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Venture capitalists are here for our Jpegs: a16z’s $7.6 billion bet
G’day, and welcome back to Decentra Daily, where we talk Jpegs and web3.
Market sentiment analysis: Yawn. Well nothing much has changed in the NFT market. Everything is still down, our blue chip indicator is the Bored Ape Yacht Club floor, which sits at 91 eth at the time of writing, with the Mutant Apes sitting just under 20 eth. Would you prefer 4.5 Mutants or 1 OG Ape? Trick question, we’d prefer both.
There is still money to be made in the market, with Goblintown being the main play of speculators currently. It has traded 6,400 eth in the matter of a week, with a floor price of 1.34. We don’t understand why, but FOMO is a hell of a drug.
Estimated read time: 3 minutes and 30 seconds
a16z doubles down on web3
Web3 games to keep an eye on
Highest purchases of the day
a16z increases their investment in web3 by $4.5B
When people are capitulating and giving up, it’s usually a great time to double down on your investment…….a16z has some big cojones (balls).
Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) is an American venture capital firm. You may have heard of them through twitter (like we did), when they led a funding round for Bored Ape Yacht Club, which totaled $450 million. After the funding was made public a16z changed their pfp to an ‘Ape’.
a16z Twitter
Well, a16z hasn’t stopped at Bored Apes, they got that hit of what web3 is, and now they are just degens like the rest of us! Just kidding, they are methodical, which makes their increased investment in web3 even more bullish. Here is an awesome report they did on the 2022 state of crypto.
A16z just announced their fourth round of funds raised at $4.5 billion, bringing their total raised funds to $7.6 billion. These funds are for investments in crypto and web3. Their reasoning is quite simple:
“We think we are now entering the golden era of web3. Programmable blockchains are sufficiently advanced, and a diverse range of apps have reached tens of millions of users. More importantly, a massive wave of world-class talent has entered web3 over the last year. They are brilliant and passionate and want to build a better internet.”
Ok, well I just like buying funny looking Jpegs, and FOMOing into tops, so I’m glad people more savvy than me are entering the space, I’ll be their exit liquidity.
Jokes aside, this news is positive, and a16z is investing in web3 startups in the following areas:
Web3 games
DeFi
Decentralized social media
Self-sovereign identity
Layer 1 and 2 infrastructure
Bridges
DAOs and governance
NFT communities
Privacy
Creator monetization
Regenerative finance
ZK proofs
Decentralized content and story creation
They aren’t mucking about, and with the global Non-Fungible Tokens market expected to grow from $3 billion in 2022 to 13.6 billion by 2027 at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 35%, we can see why VC’s are interested.
We will break down the above investment areas in depth in further articles. But today we will talk about some intriguing web3 games.
Web3 games that have the potential to go mainstream
Play to Earn (P2E) is becoming quite the buzz word, and rightfully so. It is a model of gaming where players can make money, or in-game tokens that can be traded for other crypto.
This marks a huge shift in decades of gaming from pay to play > to free to play with in-app purchases > to actual play to earn, and potential ownership of games and accessories through NFTs. A brave new world is coming, get Ready Player One.
Here are some games we’ve got our eye on and some quick explainers (Not financial advice):
Playable games
Pokemon style game. Where Axies are bred to create offspring, which can be sold in their NFT marketplace, and also used to form teams to battle other Axies.
The tokens earned in Axie are $SLP and $AXS. $SLP are the game’s main currency and used to breed Axies. $AXS are used as a governance token, and can also be used to breed.
This game is like a cutthroat Farmville. Filled with strategy, risk, losses and successes.
The NFTs in the ecosystem consist of sheep, wolves, and land. Currently wolves and sheep can both acquire $WOOL by active participation in the Cave Game. There is no current use for land (coming soon we believe).
$WOOL is the utility and governance token for the game. It will have various uses moving forward (e.g., breeding, cultivating resources etc.)
Think Neopets x Pokemon, where you feed your Cool Pets different items to make them evolve. Breeding, questing, battling, and building are all on the table.
The ecosystem includes Cool Cats, Cool Pets, and $MILK. You are able to stake your Cool Cats and Cool Pets for $MILK.
RPG gamers will love this game. If you ever played Final Fantasy Tactics then this game is for you. A voxelated P2E version.
Unlike the rest of the projects on our list you can play Voxies without actually owning one. Currently you can earn NFTs for playing as a reward, and soon you’ll be able to earn $VOXEL token, which is a token listed on major exchanges including Binance.
Unlike the rest of the projects on our list you can play Voxies without actually owning one. Currently you can earn NFTs for playing as a reward, and soon you’ll be able to earn $VOXEL token, which is a token listed on major exchanges including Binance.
Games in development
The Bored Ape Yacht Club game made with Improbable and Animoca.10,000+ players will be able to interact in the Otherside. This could be the Fortnite of blockchain gaming. $APE will also likely be plentiful.
It is yet to be seen how Otherside land, Kodas, OG Apes, Mutant Apes, and BAKC will all develop within this gaming platform.
PV is developing a portfolio of defi games, as well as a AAA game.
There are lots of NFTs in the PV ecosystem (PUNKS Comics, Metaheroes, Mintpasses, Planets etc.). These will all play into Pixel Vault in various ways, which are yet to be released.
The native tokens of the Pixel Vault ecosystem ($POW and $PUNKS) will be used to fuel the Pixel Vault gaming ecosystems.
Blockchain gaming is going to eat the world, gamers will soon love to own their gaming assets as NFTs, or even part of the actual game they play (through land, revenue etc.) We will be reviewing many blockchain/P2E games in-depth moving forward, so we can play and earn together!
Highest Purchases of the Day
Cryptoslam
@BoredApeYC #2664 - 199.99 eth
@BoredApeYC #591 - 122.9 weth
@BoredApeYC #5151 - 109 weth
@BoredApeYC #3230 - 105 weth
Bored Apes are still king in this NFT market.
Disclaimer: Nothing in this article/newsletter should be considered financial advice. The purpose is to inform readers of the current trends and news in the web3 space. We encourage every reader to do their own research and not act upon information put forth by Decentra Daily.