The Grand Arena: Trading cards x AI Agents x prediction markets

GAMING CHRONICLES 139

Raiden

and

Memento

Sep 24, 2025

Gaming Chronicles focuses on curating the latest crypto gaming news every week.

You will find the latest news, educational content, and game reviews.

TLDR :

GIGACHADBAT x YGG Play
Story Protocol and IP-backed memecoins
Moku launches the Grand Arena

🗞️ NEWS

GIGACHADBAT JOINS YGG PLAY + LAUNCHPAD

Last week, YGG Play announced they’re publishing a new game called GIGACHADBAT (GCB), part of their new publishing partnerships with Delab Games. GCB is a casual batting (baseball) game that incorporates some social casino mechanics (there was a big launch event)
- Initially, the game launched on Telegram in July 2024, but the title has now been relaunched on Abstract
  - From the GamesBeat interview: “…so they talked with Kwon about moving the game from Telegram to Abstract Chain. They turned it into a web experience and used Abstract as a discovery layer”
- Similar to its partnership with Gigaverse, YGG Play created a GCB-themed board inside of LOL Land. This is part of the studio’s cross-monetization strategy that uses a smart contract-enforceable revenue share
YGG was involved in two of Delabs’ funding rounds, a strategic round + a Series A in June and August 2024, signaling that the two companies have been connected previously
Two weeks ago, during Sidelined, we asked Gabby what kind of games fit YGG Play. He answered that Fishing Frenzy would be a good fit as well
- YGG Play’s focus is on short and highly rewarding game loops (casual), which have an element of risk built in to appeal to the degens (risk2earn)
Outside of this partnership, YGG Play announced the rollout of a new initiative: the $YGG Redeem Platform. A centralized hub, where players can convert in-game currency from partner titles to $YGG tokens
- You connect your wallet with the tool, which reads the in-game currencies you hold across YGG Play’s games. If you have any, it allows you to convert the currencies into tokens
Lastly, YP shared the news of YGG Play bringing a launchpad. This was shared during KBW
- LOL Land will be the first token launch on there, starting at a $900K FDV
- There’s little information available, but I’d guess this YGG will use a Virtuals-like model, where all the token launches on the platform will be denominated in the YGG token (e.g., a YGG/LOL pair)
  - Similarly, Forest, the makers behind Zeeverse, launched a platform like this recently

STORY PROTOCOL AND “IP-BACKED MEMECOINS”

Story Protocol (SP) had a couple of key announcements this week, including a partnership with Solo Leveling, $PINKFONG, and IP integrations with Azuki and Moonbirds. Let’s get into it:
- Firstly, SP announced that Solo Leveling (SL) is coming to its chain: “from an IP-backed memecoin and remixing to onchain IP economics”
  - SL is mentioned to be the first brand to explore onchain IP models, which will include RWAs, IP-backed memecoins, and IP co-creation. What this all looks like in practice remains to be seen
  - This is also not the first time SL has explored expanding its IP onchain. Last year, a web experience (almost a game) called Solo Leveling: Unlimited was launched on Avax through Otherworld
- Secondly, SP announced that “Korea’s largest IP”, Pinkfong (the character from Baby Shark), has been tokenized through IP World (IW). IW is SP’s platform for IP-backed memecoins
  - My question is: why would you tokenize a children’s IP?
  - Furthermore, I think calling them “IP-backed memecoins” sets the precedent of how these will be traded. I think Rekt’s approach of calling it a brand coin was much smarter in that regard
    - To add, Animoca also partnered with Baby Shark this year and launched a token. Unsurprisingly, it went up for a little bit and then down very fast
    - Despite the above, the PINKFONG token ran up to a $200M FDV almost instantly, and hit $500M FDV yesterday, with $13M+ in rewards going to the IP owner. So, who cares? (lol)
- Thirdly, SP announced that Verse8 (V8) partnered with Azuki and Moonbirds. V8 is an AI-powered game platform, allowing you to “turn a simple idea into a fully playable game in minutes – no coding required”
  - Much like Remix, a platform we have discussed in detail before (GC News 126), which also partnered with crypto IPs like Doodles
    - I believe the thesis for these AI-powered game tools is becoming co-creation and IP proliferation platforms that allow brands to create deeper and unforeseen customer touchpoints
  - Regarding Azuki, users will be able to choose their character, license the rights, and drop it into a shared multiplayer game built with AI
Overall, it seems like SP is finally shipping something, and they’re deploying marketing budget as well. They raised $140M after all, and their token is trading at a $12B FDV
- I do question whether their plans to put IPs on the blockchain through “IP-backed memecoins” move the needle

MOKU LAUNCHES THE GRAND ARENA

Moku just announced that the “road to Grand Arena begins, with $1M up for grabs in Season 1”. The Grand Arena (GA) is a daily fantasy sports game in which AI athletes compete 24/7
- The game has yet to be released, but it will work as follows:
  - Open packs → collect cards to build your lineup → get points based on AI athlete performance → train your Mokis to improve their performance → earn based on daily leaderboard standings
    - The first pack sale will be in early October, a S1 Booster Pack No-Loss Raffle (i.e., you will be refunded if you lose), coming with exclusive cards and perks inside
      - Certain Mokis (cards) chosen as Champions will earn royalties from pack sales, fees from secondary trading, and performance pool rewards
  - Moki NFT holders will receive additional mXP (determining your leaderboard placement) and rewards from upgrading their Moki
Hantao (Moku’s founder) describes the GA as infrastructure, “a daily fantasy platform built around AI content”. In an interview with OpenSea, he goes into detail:
- The GA has two main parts:
  - The first layer consists of the agentic athletes competing against each other. Moki Mayhem will be the first experience, a 3-ways-to-win game (PvE, PvP, or PvB)
    - Plans include scaling the agents to future games and adding additional IPs in future seasons
  - The second layer is the daily fantasy market in which players can speculate how AI agents will perform.
    - The GA is mentioned to be bot-positive, meaning bots are supposed to play in it, i.e., bots can’t break the game, because the outcomes are speculative, and to play, you need to spend
  - “They enjoy the thrill of speculating when they have an edge. Grand Arena applies that same instinct to gaming, with the potential for big multipliers if you’re right.”
The different layers of the game attract different user personas, including collectors, competitors, and trainers. A community member might want to participate on a deeper level, and a more DeFi-oriented user might just want to speculate on outcomes
Overall, it’s a pretty interesting idea, merging major narratives from this cycle: trading cards, AI (agents), and fantasy/prediction markets. Very interested to see where this goes