Axie To Infinity?

October 9, 2021

|In Weekend Recap

|By Osprey Team

Axie Infinity parent company, Sky Mavis, raised $152 million in Series B funding led by a16z.

Axie Infinity is a digital pet universe with a player-owned economy. Players can battle, breed, and build similar to Clash of Clans.

a16z writes,

Axie Infinity introduced a new way for anyone to turn their time into money through Play-to-Earn (P2E), a mechanic that allows gamers to transform their skills and time into earnings and distribution rights for tokenized in-game items.

The Axie growth story is a phenomenal testament to the power of the P2E revolution that is resonating with so many people all around the world, beyond crypto native circles.

The blockchain-based game has seen incredible growth with nearly 2 million daily active users as of August 2021, and it’s token, AXS, advanced 65% in the last 7 days.

Frank Chaparro recently interviewed Jeff Zirlin, co-founder & growth lead at Sky Mavis. The two talked about how Axie Infinity fills the gap between blockchain gaming and DeFi.

And for a deep dive into Axie, check out Packy’s post from July.

?? a16z to the Senate Banking Committee

a16z made additional headlines this week as it provided feedback on crypto to the Senate Banking Committee.

Here’s a quote:

We are at the threshold of the third generation of the internet: web3. Given the pace of innovation in this space, it has been challenging for many policymakers to keep up.

That’s why we were so heartened by the Senate Banking Committee’s call for feedback on clarifying laws around digital assets and decentralized technology.

The VC firm offered proposals across 4 domains:

Consumer Protection and Inclusion
Decentralized Autonomous Organizations
Comparing Jurisdictional Harmonization, SROs, and Nonprofit Corporations
Tax Reporting and Related Issues of Blockchain Ecosystems

Click here for the full report. It’s well worth a read.

? The Big Banks Play Catch Up in Crypto

On Monday, Bank of America released its first report on digital assets. Welcome to the party folks.

Digital Assets Primer: Only the first inning

The firm shared,

Digital assets represent a $2 trillion+ market value with 200 million+ users, and have the potential to transform every industry by improving efficiency and reducing friction across transactions.

On Thursday, JP Morgan compared the recent inflows in Bitcoin and Gold and said,

Institutional investors appear to be returning to Bitcoin perhaps seeing it as a better inflation hedge than gold.

Additionally, U.S. Bank announced crypto custody services for institutional fund managers.

The bank will only offer services for Bitcoin, but indicated additional coin support will come soon.

NYDIG will act as sub-custodian. See the press release here.

? Bitcoin Bossa Nova

Brazil looks to pass regulation that could eventually make Bitcoin legal tender.

The bill was approved by the Brazilian House of Representatives on September 29, but has yet to be signed into law.

This would be big so keep an eye as Brazil is the world’s 13th largest economy by GDP.

Meanwhile in Mexico, the Bolsa Mexicana de Valores (BMV) Stock Exchange is toying with the idea of listing crypto-based financial instruments.

Here’s the Block with details.

And across the pond in Switzerland, you can now buy Bitcoin at your local train station.

We love to see it.

? What’s New In NFTs?

On Thursday, Fidenza 938 sold for 2,500 ETH (~$8.5M). What makes it rare? 938 is the only piece in the Fidenza collection that rotates counter-clockwise. Here’s a great tweet thread via bonafidehan.eth breaking it down.