BLOCK::BLOCK Weekly Roundup - Issue #15

Square Enix, one of the largest game publishers in the world, acknowledged the importance of blockchain gaming and NFTs for the future of the company in a November 5th results briefing. Everyone is waiting to see which companies lead the charge.

The non-fungible market is showing good signs of consolidation and growth as the number of unique NFT buyers has increased. Total volume may have declined a bit, but the arrival of new players in the space and the rise of blockchain-based games are still causing the market to flourish in new ways!

Major video game publisher Electronic Arts sees NFTs and blockchain-based games as the future of the industry. Not a surprise, but a welcome addition to the growing list NFT supporters in the industry. Square Enix has some competition…

Solana Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners and FTX launch $100M gaming fund. The funds will be used to invest in gaming studios, technology companies and other projects “at the intersection of blockchain and gaming". What will this lead to? Our bet is on a better metaverse, of course!

NFT.NYC, a gathering for nonfungible token enthusiasts, offered a taste of a crypto-filled future. One taste appeared in the form of a yacht. You can guess who was on board 🙉

Move over Facebook, Microsoft is entering the metaverse race now too. New 3D avatars and immersive virtual spaces are coming to Microsoft Teams in 2022. No more rough early morning video calls!

The community points of roughly 80,000 users from two subreddits have been moved to the Rinkeby Testnet on the Arbitrum network. Reddit engineer, Rahul, highlights the social media platform’s efforts to improve user interaction through various cryptocurrency initiatives.

The Ethereum Name Service, which controls the decentralized domains on Ethereum, announced a pivot to a decentralized governance model. You can claim your ENS now if you’ve been holding onto that sweet .eth domain. The token already has a fully diluted market cap of $3.1 billion!

“When I started ENS as a side-project at the Ethereum Foundation back in 2016, I never imagined it would be as successful and widely used as it is today - and we’re only just getting started. None of it would have been possible without the help of some incredible people.”

“Are Play to Earn games the future? I don’t think so. They’re the past. PtE is not the future of gaming powered by web3. They’re unsustainable as currently presented. So before investing there, perhaps it’s worth thinking about it a bit, same way that I examined NFTs. 1/🧵”

“The entire gaming industry will change forever. The world will change for streamers and players. Play to earn will disrupt it all. Game economies that reward the player will go viral. Large gaming studios that are ignoring this will regret it later and panic. Blockchain or die.”

“I found my spirit animal on @AxieInfinity.”