TL;DR

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

• Web3 gaming news: Delphi Ventures: largest gaming investment ever, RavenQuest mobile, Watbird WATCoin, HMSTR token, Tatsumeeko Telegram game, Monad x Sparkball, XAI's $10M ecosystem grant program, Smolbound: $6M raise, and more news.

• Macro news: Caroline 2 year sentence, Gary Gensler, potential Polymarket token, new economic policies, Japan interest rates, and more news.

🎮 Web3 Gaming and Tech

• Delphi Ventures announced they made their “largest gaming investment ever” in Gunzilla Games (Off the Grid)

  • OtG raised $90M+, has been in development for 5 years, and has 340 employees working on the game

• The Web3 MMORPG RavenQuest is coming to mobile (full-release)

  • RavenQuest recently gained traction through S1 of its P2A campaign and recently launched S2

• De:Lithe Last Memories launched its GEEK token yesterday on Bitget and Gateio

  • De:Lithe is a Japanese Web3 MMORPG

• The Telegram game WatBird launched its WATCoin token (part of GAMEE)

  • WAT is trading at a ~$4M MC and a ~$43M FDV

• Playember announced they are building Monster Tycoon, a survival game co-designed with Pixelmon

• TreasureDAO approved its migration to ZKsync

  • With this move, the ecosystem is moving away from Arbitrum

• Tatsumeeko, which recently migrated to the Ronin Network, launched its Telegram game: Lumina Hunt

  • Players catch creatures, train them, send them on expeditions, and collect Vabloons for the TATSU token airdrop

• SOMO announced their game Battle of the Realms is coming to mobile soon

• Monad announced Sparkball is launching on the chain

  • Sparkball is a MOBA x striker game for PC and console

• Uprising is launching its L2, powered by Arbitrum Orbit in partnership with Oasys

• Kai Cenat opened his Pudgy Penguins x Nouns figure on stream last week

• Play Solana, the recently announced handheld Web3 console, sold out phase 1

• XAI’s $10M ecosystem grant program with Aethircloud is coming

• DarkBright Studios announced they raised $6M in a Seed round led by BITKRAFT

  • Smolbound is a life-sim RPG launching in 2025 on the new Treasure L2

• Avax announced the $40M Retro9000 retroactive grants program, aiming to reward devs who contribute to the testnet and launch on the mainnet

  • The grant program attempts to bootstrap their L1 ecosystem and provide dev incentives to build their product

• Line Next has launched a new platform for web3 mini-games

  • The platform, accessible directly from the Line messaging app, allows people to play games without needing to download separate apps

• Hamster Kombat launched its HMSTR token on Crypto.com and Binance last week

  • HMSTR is trading at a ~$427M market cap and ~$664M FDV

🚀 Nexus V1 Alpha Launch

Welcome to edition #46 of the Nexus Power Up Newsletter. After a productive week at Token 2049, we’re back to lock in for more dev work. On this topic, another dev joined the team recently.

Very soon you will be able to try out Nexus for free…

You can also get access through:

• Getting a Nexus Pass NFT now for exclusive lifetime access

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

📈Macro Cryptocurrency News

• Caroline Ellison, a former top aide to Sam Bankman-Fried, received a two-year sentence on Tuesday. 

  • She was involved in the $8 billion fraud that caused the collapse of FTX.

• On Wednesday, Vice President Kamala Harris stated that under her leadership, the United States will "recommit" to global leadership in key sectors that will shape the next century.

  • The aim is to maintain dominance in areas such as AI, quantum computing, blockchain, and other emerging technologies. She made these remarks during a speech at The Economic Club of Pittsburgh.

• SEC Chair Gary Gensler took major heat from both Republicans and Democrats, during a congressional hearing over his handling of regulating the crypto industry.

• Circle, the issuer of USDC, announced a new tool designed to enhance compliance in programmable wallets.

  • Dubbed the “Compliance Engine”, it aims to assist companies in building decentralized applications (dApps) that adhere to strict regulatory requirements.

• Polymarket, the decentralized prediction market platform that allows users to trade on the outcomes of future events, is seriously considering launching a token.

• The Celestia Foundation has secured $100 million in funding, led by Bain Capital Crypto. This brings the project's total funding to $155 million.

  • Celestia, known for its modular consensus and data network, launched its Mainnet Beta in October 2023.

• U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris plans to roll out a new set of economic policies this week that aim to help Americans build wealth and set economic incentives for businesses to aid that goal. 

  • The new policies come as undecided voters continue to ask for more information about how Harris would help them economically if she were elected president in November. 

• The Bank of Japan maintained its current interest rate policy on Friday, and its governor indicated that the central bank could take its time assessing the global economic situation before making any adjustments.

  • This dovish stance weakened the Japanese yen and created doubt about the possibility of a further interest rate hike this year.

🌟Token Spotlight by Hustle

• Coin of the Week: $KARRAT

• Market Cap: ~$63M

• What is My Pet Hooligan? Is a team-based shooter game from AMGI Studios. This week they doubled down on announcements and teasers, launching the MPH Marketplace, announcing the Community Cup, and teasing the Litepaper is coming soon.

• 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: Meekolony Passes

• Why Tatsumeeko?

  • Raised $8M from Binance, Animoca, Delphi, and Bitkraft

  • Recently migrated to the Ronin Network

  • Recently launched its Telegram P2A campaign

  • 3 products (Lumina Hunt, TatsuGG, and the full game)

  • Large and loyal community

  • A high % of NFTs staked

• Utility

  • $MKLN (governance token) airdrop, staking for utility tokens, free season passes, discounts at the in-game store, and character optimization options

• Catalysts

  • Earlier this year we saw the passes peak at 8 SOL in anticipation of the P2A campaign

  • This P2A campaign seems promising in terms of early traction (trending on Twitter), however, we haven’t seen much of that turn into NFT liquidity yet

    • If the team were to announce clear utility for NFT holders during this playtest, it would likely lead to price appreciation

• Counterpoints

  • The play is largely reliant on the team announcing new utility for the NFTs during this P2A campaign

Nexus Tweets

See you next week!