TL;DR

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

• Web3 gaming and tech: Champions Tactics, Immutable Passport, Farcana raises $10M, Kuroro Beasts revenue share, Nifty Island’s play-to-airdrop campaign, Grape’s token sale, Nexon’s $100M raise, and more news.

• Macro Cryptocurrency News: Do Kwon's extradition, US Court approves $2.7B Binance fine, Solana Saga phones sales surge because of $BONK, SEC delays its ruling on ETH ETFs, Ledger is using damage control, and SHIBA is aiming to introduce SHIB domains.

• Ubisoft's 'Champions Tactics'🎮 Web3 Gaming and Tech

  •  Warlords NFTs generated 1800 ETH in trading volume in less than a week.

• Immutable Passport makes its debut, offering effortless sign-on for more than 500,000 gamers across five prominent Web3 games.

• Web3 shooter Farcana raised $10M in seed funding last week and successfully launched their NFT collection, which goes up to 1.6 ETH. The game will pay out users in small Bitcoin rewards.

• Kuroro Beasts launched a new set of benefits to Origin Holders: a revenue share from in-game purchases.

• Epic Games shows leniency towards Web3 games, they will make exceptions ‘for products in cases where an [Adults Only] rating was applied solely due to the usage of blockchain or NFT technology.’

• ZTX’s Beta is live, in this version of the game players can craft NFT items and spend $ZTX.

• Axie Infinity just released Stage 2 of their evolution feature, bringing dynamic play to Axie NFTs.

• Nifty Island releases its play-to-airdrop campaign. As a result their NFT collection: Legendary Palms sees a huge spike in trading volume.

• Shrapnel officially announces the release of early access STX.01 scheduled to debut in the upcoming year, accompanied by a prize pool of $3 million.

• Grape’s token launch was a major success with close to $90M of ‘financial interest’ (only $250k was allocated). At the top, pre-sale buyers were sitting at a 10x plus.

• Horizon Labs announces 5 major partnerships this week: Pixelmon, Overworld, Shrapnel, Metalcore, and Unblocked. Horizon specializes in token launches.

• Aurory, built on the Solana blockchain, fell victim to an exploit resulting in the loss of $830,000 worth of its native AURY tokens.

• Medieval Empires raises $7 million, as they gear up for the launch of their debut game.

• Nexon raises $100M for their upcoming game MapleStory Universe. It is important to note that the raise was paid in capital from Nexon rather than external investment.

🕹️ Gaming Narrative Play

• People are bullish on AI opening up gaming opportunities, so seeing where Web3 gaming and AI collide is one of the next big plays. Many got very excited about Parallel Colony, after the release of their game trailer, for example. Just look at the floor of Parallel Avatars.

• Other projects following this narrative include Todaythegame, AI Arena, Palio AI, The Machines Arena, and Particle Ink.

🚀 Nexus Platform Countdown

This is already the seventh edition of the Nexus Newsletter! The release of our alpha launch for NFT holders is taking a bit longer than expected. However, we need some extra time to fine-tune our features and provide you with the best experience upon launch.

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

• A court in Montenegro has canceled the extradition approval of Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon to either the United States or South Korea.

• US court approves order for Binance to pay $2.7 bln to CFTC.

• Solana Saga phone sales surge amid frenzy sparked by the BONK meme coin. The phones are now selling for $5K on eBay.

• The SEC has delayed its ruling on a range of Ethereum ETFs, setting the ultimate decision date for potential approval in late May.

• Ledger is in full-blown damage control after last week’s security incident.

• The Shiba Inu team is aiming to introduce SHIB domains for websites and email.

🌟 Token Spotlight by Hustle

• This Week’s Pick: $KNK

• Market Cap: ~$14M

• What is Kineko? Kineko is a crypto sports betting and casino platform (GambleFi). 33.3% of the platform’s profits are used to perform $KNK buybacks and the token can be staked for incremental rewards.

• 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

• The ‘NFT of The Week’ is a new segment, which will feature an NFT breakdown every week. Let us know what you think of it in the poll below.

• This Week’s Pick: Infinigod’s Infinipasses.

• Why Infinigods?

  • King of Destiny is a social casino game, which has high-spending users

  • The game will launch with various Web3 integrations (pwapp)

  • Highly experienced team, especially in building casino games

  • Ecosystem NFTs - multiple ways of accruing value

  • Well-funded studio, Infinigods raised $9M through a seed round

• Utility: ecosystem token airdrop (hinted at), FATE airdrop (uncapped P2E token), passive gameplay boosts and powerups, access to exclusive tournaments, and pass holder-gated earning windows.

• Ultimate Passes, the premium collection has the extra utility of larger airdrops and airdrops of exclusive NFTs.

• Catalyst: The Global launch of King of Destiny is coming soon, either in the next few weeks or early January. Infinipasses had a run-up in late November / early December, however, this launch is believed to draw new attention to the ecosystem.

🛠️ Nexus Updates Sneak Peek

Below is a sneak of our latest update: “Hot Ecosystem Games”. This provides you with an overview of the 10 best games per ecosystem. Initially, these will be ranked by Nexus, but in a later stage, these will be based on review scores.

See you next week!