Will this new token launch strategy make tokens great again?
GC ALPHA 21
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.
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(P2A) EVENTS & SOCIALFI
LUMINA HUNT PHASE 2
A couple of days ago Tatsumeeko released Phase 2 of Lumina Hunt
Phase 2 includes a couple of updates and additions, here are some of the highlights:
The Vabloon Leaderboard was reset, and player progress of S1 was snapshotted
The Referral Stash system has been reset and rebalanced (your existing referrals remain intact)
In terms of game balancing:
Higher-level capture devices will now have a significantly higher range of catch range bonuses and there are higher skill point requirements to unlock these
There’s a new season pass with Twilight-level items, new quests and missions
In terms of new features to the game:
Limited-time expeditions: win rare and powerful items
LiveOps: new LiveOps events and new Lumins will be released
New currency: acquire new and rare currency (Enigmatic Extracts) and spend it to buy limited items in the shop
Twilight Expeditions: new opportunities to send your Lumins to more challenging missions
This season will last from Oct 24 - Nov 20
FLASH EVENTS
Forgotten Runes is hosting a Might vs Magic Halloween Event in partnership with Edison Metaverse
Play Providence is releasing its SpookyWorld event on Oct 31
Chronoforge is organizing its public playtest from Oct 30 - Nov 6
Alphabot released S1 of Boost, their P2A campaign to start earning more points
B3 released season 2 of BP, including all the S1 games + joined by new ones
MARKET TALK
DEX-FIRST LAUNCHES
XBORG took the risk and showed you can be successful with a DEX-first launch, Seedify followed suit, and other projects like Lizard Labs are now taking a stab at it as well
There are a couple of reasons (by Lou from XBORG) why this strategy can be beneficial/why it is being used:
The main reason comes down to the majority of gaming TGEs performing poorly this year, this approach goes against the grain
Instead of VCs, market makers, and insiders enjoying all the upside, the potential gain goes back into the hands of the community
This also means the community gets more favorable unlocks, and vesting, and makes a larger part of your investors
Projects don’t have to pay millions in listing fees, and on-chain volume post-TGE provides you leverage to negotiate CEX listings down the road
More control over tokenomics, more control over the supply, avoiding forced low floats and unlocks that hurt the community
Organic price discovery, not manipulated by market makers
Whilst the approach shows potential, not every gaming project will be able to pull this strategy off:
Most gaming projects are externally funded and have financial stakeholders (VCs), who will often pressure them into CEX listings
Additionally, these parties won’t be happy if they receive less favorable conditions deals in terms of unlocks and vesting than the community
As less liquidity is available, it relies even more on strong marketing and an existing community to have a successful DEX-first launch
Sustaining volume post-TGE also becomes more difficult, without having CEX exposure
As the competition increases, this also puts more fish in a small pond (projects competing over a small liquidity pool)
Legality (when it involves US citizens)
Overall, I see it as an innovative attempt at making gaming TGEs successful again, yet we have to see if others, outside of these two can be successful
Context: XBORG is not building a game and Seedworld already has an existing token (Seedify) and is supported by their launchpad
AI AGENTS x WEB3 GAMING?
AI Agents have been the “talk of the timeline” in the past few weeks. A narrative spawned by the Terminal of Truths (GOAT), and the success of its token ($500M+ FDV and listing by Binance)
Based on this success we saw Virtuals Protocol and its Luna AI Agent take off, the company that also published AI Waifu, and has been working on other game-related AI-Agent applications
My Shell AI also seems to be gaining a bunch of interest
Seeing the power of this narrative, we’d want to start looking at which gaming projects are working on interesting and meaningful gaming-based applications
Because here’s where these applications have the most potential, right? As they can create novel gameplay experiences
So, let’s talk about a few examples:
AI Arena: building tech to allow other games to train and deploy AI models in their own game environments
In the past few days, we have seen some price appreciation when it comes to the NRN token
Parallel: building Colony, an AI-driven simulation game. We didn’t see their NFTs rise in value, but even more surprising PRIME didn’t move
Earlier this year, we had a similar spike of interest in the AI narrative, that’s when PRIME saw lots of price appreciation (peaking at $27)
Perhaps WayFinder AI’s Alpha launch will make a difference here
Some good takes from 1mpal on the topic
Other examples of the gaming x AI crossover include Play AI, Today the Game, Aethir Cloud, Anomaly, Avalon, and Avarik Saga
Last, but not least we do want to consider how this narrative is unfolding. It’s largely driven by bots who talk nonsense on Twitter, and the memes that this creates/are associated with it, not driven by the products (games)
ATM, I don’t see this having a strong spillover effect to AI Agents in games yet (which also live inside closed ecosystems). Only when this narrative matures and interest becomes more product-driven, AI gaming will rise IMO…
ON THE RISE
Unioverse announced O.A.G, an AI x Gaming builder Hackathon Program