SHI stablecoin that will also be over-collateralised.

Stablecoins in crisis: aUSD and FEI

The basic idea behind stablecoins is simple but its implementation is complex. When depending on large collaterals, failure is just around the corner. Especially during bear market phases like the one we are in now. The Terra (LUNA) Ecosystem is a great example of this. Two other stablecoins have since also recently fallen under the attack of malicious actors. The protocol named FEI for example is closing its doors. In early 2021, Fei Labs had raised $1.3 billion equivalent in Ethereum to build a decentralised stablecoin. The collected Ethereum was used as collateral for the FEI stablecoin. In December, the DeFi protocol decided to start collaborating with another project called Rari Capital, together creating a lending platform called Fuse. The lending platform allowed users to borrow FEI stablecoin by depositing collateral in crypto. This collateral was then used to keep the price of FEI stable. Unfortunately,  in April 2022, the Fuse lending protocol was hacked. Hackers stole $80 million, causing the stablecoin’s dollar-anchoring mechanism to fail. This resulted in the failure of the Fuse platform and thus the end of the Fei Labs project.

Similarly, the stablecoin of the Polkadot Acala parachain called aUSD also suffered a crash recently. On Sunday, the 14th of August 2022, a bug caused by a misconfiguration of the iBTC/aUSD liquidity pool made a hack possible. The hackers in question managed to break into the liquidity pool and stole approximately 1.27 billion aUSD. After being made aware of the exploit, the Acala team disabled the transfer functionality of the erroneously issued aUSDs remaining on Acala’s parachain. This greatly limited the damage, in fact 99% of the stolen aUSDs remained on Acala’s blockchain. The damage is valued at around $1.6 million. The team is still working hard to recover the lost funds by tracking and monitoring transactions and wallets.In the meantime, the stablecoin seems to be slowly recovering its dollar price. 

The change of course of USDD, Tron’s stablecoin

Speaking instead of algorithmic stablecoins, the star of the moment is definitely Tron‘s decentralised USDD stablecoin, which is often compared to UST, the stablecoin of the Terra ecosystem. 

The two stablecoins function very similarly, or at least they did until recently. USDD was launched a few days before the collapse of the Terra (LUNA) ecosystem with the aim of offering even better returns, up to 30% compared to the 20% once offered by Anchor Protocol. The Tron DAO Reserve’s goal was to make inroads into the market by intercepting users attracted by high APY rates on stablecoins. Remember that the UST stablecoin had a market cap of about $19 billion. However, following the collapse of UST and LUNA, USDD and other algorithmic stablecoins such as USN (developed by Near) also had to change their dollar peg mechanism. USN was totally transformed and became an over-collateralised stablecoin. Meanwhile, USDD decided to remain in limbo, adopting a hybrid system that shares features with both types of mechanism. 

The initiative of the Tron DAO Reserve was to maintain the algorithmic aspects of the project, hence the creation of a system based on the coexistence of two tokens TRX and USDD. They make use of processes such as arbitrage and seigniorage to keep USDD pegged to the dollar price. In addition to this system, a decentralised reserve greater than the total value of all USDD in circulation has been implemented in order to keep the protocol secure. This counts especially in times of crisis and for avoiding bank runs like the one that happened to UST. Currently, USDD’s market cap is just over $700 million, and it holds more than $2.3 billion USD in collateral reserves. According to the Tron DAO Reserve website, the stablecoin currently holds 990 million USDC, 140 million USDT, 10.9 billion TRX and 14,000 Bitcoins. 

The development of decentralised stablecoins by protocols that were not initially created for that purpose is a path taken by many crypto projects. The goals that projects aim to achieve through these initiatives are varied. First and foremost, the ecosystems aim to give their users the opportunity to shelter themselves from volatility without leaving the ecosystem, and thus to hold stable value in a decentralised manner. Another goal is to reach new customers through advantageous rewards applied to a capital that should remain stable. We will see if more new stablecoins will appear in 2022, perhaps on a  completely algorithmic basis. Or perhaps the market will remain dominated by collateralised stablecoins, which are certainly more popular to date!

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DeFi Kingdoms and Crabada are already using their respective subnets. See how crypto gaming on Avalanche attempts to solve the scalability problem

Avalanche, Polygon and Solana are fighting for hegemony in the crypto gaming industry. Let’s see where Emin Gün Sirer‘s blockchain stands.

Avalanche is an open source Proof-of-Stake blockchain that enables the development of decentralised applications. The goal that Avalanche has set itself since its inception is to solve the blockchain trilemma. Lately, much of the work of the Ava Labs team, the Web3 company that started the network, has been aimed at improving one of the three sides of the trilemma: scalability. This increase will be crucial for developing the infrastructure needed for one of the sectors that Avalanche is focusing on the most, crypto gaming! DeFi Kingdoms and Crabada have already moved onto their respective DFK Chain and Swimmer Network subnets, and other big names such as Ascenders and Ragnarock are in the process of doing so. Find out how the subnets intend to revolutionise crypto gaming!

What are subnets and how do they contribute to network scalability?

So, what exactly are Avalanche subnets? Are they Layer 2 blockchains like Polygon or Rollups like Arbitrum or Optimism? Actually, subnets are a way to use different sets of validators in order to create new subversions of the main blockchain. Each subnet is located within the main Avalanche network, but in addition to its own set of validators it has its own currency and security system.

Subnets allow video games and other decentralised applications to take advantage of Avalanche’s existing infrastructure by easily creating their own blockchain environment, tailored to the needs of their users. But why is this important for the crypto gaming industry? To achieve lasting success, Web3 games must achieve a fluid user experience that we see in traditional games today. This fluidity can be achieved through two elements that are non-negotiable:

• High scalability
• Low gas fees

Scalability is the ability of a blockchain to handle high network use without compromising the user experience. It is a fundamental requirement for a game that wants to establish itself on a large scale. Gas fees, on the other hand, are the ‘fees’ a user has to pay for transactions to be processed. Low gas fees make it possible to carry out the frequent interactions that a Web3 video game requires almost free of charge. For example, an average transaction on DeFi Kingdom costs about 0.005 JEWEL, and one JEWEL is worth about $0.2. So it usually costs a thousandth of a dollar to interact with the DFK Chain.

Which crypto games are migrating to subnets?

There are currently two games already active on Avalanche’s subnet: DeFi Kingdoms on the DFK chain and Crabada on the Swimmer Network. Together, DFK and Swimmer process about half of the transactions that take place on the Avalanche network. DeFi Kingdoms is a play-to-earn RPG video game originally released on Harmony. Crabada on the other hand is one of the first games to be created on Avalanche and was the first to move onto its Swimmer Network subnet. Crabada features two main game modes: active battle mode and inactive mode (mining battle and looting). As the name suggests, active battle allows players to pit their Crabs – cute hermit crabs – against each other or against AI-controlled enemies to earn in-game rewards. Two other games, however, are set to use their respective subnets. Both are part of the list of the best play-to-earn games on Avalanche and are Ascenders and Ragnarock.

Ascenders is a sci-fi RPG that will be launched directly on its own subnet, a trial version of which is already available. Ragnarok, on the other hand, is a browser-based role-playing game in which players interact with an open-world environment. Although initially launched on Ethereum, the game aims to expand to Avalanche’s subnets in the future. In this mad scramble to conquer the crypto gaming sector, each protocol is thinking of different solutions, but all have the same goal: to increase the scalability of networks to be competitive with off-chain games. Will the subnets manage to prevail or will they be defeated by Layer 2s or even the mighty Solana?

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Free to play, open world and play-to-earn, Mirandus is Gala Games’ centrepiece. Read on and explore the GameFi project!

Gala Games’ play-to-earn game Mirandus is among the five most eagerly awaited video games on the GameFi scene. Although the video game is still in development, it has already gathered a very enthusiastic community and its first NFTs have long since sold out. How does the quest-free fantasy role-playing game Mirandus work? 

Gala Games and the GALA token: on-blockchain gaming

Mirandus is developed on Gala Games, a game-making network on blockchain. The Gala Games platform functions as a marketplace where users can explore different video games and purchase game tools and items in the form of NFTs. The Gala Games network runs on GALA, the Ethereum-based utility token.

Most of Gala Games’ video games are in development or testing. The platform does not only host video games by the Gala Games team, but is also open to developers from outside the project. Currently, Gala Games has directly made Mirandus, Town Star and Town Crush. For Gala Games, fun comes first, which implies that the blockchain must be ‘invisible‘ in their play-to-earn games. The complexity of this technology should not be an obstacle for those who want to play, which is why, despite being based on blockchain, the game dynamics are simple and accessible to everyone, even non-experts. Players only need to know that everything they own in the game is also their property outside it. Gala Games boasts great community involvement and aims at full decentralisation based on active user participation – ‘Through decentralisation, players not only own their in-games items, but they have a voice in how the Gala Games roadmap develops’, all through voting mechanisms. 

Mirandus, an unpredictable fantasy Metaverse 

Mirandus is described as a Fantasy RPG and is set in a world ruled by five monarchs, based in five different cities. The play-to-earn video game itself has no quests, missions or levels to overcome. Players are free to venture into the wilderness and try their luck in the Mirandus metaverse. You can participate in the game with your own avatar, you can go on a monster hunt in the forests, lend your services to some knight or run a small village shop. All possibilities are open on Mirandus. All these features make Mirandus by Gala Games an open world. 

How does Mirandus play-to-earn work? 

The peculiarity of a play-to-earn video game like Mirandus is the possibility of obtaining crypto rewards while playing. Gala Games has devised a sophisticated internal economy for Mirandus, based on the two tokens GALA and Materium (MTRM), both ERC-20. While GALA is used to purchase all the NFTs that ‘beautify’ the game, Materium is the token that moves actions and characters in Mirandus. Everyone in the game is looking for Materium, which on a technical level is a token that can also be traded on the free market, but within the game is a powerful ‘mother’ substance. Materium is, indeed, a concentrate of magic with amazing powers that can be used to increase your abilities, prepare spells, create artefacts and teleport. Mirandus populations claim territories and citadels in order to grab the miraculous substance. So, prepare to unearth Materium in every corner of the Metaverse to get your rewards! However, Mirandus is also a play-to-earn because you receive tokens every time you achieve small objectives, such as founding a city or defeating monsters. 

Mirandus’ NFTs

Mirandus is fundamentally a free-to-play crypto game, which means that you do not have to pay a fee or buy components to start playing. Avatars are available as free versions for all players, however, you have the option to buy NFT characters with increased powers – the Exemplars. There are 5 types of Exemplar, the Elves, Halflings, Orcs, Dwarves and Humans. Each category is divided into ‘families’ and each avatar is unique. Orcs are best suited to exploring the wilderness, while Dwarves are the most Materium-hungry. At the time of writing, 90% of the Exemplars have been sold but can be bought on secondary markets. To give you an idea of the average price, an Orc on Gala Games costs about 19 thousand GALA (about €1100), while you can find Humans for 0.06 ETH on OpenSea. 

The game is based on the core principle of resource property, be it land, buildings, or means of transport. NFTs in Mirandus also include land (‘property is power’ on Mirandus), ships and docks. 1650 pieces of land are available and once the game is launched, owners will be able to choose in which geographical area of Mirandus to place theirs. You can build dwellings or offer services on the land, and it is also crucial to have suitable walls to protect yourself from enemies and monsters. At a glance, Mirandus NFTs can be characters, land (Deeds), buildings, docks or ships. Each non-fungible token is distinguishable by characteristics, rarity and ‘value’ within the game. The network has pledged to plant a tree for every purchase on the Gala Games marketplace through the One Tree Planted platform.

The videogame’s release date has not yet been announced. Gala Games’ play-to-earn Mirandus trailer features a mysterious traveller in worn-out clothes and a filthy face, everything about him seemingly screaming ‘strenuous endeavour in progress’. Indeed, everything is yet to be built on Mirandus, and there is nothing more intriguing than the power to create. Unlike other MMORPGs like Warcraft or Final Fantasy, players are not invited to explore cities or places imagined by the developers. Everything on Mirandus is in the hands of the players!

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Imperium Empires is a new play-to-earn crypto game developed on the Avalanche blockchain. Find out how to join this metaverse!

If you’re interested in the world of play-to-earn games, you can’t miss the new crypto game coming to the Avalanche ecosystem. Avalanche is one of the blockchains where play-to-earn games are becoming more established. After Crabada, Ascenders and Ragnarock, here comes Imperium Empires. Want to join  the Imperium Empires metaverse? Find out how!

Enter the space metaverse of Imperium Empires!

Imperium Empires is a play-to-earn MMO real-time strategy (RTS) game developed on the Avalanche blockchain. The video game is set in a vast cosmic metaverse, populated by fleets of futuristic spaceships (in the form of NFTs) with which players can conquer territories and build their own empire. Guild systems and governance are key to mastering the core game mechanics and truly immersing yourself in the metaverse, Imperium Empires in fact encourages users to team up with each other and thus to share rewards. This mode of interaction has been named by the Imperium Empires as team-to-earn, a reinterpretation of the concept of play-to-earn. Within the crypto game of Imperium Empires, various game combinations coexist. It will be possible to play in single player and PvE (player vs. environment) modes, in which the player will try his hand at mining minerals from asteroids and exploring the Mmtaverse. But there will also be room for PVP (player vs player) game dynamics, in which each player will be able to become a commander in exciting guild battles and earn big loot at the expense of the other players.

NFTs and the tokenomics of Imperium Empires

The sale of the NFT ships, which are indispensable for entering the Imperium Empires metaverse, began in February 2022 and it was only possible to buy them with the IME token, which is also the crypto game’s governance token. During the two sales rounds, it was possible to purchase five different types of spacecraft: Galaxy Scootie, Strekzans, Augear and Aurostar. Each of the four spaceships has different characteristics, and the price and quantity of ships available also varied depending on the category. There are four main characteristics of spaceships: health, speed, rotational speed and cargo capacity. In addition to having different scores for these four characteristics, the NFTs in Imperium Empires are classified by different degrees of rarity. Rarity is related to the number of NFTs available. For example, the Galaxy Scootie spacecrafts, which are common, have 15,000 copies. Meanwhile Aurostar spacecrafts, which have a supreme rarity rating, have only 150 copies. But how do you buy Imperium Empires NFTs?  As soon as the first sale phase was over, it was possible for users to sell and buy NFTs on the secondary marketplace, using the EMI token. To avoid one of the main problems of this type of game, namely the loss of value of NFTs as new ones are issued, the ships can be destroyed during battles against other players.

But how does the play-to-earn model work in Imperium Empires? Its tokenomics involves two tokens that exist within Imperium Empires. The first one is the IME token, which is intended to manage governance mechanisms and to purchase NFTs useful for gameplay. IME can also be sold on Avalanche’s main DEXs, e.g. Trader Joe or Pangolin. To obtain the IME token in Imperium Empires, it is necessary to loot other ships or win seasonal tournaments. The second token is called IMC and, unlike IME, it has no value outside the  metaverse. IMC can be used to repair spaceships or to build a guild, you can receive this token by selling minerals extracted from asteroids.

When will Imperium Empires be released?

In the near future, it will be possible to try out this new crypto game coming soon to Avalanche! The launch of the Alpha, multiplayer version, in which you can engage in guild battles against other players, is set for August 2022.

To date, only the Apollo expansion is available, a web version of the game that aims to test whether the game’s economy was sustainable. Players were able to start obtaining rewards from their NFT spaceships by using their own fleets of spaceships to mine minerals, perform stakeouts and trade the mined resources in the metaverse.

The Alpha version will not be the final one, but it will be very close. The release date for the full version of Imperium Empires has not yet been announced, but there is talk of the last quarter of 2022. In conjunction with the release of the final game, it will be possible to participate in the long-awaited ranked tournaments. In these tournaments, players will be able to compete for rewards with the EMI token. It is almost time, however, to leave the testing lab! We are eager and curious to be able to hurtle through the galaxies of the Imperium Empires Metaverse!

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Why is Web3 decisive and what are its advantages? Discover Chris Dixon’s 5 best tweets about Web3!

Chris Dixon is one of the most influential figures in the Web3 industry and a partner in a16z, a Venture Capital fund active in the crypto world and founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz. Dixon is known for his commitment as a Web3 popularizer. For years, he has been proposing interpretations and points of view on the evolution of the Internet, also through interesting threads on Twitter. His Twitter profile, cdixon.eth has almost 900,000 followers and is a reference point for enthusiasts in the field. Let’s take a look at Chris Dixon’s 5 best tweets on Web3!

1.   Why is Web3 important?

Presenting Dixon’s best tweets about the Web3, one can only start with ‘Why Web3 matters‘. In this tweet, in order to define the importance of Web3, Dixon begins by presenting the difference between centralised and decentralised companies and the tendency of Web2 companies to create benefits for users only during their first phase of life. After this phase, in Dixon’s view, users become just a ‘greedy source of data’. The main criticism in the tweet relates to the attitude of traditional companies, which according to Chris Dixon discourages innovation. Web3 platforms on the other hand, being totally owned by the users who use them, are not subject to this problem. Users are incentivised and work together with the platforms with the aim of expanding and growing the project of which they are an active part. The tools used to make this happen are tokens, both fungible tokens and NFTs. Chris Dixon firmly believes that it is necessary to redistribute the power and value on the web to users.

This tweet, written in 2021, has become an important testimony in the history of Web3. It is precisely this post that accurately defined the phases of the Internet, allowing, among other things, the interpretation and understanding of what Gavin Wood meant when he first coined the term Web3.

2.   The strengths of Web3: dApps and NFTs

The second tweet is also about the transition from Web2 to Web3. Blockchain, according to Dixon, in this historical period is the equivalent in terms of innovation of mobile applications in the period from 2009 to 2012. Chris Dixon defines dapps on the blockchain as the IT frontier of the millennium. He goes on to say that the strength of dapps is that they can be modified, programmed and improved by third-party actors because they are open source and permissionless. Dixon brings up as an example of dapp’s potential, the DeFi summer of 2020, the period in which the first wave of decentralised applications broke out and which saw the birth of Uniswap and Compound. Creating inclusive, fair and transparent financial services is indeed possible thanks to dApps. Dixon is positive about NFTs, describing them as an opportunity that can offer content creators and developers better economic conditions than what Web2 platforms used to offer. In conclusion, the tweet asks what trends will dominate the immediate future. Web3 social networks, DAOs or metaverses?

3.   Making a start-up by watching a series

This tweet refers to the series ‘Winning Time – The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty’ produced by HBO. The series tells the story of the rise of the Los Angeles Lakers NBA team starting with the takeover of historic owner Jerry Buss, who through his entrepreneurial skills transforms the team into an unbeatable dream team. More than the prowess of NBA players Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Chris Dixon seems interested in the entrepreneurial component of the TV series. He calls it a great show about start-ups.

4.   Chris Dixon joins the Board of Directors of OpenSea

The tweet announcing the entry of the Web3 popularizer to the board of the world’s most famous and used NFT marketplace could not fail to be part of this selection! The announcement took place right on Twitter, specifically on the profile of OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer.

Opensea’s decision to welcome Dixon is not too surprising, the latter being one of the most famous and respected Web3 disseminators and a venture investor with a lot of experience in the field. Among the projects he has been involved in as a financier and advisor are Uniswap, Avalanche and many others. Through the tweet, he said he was thrilled to be able to join the board of a giant like OpenSea, and that he was very happy to be able to continue working closely with David Finzer. In fact, the two met in 2021, when the fund in which Chris Dixon is a partner, a16z, decided to invest in OpenSea, and since then they have been working closely together, constantly comparing notes.

5.   The controversy with Minecraft: don’t clip the wings of developers

We end Chris Dixon’s list of the top 5 tweets on Web3 with a bang! The entrepreneur commented on the decision of the famous game Minecraft, developed by Microsoft-owned Mojan, to avoid any kind of NFT integration within the game. Dixon stated, in a polemical tone, that apparently Web2 companies can change the rules for developers at any time. Later, in response to his first tweet, he again poked fun at Microsoft, pointing out the inaccuracy of a sentence within the document containing the announcement.

The phrase in question ‘an NFT is a unique, unchangeable digital token that is part of a blockchain and is often purchased with cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin’ is indeed inaccurate. NFTs are not typical of networks such as Bitcoin’s, but are instead usually created on blockchains that allow dapp development, such as Ethereum, Solana and Avalanche.

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The Graph announces the abandonment of centralised hosting services, and prepares to decentralise all its operations

The Graph is one of the most innovative and interesting protocols of the entire Web3 world and is used for indexing blockchain data. The Graph is nicknamed ‘the Google of the blockchain’ because it actually performs more or less the same task as the search engine does for the traditional Web, i.e. it indexes the data on the blockchain, making the process of extracting it easier and faster. In this way, it allows Dapps to find the data they need very quickly. The protocol is officially abandoning its centralised hosting service and moving entirely to The Graph’s decentralised network. 

The current situation of The Graph

The Graph’s ecosystem revolves around the relationship between the developers of subgraphs and those who use the data. The former describe how the data is organised, the latter are for example app developers, who are willing to pay to query the data contained in the subgraphs. This data is, for example, the transaction information written within the blockchain as transaction data.  Initially, a centralised hosting service, run by Edge & Node, the team behind The Graph, was created to make The Graph’s network work. To date, this hosting service hosts more than 24,000 subgraphs that will gradually be transferred to the decentralised mainnet. The move to the decentralised mainnet is taking place gradually. The first subgraph was launched on this net in the first quarter of 2021, and as of the 30th of June 2022, the number of active subgraphs was 392.

The complete migration to the mainnet and its phases

The migration of all functionalities to the main net of The Graph is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2023. At that point, the centralised hosting service will be completely disabled and it will only be possible to access the data on the subgraphs in a decentralised manner. But let us see through which steps this will take place specifically:

1. During the first phase, which already started at the beginning of the third quarter of 2022, the development of new subgraphs on the centralised hosting service ceased. It is still possible to update the remaining subgraphs on the hosting service but not to build new ones. We are currently in this phase;
2. In the second phase, all updates to the subgraphs are to be made via Subgraph Studio, an isolated and secure development environment created specifically for testing subgraphs. Once tested, they are to be published on the decentralised network. It will then no longer be possible to update subgraphs on the centralised host service;
3. In the third and final phase, the subgraphs located on the centralised hosting service will be completely removed. This should take place by the first quarter of 2023 and will be taken care of by the engineers and developers of The Graph’s official team.

The decentralisation of the entire infrastructure will allow those using the service offered by The Graph’s ecosystem to build fully decentralised dapps.

Collaboration with Silicon Kruger and Good Work foundation

One of The Graph’s latest projects was developed through a collaboration with Silicon Kruger, an innovation centre set up to facilitate access to the Web3 for developing countries on the African continent. Silicon Kruger and The Graph have developed the first indexer for African dapps called Index Africa. The indexer aggregates dapp data and retains a portion of the rewards generated by its node, which are then allocated to a funding programme for students in rural Africa. This is made possible by Index Africa’s non-profit partner, the Good Work Foundation, a South African organisation that has been providing access to education for young African students since 2005.

Will developers be able to complete the migration in the allotted time? And will The Graph’s network attract applications that aspire to be fully decentralised? Follow us so you don’t miss the next updates!

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