Sportzchain Secures $600K in Seed Funding Led by SUNiCON Ventures and MAKS Group

Sportzchain will leverage these funds to further augment its app development and focus on expanding the user base through advanced marketing techniques

In a formidable development, Sportzchain, a fast-growing thought-leader in the country's blockchain-based fan-engagement ecosystem, has successfully closed USD 600,000 in the recent seed funding round. This latest round was led by two leading top-tier firms SUNiCON ventures and MAKS Group. Through these funds, Sportzchain will further boost its app development and marketing strategies to onboard more web 2.0 users.

Early investors SUNiCON ventures, a VC firm committed to discovering and investing in early-stage startups, and MAKS Group, a multi-business company with more than 40 years of experience in the domain, were looking for potential Web3 disruptors in India and Asian markets. After careful consideration, these two highly-acclaimed investors saw immense prospects in Sportzchain's business model and growth trajectory. The brand is currently focusing on the Asian sporting ecosystem, which has more than 3 billion fans across mainstream and non-mainstream sports.

Sportzchain's whirlwind expansion of partnerships with various crypto companies and a strong pipeline of sports team partnerships has recently attracted massive interest from many strategic investors (including Web 2.0 gaming companies). The brand also expects investment opportunities from several well-known venture capitalist firms in Asia to participate in upcoming funding rounds. Needless to say, this trend signifies the growing trust and conviction that the brand has garnered on the back of its promising growth and market entry strategies.

Siddharth Jaiswal, Founder and CEO, Sportzchain said, "Investing in fan tokens and phygital collectibles is becoming increasingly popular in India, especially among the younger generation who are more interested in investing where their interest lies. At Sportzchain, we strive to make the entire Indian sports ecosystem more inclusive so that fans can do more than just cheer their favorite teams from the sidelines. In this context, the recently raised funds will prove instrumental in boosting our growth. We are truly thrilled to have two prominent players backing us. Our investors' conviction, confidence, and credence encourage us to do better every day. We will continue working harder and smarter to build a Digital World for Sports Fans and make sports tokens reach the masses. ."

Sportzchain is currently focusing on launching an unparalleled platform where fans and crypto enthusiasts can buy sports (fan) tokens of their preferred Kabaddi and Cricket teams. The application/platform’s beta version is expected to launch in 2022. However, the pre-launch signup is currently live on Sportzchain's website, where users can whitelist and be early users. The pre-launch signups have already crossed the 500 mark and are increasing every day.

Earlier this year, Sportzchain also launched NFTs of Tamil Thalaivas, a Pro-Kabaddi team, and has already sold 80% of them. The brand has recently launched an exclusive signed jersey (phygital NFT) by the decorated defender and Tamil Thalaivas captain Surjeet Singh, which has garnered immense attention and love from sports token fanatics. This unique phygital jersey witnessed Surjeet becoming the first cover defender in the history of the Pro-Kabaddi League to score 300 tackle points. It was bought within 24 hours of its launch.

Made-in-India Web3 Games Marketplace Tegro Announces $1 Mn Grant for Game Developers

• Web3 games developers can apply for the grant to get up to $25,000 per project
• Successful applicants to learn how to better craft their web3 games from a founding team with deep experience in making games and designing marketplaces with high liquidity

Made-in-India web3 games marketplace Tegro has announced a $1 million grant for web3 game developers. Developers can apply for the grant to get up to $25,000 per project with no strings attached. Successful applicants will receive guidance on how to better craft their web3 games from a founding team with deep experience in making games and designing marketplaces with high liquidity.

"We are excited to invite developers to collaborate with us," says Siddharth Menon, CEO and co-founder of Tegro. "Game development and publishing are in itself complex processes. Developers may not be completely conscientious of the slate of activities behind these words, let alone the complexities involved with building web3 games with economies that are sustainable and can stand the test of time.

 Through the first Tegro grant we hope to bring users a new class of games worthy of actually being games, rather than a collection of poorly cobbled together websites and weak economies that eventually end up being rug pulls.”

Developers can apply for the $1 million grant at the official Tegro site right here.

Along with this, Tegro recently unveiled Tegronomics. This is a set of economic frameworks authored by the stalwarts in the space of crypto, gaming and economics that developers can leverage to build a sustainable and scalable economy in their games.

The economic framework proposes the use of Fungible tokens (FTs) as a core element of economy design based on the belief that game economies should be built on top of FTs as opposed to NFTs to increase both frequency of trading and liquidity, and also making it much easier to deploy large funds.

You can check out more details on Tegronomics and how it can improve web3 game development at the official Tegro website.

Tegro believes that web3 games are the next paradigm shift in gaming, similar to how mobile and free-to-play were. Tegro plans to unlock a $2 trillion market by building a sustainable web3 gaming ecosystem.

Tegro is a web3 games marketplace built by Siddharth Menon, co-founder of WazirX, India’s largest cryptocurrency exchange and SuperGaming, India's leading game developer with 300 million users. Siddharth is an expert at building liquidity and markets, while the founders of SuperGaming have been building games for over 10 years and have built over 100+ games including PAC-MAN, Silly Royale, and the upcoming Indus, a made-in-India for-the-world battle royale.

Blockchain Gaming Platform Hacked, Stealing $625 Mn worth of Cryptos

$625 million worth of cryptocurrency has been stolen in a fearless attack on Axie Infinity, an NFT -based and blockchain-based online video game developed by Vietnamese studio Sky Mavis, known for its in-game economy which uses Ethereum-based cryptocurrencies.

Axie Infinity is built on the Ronin Network, an Ethereum-linked sidechain developed by Sky Mavis. A sidechain is a separate blockchain which runs in parallel to Ethereum Mainnet and operates independently.

Axie Infinity is a video game in which players collect and mint NFTs which represent axolotl-inspired digital pets.

The Ronin bridge has been exploited for 173,600 Ethereum and 25.5M USDC, said the Ronin Network, in a newsletter, this week's Tuesday.,

Sky Mavis says it’s working with law enforcement to recover 173,600 Ethereum (currently worth around $600 million) and 25.5 million USDC (a cryptocurrency pegged to the US dollar) from the culprit, who withdrew it from the network on March 23rd.

According to Sky Mavis, an attacker used hacked private security keys to compromise the network nodes that validate transfers to and from the Ronin blockchain. That let the attacker quietly withdraw large quantities of Ethereum and USDC. The transfer was discovered today — nearly a week later — when another user attempted to withdraw 5,000 Ethereum through the bridge.

Ronin Network said, "We are in the process of conducting a thorough investigation; working with Chainalysis to monitor the stolen funds and Crowdstrike to handle forensics and the setup of surveillance tools."

It is being speculated that this is the largest hack to date of "decentralized finance" (DeFi) networks. Last year in August, Hackers stole more than $600 million in Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies. This is the biggest theft ever in the decentralized finance or DeFi space.

Polygon to Support SportzChain in Strengthening Its Blockchain-based Fan-Engagement Platform

After collaborating with several top-tier Pro Kabaddi teams, Sportzchain plans to onboard high-end Football, Cricket, and other sports teams

Through this grant, the brand aims to reinforce its tech framework further and exceed expectations of futuristic fan-engagement methods

In a bid to strengthen the tech infrastructure, Sportzchain, India’s only fan-centric and a blockchain-powered fan-engagement platform, has recently received a grant from Polygon Studios, a gaming and NFT arm of Polygon focused on growing the global blockchain gaming and NFT industry through investment, marketing and developer support. . 

Through this grant, Sportzchain, will get support from Polygon to deploy its WebDapp on Polygon protocol strengthening the tech infrastructure and create a sui generis fan-engagement ecosystem that surpasses the expectations of all its predecessors. The collaboration will further strengthen the vision of Sportzchain to be deeply rooted within the India ecosystem and focus on technologies that are energy efficient, faster and scalable offering a seamless experience to their sports fans and crypto users. The grant amount remains undisclosed as of now.

Speaking on this recent development Siddharth Jaiswal, Founder & CEO, said, “We are thrilled to have Polygon Studios, a renowned name in the NFT and gaming ecosystem, as partners in this blooming journey. We will leverage this grant to ensure our tech infrastructure perfectly aligns with our future strategies. For now, we are actively working to ensure sports fans across genres can seamlessly connect with their favorite teams through our platform and have an advanced fan-engagement experience."

"We already have several leading Pro Kabaddi teams like Gujarat Giants, Bengal Warriors, Dabang Delhi, and Tamil Thalaivas onboard, and we are in discussions with several top-drawer Football and Cricket teams and individuals.”, He added.

It is pertinent to note that Sportzchain is currently gearing up to release the list of high-end super rare physical NFT collectibles. In the first stage, the brand will be focusing on three primary sports areas: Kabaddi, Football, and Cricket. Simultaneously, it is laying the foundation to broaden its partner portfolio.

About SportZchain

SportZchain, India's blockchain-based fan engagement platform connects sports teams and fans through a single thread, which will not only result in radical fan engagement but also lay the foundation of creating a massive invested fan base. The platform aims to revamp fan engagement through a belief that sports fan deserves a basic right to be heard by their favourite sporting teams and also be able to guide and influence some key decisions of their favourite team

S.Korea's Largest Mobile-Games Developer Launches Its Own Blockchain and Cryptocurrency; To Expand to NFT, Metaverse

South Korea's largest mobile-gaming company, Netmarble Corp., has created its own proprietary blockchain platform called MBX to serve as the base for its new dapp (decentralized application) video games.

MBX is a Klaytn-based blockchain ecosystem. Klaytn Network is a global public blockchain platform developed by Ground X, the blockchain affiliate of the leading South Korean Internet company, Kakao. MBX will utilize a new MBX-based cryptocurrency.

Netmarble plans to release six blockchain games in 2022, with the first releasing this month. 

By applying blockchain technology to games being developed or serviced by MBX, Netmarble aims to strengthen the fun of games focusing on building an ecosystem where user participation and reasonable rewards are provided. The official service is scheduled to open this month.

MBX will be used as the key currency in the MBX ecosystem, and MBX Wallet will be used as the wallet. Starting with the blockchain-based content update in 'A3: Still Alive (Global)' in March, it plans to link various games and technologies in the future, and expand the content to NFT and Metaverse.

Before the MBX service launch, Netmarble will introduce the official SNS page on the 28th, and on March 7th, the MBX white paper will be released through the official website opening.

In addition, to commemorate the MBX opening, from March 8 to 14, an event will be held in which MBX is paid in an airdrop method to Drops participants in a DeFi Clay Swap.

Meanwhile, Netmarble established a blockchain-only subsidiary and recruited talent in various fields such as service planning, server development, marketing, and management support. For more information, one can check the job posting on the Netmarble website (https://company.netmarble.com/rem/www/noticelist.jsp).

Decentralized Metaverse vEmpire Launches Blockchain-based Play to Earn Game

vEmpire DDAO Launches The Full Play-To-Earn Version Of Their Metaverse and NFT Trading Card Game

The two-player trading card game enables vEmpire community members to strategically battle against each other in fun and immersive ways to earn better rewards in the project’s DDAO (Democratic Decentralized Autonomous Organization)

Decentralized metaverse vEmpire today announced the launch of “The Beginning,” a blockchain-based two-player play to earn trading card game, that enables gamers to strategically battle against each other for enhanced rewards in the DDAO.

“The full play-to-earn release of vEmpire: ‘The Beginning’ marks a monumental milestone for the project. It will enable vEmpire investors to earn even more lucrative returns from the DDAO, which has exposure to some of the most promising Metaverse protocols throughout the entire industry, marking the dawn of an entirely new possibility of playing to earn,” said Dominic Ryder, CEO & Founder of vEmpire DDAO.

Gamers will have the opportunity to choose which faction they would like to play as and will then be automatically matched up with an opponent playing as the opposing faction. Each faction has up to forty faction-specific cards and there are also twelve universal cards that can be used on both sides. When it comes to battle, players must choose twenty-five cards from their deck that will make up their “Legion”.

In-game, each player is randomly assigned a hand of fifteen cards from their Legion, with the remaining cards being put into their “Battle Deck”. Some cards have special abilities that enable players to dip into their Battle Deck and access cards that they've not been assigned in their initial hand.

To start the game, a virtual coin is flipped. The winner of the coin flip plays the first card. Players then take turns placing their cards until either both players decide to end the round or run out of cards. There are a total of three playable rounds and the objective is to win two out of the three to be crowned winner of the game.

At the end of each round, all cards on the battlefield are discarded and the following rounds are played with the cards that remain in the player’s hand. This means that players will need to strategically keep cards in reserve to be competitive in later rounds. If a player runs out of cards before the game finishes, they will forfeit the proceeding rounds, potentially costing them the game.

Holders of any of the Founding Soldiers NFTs will receive enhanced versions of their cards in-game if a card in their Legion is held in the wallet being used to play the game. While owning the NFT of a respective card will provide in-game boosts, the boost will not be overpowering and strategy will still predominantly dictate the play of the game. In-game boosts simply provided players a competitive edge in battle.

The game has been tested in various simulations, 3.7 million cards have been played over 170,000 games. The testing showed the game to have a good balance of strength and effects.