Web 3 on Fire: Crypto market is healing? 🔥🔥🔥

GM, frens! Ambire here once again with our weekly newsletter, today we'll talk about how the crypto market is feeling in general, Trump and his 2nd NFT mint, EU passing MiCA, Intel stepping away from the crypto mining market, Solana's crypto phone and Footprint's research which suggests that GameFi is plagued by bots. Let's get down to it:

Crypto market is returning to pre crypto winter collapse levels

The crypto market is showing signs of a strong recovery, returning to pre-crypto winter collapse (Terra and FTX disasters) levels. Total crypto market cap reached $1.26 trillion, a level not seen since last June.

It's funny to think that this market, which was almost destroyed by the collapse of two major firms in a matter of months, has made such an incredible recovery. US investors have also been showing consistently positive bias towards bitcoin futures, indicating that we might just be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel for crypto.

Regulatory certainty is still a hazy issue, but other countries and jurisdictions such as Hong Kong are attempting to make sure that next time the playing field is fair and investors won't have to face further losses due to shady dealings and/or lack of regulations.

Although we can never be sure how long this upward trend will last, things appear to be looking up for the crypto market. If we can just keep heading in this positive direction, we may soon be seeing market cap levels that surpass our original pre-collapse highs.

Trump dropped 2nd series of his NFTs

Former U.S. President Donald Trump, who was recently indicted for various crimes, is certainly not letting that stop him from continuing to dabble in Web3. Following the overwhelming response to his initial Trump NFT collection, he unveiled Series 2 of his limited-edition digital trading cards.

Trump shared this news on his own social network, Truth Social, telling followers that after the “great success,” of the original collection, he was expanding it with a second mint.

The tokens were minted on Polygon blockchain, and remain barely above their original mint price of $99. The art, rarity traits and utility features are a bit different from the first collection, even though largely it's just more of the same.

EU passes the first ever crypto law

EU has passed the first of its kind MiCA laws with the aim of regulating the cryptocurrency sector. This law has exempted airdrops and blockchain native tokens from most of the regulations and has also put forward specific whitepaper guidelines for issuers. In addition, it is also proposing an e-money regulation for stablecoin issuers.

The MiCA law has primarily been designed to provide a proportionate approach when it comes to the regulation of crypto-assets. This has been done to ensure that the existing players are not adversely affected or burdened with unnecessary regulations. Furthermore, it also exempts these assets from most of the requirements imposed under MiCA regulation.

The passing of this law is a major development for the crypto sector as it will hopefully bring much needed clarity and provide assurance to investors and participants in the crypto space. In any case, the "wild west" era of crypto would end sooner or later, so the introduction of a regulatory framework was always likely.

Intel steps away from crypto mining

Intel is discontinuing its Blockscale 1000 Series ASIC chip, just a year after they debuted it. Tom's Hardware is reporting that, in the words of a spokesperson from Intel, they are "end-of-lifing" their Bitcoin mining chip business.

The spokesperson added that Intel is "continuing to monitor market opportunities", but clearly Intel is taking the cautious route when it comes to mining.

Intel and crypto go back a long way though. In 2015, Intel was providing mining chip technology to 21 Inc., a Bitcoin tech startup. In 2018, Intel secured a U.S. patent for an energy-efficient cryptocurrency mining method. But as of 2023, the company has been aggressively cutting costs, with top executives taking pay cuts. Whether Intel can manage to revive their mining chip business in the future remains uncertain, but for now, it looks like they are taking a step back from the crypto world.

Solana Saga phone is about to hit the stores

Solana says that its phone, named Saga is ready to ship out.

The Saga is "the" phone of the cryptosphere and has all the bells and whistles that Web 3.0-enabled smartphones need to have. It's the phone that will take crypto to the masses and make a mass entrance into the world of Web 3.0.. well, that's according to Solana at least.

The device is going to come at a hefty price of $1000 but with its 512 GB of storage, two back cameras, a 6.67-inch OLED display and a fingerprint scanner, Solana hopes that it'll be worth it. On top of that, the phone also uses hardware which allows some software to run separately from its operating system, making it an even more secure device.

There is no doubt that Solana is taking a huge risk, but if it pays off, the Saga will definitely be a game changer. Let's see how it fares in the market.

Research corner: GameFi is plagued by "non-genuine players"

According to a new report published by Footprint Analytics, the GameFI industry may have a bit of an identity crisis. It turns out that 1.5 million active user addresses aren't necessarily made up of real players.

The report, titled "Uncovering Insights and Opportunities through Player Data Analysis in the Blockchain Industry" reveals that some of these user addresses may be from non-genuine players and / or bots or algorithms, looking to make some quick buck or NFT rewards by playing the game.

Essentially, these so-called non-genuine players are not real players that log in to actually play the game, therefore their activities could be wreaking havoc on the game balance, compromising user enjoyment, distorting game and advertiser stats and more, giving them an unfair advantage.

The report also sheds light on how to identify and take action against non-genuine players, including through graph algorithms and player behavior. The bots have indeed been a plague to the crypto industry, and their advances need to be countered in order to level up the playing field for everyone. Hopefully, the new generation of devs can take that into account.

The fun page: our weekly meme collection

That's all for now, frens.

We'll see you next week. And remember, the market conditions are temporary, but our commitment to building a better DeFi is here to stay. Thanks for joining us and we look forward to seeing you back next week. Cheers!

Yours, The 🔥 Team

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