Category Archives: News

Imagine an internet that functioned for the sole purpose of pleasing its users and was not dominated by data collecting giants like Google and Facebook. One that was not being used as a means to harvest our personal data, but rather was built and governed by its users. Now stop imagining, this is Web 3.0. Web 2.0 was in its way magical, it turned the one-dimensional first version internet into a two-dimensional place to play, work and communicate. Web 3.0 intends to go the next step and turn the internet into a three-dimensional place, where we can “visit” people wherever they are in the world, where we can interact, conduct transactions safely and privately, and where no organization will ever collect our private data or track our activities. What is Web 3.0? The difference with Web 3.0 is that it will be based on the blockchain, consisting of a network of different chains that are interoperable, allowing us to deploy smart contracts for smart transactions. The blockchains themselves are built from codes, compiled and authenticated across thousands of decentralized nodes globally, giving no power to any intermediary or middleman, rather run and governed by everyone. All activity is authenticated and automated directly onto the blockchain, which makes transactions or interactions tamper-proof and non-manipulatable. The real challenge that Web3 faces are adoption by those individuals who do not really comprehend what it is,  how it works, and the benefits and are perhaps used to hearing the terms NFT, DeFi and Metaverse but really don’t know what this all means. There will be a need to educate many people on this and the values of the blockchain but as more and more protocols come online and can be used from inside people’s current browsers this will be a step-by-step process. In the meantime, many forward-thinking and often quite revolutionary projects, apps and ecosystems are maturing and being developed, so by the time Web3 sees mass adoption, the industry will be ready and mature enough to cater for its B2B users. All users will need to have a wallet and a means to purchase cryptocurrency tokens in order to be able to take advantage of the many opportunities they will offer on the blockchain. Many gamers are already realizing the benefits of on-chain gaming, where they can engage in the new play-to-earn model, where they are rewarded for participation, rather than the former models of Pay to Play or Play to Win. Other apps are giving users rewards just for engagement, eg. India’s answer to TikTok, Chingari is rewarding users for both watching short videos and creating them too. Projects built especially for Web 3.0 Other teams developing purely for Web 3.0 include, SelfKey, an Ethereum based project, builds digital identity systems for users in order to transact over the blockchain, making users ready for Web3 activity. It offers a wallet that enables users full control over their digital identity. It is non-custodial, meaning the user retains full control over their data, documents and digital assets. It allows users to securely store and manage identity docs and digital assets and gives access to various marketplaces to both compare and sign up. Their other products give access to fintech products and services, bank accounts, residencies, and management of cryptocurrency portfolios of Ethereum-based assets. The project is expected to grow from $90.4 Million USD in 2018 to $2 Billion USD by 2023, at an annual growth rate of 84.5%. Partisia Blockchain, is a network built for Web 3.0 that has been developed for trust, transparency, and privacy. The Partisia Blockchain Foundation is a non-profit foundation that supports the development of a public blockchain, Partisia Blockchain, with the goal of interoperability and opening it up to a Web3.0 future. According to Partisia, “To us, Partisia means “Distributed Trust”. Our mission is to establish a WEB 3.0 infrastructure with no single point of trust for generic coordination of public and private information to be used by all applications across all platforms.” Meanwhile, one venture capital fund that is laser-focused on investing in Web 3 projects said,  “Web3 has become the latest buzzword for what crypto and blockchain are all about. It’s the next revolution that will enable us to interact with and dramatically change a lot of the applications which we’ve been seeing emerge in the past 10-15 years”.

The Bitcoin network debuted in 2009 and introduced an asset class the world had never before seen, and some have branded bitcoin’s launch as the beginning of decentralized finance (DeFi). However, the decentralized applications (dApps) that are most associated with DeFi services were developed on other chains. Bitcoin was a major breakthrough for technology, but its programming didn’t allow for the possibility of running dApps on its network when it first launched. Recently, the integration of a sidechain like Rootstock has brought smart contract and dApp functionality to Bitcoin, and this has proven to be a gamechanger for DeFi. DeFi protocols like Sovryn, built on Rootstock, allow native bitcoin to be used in DeFi dApps. This means that the world’s first blockchain, supporting the crypto world’s deepest liquidity, is witnessing a growth spurt in the number of projects emerging on its network. How the Sovryn Origins Launchpad Encourages Bitcoin DeFi Growth Sovryn is a multi-service Bitcoin DeFi protocol that facilitates swaps, borrowing, lending, and yield farming. The protocol is governed as a Bitocracy where its users stake SOV to vote on Sovryn’s future direction, and this makes Sovryn a community-centered protocol that is guided by its users as it moves forward. The protocol fosters the development of new projects through Sovryn Origins, a launchpad that supports independent projects, including those that build up the Bitcoin and Sovryn ecosystem, through the ability to fundraise native BTC and other Bitcoin native assets. The Sovryn Origins launchpad also acts as a way for the Sovryn community to vet new projects, eliminate bad actors, and support the most promising projects through their first steps towards development and launch. This early funding can boost projects to a more successful launch. It gives community members a chance to receive the project’s tokens at an early, discounted price, which is a win-win situation for everyone involved. One independent project, Babelfish, raised close to 46 BTC in 30 minutes through the Sovryn Origins launchpad after the Sovryn community greenlighted the project for listing. During the sale, 1,022 community wallets participated in the launchpad event, and a total of four projects have now furthered their development with the cooperation of Sovryn’s users. Why Sovryn Origins Has Become a Self-Governed Subprotocol Sovryn’s users vote on Sovryn Improvement Proposals (SIPs) in order to make changes to the protocol. These SIPs run through several stages before they are voted on, with many of the ideas behind their implementation being discussed on community forums. A recent proposal, SIP-0035, recently passed with enough votes in staked SOV to launch Sovryn Origins as a subprotocol governed by its own token, OG. The first four projects to launch on the Sovryn Origins launchpad were whitelisted through votes cast in SOV, and in the future, these votes will be held by OG holders instead.As described in one of Sovryn’s blog posts, the creation of a new ecosystem for Sovryn Origins means that OG holders will receive the lion’s share of benefits from the success of projects they choose to launch. How Community Involvement Ensures Sovryn Origin’s Success Rewarding its community of supporters is one purpose for launching Sovryn Origins’ own token, and rightly so since the protocol owes much of its success to the community behind it. Additionally, the value of OG will be linked with SOV through a bonding curve to create an incentive for more SOV holders to help improve Sovryn Origins in the future. The idea for this bonding curve first emerged in a forum post from a Sovryn community contributor, and the implementation of this idea demonstrates how the power of the group can be harnessed to reach a common goal. As Sovryn continues to grow, and as it continues to develop new projects through the Sovryn Origins ecosystem, future subprotocols will surely emerge with such an enthusiastic base of support.

When it comes to gaming, certain genres are always in vogue. Shooter RPGs. Survival games. Immersive action-adventure odysseys focused on exploration and discovery. And, of course, battle-based games that revolve around towering fighting machines known as mecha. This isn’t a surprise, of course. Talking robotics with cannons for arms have broad appeal, as evidenced by the success of the Transformers franchise, a series that has generated $4.86 billion at the global box office. Making it the 13th-highest-grossing movie franchise of all time. But what happens when mecha enters the metaverse? That’s a question a new blockchain-based gaming project wants to answer. Mecha-verse Massacre An adrenaline-pumping ARPG (Action Role-Playing Game) that leverages digital currency and NFTs to furnish players with endless earning opportunities, Mecha Morphing is set in a vast virtual world that represents Earth circa 2107. The climate doomsayers have been vindicated: the world is deluged by biblical floods, brutal snowstorms and searing heat waves. In this unforgiving milieu, a tyrant named Sarin has ascended to the throne. A sort of futuristic Leopold, Sarin has amassed precious resources (metals, fossil fuel, etc) for himself and his feudal lords while waging a cruel campaign against the general populace. Just to underscore his villainy, ol’ Sarin has an army of mass-produced cyborgs to do his bidding too. Luckily, a cast of cyberpunk rebels are fronting up to Sarin’s despotic regime, sourcing and trading natural resources and the mecha they create. Players in this nightmarish metaverse, then, have a glimmer of hope: the more materials they can accrue, the more skills, armour and weapons they can find, the stronger their characters will become. Play-to-earn (P2E) opportunities abound, with gamers able to earn financial rewards for their exploits under Sarin’s callous dictatorship. Battles, of course, constitute a major part of the game – and players improve their characters’ stamina with every victory over opposing mobs and cyborgs. Skirmishes are AI-generated based on the combatants’ stats and health (as verified by Chainlink), as well as the random attributes of the environment in which the fighting takes place. Mecha Morphing’s developers have also intuited that PvP (player vs player) will be implemented in the future, whereupon gamers can challenge other rebels to duels. In the initial roll-out though, the main action will consist of PvE (player vs environment), arena battles, bounty mode (complete tasks to earn prizes) and looting, where characters launch raids on regions that contain valuable resources. It’s also possible to “forge” weapons and armour by assembling the necessary materials to produce a powerful weapon that can then be wielded on the battleground. With virtually all items tokenized as NFTs (including land), players are free to trade them on the marketplace. Thus, a talented and enterprising player could create a mini-economy based purely on upgrading characters, winning battles, and selling coveted assets and mecha in the marketplace for profit. If a player is lucky enough to acquire a land NFT – and the terrain is rich in resources – the token-holder might alternatively elect to trade materials while retaining the land itself as a long-term investment. You see, land NFT token-holders get to collect the resources the land produces regularly. That said, the terrain can lose value if plunderers successfully loot its valuable materials – which can, in turn, be used to forge better weapons. Mecha Market Projects like Mecha Morphing seek to combine appealing graphics and engaging gameplay with the profit-generating potential of DeFi protocols – principally trading, in this case. Thus, away from the scorched-earth landscape and skyscraper-tall cyborgs, an internal market facilitates purchases using the in-game currency, $MMC. With $MMC, players can purchase gacha boxes, mystery chests that hold materials, tokens, mighty mecha, and potions. As mentioned, they can also score valuable materials from other players. Another nifty element of the game is its achievement system, which tracks how much the player has earned during his lifetime and how many levels they have reached. When a certain threshold is crossed, the player is rewarded with a status that confers bragging rights and unlocks improved earning calculations. Mecha Morphing is set to launch its testnet on December 27, with an IDO and mainnet launch expected in Q1 of 2022. Having received investment from a slew of high-profile blockchain VCs (Rarestone Capital, Innovion and Shima Capital to name a few), the ARPG is looking like a strong bet to become a major player in the fast-growing mecha-verse ecosystem.