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Here’s what we got for you today:

• Axie infinity making a comeback! 🔥

• Xai Games: Biggest Gaming Airdrop in 2024?🎁

• Being anti-narrative pays off big🙃

Let’s get started!

Axie Infinity Making A Comeback!🔥

What is dead may never die! We saw this with Solana. What was considered a ghost chain backed by fraudster Sam Bankman Fried is now lauded as the best performant blockchain in the industry. 

Will this repeat for Axie Infinity? Maybe, maybe not! But the game is definitely on the right track. 

When the GameFi era was at its peak, Axie dominated the field like no other. With more than 2.7 million active players, Axie Infinity was the biggest game in the space. It still holds the top spot of total volume done by an NFT collection (over 4 billion). 

Even in terms of adoption, Axie Infinity led the pack all over the world. However, in the end, the music stopped and players fled. Poor tokenomics, limited gameplay, and high entry barriers contributed to the fall of Axie Infinity. But guess what? They fixed them all! 

The game is now more polished with variety. There are new modes like origins, tournament, and classic. In addition, Axie Infinity has now introduced dynamic NFTs. Previously, the dilution of NFTs was extremely high. This affected the overall value of Axie NFTs. To combat this, dynamic NFTs will allow players to evolve their Axies and increase their value. 

Along with gameplay improvements, the game added many money sinks to create better game economies. This involves attaching more utility to game tokens AXS and SLP. We still need to see this revamped model stand the test of time and reduce inflationary pressure. 

Besides the game-related upgrades, Axie Infinity has done extremely well on the community front. They have launched a creator program that added many ambassadors representing the game in their local communities. In addition, the team always keeps close contact with the community on social media and takes feedback. 

Considering all of these new facts about Axie Infinity, it may not be far fetched to say Axie Infinity will make a tremendous comeback.

Xai Games: Biggest Gaming Airdrop?🎁

Airdrops have been the recurring theme throughout the history of crypto. But the amount users receive nowadays is multiples of what is expected. For example, the Solana staking protocol Jito airdropped a minimum of 4,000 tokens for every eligible wallet. These tokens are now worth over $10k. 

We may see similar things take place in the gaming sphere as well. We already saw this with Shrapnel, where Operator NFT holders got an airdrop. The next big airdrop is likely to be Xai Games. This project is launching a new gaming-focussed blockchain using the Arbitrum Nitro tech stack. The blockchain will be the first L3 that aims to combat high fees, unstable networks, and complex wallet UX. In addition, they are launching games in partnership with EX Populus. The first game is a trading card game called Final Form.

That’s the intro. Let’s now talk about the airdrop. The $XAI token is being airdropped on 27th December. The eligible members are people who took part in the Odyssey campaign and holders of Xai Sentry Keys. While the former group is people participating in an educational campaign, the latter group is people buying keys to run nodes for Xai blockchain.

So far, the project sold over 22,000 keys worth $12.7 million. You can directly buy them on their website. Considering 50% of the supply is allocated to node rewards, we can see a surge in key holders. Also, running a node is possible straight from your desktop or laptop.

The market is anticipating a similar move like Gala nodes. Those who got early into Gala nodes managed to make great returns. So I believe speculation will only continue to grow as market conditions get better.

Being Anti-Narrative Pays Off Big 🙃

Crypto runs on narratives. We know this. But the consensus is wrong more often than not. For example, Solana was pronounced dead because it was associated with SBF. But, if you ever used the chain, you know it provides incredible user experience. Now it has paid off huge for all the believers. 

So being on the other side of the narrative may hurt in the short-term. But the fundamentals of the project dictate growth in the long-term. We will likely see this pattern again and again, so it’s important to understand when to be aligned with the narrative and when to question its legitimacy. 

In addition, you must see the scale of reflexivity of what a certain narrative can have. If it attracts a new group of audience and the pie expands based on the ever-changing perception of what an asset represents. We are seeing this with memecoins now. We may see this in other forms in future as well. 

In all, finding the market inefficiencies starts with identifying whether the current narrative is sustaining or not. If not, you have to search for alternatives. This is how market participants gain edge. In gaming, we will likely see this happen because there are too many games to follow closely. At the same time, it helps as the pie only grows bigger.

• Hosted a X space to explore the synergies between Esports and Web3 gaming with a thought leader Srinivas. 

• We announced a merchandise giveaway for Christmas. To participate, go here and comment on your dream gaming feature. 

• The Wizard program has entered its final sprint and gamers are earning XP aggressively to win PS5. 

• Grapes concluded $GRAPE public sale, with $100M total committed investment, and announced Bunches Season 2. 

• Axie Infinity introduced Axie Evolution that adds dynamic nature to collectibles and reduces inflationary pressure. 

• Nifty Island announced a play-to-airdrop campaign to acquire $ISLAND when the open beta version goes live in January.

• Overworld announced partnership with Horizen Labs Ventures, a leading token advisory firm, to launch the most impactful gaming token in 2024. 

• Famous Web3 brand Kanpai Pandas and infrastructure company Ceden Network acquire Raini Studios. 

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