TL;DR

• Follow the Hustle and the Nexus Twitter accounts for the latest news.

• Web3 Gaming and Tech: SkyArk raises $15M, Hytopia moves to Arbitrum, Yuga Labs expands on Dookie Dash, 7 games holding their P2A event, Crypto Unicorns migrates to Xai, Ether releases a gamified staking program and more news.

• Macro Cryptocurrency News: ETH's Dencun upgrade, JP Morgan says ETH ETF approval is unlikely, date announced for the JUP airdrop, Chainlink teams up with Circle, and more news.

🎮 Web3 Gaming and Tech

• SkyArk raises $15M in a funding round led by Binance Labs.

  • Other NFT and gaming networks such as GuildFi and Breeder DAO also got involved in the round.

  • Recently, the company revealed the details of its mint: 8000 supply.

• Azuki announced they are working on an IP strategy, which includes anime, physical, and gaming.

  • In the same announcement, the team shared that they’re working on a hypercasual Beanz game.

• The Minecraft-like Web3 project Hytopia moves to the Arbitrum chain.

  • Furthermore, the team announced they will be having a node sale as well, inspired by XAI Games.

• Yuga Labs releases an expansion to Dookey Dash: Dookey Dash Unclogged.

  • The new version will have LiveOps, more customizability, and more ways to spend ApeCoin.

• Jave shares 7 games that are holding their P2A event this month.

  • Some of the games include Apeiron, Nifty Island, and Gomble Games.

• Explore the narrative of these Web3 casual games with this list by Helika.

  • Some of the games include Infinigods, Honeyland, and Play Ember.

• Raini Studios, which recently got acquired, is making changes to its $RST token.

  • Some of the most important changes include: 100M of $RST is moving from LP incentives to in-game incentives and the treasury vesting schedule changes from 1 to 2 years.

• Yellow Panther shares a deep dive into the Arbitrum gaming ecosystem.

  • The thread includes chains, publishers, and games building on the platform.

• Big Time player Morkai ranked first in the latest Big Time season and took home $450K+ in $BIGTIME tokens.

• Crypto Unicorns just announced that their new game Unicorn Party is available on the Play Store and App Store now.

  • Players can earn the $RBW token when playing.

  • Additionally, they just announced a migration to XAI Games. The token is up 41% after the news.

• Gamerbase, a gamified community management platform just opened its waitlist.

  • Apeiron is one of the first games that partnered with the platform.

• The Nifty Island Open Beta is up and running and P2A is underway.

  • There will be several waves in which players can collect $ISLAND tokens and different ways of earning them.

  

• PixelPals AI, Pixelmon’s second minigame, hosts a tournament with a $120K prize pool.

• Ether releases a gamified staking program, Ether Raids.

  • The team will be giving out $200K in prizes.

• Apeiron releases its P2A program, where players can earn $ANIMA.

  • So far it has been partnering with various games and communities to raise awareness.

  • If you want to get involved, Apeiron planets are trading on the Mavis Market. Check out our thread for more details on their complex NFT ecosystem.

• Gamestop bails on crypto gaming and discontinues its NFT marketplace. 

• The SOL game Nyan Heroes makes its debut on the Epic Store in anticipation of an upcoming airdrop.

• Lil Pudgy's floor price has surged by an impressive 172% in the last 30 days, securing its position as the top-performing NFT with a minimum volume of 1,000 ETH.

  • Meanwhile, the floor of Genesis Pudgies is now sitting at almost 18 Ethereum and may flip BAYC soon.

🕹️ Gaming Narrative Play

• We have come to a point where the play-to-airdrop (P2A) meta is becoming highly saturated. This means airdrops will be less effective as a means to generate attention and studios will look to try alternate ways of doing so.

• With the success of Xai nodes, MetaXSeed nodes, Shrapnel nodes, etc. we believe nodes will become increasingly more popular as a means to raise funds and replace the P2A meta.

🚀 Nexus Platform Countdown

Welcome to the eleventh edition of the newsletter! We hope the first three trading weeks of 2024 have been treating you well, at Nexus we’re still heads down working on the release of the platform (coming very very soon). In the meantime, this is how you can get involved:

• Get a Nexus Pass NFT for exclusive lifetime access, or

• Subscribe for $49/month to unlock the full potential (live at launch), or

• Use the free version (limited in features) of the platform

Don't miss out—follow our journey on Hustle's Twitter, YouTube channels, and Nexus Twitter.

📈 Macro Cryptocurrency News

• Ethereum’s core developers have implemented the Dencun upgrade, a prelude to the upcoming launch on the Ethereum mainnet, projected for sometime in Q1.

• J.P. Morgan thinks there’s less than a 50% likelihood of a spot Ethereum ETF approval by May.

• The Treasury and the IRS declare that businesses are not required to report specific transactions involving digital assets until relevant regulations are issued.

• Jupiter has at last established a date for the JUP airdrop and is teasing the release of a meme coin drop on the Solana platform.

• Chainlink teams up with Circle to allow cross-chain stablecoin transfers.

• The Klatyn Foundation and Finschia Foundation have jointly proposed a blockchain merger to establish web3 dominance in the Asian region.

• The SEC is willing to delay the trial of disgraced Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon, so that he can be extradited and attend.

🌟 Token Spotlight by Hustle

• Coin of the Week: $ROOT

• Market Cap: ~$107M

• What is ROOT? ROOT is the underlying L1 coin of Futureverse, which is an official partner of the Ready Player One IP, with plans to develop a metaverse. The Apple VR headset releasing soon might lead to a potential pump here, and the overall ROOT network. Additionally, Futureverse is heavily invested in AI (games), which is another promising development.

• Delve into Hustle's market wisdom with his “Daily Watchlist” and deep-dive analysis available on the TTOO Discord server and through his “In the Game" show. 

✍️ NFT of The Week

• Pick of the week: Worldwide Webb Land

• Why WorldWide Webb (WWB)?

  • Raised $10M in total.

  • Pushing the boundaries of AI usage in the game.

  • One of the OG projects that was popular back in the day.

  • Lots of upcoming developments.

• Utility: as of now there’s little utility to the Land NFTs, however, there are multiple rumors that it might change in the future. So, yes it is a risky play. But it seems unlikely the team wouldn’t want to bring more utility to holders.

• Catalysts:

  • WWB follows the narrative of being an OG project that has been building for the past years, has been relatively silent on social media, has yet to release a token, and is getting closer to a product launch. Overall, this makes for a strong recipe to see the collection gain traction soon.

• Note: whether the NFTs will receive better/more utility will be an important factor here of course.

🛠️ Nexus Updates Sneak Peek

Update of the week: The Crypto Page. This feature gives users a complete overview of the crypto market, allowing them to view important market stats and view the top performers, trending tokens, gainers, losers, and categories related to crypto coins

❝ 

Love what you guys are doing!

 ~ A Power Up Review.

See you next week!