Abstract’s creator flywheel "is going to blackhole attention"...
GC ALPHA 33
Disclaimer: None of this information should be taken as financial advice. DYOR + I will hold some of the assets that are spoken of in this newsletter.
(P2A) EVENTS & SOCIALFI
Game7 introduced new quests to their Portal in partnership with Castile
Remember: by playing you also qualify for the native Castile airdrop
Additionally, G7 launched its testnet a few days ago, the docs don’t say anything about rewards, but you never know…
There will likely be an upcoming Treeverse Alpha this or next week (for holders)
Plus, a full and open launch after, which will last a month
Note: be mindful of interacting with Loopify’s Twitter, he just got hacked
The Echelon Foundation is supporting S2 and S3 of the Parallel Prime league with $3M in prizes
Derby Race’s pre-season is live on the Sonieum mainnet
Play and earn Race points for a RACE token airdrop
Paradise Tycoon’s Winter Season Update is live
The update comes with a new “Frosty Fishing event” (Jan 18 - 24)
Rumble Kong joins the Ronin Network, extending their soft launch season until Jan 26
Additionally, there are new Ronin quests and a Squads feature
The KGeN airdrop is now live: Gather K-Points > Earn rKGEN > Unlock $KGEN
It already includes games like DUPER, Super Champs, Ragnarok Monster World, and more
The Hatchlings S2 kicked off last week, with a prize pool of 50M RCADE
MARKET TALK
ABSTRACT STREAMING = COSTCO’S $1.50 HOTDOGS
Abstract’s mainnet can launch any day in the upcoming two weeks (or this week even?), and a couple of days ago they announced the XP incentive structure:
Earn XP by engaging with Abstract
Earn XP by collecting badges
Earn XP through creating (streaming and creating content)
An interesting mechanic of XP is that your progress will be updated weekly. So, you won’t directly know what kind of onchain behavior resulted in (the most) XP gains
So, maybe going broad and trying out different apps is the play?
What I want to talk more about is Abstract streaming a.k.a “the Costco $1.50 hotdog strategy” (using a loss-leader as a marketing and acquisition tool), an aspect of the chain I initially overlooked, to be frank
Streaming will be a vital part of Abstract’s creator flywheel, which is “going to blackhole attention” (these are Luca’s words)
High-level flywheel: highly-rewarding incentive structure > native streaming and using Abstract apps > medium to large creators bring over audiences > rich and “clipable” content > best clips will be amplified and distributed by Abstract (like Pudgy Penguins) > onboarding new users
Who gets to stream will be highly curated, with only 1000 to 1500 creators being able to stream + a large potential reward pool, meaning it will be “a real needle mover for streamers in that bucket” ~Luca Netz
“How do you do what HL did for leverage traders, how do you do that for content creators?”
Luca came from the industry of monetizing influence, and Pudgy Penguins has shown its pull in Web2 through partnerships like Kai Cenat
He believes he will be able to attract many of the top 80-90% of streamers in Web2 and bring these over in Web3 and that Abstract will double the number of streamers in this industry at a minimum
No crypto protocol, chain, or ecosystem has yet figured out a creator flywheel, especially at this level. So, if they can execute (which they have shown they can), Abstract streaming might be massive
And what makes for the best streamable content? Gaming. Adding to the strength of the positioning of the Abstract gaming vertical, especially the best games we mention more often (perspective from 1mpal)
WHAT IS INDIE.FUN?
Indie.fun is a new community-centric fundraising platform for Solana games. Think the Pump.fun model, but for indie games - “Fundraise your game 100x faster”
Essentially, it democratizes access to funding, which is incredibly hard for an indie studio otherwise
How does it work?
Devs submit their game or an existing one on Moddio (more on this later)
Create a new token and set up a fundraising campaign (min 25 SOL)
From the investor’s perspective:
New games will pop up on the front page
Users can visit separate game pages and play the game (usually a demo or gameplay slice) and decide to invest
Note: When the token is launched it is directly integrated into the game
I think the overall idea is interesting, however, the platform lacks anything of substance till now (counter-argument: it’s only a week old):
Most games are arguably worse than Flash games
Lots of the games are barely a game and just someone who tried to spin up something “playable” using the Moddio engine
This title seems like a mod for an existing and successful game called Forager
And expect a bunch low effort asset grabs
TL:DR, these games are worse than the first GameFi cycle...
So, how can this platform gather the interest of passionate (even Web2) indie devs to leverage an interesting gameplay slice to get easy access to funding?
Can this open up the space for testing game hypotheses? Who knows
Or, how can this platform be a breeding ground for interesting games with DeFi mechanics (e.g. Onchain Heroes)?
Because the bar is so low right now, I wouldn’t think it’s difficult for a half-decent game to grab most of the attention
One counter-argument is that better games will launch a token on their own (and crowd-fund differently) since going token-first with just a demo…
1) Makes it hard to build a token economy and 2) takes away from launching a “real” token in a later stage
Lastly, to give you an overview of the ecosystem:
Indie.fun is an initiative by PowPowFun and Moddio
PowPowFun is a Wild West game with AI Agents, with a token attached. Moddio is an open-source game-building platform backed by Alliance DAO and Solana Ventures
ON THE RISE
A memecoin-backed game called Sabong Saga did a public mint which 15x’d from its mint price
Cambria’s Duel Arena briefly returned in a 24h playtest (more soon?)
💚🔥💥🚀