"I spoke to my lawyer. I will not refund. Go **** yourself"
GC ALPHA 57
Disclaimer: None of this information should be taken as financial advice. DYOR + I will hold some of the assets mentioned in this newsletter.
Variance recently demonstrated Somnia's speed in a playtest, where every in-game action is an onchain transaction.
Sponsored by Somnia.
PRODUCT REVIEW: RONIN GACHA
A couple of weeks ago, Ronin introduced Jin’s Fortune Spin. A new gacha machine that rewards various Ronin-based NFTs, and more recently, Pokémon cards.
The loop:
Select a gacha machine → spin the wheel for X RON or X USDC → wait for your prize → sell/keep your prize → stop or continue to “chase the dragon”
How are they gaining attention?
2025 feels like the year of gacha, think Pokémon pack openings, CS:GO cases, and the largest trend of this year, Labubus. Getting lucky and pulling that “grail” is a viral format in itself. Therefore, we have seen a lot of (organic) UGC coming out of the Ronin ecosystem - the feature markets itself
The addition of the Ronin Gacha Pokémon machine seamlessly played into the current hype behind the assets + onchain collecting. There’s a reason why Courtyard carries the collection volume on Polygon
Jase shared how they also ran an awareness campaign using Twitter ads (TL:DR: impressions are easy and cheap, conversions not so much)
Why is the app sticky or not?
I think it’s a pretty well-designed Gacha. It integrates well within Ronin’s website + the Ronin wallet, and the visuals make you think you just lost out on a big ticket item (even though it’s pre-determined by a VRF)
So far, it has processed over $1.1M. And seems like a good top-of-funnel touchpoint for the Courtyard or DeFi-interested person to interact with Ronin
Next week, we will explore …..
MARKET TALK
RCADE TGE
Last week, we saw another major studio in crypto launch its token: Revolving Games (RG), part of the RCADE Network (RN)
This TGE didn’t come without “hiccups”. Let’s get into it…
First of all, we saw LuckyTrades accuse the co-founder of RG of malpractice. That thread is now deleted, but we still have this NFTInsider article
The post detailed how Lucky invested $100,000 to take part in RG’s angel round. After multiple delays, he asked back for his funds and was promised they would be returned (even though it’s not a common practice)
After asking numerous times, he didn’t receive the refund. So, the conversation got more heated and was taken to Twitter. For context, this was 2 days before TGE
Let’s say the screenshots revealed a lot about Ammar’s character (quote in the title). Plus, the whole thing illustrates the importance of having contracts
RCADE TGE’d at 6:30 PM on July 9. However, at 10:04 PM, they communicated a delay in claims due to unexpected technical difficulties, coupled with massive traffic. The claims site went live at 11:42 PM (some users still couldn’t claim)
During this ~6-hour delay, the token fell about 42% in price. Naturally, this led to a lot of FUD among the airdrop recipients
The token opened at a ~$150M FDV, and is now trading at 1/3rd of that at ~$50M
RCADE’s initial circulating supply is around 25%, which is fairly high. Their ecosystem has multiple NFT collections, nodes, and P2A campaigns across games. So, I assume a pretty high % of that 25% went to an airdrop
In terms of the campaign, RCADE “initially” meant to launch mid-June. However, had to postpone its plans to early July. This likely took some of the velocity out of this campaign
The token itself only managed to secure Tier 2 listings, and there was an airdrop campaign to OKX
Furthermore, in the campaign, there was a large emphasis on the idea of a gaming ecosystem: “10 studios. 10 founders. 1 publishing engine”
RCADE’s TGE has been rocky so far, and part of the community has turned its back against them. It was a tough launch (like almost any TGE nowadays…), so I am curious what the team’s plans are to “steer the ship”
UNIOVERSE IS SHUTTING DOWN
Unfortunately, another studio bites the dust, Uniovorse is shutting down (or not?)
The Discord message details how the team tried to rescue the project for the past 6 months. And despite pursuing dozens of funding deals, they were unable to find a path forward
In 2022, the company raised $7.6M in its seed round, led by Resolute Ventures and Asymmetric. The studio was based in the US, so it must’ve had a sizeable burn rate
Unioverse stopped actively posting since April this year. A lack of communication from a team has become a recurring trend that something might be wrong, behind the scenes
More recently, the team shared in a new Discord announcement that they received a formal offer “to get Unioverse into the hands of a great group”
We have yet to see if anything will come out of this deal
The studio launched its UNIO token back in October 2024, opening at a ~$4.2M MC. It quickly tanked in its first week post-launch, and continued to do so to a sub-$100K MC in June. UNIO only had 1 CEX listing from KuCoin
According to some in the Discord community, the airdrop design + questionable management decisions post-TGE were part of the underperformance
I foresee many other teams that followed a similar path for their TGE this year to either shut down or divest from crypto gaming
Back in February this year, Mark Long, the former CEO of Shrapnel, shared that he joined Unioverse as the new CEO
What Shrapnel has achieved in the past couple of years was already questionable ($86.9M? Shrapnel’s budget could bankroll hundreds of Onchain Heroes). And it seems the “industry veteran” couldn’t save Unioverse
Overall, I’d be surprised if this game would be acquired, considering the current “debt” it has with its community, NFT, and token holders. But you never know…
ON THE RISE
Ronin introduces profiles: onchain identities that unlock new opportunities
Snoop Dogg’s Telegram gifts sold out in 30 min, generating $12M in sales volume
Oh noooo! I was clickbaited into reading this article :D
Jk... Love the article <3