Holiday and Year End Blockchain News Roundup [40]
I've had a lot of personal and professional news over the last month or so. In this issue I bring you up to date on the world of me, and the world of blockchain!
Well hello there, my friend!
It’s been a minute since we chatted - it’s been a hectic holiday season for everyone, but myself especially. Aside from selling my house (always a fun time) over the holidays, I’ve also accepted a couple of new positions I wanted to mention here publicly for the first time.
Firstly, I’ve taken a position as “Director of Blockchain” at a Texas based, solar-powered bitcoin mining operation called GeoSyn Mining. I’ve been helping the folks at GeoSyn as a consultant and advisor for most of 2020 as they pull all the threads together to set up a large-scale operation with the mission of upgrading the sustainability and capacity of the Texas power grid. We’ve talked about the capacity for Bitcoin to serve this purpose across quite a few issues over the last year, and I’m happy to say I’m putting this to practice.
If you’re interested in learning more, just reply to this email, and I’m happy to fill you in.
For those who follow me on Telegram and LinkedIn are already aware that I’ve been busying myself with another project. A project I’ve been working on in stealth for a chunk of 2020 is finally something I can talk about publicly in 2021… I’m leading a team of creatives to bring to market an RPG called Lord of Monster.
It’s largely a very playable game regardless of your level of blockchain knowledge, but if you know me, you know that I’ve got to incorporate blockchain in at some level… and I’m doing that with this game. You’ll be able to create your own game modes and own your own characters and items using various aspects of both fungible and non-fungible tokens in-game.
Feel free to join us in our journey to launch (which should be some time Q1 this year) on Discord or Telegram.
I had originally intended for this issue of the newsletter to also have the next edition of my book in it, but with everything else going on in my life, I haven’t been able to squeeze that in.
So instead, we round out all the news (both original reporting and from around the web) that has aggregated throughout the holidays. Hopefully, by next issue, we’re back on our regular drumbeat!
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Blockchain Bulletin
News from around the web.
Gibraltar to become a cryptocurrency hub with Valereum takeover of its stock exchange.
Blockchain firm Valereum is set to take over the Gibraltar Stock Exchange which would make it Bitcoin Rock and enable the British territory capable of trading crypto as well as traditional securities, reported The Guardian.
South Korean government moves to ban play-to-earn games.
The developers of “pay-to-earn” games that use crypto and NFTs have found their apps banned from the Google and Apple app stores by the South Korean government, reported CoinTelegraph.
Samsung wants to let you buy and sell Bored Apes on its TVs.
Samsung is adding an NFT platform app to several of its 2022 Smart TVs that will allow users to discover, buy, sell and trade NFTs, reported CoinTelegraph.
With a $5M raise, Dynasty Studios wants to bring traditional games to Web3.
The gaming developer Dynasty Studios wants to bridge traditional gaming and Web3 and has raised $5M in funding led by Framework Ventures to do it, reported VentureBeat.
Ubisoft partners with Aleph.im for decentralized NFT storage.
Ubisoft is partnering with Aleph.im for its Ubisoft Quartz gaming NFT product that will be introduced into Ghost Recon, it will use the service for decentralized storage, reported VentureBeat.
Zynga partners with Forte for blockchain gaming.
Building on its Web2 gaming empire, Zynga is partnering with Forte, which develops blockchain and Web3 games, to use assets from its already popular games and turn them into NFTs, reported Ledger Insights.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 will not be getting NFTs after fan backlash.
Harsh backlash over games and companies looking into NFTs continues as GSC Game World walked back plans to add NFTs to its game S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 after backlash from fans just one day after the announcement, reported Engadget.
Molyneux’s NFT game Legacy makes $54M in player investments.
Upcoming game Legacy by Stephen Molyneux’s 22cans studio raised $54 million in a limited NFT virtual land sale to player investors for the play-to-earn title, reported Ars Technica.
ConsenSys launches privacy-enabled rollups for Ethereum with Mastercard.
Ethereum solution developer ConsenSys announced a partnership with Mastercard for privacy-focused Rollups for “permissioned private applications” on the Ethereum mainnet, reported CoinTelegraph.
Blockchain Behind the Scenes
Original reporting.
Mexico becomes next nation to plan a CBDC by 2024.
The Mexican government confirmed that it will implement a Central Bank Digital Currency by 2024 in order to not miss out on the financial inclusion provided by technology.
Polygon quietly fixes bug that put MATIC at risk but not before hacker steals $2 million.
After two whitehat hackers revealed a potential exploit affecting Polygon’s native MATIC token, the network quietly upgraded its network to fix the issue, but not before $2 million was stolen.
Binance leads $60M venture capital fund for Multichain.
The cross-chain protocol Multichain, formerly Anyswap, raised $60 million led by Binance Labs to continue to build its platform that allows for routing asset values between chains.
Meta is looking for ‘deep compatibility’ with blockchain.
An internal memo put out by Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has revealed that the company intends to be on the forefront of blockchain technology to position with NFTs, cryptocurrency and other frontiers before other enterprise companies.
NYDIG raises a staggering $1B funding round at $7B valuation.
The high-tech Bitcoin financial product firm NYDIG just scored a giant $1 billion funding round led by WestCap at a $7 billion valuation, which the company said it would use to accelerate Bitcoin adoption.
Mobile gaming outfit Voodoo confirms $200M investment in blockchain games.
The blockchain gaming space continues to get funding and attention as more outfits plunge in as the French mobile game developer Voodoo plans to invest $200 million on developing Web3 games.
Full stories below the paywall!