Singaporean game developer Confiction Labs has announced its flagship title Riftstorm is coming to Arbitrum-based gaming L3 Xai.

As part of the collaboration, Xai will support Riftstorm with blockchain integration and the forthcoming game launch. No official release date has yet been announced. 

In terms of the game, it’s described as a top-down roguelite shooter with co-op elements, entailing various weapon skills and challenging dungeons. Currently based on PC, the game will eventually expand to mobile and console platforms too.

In March 2024, Confiction rolled out an early Riftstorm playtest via Steam. It attracted 22,000 players from 110 countries, including over 800 live streamers and content creators.

“When Riftstorm launched its Steam playtest, we knew that this was a truly special title and one that would be a perfect fit for Xai,” commented Ex Populus head of strategy Soby Saqib.

“Blending some of gaming’s greatest hits from Diablo to the original Helldivers, Riftstorm unlocks a brand new co-op shooter for gamers in our ecosystem and will represent one of our next generation flagship titles, with critical support from our team as we transition the game into a web3 framework.”

“With cross-platform play, deep lore, and a thriving community-driven ecosystem, Riftstorm will offer a truly immersive experience. To deliver that vision, we need a technology that is not only scalable but also seamless to the users,” said Confiction Labs CEO Arief Widhiyasa.

“We’re excited to partner with the Xai Foundation to leverage their technology as the first gaming L3 blockchain that’s proven to be the fastest and most scalable EVM gaming chain.”

As for Confiction Labs’ wider vision for collaborative gameplay, it recently unveiled Proof of Exposure, a new system for verifying players. Due to the increasing bot activity in web3 games, it aims to tackle issues such as cheating by distinguishing real players from automated bot accounts.

Discover more via Riftstorm’s official website.

In the latest episode of the Blockchain Gaming World podcast, editor-in-chief Jon Jordan talks to Foonie Magus CEO Frank Cheng about the inspirations behind deck-building dungeon battle RTS Apeiron, which is currently available via Epic Games Store.

The game is expected to go live via mobile app stores before the end of 2024, while its meta-level god gameplay is due to be added in 2025.

BlockchainGamer: Can you tell us a bit about your career so far?

Frank Chen: I founded this company eight years ago. Before that I was a management consultant and a private equity investor, but I’ve loved games throughout my life and it’s been a childhood dream to create my own game. So after many, many years I decided to pursue my dream. It’s been quite a bumpy journey, I’ve found out that game development is actually a lot tougher than playing the game. 

Apeiron was the dream game I wanted to create. After gathering a lot of experience and prototyping, it finally went to production and became a blockchain game three years ago. Nowadays it’s actually more than a blockchain game, it’s a full IP franchise that involves merchandise, animations, and a plushie collection. It’s been a wild journey.

Witnessing the potential that Axie Infinity and CryptoKitties had changed what I believed to be a perfect mobile game into a fully fledged blockchain game. The first six years flew by, but I have learned even more in the three short years I’ve been into blockchain. 

Foonie Magus is the developer behind the game. Does the name have a meaning, or is it just a random name?

The core development team in Hong Kong is called Aither Entertainment, but Foonie Magus is our publishing entity in Singapore. The name comes from Foonie, which is my son’s nickname, and Magus is one of my favorite characters from Square Enix’s Chrono Trigger, one of the best RPGs in the world.

How would you explain Apeiron as a concept? It has hybrid game synergies and a lot going on, so how did that vision come about?

The genre I would call it nowadays would be a hybrid RTS because the core gameplay is a combination of two unique real-time strategy games. One is a god game simulation, while the other is like a card-based battle. So, I wanted to try something new, to find a gameplay element that I sorely miss, and that’s the card game simulation.

Many developers and of course, my co-founders, are the ones with actual development experience who come up with many other parts of the games and elements. Battle being one of those because for mobile, monetization, PvP, marketability are definitely needed. The card-based elements also came quite late. After witnessing Axie Infinity. 

If we can utilize NFTs and onchain elements, card collection is very powerful and shares a lot of synergy with what game business and collectible models are like. 

Then you also have this god game element. How does that come into play?

The whole theme of Apeiron is that you play God, in a universe of gods and dudes. Dudes are these yellow, chubby creatures. I wanted to recreate something like Black & White and Spore. 

It’s a story in the game, you’re a god, you have your own planets. Your planets are populated by the dudes, and it’s your job to take care of them. How you manage your planets, how you answer their prayers will translate to different types of buildings that they build for you and even good and evil elements such as heaven or hell will be implemented. All these are translated into stats that you have in battle. 

Currently you’ve got a PC version which is the dungeon battle gameplay. The god element still isn’t playable. Is that correct?

Yep. Right now, Apeiron consists of three main gameplay elements. There’s the god game simulation, which is the planet simulation. The other two are the roguelike dungeon and the PvP arena, which make the battle side of the equation. 

In the current PC version, you can play the dungeon, PvP arena, and the story mode, but the god game sim will come after the mobile release. We created the battle version first because the whole token economy revolves around the PVP arena and daily leaderboards. 

Do you think Apeiron’s different game elements will appeal to different sorts of behaviour?

Ultimately, an app around different types of gameplay elements generate different types of resources that’s tradable. So in a guild of players, if you want to focus on the simulation and just build a planet, you can get that and trade that with other players who dedicate themselves to the PvP arena but don’t want to spend too much time in the dungeon or in the card game. I think that’s how we get different groups of players.

The card game simulation is a unique proposition of gameplay and graphics, which will attract a lot of users. Ultimately, in terms of longevity and sustainability, what attracts users in the first place versus what really sustains the economy and keeps the marketability going will be rather different. 

It was a tough decision, but my team told me we had to do the battle gameplay first instead of the card game. And I believe they are right, otherwise it would just be a simulation game that keeps grinding NFTs and tokens without much need to really compete and burn stuff.

For building an audience, the battle side is the more immediately appealing element for players. How have you found having that demo live? 

Indeed. It first came out as a dungeon mode with basic run features and then we incorporated multiple bosses, a roguelike structure to it. Then earlier this year we launched the PvP arena, which is when it really started picking up, especially coupled with our migration to Ronin. 

That attracted a lot of competitive players from Axie Infinity, who have contributed a lot in terms of balancing blockchain features and reward structures. Now that we have combined the dungeon, the PvP, and the story elements, we’re just a stone’s throw away from launching a much more complete version of the mobile game. That’s coming in a few months. 

We will also have features like the battle pass and the shop, which will help players journey their way into the Apeiron game.

Originally you were running on Polygon. You mentioned Axie Infinity as something that was inspirational for the project, so was it an obvious decision to move to Ronin? 

Indeed migrating to another chain, even if it’s EVM to EVM, often takes several months of efforts and a new auditing. But the way we view chains is sort of like a publisher on a console. 

We were looking for a more game-focused chain. Initially, Polygon was a game-focused chain as well, but I think they gradually grew in size and started diverting resources, so they couldn’t spend too much time with individual projects. 

Naturally, it came down to Ronin and Immutable, both really good gaming chains. We chose Ronin for many reasons. One is that we play a lot of Axie Infinity ourselves, so we’re familiar with the Ronin wallet. They have a good mobile wallet, especially for gamers and with their experience, their crowd, and the way our game is structured, it’s easy to find a similar audience there even in bad times. 

The decision was finalised after meeting Ronin’s management team. They’re very picky and I like that. A lot of investors typically just look at valuations and then decide without really looking into the game, the viability, the marketability. But they did their due diligence. They looked into every aspect of the game and its potential before making that decision. 

At the moment it seems Ronin is the one chain where you can launch a game and get around a hundred thousand daily wallets. It’s not like you get that for free, but the choice of chain seems to matter.

Indeed. Well, the Ronin crowd is large and noisy. But at the same time, they are also veterans in the space, they know what’s up, they’ve survived the waves. 

But to be honest, in web3, there’s a lot of grinders, even multi-accounts. I don’t think that’s just Ronin. Everywhere there’s a lot of bloated numbers. But as you can see in terms of retention and gameplay numbers, Ronin has a strong and sizeable crowd compared to most. 

Your demo is live on Epic Game Store, and you’re looking to get the mobile game out before the end of the year. Do you see that as a big lever for growth? 

Getting on Google Play and Apple App Store is the most important thing a browser game can do in order to reach the mainstream audience. Getting on all the platforms first, at least abiding by the rules of making sure that we can be published and be accessible is extremely important. Once we have that, it comes down to a lot of marketing.

Having experienced two years of up and down in the blockchain and gaming industry, I think there’s two things we can do. We can conserve all our capital for a bull market. But one of the main problems of crypto is that for the past two years at least, there’s really not that many new retail gamers or users. Trying to fight for the attention or the revenue from this group, at least from Apeiron’s perspective, is not really worth it. There will always be more casual and hyper casual games coming out with airdrops. 

Apeiron, being a micro game with much longer development and iterative cycles, should not be competing for the next hype and airdrop. We should focus on mainstream gamers and a mobile launch is definitely one of the biggest opportunities we will focus on. 

After that, we have our god game launch, but that’s more on the Steam side of things. 

So far there hasn’t really been much interest from general game publishers in publishing web3 games. What’s your view on that?

Yes, there’s yet to be a really successful game out there, even with big publishers, but I think it’s only a matter of time before they get more involved. But at the same time, publishing blockchain games is rather controversial. They would like to test it in small bytes and digestible versions. 

Well, I don’t see web3 as a very strong marketability in terms of mainstream audience. It adds a different layer of gameplay and revenue source. But going with the same gameplay mechanics in a different wrapper by saying there’s blockchain elements, should not, and will not, be enough to gain a lot of users. 

We’ve put a lot of effort into improving and innovating new types of gameplay, artwork, the story, and features to attract users in traditional gaming. The blockchain element is there. It’s not needed for players to play, but if they want to, they will discover better ways to pay for in-game currencies, and other ways to engage with the game. 

You mentioned the rules of the app stores. Apart from with Steam, on the PC side you can do whatever you want, within certain constraints, I guess…?

Not really. In terms of these large distribution platforms, the one rule is that the game that’s downloaded cannot drop NFTs or tokens directly. 

The actual minting and claiming token rewards must be off Google Store or Steam or a web store. But these policies change all the time and hopefully we can steer clear of everything and remain there.

What do you think about the Apeiron IP and the opportunities it provides?

From an Asian perspective, developing an IP typically revolves around ACG – animation, cartoons, comics and games. 

Hong Kong developers are very much like Japanese developers, they really like animation, so that’s something we’ll work on. In terms of the IP franchise, I think it works well with blockchain, because having a recognizable brand and digital ownership fit well together. 

Alos, we’re not tied to just a single game. We can develop other mobile games, which is actually one of our plans down the line. We’ll do a mini game with shorter iteration cycles when there is a good hype running. 

In terms of acquiring users, the main thing we want to do is animation. That’s where you can reach more audiences and bring them into multiple parts of the game. 

Find out more about Apeiron via its website or get playing the PC version on Epic Games Store.

The latest blockchain game to make the move to Ronin is RPG Tatsumeeko, which started life as a Discord-based IP, before minting NFTs on Immutable and Solana.

Developed by Singapore-based Tatsu Works, the game is planned to release on Ronin via PC and mobile in Q4 2024.

The original incarnation of the game world launched in 2016 as Tatusu.GG, which featured collection and idle RPG mechanics, and which has reportedly been integrated in over 1.5 million Discord communities, with over 60 million lifetime interacting accounts.

Now called Tatsumeeko: Lumina Fates, the new game is the outworking of that Discord-based foundation. Labelled as a RPG with life sim elements, it mixes turn-based auto combat with cozy housing gameplay.

Prior to the release on Ronin, Tatsu Works will be launching the Telegram-based Lumina Hunt mini-game, by which players can collect Vabloon points as they contribute to the in-game V-Squads. Players could receive a token allocation, as well as game items and currencies.

“We’re excited to partner with Ronin as we prepare for the full launch of Tatsumeeko later this year,” said Tatsu Works’ CEO David Lim.

“Our goal is to unify web2 and web3 gaming by allowing our massive Discord community to explore the potential of blockchain technology through our life simulation RPG. We believe Tatsumeeko and Ronin together offer the perfect platform for this.”

“We’re thrilled to welcome the first life simulation RPG to the Ronin ecosystem, adding a fresh genre for our growing community. Tatsumeeko’s large and passionate Discord following reminds us a lot of what we saw with Axie Infinity in its early days, which we believe is a strong indicator of their potential for success on Ronin,” added Sky Mavis CEO Trung Nguyen.

Find out more about the project at the Tatsumeeko website.

Embattled crypto platform WazirX has entered an initial 30-day moratorium following a $234 million hack in July, pending a decision by Singapore’s High Court on whether to grant an extension, according to an Aug. 28 statement.

This development arose as rival platform CoinSwitch announced its intention to pursue legal action to recover approximately $9.6 million in digital assets trapped on WazirX’s exchange.

Moratorium

WazirX revealed that Zettai Pte, the Singapore-incorporated company behind its operations, filed for the moratorium on Aug. 27. This filing triggered an automatic 30-day freeze, giving the firm time to draft a restructuring plan.

However, WazirX estimates it will need at least six months to finalize the plan and collaborate with stakeholders.

The company emphasized that the moratorium provides crucial breathing room to address users’ crypto balances and work toward recovering funds.

WazirX explained that under the planned restructuring, the hack’s impact would be distributed among users, who would receive a share of the available token assets proportional to their account balances.

WazirX co-founder and CEO Nischal Shetty noted that the restructuring timeline depends on how quickly the firm and its creditors can agree on a path forward. He added:

“One key factor in our timeline for restructuring is how quickly we can all come together and agree on a path forward. We need to be united in this effort. Your support and collaboration are crucial to making this happen.”

Legal threat

In an Aug. 28 thread on social media platform X, CoinSwitch stated that it had substantial assets — including fiat currency, ERC20 tokens, and other digital assets — stuck on WazirX’s platform following the recent hack.

CoinSwitch explained that it had been unable to recover the funds despite multiple attempts to resolve the issue. The company also expressed frustration over WazirX’s lack of clarity regarding a full recovery plan.

Due to this, the company stated that it has “no choice but to pursue legal action to recover the funds.”

Meanwhile, CoinSwitch assured its users that the affected funds represent less than 1% of its total assets. It is using its treasury reserves to maintain a 1:1 ratio for user holdings.

However, Shetty remains unfazed by the potential lawsuit and said that all users will be treated fairly, regardless of the size of their claims. He added:

“If legal actions are necessary, so be it.”

Mentioned in this article

In the latest episode of his Blockchain Gaming World podcast, editor-in-chief Jon Jordan talks to Mighty Bear Games’ CEO Simon Davis about its blockchain gaming ecosystem Goat Gaming.

In particular, the pair discuss the value of Telegram, which is gaining much exposure for crypto gaming in terms of simple tap-to-play games.

Questions asked include can Telegram work well for more engaging games, should we trust the audience metrics on Telegram, and how does Goat Gaming expect to leverage this audience with its 1v1 PVP wagering experiences?

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

You can also listen to the podcast via the Fountain app and earn Bitcoin.

BlockchainGamer.biz: Can you explain the thinking behind Goat Gaming?

Simon Davis: We released a mode in Mighty Actions Heroes called 1 versus 1 Showdown. The way it works is that both players pay a small entry fee in hard currency to participate, and then the rewards are variable. So it can be anything from 1.3x the amount you paid in to say 10x. And with those variable rewards, players went nuts for it. We realized there’s a lot of pent-up appetite for mini-game experiences in web3 where you can play and win prizes.

In web2 we see the analog with skill gaming platforms. This has been proven out for over 20 years. Within web3, there’s a strong product market fit for a platform where players can play and win prizes. And so the vision for Goat Gaming is hundreds of mini-games, almost like the Miniclip of web3 gaming running in Telegram.

So we’re building out hundreds of these micro-experiences, as well as working with external studios. We’ve already also onboarded two external studios. There’s a game called Waifu Clash and Mighty Action Heroes is also part of that ecosystem.

Telegram is currently the big platform for crypto gaming. Why is that the case?

I don’t think there’s anything new. What we see with Telegram today is basically Facebook gaming circa 2008. You have this platform where you have nearly a billion people that have nothing better to do than send each other pictures and messages. Why not provide them with a bit of entertainment, a way to engage with each other socially? A lot of the hooks or the designs we’re using are lifted from games that were made nearly 20 years ago.

If my thesis is right, that this is essentially a Facebook gaming version two – hopefully without the platform killing it – then this is a potentially huge business. We’re building these games in WebGL and HTML5 and exporting them straight into Telegram.

This means we can run these games on iMessage or WeChat or any other platform that supports this. I think looking just at Telegram is probably a bit too narrow because if these apps within Telegram start to take off, then I expect that both Apple and WhatsApp will have to start improving their app infrastructure as well. And then we can go across multiple different messaging services.

I’m more skeptical about the very high numbers provided for Telegram gaming.

I fully understand why some people are skeptical because there naturally would be questions as to how well some of these games are going to retain when the financial incentives drop away. But if you’re streaming WebGL, HTML5 into it, you can basically build any game you want in Telegram. That means you can build something that’s comparable to any mobile game from the last few years. That’s an incredibly broad canvas to work with.

Are you worried about bots?

It’s an interesting dilemma because as a developer, on the one hand, you don’t really want bots because they’ll devalue your token in the long run. In the short term, actually, you could argue there is an incentive for developers to make botting easy, right? Because then you get these inflated numbers that you can then use to hype up your ecosystem where you start appearing higher in the onchain activity rankings. We’ve taken the opposite approach where it’s not something we really want.

There is probably a high ratio of bots on these Telegram games, but nonetheless, when you’re talking about 200 million players, even if 90% are bots, there’s still 20 million real users. It’s an order of magnitude bigger than anything we could have envisioned in web3 this year. So it’s massive numbers. And in terms of revenues, you can see via onchain data how much some of these games are making. Some of these games are making real money, like real web2 revenue money. I think any studio would be happy with those kind of figures.

What games do you think are going to work well?

We think there’s an opportunity for many different gameplay types and different themes. Not everyone is going to engage with the retro action movie vibe of Mighty Action Heroes. Some people will want … we have a Waifu battler coming out. We have a runner coming out. We’ll find different things that work for different audiences.

I think the other kind of unique angle is that the studio is based in southeast Asia so I think we can create some really interesting content, which is more localized and a better fit for the audience.

How quickly can you open up Goat Gaming for other developers?

We already have onboarded external devs to work with us but right now it’s very much hands-on. We have to help a lot because it’s running on our infrastructure. We’ve been building it for seven years, but it was never built to be used by external parties so we have work to do. Realistically it would take probably close to a year to be a point where it can be self-serve.

Why do you think it’s been so hard for blockchain games to attract sustainable players?

In web2, you have the developer and the player. And as a dev, you have to optimize for both yourself and the player, which is not easy. It’s really hard. But in web3, you throw speculators into the mix. Unfortunately, the speculators are the loudest voice. And so I think as a dev, how do you develop a compelling experience that works for you as a developer, that delivers value to speculators and is still fun to play?

I think that is fundamentally something that very few people have really solved, if really anyone, if I’m totally frank.

Where can people find out more about Goat Gaming?

Check out our website or search for GoatGamingBot in Telegram.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) elevated the risk level of Digital Payment Token (DPT) service providers in its latest Counter-Terrorism regulation update.

On July 1, the MAS raised the risk level of DPTs to medium-high from medium-low as part of its review of the Asian country’s Terrorism Financing National Risk Assessment (NRA) and National Strategy for Countering the Financing of Terrorism.

Furthermore, the MAS also identified “cross-border online payments” and “cross-border fast payment systems” as potential new channels for terrorist funding activities.

It cited the evolving nature of terrorism financing as the reason for the updated assessment and strategy. The watchdog aims to prevent terrorists from exploiting Singapore’s status as an international financial, economic, and transport hub.

The regulator emphasized the need for vigilance, stating:

“Terrorist actors may exploit Singapore’s economic openness as an international financial, business, and transport hub for terrorist funding purposes. There is therefore a need for constant vigilance. Furthermore, as the global terrorism landscape evolves, Singapore’s terrorist funding risks will evolve too, hence this refreshed assessment and strategy.”

Singapore’s largest bank to custody Paxos stablecoin

In a parallel development, Singapore’s largest bank, DBS Group, will custody stablecoin assets issued by Paxos Digital Singapore Pte. Ltd, the MAS-licensed subsidiary of Paxos. The lender is decidedly pro-crypto and silently became one of the largest holders of Ethereum.

Paxos chose DBS as the primary banking partner for cash management and stablecoin custody. Evy Theunis, head of digital assets at DBS, explained that the banking giant will help stablecoin issuers meet the robust standards regulators and customers expect. He said:

“Having examined all relevant aspects that come with managing reserve assets, stablecoin issuers will find that our solutions will help them meet the robust standards regulators and customers expect from them.”

Over the past year, Singapore has sought to leverage blockchain technology to enhance its status as a global financial hub. Consequently, the country is known for its pro-crypto stance and high adoption rate.

Mentioned in this article

Blockchain analytical platform Nansen said Singapore’s largest bank, DBS, is an Ethereum whale after identifying a wallet purportedly belonging to the financial institution.

In a May 30 social media post, Nansen claimed DBS holds approximately 173,753 ETH, valued at $648 million, in the wallet address “0x9e927c02c9eadae63f5efb0dd818943c7262fb8e.” It added that the bank had made over $200 million from its ETH holdings.

Edward Wilson, Analyst at Nansen, said,

“Nansen is 100% sure this belongs to DBS – DBS owns the private key of this wallet and these assets are most likely a part of their custody solution.

This is similar to how we see institutions, both crypto-native like exchanges such as Binance or Coinbase custody funds on behalf of their users and non crypto native custody funds. The institution is the custodian and responsible for managing the security of the funds.”

Top 50

Etherscan data shows that the substantial ETH bag would place the financial institution among the top 40 holders of the second-largest digital asset by market capitalization.

This places it directly behind wallets belonging to centralized exchanges like Crypto.com and Bybit’s Hot Wallet 1. Notably, DBS is the only traditional financial institution on this list, otherwise dominated by major exchanges and crypto platforms such as Binance, Robinhood, Arbitrum: Bridge, and Kraken.

According to its Wikipedia page, DBS is the largest bank in Southeast Asia by assets and among the largest banks in Asia, with assets totaling S$739 billion as of December 2023. The bank’s most significant and controlling shareholder is Singapore’s Sovereign Wealth Fund, Temasek.

Customers’ assets?

Crypto community members said DBS’s ETH ownership was further evidence that institutional investors are increasingly interested in crypto as a legitimate asset class.

However, some have speculated that the ETH could belong to the bank customers. In 2020, the bank launched a crypto trading and digital asset custody platform for security token offerings. According to its website:

“DBS Digital Exchange offers trading services between four fiat currencies (SGD, USD, HKD, JPY), and six of the more established cryptocurrencies, namely Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Polkadot, Cardano and XRP.”

In a recent report, DBS noted increased interest in the crypto market from retail investors, large-volume traders, and hedge funds.

Web3 game developer Foonie Magus has unveiled details of its $1 million Apeiron Guild Wars 2024 tournament, its largest tournament to date. While it’s the first time the team is running Apeiron Guild Wars, it plans to make it an annually recurring event.

Apeiron is a hybrid PC god game with roguelite elements and battle arenas, which announced its migration from Polygon to Sky Mavis’ Ronin network in December 2023. 

In the forthcoming event, players will use their god-battling skills in online tournaments to rank on the Guild PvP leaderboard. Following this, during Q3 2024 the final of Guild Wars is set to be an in-person event hosted in Hong Kong.

Preliminaries will begin online between 21st May-25th June. Guilds will compete for slots in the tournament on a special Guild PvP leaderboard, which will run between 21st May to 2nd July. The SEA Invitational is scheduled between 11th-14th July and the NA Invitational between 18th-21st July.

Following the Invitationals, the top 12 guilds in both regions will be invited to the Apeiron Guild Wars 2024 in-person event. Participants will battle for a place in the semifinals and finals in a double-elimination bracket tournament, with the top four seeded guilds advancing directly to the finals. 

In terms of the $1 million prize pool, it will be split between $500,000 USD and $500,000 worth of NFTs, and be awarded to the top performing players based on how they place in the tournament. 

Both established guilds and other members of the web3 community are invited to participate in the event. 

“At Apeiron, we are not just building a game for casual play; we are fostering a competitive scene with tournaments tailored to all skill levels, aiming to create a strong, community-centric gaming ecosystem. Apeiron Guild Wars 2024 is our way of celebrating this commitment as we gear up toward the official game launch on Google Play and iOS,” commented Foonie Magus CEO Frank Cheng.

You can check out Apeiron’s demo via the Epic Games Store now.

Singapore-based Saakuru Labs and Animoca Brands have announced a strategic deal which aims to enhance web3 gaming by promoting Saakuru’s gaming-centric L2 blockchain.

One of Saakura’s main features is gasless transactions, which due to the recent partnership, is set to be integrated into a set of Animoca portfolio games, with a particular focus on fully onchain experiences.

“Imagine playing a fast-paced multiplayer game, fully on-chain and without transaction fees or lag. That’s the power that the Saakuru Protocol brings to the table”, commented Saakuru Labs co-founder and CEO Jack Vinijtrongjit. 

The deal is unveiled in light of a recent private funding round, led by Based VC and ARC Community, in which Saakura Labs raised $2.4 million to support the expansion of its L2 chain. 

Among companies already adopting the Saakura Protocol is Japanese gaming blockchain Oasys, which has a Saakura Verse integration including games such as GOGA, Galaxy Blitz, SingSing, and recently launched mobile endless runner Crypto Run.

Indeed, Saakura says over 430,000 wallets are currently holding assets on its mainnet, whose daily transaction volume surpasses 200,000. Over 40 projects deployed on Saakura are set to launch during 2024, including gaming platform PlayGround from Play Beyond.

Saakuru Labs VP of web3 Engineering Marius Silenskis said, “We have spent significant effort to ensure a seamless experience for developers so they can spend more energy focusing on figuring out the best web3 strategy for their games. By using our SDK, a mobile game can add web3 support in just days.”