Edition #3 - 4 FEB 2022
January's volume is almost 50% greater than the previous high of August 2021. The record month also lead to over $1 billion worth of ETH being burned during the period.
gaming developments
Splinterlands is once again the most popular blockchain game this week, with just under 500,000 unique wallets connected in the last 7 days, according to data from DappRadar;
A piece of virtual real estate on Decentraland was sold in a mortgage-financed deal last week, the first in the metaverse. TerraZero, a metaverse land development company, provided their client with majority of the funds to buy the digital asset in question in exchange for land collateral. TerraZero is already planning to expand “metaverse mortgages” to a wider retail market;
Warner Music Group (WMG) partners with The Sandbox gaming metaverse to create the first ever music-themed world, concerts and music experiences;
Quantum Economics CEO: crypto is key for future of gaming, off-chain games to struggle in the next 5 years;
Agriculture simulation game DeFi Land announces the start of its highly-anticipated NFT sales.
metaverses & vr
Metaverse growth, investment activity and mass NFT adoption is expected to continue in 2022 - Newzoo's Metaverse and Blockchain gaming prediction for 2022;
Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook) lost over 20% of market cap in Wednesday's aftermarket. Meta, for the first time, revealed financials for Reality Labs, its metaverse building division, with net losses of over $10 billion in calendar year of 2021, totalling to over $20 billion since 2019;
Fidelity Investments is seeking approval for a launch of a Metaverse ETF, comprised of companies generating at least 50% of their revenue from gaming and wearable technology, digital infrastructure and computing hardware;
Coachella, one of the most popular music festivals in the world, announces the launch of its proprietary NFTs. The auction dropincludes 10 Infinity Keys – lifetime VIP passes to the festival – the first ever for Coachella;
The first NFT-only museum opened its doors to the public last week. The Seattle NFT Museum is spread over 3,000 square feet, exhibiting artwork and galleries designed to highlight “the most innovative” crypto art;
Ever wanted to get baptised in virtual reality? Meet DJ Soto and his metaverse church with a 200-strong congregation.
zen portfolio highlight
This week we highlight our portfolio company Mars4, a triple-A survival VR metaverse game on Mars - a colony in an atmospheric, first-person struggle against the harsh realities of life on the red planet.
Over 55 thousand Mars4 land plots have been sold already, representing geographically-exact plots of land across the face of Mars. Created based on data from NASA and other space agencies, the world of Mars4 is to be fully realised in unparalleled 3D graphics - all with passive income and NFT monetisation potential.
Move into Mars and expand your colony in Q3 2022. For now, find out more by engaging with Mars4 communities on Twitter, Discord and Telegram.
defi
Sifu, the treasurer of Time Wonderland, was doxxed last week as Michael Patryn, a convicted fraudster and a co-founder of the now infamous QuadrigaCX exchange. In response, the holders voted Patryn out and even held a no-confidence vote for winding down of the DAOs $300 million treasury;
Snowball DAO and Teddy Cash stablecoin voted to merge this week, marking the first DAO merger on Avalanche;
Grayscale, the world’s largest digital currency asset manager, launches its first Future of Finance index ETF;
Wormhole Network, a cross-chain bridge protocol, was hacked for $320 million this week in the second largest DeFi heist to date.
funding rounds
Unblocked, an NFT startup, raises $10 million Seed round, at a valuation of $90 million, lead by Tiger Global, Oaktree and Jay-Z;
Dune Analytics, a blockchain research provider, raises $69.4 million Series B lead by Coatue. The round completion confirms Dune’s unicorn valuation at $1 billion;
Phantom, a leading Solana wallet, raises $109 million in an equity Series B round, lead by Paradigm, valuing Phantom at $1.2 billion. Existing investors a16z, DeFi Alliance and Solana Ventures, amongst others, top up their holdings.
QuBit Finance was also breached this week, with the hacker confirmed to have dispossessed circa $80 million. As a last resort, QuBit resorted to pleading with the hacker on Twitter by offering a $2 million bounty in exchange to returning the stolen funds.
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