Disclaimer: None of this information should be taken as financial advice. DYOR + I will hold some of the assets mentioned in this newsletter.
MARKET TALK
ADDICTED.FUN
Last week, a new Ponzi on Solana was launched, Addicted.fun (AF). The newest title coming out of Pandemic Labs, a studio that also developed 2 other titles for crypto natives, called Infected.fun and Insider
Funnily enough, the team marketed AF as an onchain clone of Schedule I at first. However, the gameplay is more like Bigcoin, but instead of farming hashrate, you farm cannabis
The gameplay of AF works as follows:
You pay an initial 0.5 SOL to acquire your first pack, which unlocks a level 1 farm and plant (with 4 slots). Your setup generates a WEED token hash rate
The rate can be increased by spending WEED to acquire booster packs, which contain plants (ranging from level 1 - 10). By upgrading your farm, you can increase the number of slots, so you can house more plants
The more players join, the lower your hash rate becomes (i.e., you compete over a total pool of emissions). Plus, the WEED token rewards are being halved every 5 days
It’s a simple and typical Ponzi-like gameplay loop, and the only way to succeed in these games (financially) is by 1) being lucky enough it survive for longer than 1 day and 2) being involved from day 1
Jonah was one of the people who managed to make a good amount of money on the game
Of course, it's also not a Ponzi game, unless people start posting videos and screenshots about how much WEED (and so $) they’re generating a day
Other than farming, the team seems to have plans to add a cartel wars feature and turn this game into a “narcos MMO”. The feature will include players opening weapon cases to increase their power (booster packs weren’t enough gacha lol)
In terms of volume and attention, AF came out of the gate running with close to $2M of volume in the first 3 hours of its launch. The WEED token started running after 5 hours of being live, hitting a peak of ~$80M MC within 1.5 days, before a rapid sell-off. Now, the token is trading in the ~$15M MC range
After all, Ponzi games are always reliant on new users (i.e., liquidity) to come in or the existing whales not to pull out
Jonah made a good point on the importance of the Ponzi games to champion new whales to succeed
2 days ago, AF reported that they had a total of 25,000+ players, sold over 113,000 packs, and 4,762 farms were upgraded. Plus, 34% of the circulating supply was burned by players spending
Notably, Meteora also tweeted about the launch. Which must’ve given the game a great boost in terms of creating attention among the Solana crowd
Overall, it was interesting to see another Ponzi game come and go, but sustainability remains a problem. The only game in this category that has been fairly stable so far has been Onchain Heroes, which has lost its “new factor” by now, but is still around
To stay around for a bit longer, future games will have to find a better balance between market hype (number go up) and sustainability
TOKEN2049 TAKEAWAYS
Yesterday, I posted my 5 gaming-focused takeaways from Token2049. Let’s get into them, adding some additional thoughts:
Gaming sentiment
This is my second year of attending Token2049, and there’s been a clear sentiment shift this year, compared to last. In 2024, we were cautiously positive about the future. This year, we’re closer to survival mode:
The number of gaming-focused events was very small. AI, prediction markets, perp-DEXs, among other hot narratives, were much more popular
A couple of (previously) gaming-adjacent companies have pivoted to AI and other sectors to survive
I didn’t manage to speak to a single new gaming team. I did hear there was one new Japanese game on the expo floor, and BGA had a booth with some new games
Often heard: “We only have a couple more shots left”
Only a handful of gaming maxis were left at Token
What’s being mentioned?
Projects/teams that seemed the most top-of-mind were:
Mythical Games, Cambria, Atia’s Legacy, Ronin, Overtake, Fableborne, FDF, Project O, and Oh Baby Games
In person, people can be more honest about their takes on individual projects, and it’s been interesting to see both bullish and bearish takes on the above list
In terms of grander narratives, I spoke about consumer bets, degen-focused games, UGC games, and autonomous worlds with others
Tech-first
Generally, people seemed more bullish on crypto games from a tech perspective (i.e., what macro problems in gaming can blockchain solve?)
Examples include blockchain as payment rails, circumventing fees from app stores (improving margins), improved P2P trading, Apptokens, and creation of autonomous worlds
Looking at projects like NFL Rivals and BTC Miner, on the tech side, is where these teams have actually found (potential) PMF
Crypto investor perspective
Spoke with a couple of people in the crypto VC space, heavily involved in gaming over the past few years. The consensus seemed that they have capital to deploy, but there are simply no opportunities in gaming
More are looking at (gamified) consumer apps/AI instead
TradFi
It’s hard to sell crypto natives on fundamentals (like any KPI, except revenue). However, TradFi still believes in them and is more eager to deploy in apps (games) that can make a mass audience engage with crypto
This makes mobile crypto games still positioned well to potentially catch a bid
Overall, we’re kind of desperate to see another success. It’s all about one project leading the way and changing the narrative at this point, and the hope is that one of the few projects in this cohort can be the one
ON THE RISE
Moku’s Grand Arena Booster Box presale is launching this Wednesday
Oh Baby Games is releasing its first collection, the Oh Baby Pass