The new era of blockchain-based games involves more than advanced graphics and sophisticated gameplay. Through the advent of technologies that enable decentralized finance (DeFi) and nonfungible tokens (NFTs), in-game incentives can turn into real-life financial rewards.

Dragon Mainland is a play-to-earn game that combines PvP (player vs player) and PvE (player versus environment) warfare, breeding dragons, free commerce and collecting NFTs. By absorbing other dragon skulls, players can level up their own dragons and earn cryptocurrency in the game. The platform takes the experience one step further by offering players the opportunity to earn more by trading NFTs collected in-game and engaging in DeFi activities.

By contributing to the ecosystem or developing in-game skills, players can earn DMS tokens or Dragon mainland shards digital assets to realize ecological co-construction.

According to the platform, once the game is deployed, the games developer will have no control over it. Instead, the decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) community will be solely responsible for validating all transactions without the involvement of a third-party platform.

Inspired by the movie How to Train Your Dragon, Dragon Mainlands gameplay is based on dragon breeding and battles. Dragons can be of five types: fire, water, wind, stone and thunder with each exhibiting a different set of skills and attributes.

In order to improve their dragons existing attributes, players will need to absorb the skulls of dragons of the same type. Dragon skulls can be obtained by burning DMS tokens to open the Dragon treasure box, purchasing them on the marketplace or from certain special events.

The game promises an immersive 3D experience with roguelike gameplay and AR visuals. Unlike most other blockchain games, Dragon Mainlands in-game battles will provide more than just another way for players to level up. These in-game battles will ultimately determine the computing power of the blockchain network, which will, in turn, improve the efficiency of liquidity mining.

To obtain a dragon, players will have to participate in the Genesis Dragon Egg sale. There are a total of 10,000 Genesis Dragon Eggs, but so far, the platform has sold 1000 Fire Dragon Eggs in a sensational three-second sale.

A players earnings are split into two categories: in-game earnings and liquidity mining earnings from staking dragons. The quantity of in-game revenue is determined by a dungeon's difficulty, and tokens are earned once the monster level has been conquered successfully.

DMS tokens can be used to buy items on the marketplace, governance, staking, liquidity mining, dragon breeding and marketplace dividends. DMS holders that stake their tokens and provide liquidity will be eligible to earn rewards, says Dragon Mainland. These tokens have a maximum supply of 1,000,000,000 and will never be issued.

Meanwhile, the Dragon Miracle Potion (DMP) is a functional token issued by the platform with an unlimited total supply. DMP tokens can only be obtained through game dungeons and daily quests completed. These tokens will be consumed during dragon breeding, dragon skull absorption and swallowing other dragons.

Aside from the platforms revenue aggregator, players can earn through a multitude of innovations introduced by Dragon Mainland, such as DeFi mortgage mining, rare dynamic attributes of games, DAO management of the game mechanism and NFT trading.

All NFT data will be stored on the Filecoin network to maintain the decentralized integrity of the tokenized collectible.

Dragon Mainland describes its token economy system as one that perfectly combines DeFi and NFT into an encrypted world and uses financial mechanisms and game systems to empower its users, creating a truly unique and lasting game financial ecosystem.

The platform anticipates that when all of these elements come to fruition, Dragon Mainland will be much more than a blockchain-based role-playing game. By combining the best aspects of existing DeFi infrastructure, NFT trading and in-game experiences, players will be a part of a novel GameFi ecosystem. And as is the case with most things in the metaverse, early adopters are likely to reap the largest rewards.

Disclaimer. Cointelegraph does not endorse any content or product on this page. While we aim at providing you with all important information that we could obtain, readers should do their own research before taking any actions related to the company and carry full responsibility for their decisions, nor can this article be considered as investment advice.

Read the original post:

A play-to-earn blockchain envisions a revolutionary token economy through the perfect combination of DeFi and NFTs - Cointelegraph

TikTok became an instant hit in India following its launch in 2016, as it became the countrys most downloaded app for Android. Everything changed in 2020 when it was banned along with 58 other Chinese apps over national security issues.

[soros]

Q3 2021 hedge fund letters, conferences and more

Statar Capitals Returns Suffer In Commodity Market Turmoil

Miami-based Statar Capital struggled in September as natural gas prices soared. The fund, which specializes in trading natural gas, ended September with a loss of 0.59%, according to a copy of its latest investor update, which ValueWalk has been able to review. Run by Ron Ozer, a former trader at Citadel and DE Shaw, the Read More

The Indian government claimed that the platforms were using the data illicitly by secretly storing data from users phones after the installation of these apps.

The ban left a gaping hole in a huge market following 20 million app downloads for TikTok, and left many creators desperate people who had built their brand, as well as the foundations of a strong following and an income. Step in Chingari.

Chingari is a short-video blockchain-based platform, which became an instant success in India soon after it was launched in September 2016. It is the worlds fastest growing social token app and the first social network in India to have issued crypto tokens.

It is also the first ever Indian short-video platform that is poised to revolutionize the creator economy in the country and gradually across the globe. With 30 million active users on a monthly basis, it enables young and aspiring talents to explore their creative potential.

When compared to TikTok, Chingari users can do a lot more on the app: from uploading clips, to watching movies on the Chingari Multiplex and shopping for trendy garments and accessories. Still, Chingaris biggest proposition is that it rewards viewers with Gari Tokens for simply being on the app and watching videos.

Chingari recently raised $19 million to make a strategic move into crypto and launched its native token, the $GARI, with leading influencer Salman Khan as brand ambassador. Salman has over 40 million followers on social media and a major presence in India.

We spoke to Chingari CEO, Sumit Ghosh, about Chingaris rise and other trends within the short video creation market.

According to some studies, the short-video business in the country is projected to reach 650 million users by 2025 after growing 24% between 2018 and last year. This is almost two times faster than Indonesia and China.

Not only the number of users is expected to grow but also the time they spend on these platforms. At present, people spend 45 minutes a day and we are bound to reach 55 to 60 minutes in the course of four years.

These numbers must also be seen in the light of smartphone usage in India, as people normally spend 4.8 hours a day on these devices, one of them watching videos entirely. This means we are in a very competitive environment, which is bound to grow at a significant pace.

Chingari has always held its unique identity, beyond just short-video creation. Tik Toks ban came in at a time when the market was beginning to adopt the trend and opportunities created by the social video creation category. Chingaris innovative offerings, backed by robust tech skills, gave it an edge over other market players.

Chingaris blockchain platform will allow users to obtain tokens for creating or watching content. The idea is to monetise creators talent with a decent amount of money and help them uplift themselves by participating in a social platform. Chingari wants to make this vision possible through its token $GARI.

Technology has always been my forte. I have spent over a decade working with many high-tech companies, establishing a track record of helping organizations to expand faster. With a background in management consulting and a founder of a successful start-up, my expertise runs in structuring and building a culture for a distributed agile team.

Being a noted speaker and a leading webinar expert, you may find me advising people on internal strategies, processes and methodologies. With Chingari, I envision to build a work environment that lets people explore their best form, both personally and professionally.

It is the vision of Chingari that each user creator and viewer alike should have their own tokens and direct blockchain interactions, making the platform more resilient and providing the users a gateway into the blockchain world without crippling its natural strong characteristics.

For our blockchain integration, we needed a platform that is affordable, has high throughput and is future-proof for the growth of the user base. The platform also has to be very stable, with a proven track record, and sufficiently decentralized.

Solana is the natural fit for these requirements. It is very fast, showing in practice the ability to sustain a higher peak throughput, even without sharing. It is also continuously working on growing these numbers.

$GARI will empower short-form video creators to monetize their content on the blockchain through the GARI Token. The tokens can be used to reward your favourite creators with Gari Tokens, to Watch videos on the platform and earn Gari tokens, and also to create and earn.

Creators are everywhere. The global market has been positively receptive to entertainment of a different kind. Changing trends and engaging incorporations are at their peak. At Chingari, we have devised strategic plans, backed by industry leaders, to pave our way into global territories soon.

Platforms do this to secure traffic. We tie up with influencers based on their creative talent, engagement, and social media reach, regardless of the platform they belong to. We offer them a spectrum of opportunities, which can boost their potential to create more unique content.

This attracts a wider base of existing and new creators towards Chingari.

Short videos are giving companies the chance to cut through saturation in their marketing efforts. It is a fact that people share videos at twice the rate than any other format, and more than 80% buy products or services based on a brands video.

Also, digital saturation is affecting peoples attention span by making it increasingly shorter. In this sense, companies need to adapt to this new rule of engagement so short videos are becoming the norm. Short videos are usually funny, so their usage will depend on the voice companies would want to give their brands.

Several social media networks have adapted their platforms in such a way that short videos are part of their offering. Pinterest is adding a new short video feature to its platform, which shows how strongly this function is growing.

The new feature is called Watch, and it allows users to view short videos and photo series.

Also, in one of its most recent updates, Instagram has renamed its vertical video app from IGTV to Instagram Video. Videos posted to the main Instagram feed can now be up to 60 minutes long previously exclusive to IGTV videos and it is no longer necessary to leave the main application to view them.

In early July, TikTok extended its short videos from 60 seconds to 3 minutes, while YouTube started introducing 60-second long videos last year. This only goes to show how both YouTube and Instagram are serving and adapting to this trend, with short, engaging videos and an effective algorithm.

It also shows how platforms tended to differentiate from one another by offering unique features, but the success of new formats and consumer preferences has disrupted the social media ecosystem to offer a wider variety of features.

Updated on Nov 1, 2021, 11:38 am

The rest is here:

What Happens When You Take Social Media On The Blockchain? - ValueWalk

It has become an established joke that blockchain is a technology in search of a problem to solve. Although this quip is deliberately provocative, designed to needle a thin-skinned community of enthusiasts, there is a measure of truth to it too.

Since the emergence of cryptocurrency, the first blockchain use case, entrepreneurs have come up with tens of alternative applications for the technology, which can be thought of as a time-stamped database of transactions distributed among the members of a network.

With varying degrees of success, blockchain has been applied to fields ranging from supply chain management and enterprise data protection to identity verification and more. The emergence of (DeFi), meanwhile, has seen blockchain used to facilitate peer-to-peer lending, borrowing and the like.

Now, a company called Pingala Software believes it has come up with the latest killer use case. Earlier this year, the firm launched LedgerMail, a product billed as the worlds first decentralized email solution. The service promises to liberate users from invasions of privacy, insecure message transfer protocols, and abuses of centralized power.

However, LedgerMail also relieves users of a number of aspects of traditional email they might rather like to keep. In fact, so fundamental are the differences, it might be considered misleading to characterize LedgerMail as an email service at all.

Speaking to TechRadar Pro over Zoom, Suraj Malla, VP Marketing and Sales at Pingala, methodically set out the case in favor of blockchain-based email.

To understand the benefits, though, its first important to understand the attributes that define a public blockchain network:

According to Malla, this combination of qualities means blockchain is uniquely equipped to neutralize one-by-one the significant problems with the traditional email systems we rely on today.

For example, the harvesting of email data en masse by the likes of Google and Microsoft is made possible by the centralization of power and control. But with LedgerMail, there is no centralized authority managing and controlling your data, Malla explained. And this also means there is no central point of failure.

Likewise, a large proportion of email-based cyberattacks are made possible by the continued use of archaic transfer protocols (like IMAP and SMTP). But LedgerMail replaces email transfer protocols with blockchain, which Malla described as one of the most secure technologies in the modern world.

Although LedgerMail users can still feasibly send malicious content to one another, identity spoofing and phishing attacks (a major problem with traditional email) are made much more difficult by a whitelist-style mechanism, in conjunction with the natural transparency of a blockchain-based system.

And, finally, LedgerMail encrypts all message content and attachments, which means only the sender and recipient can possibly gain access to the material.

To its credit, Pingala has enjoyed a measure of early success with LedgerMail, attracting 400,000 users in the first two months, including a number of enterprise customers. And there is clearly a large market for products that champion data privacy in this way; just look at the growth of the VPN industry.

However, the company is all too happy to gloss over the issues with its proposition, which are as varied and significant as the problems it is attempting to remedy.

When we spoke, Malla was proud to tell us that 24,000 emails had been exchanged using LedgerMail in the past 24 hours; the implication was that the platform is fast gaining traction. Inadvertently, though, this boast drew attention to the first of the major problems with the LedgerMail system: scalability.

LedgerMail sits atop a little-known blockchain called XinFin, a proof-of-stake network that draws from the traditions of both private and public blockchain. Courtesy of a number of clever design features, XinFin boasts a far greater throughput than either Bitcoin or Ethereum, achieving upwards of 2,000 transactions per second.

However, despite these innovations, the network still caps out at roughly 173 million transactions per day, circa 0.06% of the 319.6 billion emails that currently pass back and forth in the same time period. And remember, LedgerMail has to share XinFin with other blockchain-based services too.

The issue of scalability is tied closely to a second problem: cost. Although its free to sign up for a LedgerMail account, it is not free to send an email. Like all public blockchain networks, each exchange of value or information incurs a transaction fee. This fee incentivizes participation in the network, which in turn ensures a high level of security and redundancy is maintained.

In the case of the XinFin network, transaction fees are remarkably low; Pingala says it costs roughly 1/800th of a dollar to send a LedgerMail email. However, the value of transaction fees is tied directly with the amount of traffic on a network. So, in a hypothetical scenario wherein LedgerMail becomes immensely popular and users flood the XinFin network, emails will become significantly more expensive (even if the ceiling is one million times lower than on the Ethereum network). Given only a tiny fraction of people currently pay for the privilege of sending emails, its difficult to imagine the concept going down all that well.

The single largest problem with LedgerMail, however, is that its a closed-loop system. That is to say, users can only deliver messages to other people that own a LedgerMail account - and even then, only if they feature on the recipients approved list of contacts.

Email has lasted more than 50 years in large part thanks to its universality; anyone with an internet connection can have an email account, and anyone with an email account can communicate with anyone else.

While Pingala has made dispensations to allow users to sign up for LedgerMail using an existing email account, a simple sign-up process does not offset the fact that the platform does not allow for free and open communication. In this regard, can LedgerMail even be considered an email service at all?

After more than a little back-and-forth over the shortcomings of the model, Pingala founder Vinay Krishna (who was also on the call) eventually conceded that LedgerMail is not a service that will replace traditional email after all. Rather, its a product people might use on occasion, when exchanging information that is particularly sensitive.

For all regular emails that dont contain sensitive information, people could still use regular email, he proposed. But when people want to make sure information remains confidential, thats when theyll use LedgerMail.

In this sense, LedgerMail shares more DNA with encrypted messaging services like Signal or Telegram (neither of which require a blockchain, by the way) than it does with Gmail or Yahoo!.

Ultimately, the problems Pingala is aiming to solve are genuine ones. All internet users deserve to be shielded from the intrusions of Big Tech, and they also deserve to be protected from the army of cybercriminals in their inboxes.

However, the scale at which the company is proposing to solve these problems is microscopic; with the various caveats and limitations, LedgerMail wont even make a dent. Its the best bad idea Ive heard this year.

Go here to read the rest:

Email over blockchain: The best bad idea I've heard this year - Techradar

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

You're reading Entrepreneur Middle East, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media.

Alex Lemberg is the CEO of Nimbus, a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) regulated ecosystem that offers a variety of revenue streams to users on a single platform, and the first piece of advice that he offers to people in the UAE who are keen on making use of blockchain technology is to understand the revolutionary potential it brings to the market. By this, I mean the distributed ledger aspect of it, the smart contract aspect, the trust-less environment, and to treat it regardless of a specific region or any other region, he says. According to him, the significance of blockchain technology is that it breeds trust, in an environment that does not offer it, at least not in a format to which people are accustomed.

Nimbus

Alex Lemberg, CEO, Nimbus

"We, as an entrepreneur-based economy, or China, as a state-based economy, have rightfully relied on institutions, Lemberg explains. "If you compare the very first transaction that's ever been done, to any transaction that we do today, the one moving factor is that we don't necessarily know the people that we transact with. There's a certain level of insecurity, and a certain level of not having an established trusted relationship. So, we started to create institutions to bridge that one gap for any transaction that we do, whether it's law firms, accounting companies, or banking companies- these institutions played a tremendous role."

However, with the advent of blockchain and smart contracts which cannot be manipulated or hacked, Lemberg believes that society is, for the first time ever, starting to move away from the absolute need for institutions of any kind to be a part of any transaction. Yet, Lemberg opines that blockchain will not eliminate institutions, but to the contrary, make them play a much larger role in it than the retail investor or the retail participant. "That's just how it is, because they simply have way too much experience and way too much liquidity, he says. This is a whole new technology for both the institution and the retail investor, and now, the only difference is that the retail investor does not have to wait for the institution to catch up.

Lemberg goes on to note that the retail investor can now choose to operate outside of an institution, and hence start participating in deals much earlier, whether it's initial public offering-based, staking-based, investment-based or lending-based. "So, we can either go through an institution and pay a smaller fee, or we can actually do this on our own, he says. "Now, why is that so important? It's important, because institutions over the years really have stopped innovating. Now, it doesn't mean that we have stopped spending on technology or process innovation (banks do innovate), but because of the regulatory environment, the amount of innovation that they can actually produce is very limited.

While a regulated institution will innovate only within a well-defined context, Lemberg points out that blockchain is able to enable a lot more of it, because we, as individuals, can now start creating smart contracts and projects, he says. So, the innovation that's going to come from that world is going to get adopted, because it doesn't have to rely on an institution to make its way to the marketplace, but on that guy or girl working in the basement to create it. They now can actually put it onto the chain, instead of having to convince an institution to do it for them.

According to Lemberg, the significance of blockchain as a technology lies in the level of innovation and market access that it offers, which has never been seen before. "It certainly will never be able to be regulated to the extent that the regulators would want, he adds. "But at the same time, what's going to happen, I believe, is that institutions will pick up on those innovations. They can't do it on their own. They'll have that innovation put into a framework that will be mature and backed by the mature institution. And the ones that do deserve to sustain the marketplace will stay in the marketplace."

Lembergs Malta-registeredenterprise Nimbus, a decentralized finance platform that offers peer-to-peer lending/staking and off-exchange (the ability to exchange cryptocurrency off the exchange) is designed to grasp the power of this new potential. Nimbus two main advantages, Lemberg explains, are in eliminating fees and being protected from hackers, as it does not hold the currency in any physical state. The future trajectory of his business will remain in decentralized finance, he explains, but the Nimbus team will focus more on working with regulators in order to create more stringent governance processes within the companys compliance processes in certain regions, starting with knowing your client (KYC) rules, anti-money laundering (AML) rules, and starting to register.

Source: Nimbus

When explaining that the companys plan also includes conducting use case studies for leveraging blockchain technology as well as non-fungible token (NFT) based technology within the sectors that people actually understand, Lemberg admits that the biggest obstacle he currently faces is in their actual adoption. Its because we care about the adoption of the actual technology overall, not necessarily a specific product, he says. "What matters is that people begin to use and track this technology on a daily basis. One of the difficulties of doing it by only providing financial securitized products and complex financial products and models is that when you're looking for a technology to get adoption, you have to teach people what is blockchain, what is cryptocurrency, what are smart contracts, NFTs, and so on. Then, you have to teach them what a complex financial product is.

To prove his point, Lemberg explains that peer-to-peer lending has enjoyed wide acceptance, mainly because it is an easy to understand concept for people. Inspired by that, Nimbus aims to thus use its case studies about the technologies that it offers to enter the regulated environment, and help banking institutions to participate in this new world. As a company that wants to drive adoption, well do this by actually solving fundamental issues in several different categories, several different industries, and especially industries that people use every day, he says. "It's easier to create adoption participation from the end user, when they know the end product. And now, all they have to really learn is how to open up a wallet and how to fund an account. Thats our goal in the company- to get as many people onto this technology, and to help the industries that everyone uses and loves to adopt these technologies, despite their certain fundamental issues. In parallel, we look to make a very strong foothold in the financial space, as well as the decentralized finished space.

Another area that Lemberg is interested in promoting is decentralized finance (DeFi) for SMEs in the fashion sector, who are known to often struggle to get funding from classical financial institutions, as they dont satisfy the large number of factors that are checked as a risk assessment process. "DeFi might not substitute the bank as an intermediary needed to process transactions, but it might substitute it as a source of permissionless financing, Lemberg notes. "However, if a company chooses DeFi in order to get a loan, it means that this company already uses cryptocurrency, and thus, it can transfer funds across the world in a fast, secure, cheap, and transparent way, while keeping a close track of its financial operations.

One more benefit of DeFi is that it enables highly profitable companies to increase that profit through a lending mechanism, such as his Nimbus platform. "Fashion companies performing profitably might use the excessive profit to provide direct loans to other DeFi market participants, and at the same time, differentiating their sources of income and receiving even more profit, thus increasing volume in their primary operations, Lemberg says. Platforms like Nimbus, he adds, open up cross-border action, because cryptocurrency and the ability to directly swap from one token to another bring more liquidity to a company, along with the ability to use different products and services at the same time and without any visit to centralized entities.

DeFi is also a good avenue to consider also when a fashion company decides to move its production or expand it to another country, Lemberg says, where it usually does not have any credit rating. "Nimbus might help here, since there is no definition of borders for DeFi protocols, you can use the platform as a source of finance to cover the costs of expansion abroad, he says. "Nimbus can also be used as a royalty and tax payment automated system. For example, fashion brands can use Nimbus as an automatic royalty payment system for designers, meaning that designers who created a design for shoes/suit/clothes might create an NFT token locked up under their name, and receive automatic royalties paid to them for their design being used by a fashion brand.

Source: Nimbus

And the list of other possible uses of Nimbus expands grows more. Another case might be near-field communication (NFC) chips, which are devices integrated into the design of a cloth/shoe, in order for blockchain to gather, track, and organize different types of information, Lemberg adds. "This information might be how the logistics of products are organized, how much time does it take for a piece of clothes/shoes to reach a shop or a warehouse. Also, it can be used to track other personal metrics, such as, for example, related to shoes, steps, time or location of usage and gather relevant big data."

Lembergs expertise and understanding of both the business process and the use of technologies to maintain a streamlined, user-friendly environment comes from his time working as a business analyst on Wall Street since 1992, which included stints at Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Barclays Capital, CIBC, Bank of America Securities, and Credit Suisse. Over all these years, he has become known as an expert in data visualization, big data, and artificial intelligence for big companies, and in that sense, his most significant piece of advice for entrepreneurs is to make it a point to make use of the aforementioned technologies to their benefit, starting now. More importantly, don't entirely rely on external consultancy companies that come in, but start initiating programs in your organization for data literacy," he adds. "That means that everyone in the team and the organization should not look at information anymore in a very static way. Every time they touch a piece of information or generate some form of data, they have to look at the generation or the act of generation of that data with the end goal, which should be creating some form of business intelligence tool or data visualization tool that the company can leverage internally in that specific department, and more so by associating all those data points across the organization."

Following this approach, Lemberg concludes, will allow business leaders to see more positive interactions and benefits for their different processes and departments. "You're going to be able to make much faster decisions, and those decisions are going to be a lot more accurate. So, that stamps for that one," he says.

Related:How Blockchain Is Set To Transform The Healthcare Sector

TREP TALK: Nimbus CEO Alex Lembergs Tips For Entrepreneurs In The Blockchain Space

1. Make your blockchain business meaningful Whenever you start up your first business, select use cases and solutions that are specific and meaningful, so do not do just a project that's going to be wrapped up in a lot of marketing in order to just drive awareness. That's where most of the failure has taken place in the blockchain space today.

2. Hire the right legal consultants You need to make sure that the use case of what you are going after, or that the solution you're looking to provide, can be done in the jurisdictions in which you plan to work. Certainly, you'll find some jurisdictions in which you cannot do anything, but in the end, that should not necessarily be a major factor in providing the solution that you want to give to the world. So, legal compliance and regulatory compliance- get that very early.

3. Prioritize business intelligence Make business intelligence, data, visualization, machine learning, predictive analytics, and in general, reporting, the foundational core of what you're doing, and make sure that you support data literacy across your organization. Leverage business intelligence from day one all the way through to the end of your project, both for internal purposes and for client-facing or any other external purpose, so that you can present some level of transparency to whoever you're dealing with.

4. Have pride in doing things by yourself This space isn't just decentralizing innovation, but its also decentralizing the need to do things on your own, in any capacity. I would highly recommend that you get partners quickly early. Everyone wants to network, but network with a purpose, and actually help each other. If you want to succeed and grow very quickly, you'll be able to do that only by leveraging other people who are already in the space in a particular region.

5. Stay focused One of the difficulties with blockchain is that it gives you the ability to really do almost anything, and so, it's going to give you a lot of options in terms of use cases to go after and how, and so on. Youre going to find yourself in a position where everything sounds amazing, and whether you're slapping in an NFT on a game, on financial products, on commodity products, and you're going to end up with a lot of ideas, especially when you start going to these events. But, if you're just starting out, pick one use case, and don't let yourself get distracted from it, but make sure that you stay focused, that your team is focused and get back to other use cases only once the ones that you have started with are actually running successfully.

Related:Startup Spotlight: Blockchain-Powered Platform AKcess Launches In Kuwait

The rest is here:

Nimbus Founder Alex Lemberg On The Power Of Blockchain To Create A Society In Which Everyone Is Empowered - Entrepreneur

Ubisoft, one of the worlds largest video game companies responsible for creating popular franchise games such as Assassins Creed, Far Cry and For Honor hosted its Q2 earnings call this week, where blockchain was a key topic of discussion.

Alongside reporting a 15% increase in unique active players in the first half of the year compared with 2020, and the fact that Assassins Creed Valhalla has become the second most profitable game in the companys history, the French firms CEO, Yves Guillemot, also expressed intentions for investment in and adoption of blockchain-centric gaming companies on the platform.

Despite making notable advancements in the space such as the funding of Animoca Brands, owner of Ethereum-based metaverse game The Sandbox Guillemot stated that the platform is in early-stage research and development.

Ubisoft became a validator node on the Tezos network in April, a channel node operator on the Aleph.im network in July and a founding member of Blockchain Game Alliance, a coalition to encourage the adoption of the two sectors.

Frdrick Duguet, chief financial officer of Ubisoft, spoke highly of the potential impacts blockchain technology could have on the gaming industry:

Related:Gaming giant Ubisoft joins Aleph.im as core channel node operator

Fellow gaming corporation Valve recently became embroiled in mainstream headlines in the aftermath of its unpopular announcementbanning all crypto, blockchain and nonfungible token (NFT) games and content from its Steam marketplace, stating its belief that the assets have no intrinsic value.

In response to this prohibition, digital advocacy group Fight for the Future supported by the Blockchain Game Alliance, Enjin and 26 additional blockchain game projects published an open letter calling for the corporation to pivot on its decision, stating that decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and NFTs can foster the advancement of decentralized, democratic, interactive, player focused systems.

Read more here:

Ubisoft will seek to invest in and create blockchain games - Cointelegraph

A couple of years ago, I started researching cryptocurrencies. I didn't understand the ins and outs, so I haven't invested any money in tokens. During the course of my research, however, I discovered a game on the internet called Splinterlands.

It's a card-based strategy game involving hundreds of monsters, including vampires, maggots, dragons, a giant eyeball, pirates, robots, sharks, ghosts, ice soldiers, and so forth. I started playing for free.

image source: Splinterlands

After a while, I paid $10 to gain access to the entire library of monsters. It also meant I could win cards for keeps.

The cards are non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that reside on the Hive blockchain. What's really cool is that you can't lose your cards. And you don't have to spend any cash in the game if you don't want to. So Splinterlands is a risk-free and entertaining way to learn about crypto and the blockchain while earning NFT assets.

My cost basis is still $10. And my monster cards have dramatically appreciated in value.

I've been playing for almost two years, and in the past several months, I've started paying attention to how much my crypto assets in the game are worth. Here's the rundown:

July -- $2,000

August -- $5,000

September -- $12,000

October -- $17,000

(Actually, my cards are now worth about $16,000. My overall in-game assets are worth $17,000 because I've added roughly another $1,000 in crypto winnings.)

Splinterlands recently introduced its own cryptocurrency -- Splintershards (CRYPTO:SPS). One SPS token is now trading for about $0.57. I've been awarded over 2,000 coins, based on my assets in the game. The company has 3 billion coins, and will release many of them to players every day during the next five years.

So now I'm a crypto owner despite myself. I would actually own more SPS, except I keep exchanging the tokens for the in-game currency, Dark Energy Crystals, so I can buy more cards. I think that's where the true value of Splinterlands resides.

The game itself is attracting more players, which in turn increases demand for the assets in it. So these NFT cards have utility. You don't just look at them or think about them. You usethem to battle other players. And by doing so, you can win more assets. And the more assets you own, the more assets you can win. It's a virtuous cycle.

Of course, you can lose, too. So far I've had over 24,000 battles, and I've lost at least 10,000 times. But the cool thing is that you only lose your pride. The cards are yours to keep.

image source: Splinterlands

I suspect that part of the reason my cache of cards has gained in value so quickly is that it's early in this game's lifecycle. Splinterlands was started in 2018. The vast majority of people have never heard of it, and its marketing is almost all via word-of-mouth.

In the past week, I've mentioned Splinterlands on Facebook, told family and friends about it, told my bartender about the game, and mentioned it to a waitress. I've yet to bring it up to a person who had heard about it.

Demand for the cards is escalating as more and more people start playing the game. Periodically the website is brought down briefly for maintenance because so many people are joining and playing. Splinterlands already has players from around the world, although right now, most of them are crypto and blockchain enthusiasts.

Further, the mechanics of the game causes the supply of cards to shrink. When Splinterlands introduces a card, it only gets a single digital "print run." (This is all electronic, so there's no real ink involved.) When you win a card, it's a level 1 monster. Players combine multiple cards to level them up, making their creatures more powerful. This has the effect of removing cards from circulation and making those that are left more valuable.

You see that ugly, tentacled brute pictured above -- the giant one that's about to eat a shark? That's "The Gorlodon," an epic death monster. To upgrade it to level 2, I had to acquire three additional cards, and then unite them. So the total number of Gorlodon cards available will shrink over time. Right now, there are only 6,861 Gorlodon cards in circulation. On third-party sites, a single Gorlodon card now sells for $17.

image source: Splinterlands

According to PeakMonsters, Splinterlands now averages 3 million transactions every day, and almost 10 million battles, with 400,000 players from around the world. And 13,000 new players are joining every day.

To meet the rising demand created by this dramatic increase in players, Splinterlands periodically introduces new monsters. A new deck, Chaos Legion, will be introduced next month. This will add 80 more monsters to the arena, and increase the total number of cards by 75 million. These cards will be quite cheap at first, allowing newbies the opportunity to acquire many monsters and level them up. Over time, as these cards become scarce, they should increase in value.

Right now there are about 400 different monsters in the game. How big can this universe get? At a certain point too many monsters might make gameplay unwieldy. So far, that hasn't been a problem.

Splinterlands is hugely entertaining and hard to put down. Last Christmas, I got a new Sony PlayStation. I haven't taken it out of the box yet, in part because this cheap internet game is taking up most of the time I have for video games. Aside from the fun of it, the potential money-making aspect is what makes Splinterlands really dynamic.

I should note that I haven't sold any of my cards for dollars yet, so I don't know how liquid this market actually is. Demand is definitely spiking, but whether some of these ultra-rare cards will actually change hands at the lofty asking prices on third-party sites is a question. Nonetheless, my cost basis on this "investment" is still just $10. It's a fun way to waste your time, and you might not be wasting your time at all.

This article represents the opinion of the writer, who may disagree with the official recommendation position of a Motley Fool premium advisory service. Were motley! Questioning an investing thesis -- even one of our own -- helps us all think critically about investing and make decisions that help us become smarter, happier, and richer.

See the original post:

I've Spent $10 So Far on This Blockchain Game. My Assets in It Have Spiked to $17,000 - Motley Fool

SINGAPORE - Cross-border payments, which typically take three to five days to clear, can now be processed within a few minutes using a new service being tried in a pilot programme.

Partior, a blockchain technology provider for payments clearing and settlement, was formed by Temasek and DBS and JP Morgan banks to test the initiative.

It managed to achieve end-to-end settlements in Singdollar and US dollar in under two minutes, all thanks to blockchain technology, which allows a network to move and validate information simultaneously.

Partior was conceived during Project Ubin, a collaborative project between the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the financial industry to explore the use of blockchain and distributed ledger technology for clearing and settlement services.

Partior chief executive Jason Thompson told The Straits Times that the instantaneous exchange of information is akin to "a data handshake", which is very different from what is happening elsewhere.

Moving currencies between bank accounts in different countries can take anywhere from three to five business days as the transfer is typically processed by an intermediary and the fees can be costly.

With global cross-border transactions expected to reach US$156 trillion (S$210 trillion) next year, Mr Thompson said Partior is "aggressively seeking to disrupt the global payments industry" and to address the pain points that plague it like slow settlement speeds and costly transaction fees.

"Our next milestone will be to engage with a broader group of settlement banks and their participating bank ecosystem to increase our currency coverage. We are aiming to cover the top 15 currencies in the world and will be onboarding banks and currencies in a measured fashion," he added.

Mr Lim Soon Chong, group head of global transaction services at DBS, said at Partior's launch last week: "In the present, we have over US$100 trillion of global payments characterised by inefficient clearing and inefficient settlements."

That has generated demand for instantaneous payments, saidMr Lim.

The high efficiency and transparency of blockchain technology has triggered a wave of innovation across the banking sector.

Mr Praveen Raina, OCBC Bank's head of group operations and technology, said: "Blockchain and decentralised ledger technology have the potential to revolutionise elements of banking. We have implemented many blockchain solutions in the cross-border payments and trade finance space.

"But blockchain's use has extended even further in the last few years, with environmental, social, and governanceapplications becoming apparent."

Partior is also an official partner of the MAS' Global CBDC (central nank digital currency) Challenge.

MAS chief fintech officer Sopnendu Mohanty said: "Globally, there is strong interest among central banks in the use of CBDCs to streamline transaction processing and make financial systems more efficient, transparent and cost-effective.

"The Global CBDC challenge is an important milestone to explore... retail CBDC solutions in partnership with the international community."

Go here to read the rest:

No more waiting days for global transactions to clear, thanks to blockchain - The Straits Times

Online employment-oriented platform LinkedIn has reported demand for employees with experience in crypto or blockchain is on the rise across many companies.

According to a Wednesday report from LinkedIn editor Devin Banerjee, data from the platforms Economic Graph team shows job postings in the United States that included terms like blockchain or crypto grew 615% compared to those in August 2020. The data shows that while many jobs with companies already focused on crypto and blockchain contributed to this rise, traditional financial institution J.P. Morgan was among the top employers for roles in the digital asset space.

The LinkedIn team added that financial services firms were expected to hire more than three times as many staff with experience in digital assets than in 2015. J.P. Morgans job postings as of July included positions focusing on its global blockchain development efforts blockchain-focused software developers, engineers, marketers and auditors. The company posted more than 30 openings for its operations in the U.S. in a single week.

The opportunities in digital assets are plentiful, said Roman Regelman of the Bank of New York Mellon. We can now attract talent in a very different way.

Related: Major job postings from the crypto space in 2021

Other major companies not directly involved in crypto or finance have also posted jobs related to crypto space. In February, major online retailer Amazon said it was seeking a software development manager in Mexico to help launch a new payment product. In May, Apple said it preferred someone with experience in alternative payment providers including cryptocurrency for a business development manager position.

More:

LinkedIn reports crypto and blockchain job listings have surged 615% since August 2020 - Cointelegraph