Hello 👋
Welcome to the 18th edition of Sfermion’s Collider where we highlight the latest & greatest news in the world of web3 and gaming!
Weekly, we aim to drop a curated list of the most exciting stories & updates that we believe are enabling the emergence of the metaverse.
If you're looking forward to reading this edition of Sfermion’s Collider, please don't forget to subscribe below and follow Sfermion on Twitter to get the latest. Check out our Seam (💰) bio here!
Web3 Updates
Silicon Valley Bank | Shutting Down Operations : Silicon Valley Bank was just closed by the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) was appointed as the receiver.
Silvergate | Shutting Down Operations : The company said Wednesday it intends to “wind down operations” and voluntarily liquidate the bank, calling it “the best path forward.” “The bank’s wind down and liquidation plan includes full repayment of all deposits,” Silvergate said.
Binance | US DOJ Appeals Voyager Asset Acquisition : The U.S. Department of Justice appealed Binance.US’ billion-dollar acquisition of Voyager’s assets roughly one day after the deal was approved by New York’s bankruptcy court.
Coinbase | Wallet-as-a-Service Feature Live : Coinbase launches Wallet as a Service, a scalable and secure set of wallet infrastructure APIs for deploying fully customizable on-chain wallets, making it easier for any company or brand to seamlessly onboard their users to web3.
Polygon | Web3 Zk Identity Tools : The Polygon ID team announces 4 tools have been released in the Identity Infrastructure space to build out Polygon’s decentralized Zk ID solution. Polygon ID can be used in a range of use-cases, including usage in KYC programs, e-commerce onboarding, password-less login, used by banks as a tool to issue under-collateralized loans, and DAOs.
UniSwap | Mobile Wallet : Uniswap launches a completely self-custodial, open-sourced mobile app for DeFi users looking for native mobile support and an enhanced UX. The wallet is now available as a limited early release through Apple TestFlight.
Amazon | NFT/Web3 Plans and Real World Asset Possibility
Hermes | Wants Control Over Metabirkin NFTs
9GAG | PFP & Related NFT Trademark Filing
Getty Images & Candy Digital | NFT Partnership
Bridgesplit (💰) | ElixirNFT New App Live
Sleepagotchi (💰) | Android Launch : Sleepagotchi has officially been released on the Google Play store worldwide! Download now to join the excitement and start improving your sleeping habits.
Tessera | Escher Fine Arts Platform : The team behind Tessera just announced the launch of Escher, a new platform focused on fine art editions. Set to go live on March 30th, Escher will offer a new singular and organized experience around the browsing, buying, and selling of digitally editioned art.
Tensor | Season 1 Airdrop : Blur-like marketplace on SOL kicks off their season 1 token airdrop campaign following a $3m raise announcement from an assortment of investors.
SodiumFi | P2P & Peer-to-Pool NFT Lending Protocol Live
DefiLlama | New Browser Extension
Binance | Bicasso AI NFT Generator
Gaming Updates
Avalanche & TSM | Blitz App Subnet : Blitz (a data-driven, AI-powered coaching platform) is the ultimate platform to drive a free, fun, and effective way for every player to improve. TSM will host Avalanche-branded tournaments on the Blitz Subnet to help gamers improve their skills with performance insights and learning tools. Read more here.
Epic Games Store Big Plans for 2023
Sony | Eyeing Potential Take-Two Acquisition
CS:GO 2 | Potential for Beta in Near Future
Immutable (💰) & Warner Bros | Web3 Golf Game
Pokemon | Early Evidence for Web3 Plans Via Web3 Job Posting(s)
Immutable (💰) & Mineloader | GoG Team-Up : Immutable Games Studio announced this Monday a new partnership with Premier Developer Mineloader. Their mission will be to deliver the highly anticipated Web3 RPG Guild of Guardians. Mineloader will work mainly on the game’s core gameplay loop and art. The studio will also assist with various elements of the in-game economy, particularly web2-focused aspects. In the past, Mineloader has teamed up with big names like Ubisoft, 2K Games, EA, Sony, and Square Enix.
The Believer Company | Says “F*ck No” to NFTs : The Believer Company, a new studio founded by former Riot Games executives that raised $55m, is saying "no f*cking thanks" to in-game NFTs despite major Web3-friendly backers.
Square Enix | Symbiogenesis Website/Discord Launch : Square Enix’s first NFT experience Symbiogenesis is launched their teaser site and Discord on March 9th. They also included more details about the project’s schedule, notably its NFT drop.
NPixel | Metapixel Gran Saga community test planned for March 24th - 27th
Nefta (💰) & Block Born | Tezos Integration : Nefta, a web3 technology platform, has announced a new partnership with blockchain gaming launchpad Block Born, providing support for NFT minting and a white label marketplace. Nefta's whitelabel suite and NFT minting tools will be integrated into Block Born’s platform, giving developers easy access to tools for developing successful web3 games on the Tezos Blockchain.
Vulcan Studios | Rebranding & preparing to scale the blockchain gaming world to the masses
Among Us surpasses 500m downloads since launch
Home Depot | Building metaverse experience for kids on Roblox
Chain Monsters | Epic Games Release
Sandbox | 1m $SAND March Festival : The festival will feature 30 activities and quests, each offering completion rewards such as $SAND, NFTs, memorabilia, and Mystery Boxes, as well as individual experience rewards. The festival will run from March 8th to April 4th, and boasts an incredible prize pool of over 1,000,000 $SAND.
Research & Interesting Reads
NFTBank (💰) | Unboxing Lab - BendDAO #6 - Full Financial Statements
Konvoy | A Consumer’s Digital Footprint
Galaxy | History of Gaming and Web3 Future
Alex Gedevani (Delphi) | NBA TopShot Case Study
Naavik | Understanding the Rise of ACG Aesthetics in Gaming
Polygon | 2023 Will be the Year of Blockchain Games
Ancient8 | Polygon: A Game Changer for Web3 Gaming and NFTs
BalthazarDAO | February 2023 NFT Marketplace Update
Mint Ventures | Limit Break and Its Digi NFTs: A True Web3 Gaming Paradigm Shift
NFT Drops & Updates
SuperMojo (💰) | Justin Bua NFT project : Justin BUA’s The BUA Lab and Supermojo, a platform for easier NFT purchases, announced a collaboration of digital art to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Hip-Hop and mark the beginning of the BUAverse, a metaverse which will champion for web3 education. This collection is part of Ripple’s $250M Creator Fund, in which artist and entrepreneur Justin Bua will be the first artist to launch his physical and digital collection on XRPL. This first collection in the BUAverse will consist of 1,000 uniquely designed characters and launch during SXSW on March 16. This NFT collection will function as an access pass to the digital world created by BUA. To be launched in the future, the BUAverse metaverse experience will give NFT holders the chance to receive a physical sculpture of NFTs, plus other digital and real-world perks. Supermojo is partnering with BUA, allowing users to purchase an NFT with only a credit card giving artists and creators the ability to mint NFTs on their own website, creating a better purchase experience for fans and collectors. Be sure to follow Justin Bua and Supermojo on Twitter for more updates!
Petaverse (💰) | Genesis Pets Drop : Petaverse is gearing up for their genesis web3 digital intelligent pets drop on 3/13 - 7, 777 NFTs for 0.15eth each on Ethereum. Built by a steller team on an impressive tech stack, holders will get immediate utility (meme-o-tron) that only grows over time. Lots to be excited about here for current and future pet owners! Follow along on twitter for more details as they come :)
MetaMundo (💰) | MetaMundo Avatars : MetaMundo recently launched their avatar collection on 3/6 which are creator-made Avatars that are metaverse-compatible and Vtubing-ready. Each avatar is a VRM file and is minted as a unique 1 of 1 NFT. Follow MetaMundo on twitter for more info!
BridgeSplit (💰) | Elixir Ovols Ordinals : The BridgeSplit team teases they will be inscribing a limited collection of Ovols on the Bitcoin blockchain. Check out their new app launch and follow on twitter to grab some sweet ordinals!
Limit Break (💰) | DigiDaigaku Dragon Essence Live
Claire Silver | AI Artist Signs with WME and was heavily misinformed on the recently announced Louvre Collection, thus choosing to pull out.
Cryptopunks are now tradable on Blur
Creature World | Teases Chapter 2
Yuga Labs’s TwelveFold auction raised 735 BTC
Notable Raises - $179.3m across 13 deals
Matchday (💰) | $21m raise : Matchday, a soccer-centric web3 gaming startup, announced today that it has raised $21 million in seed funding to develop a suite of games—with legendary soccer player Lionel Messi’s venture capital firm onboard. Courtside Ventures, Greylock, HackVC, Capricorn Investment Group, Sfermion, and Horizons Ventures also participated in the round. Matchday has an official license from FIFA, the governing body behind the World Cup, as well as the FIFPRO players association. Matchday’s Chief Gaming Officer Sebastien de Halleux previously served as an executive at the major game publisher Electronic Arts (EA), where he worked on the company's own FIFA game series and the Madden NFT franchise.
The Believer Company | $55m raise : The Believer Company, founded by game veterans from Riot Games and other companies, has raised $55m to create a new game studio in Los Angeles. Lightspeed Led the round.
Kresus | $25m raise : Kresus, a San Fran-based Web3 app that lets users create mint, manage, and store digital assets, raised $25m in Series A funding. The round was led by Liberty City Ventures.
Hexa | $20.5m raise : 3D asset management firm Hexa secures $20.5m to shake up the metaverse, working with retailers to enable customers to browse and shop in VR and AR. Founded in 2018, Hexa works with such notable clients as Macy’s, Logitech, Unity, and Crate & Barrel. Point72 Ventures led the round.
Toku | $20m raise : Toku, a token-based payroll and tax compliance project, has raised $20m in a funding round led by Blockchain Capital. The investments will accelerate Toku’s global expansion and scale the platform to better fit the entire crypto ecosystem.
Rebel Girls | $8m raise : Media brand Rebel Girls raises $8m in a Penguin Random House-led funding round to expand to television, theater, and the metaverse and reach 50 million girls by 2025.
Redemption Games | $7m raise : Redemption Games has spun out of AppLovin and it has raised a new round of $7 million as an independent game studio. The round was led by Play Ventures and included Bitkraft, Merit Circle DAO, Orange DAO, and a few game industry friends. Redemption Games is working on new games that are looking to bring emerging technologies to the mass market, including a new approach to digital collectibles and AI.
Cubist | $7m raise : Cubist closes a $7m seed round led by Polychain Capital. Cubist makes workeb3 development efficient, seamless, and safe through a modular set of security-focused dev tools.
EtherMail | $4m raise : Web3 email solution EtherMail received $4m in pre-Series A funding led by Draper Associates. EtherMail wants to enable encrypted wallet-to-wallet communication — where users will get rewarded for reading emails from companies. The startup is implementing a paywall solution that uses its EMT token to help protect users' inboxes by asking companies to pay for the right to invade them.
Tangle | $4m raise : Absurd:Joy has raised $4m for its Tangle platform which provides a virtual workplace for remote teams, led by Qualcomm Ventures.
REPUBLIK | $3.5m raise : Web3 content creation platform REPUBLIK raised $3.5m in its seed funding round. REPUBLIK offers a platform where content creators can connect with their audiences and utilize built-in smart contracts to handle monetization processes.
Tensor | $3m raise : Tensor, a Solana-centric NFT trading platform, has raised $3m in a seed round led by Placeholder.
Nealthy | $1.3m raise : Nealthy, a web3 startup for investing in NFTs and cryptocurrency has announced it raised $1.3m in pre-seed funding. The platform offers index tokens that enable investors to enter Web3 markets quickly and worry-free.
Mo & Andrew's Curated
BasedAF (💰) | How the Metaverse Destroyed My Marriage :
Top Tweets
Think about entertainment value as a viewer let alone player.
A new pvp experience is upon us…
17.2K
on what's next1/17
1/22
1. It was always about the art
2. And gaming and access
3. Not the NFT
4. It’s a new canvas. A vertical. Incredibly meaningful. Not the whole picture.
5. Digital asset ownership is the thing
6. Royalties are secondary (puns!)
7.…
Introducing viem – a TypeScript Interface for Ethereum with a focus on stability, developer experience, bundle size, and performance. An alternative to Ethers.js & web3.js.
↳ viem.sh
Gaming / NFT Tweets
Total sales: 735.71 BTC ($16,506,095.28)
Highest sale: 7.11 BTC ($159,517.12)
Avg sale: 2.55 BTC ($57,210.78)
Lowest sale: 2.25 BTC ($50,480.10)
I met a lot of friendly, talented and passionate people with different models/approaches to Web3 gaming... no one is better or than the other, just sharing observations.
...keep reading for a free surprise
Is this the moment we've all been waiting for?
(1/16)
Are these spot on? Or way off?
What else should go in here?
Yuga is driving mass adoption to gaming by providing opportunities for skillful players to earn.
There's many reasons why it did so well but their tiny supply is a huge factor
There's only 790 NFTs in circulation
Low supply mints are the new trend & often the best choice even if u want to grow a large community
Let's look at why
[1] Over 400 brands
[2] 30,000 DAU
[3] 200+ Global Agency & Studios
AVATARS ARE LIVE ON METAMUNDO 
Avatars like you’ve never seen them before. 
Creator-made | Metaverse-compatible | Vtubing-ready | One-of-a-KindCheck out here: bit.ly/3SPG3fs
#InteroperableAvatars #VtubingPanel #Animaze #TheFutureOfAvatars
Legal / Regulatory Tweets
White House announces plan to add a 30% tax to energy used to mine $BTC or any other digital asset.
NYAG sues KuCoin and dubs $ETH a security.
Elizabeth Warren celebrates the Silvergate $SI bank run and liquidation.
Gensler pens op-ed and tweet…
President Biden calls to double capital gains tax from 20% to 40%.
If the House passes the bill, it could become law in a matter of weeks.
Alliance opposes the Digital Assets Regulation Act (DARA).
They let banks buy bonds with customer deposits.
Then they suddenly hiked rates to decadal highs.
The bonds they just sold got less valuable...overnight.
Anyone who trusted the Fed got rekt.
And now, so did their customers.
Random Tweets
Joe Rogan wants to right click save your NFTs.
Not even kidding.
Anyone who followed me last year knows this is true - @elonmusk can verify.
a team from osaka was able to reconstruct visual images from mri scan data using stable diffusion.
first row is the image presented to the test subject, second row is the reconstructed image from mri data.
wild.
According to Meta:
“We believe there’s an opportunity for a separate space where creators and public figures can share timely updates about their interests.”
BREAKING NEWSGMX WHALE UP MORE THAN 10 MILLION US DOLLARS ON HIS BITCOIN AND ETHEREUM SHORTS
HOLY FUCKING SHIT
After overproducing Pops that they can’t sell, Funko will attempt to save storage and warehousing fees by throwing about 3,000,000 Pops into a local landfill.
You hate to see it.
💰 = Sfermion Portfolio Company
Curated by @mopat1214 + @AndrewSteinwold
If you enjoyed reading this edition of Sfermion’s Collider, please subscribe below and follow Sfermion on Twitter to get the latest! Check out our Seam (💰) bio here :)
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Sfermion does not offer investment advice/analysis and makes no recommendations on how to act. Information regarding any company or investment in this Newsletter, including any links to information on our website, should not be viewed as an endorsement or recommendation of that company or investment for any purpose whatsoever. Any person receiving this Newsletter is encouraged to consult with their own financial advisor, or relevant personnel, before making any investment decision.