Axie Infinity's bAXS (Apptoken) goes live...
SIDELINED NEWS 155
TLDR :
Open Loot announced Warcast
Power Protocol raises $3M
Axie Infinity’s bAXS goes live
🗞️ NEWS
OPEN LOOT IS ANNOUNCED WARCAST
Around two weeks ago (yes, we’re late…), Open Loot (OL) announced that they’re building a new 4X game called Warcast: “a strategy game centered on territory control, resource management, and strategic decision making”
In Warcast, players will secure land, build out their bases, and compete over finite resources in a shared map. From a high level, it looks like they’re going for a game similar to Kingshot
Next week, on March 3, there will be an invite-only playtest for the game. Moreover, we can get a better idea of how the game plays by going to the website, which features some in-game screenshots
4x is an interesting crypto genre that, in my opinion, is underserved. OL, on why they’re making a strategy game: “These mechanics provide a strong foundation for player driven economies within a web3 enabled game, where outcomes are shaped by planning and coordination rather than short term action.”
Over 3 years ago now, I wrote an article for the Wolves called: “When Does Web3 Make Sense In Gaming?” In this piece, we talk about 4X games, mentioning how these titles often use multiple resources, which drives P2P trading volume. Plus, that warfare is a powerful mechanic to burn resources and create a strong social layer
Warcast will be created under the leadership of OL, the creators of Bigtime (more on that later). Johnson Yeh, the former CEO for China, Japan, and SEA at Riot Games, is the game lead for this project
Interestingly, Yeh is the founder of Ambrus Studio, the developers behind the crypto game E4C: Final Salvation. The studio announced a $15M raise last October, yet their E4C token is trading at a ~$25K market cap?
When going through Big Time Studios (OL) LinkedIn, I also found out that their CEO and founder is one of the co-founders of Decentraland (small world)
The OL platform was built on the success of Big Time. It functions as a crypto publisher with its own marketplace, token (OL), and launcher. OL used to feature the following games on its platform: Worldshards, Moonfrost, Boss Fighters, Shatterpoin, The Desolation, Kokodi, and Bigtime
However, it decided to restructure its publishing model in Q3 last year. And now, only features Bigtime and the Trump Billionaires Club (GC Alpha 78), presumably due to the lack of success of most 3rd party titles
One of the games that had potential among the above list was Worldshards. However, because of complete mismanagement, the SHARDS TGE, held back in September, completely flopped
The game got booted off the platform more recently, and it seems the developers abandoned World Shards as well (based on comms)
After it was delisted, players received (non-transferable) “OL credits” to cover up to 25% of the purchase value as compensation for primary purchases on WorldShards. Naturally, the community wasn’t too happy about this “solution”
Overall, OL doesn’t have the greatest reputation in crypto gaming, I’d say
Other than Warcast, the studio is developing a mobile pet-collecting game that uses the Big Time IP. More information on this title is TBA
On the topic of Big Time, the game generated over $100M in revenue since its pre-season, according to Decrypt data of March 2024. Most of this was generated during initial NFT sales in 2021-2022, primarily Space NFT drops (virtual land)
Big Time is a very average MMO, but it stood out back then, during the
”metaverse wave”, frankly, because all other games were way worse. This position gave them the ability to sell a ton of NFTs, which isn’t replicable anymore in this marketOL, taking a shot at the 4X genre is also interesting, because these titles are known for their monetization depth. The website uses terms like “anchor your army to crypto”, so I wonder how much they will be going for scale vs. servicing their existing audience with an NFT-first strategy
So, will Warcast be another success of the size of Big Time? I don’t think so. Yet, I’m quite curious to see how this game performs and how this team will innovate based on their learnings from its prior “cash cow”
POWER PROTOCOL RAISES $3M
The Power Protocol (PP) announced that they raised an additional $3M in a round exclusively led by BITKRAFT (BK), making total funding to date $15.4M.
For context, PP is the blockchain infrastructure or “economic engine“ behind the next generation of crypto entertainment and the official launch partner of Fableborne (disclaimer: I work for Fableborne)
Previous funding rounds included: a $5.5M round for Fableborne in June 2023, and another ~$6-7M round that was announced in January 2025
The funds will be used to build out the PP and attract third-party studios into the ecosystem, including adopting the $POWER token and using the underlying onchain infrastructure
Comments from both the PP and BK on the raise included:
Kam Punia (CEO PP): “This investment helps us keep moving toward that vision and develop an ecosystem built on progression, competition, and lasting engagement. Bitkraft’s support gives us confidence to keep improving thoughtfully for the benefit of our players and partners.”
Justin Swart (Principal at BK): “With impressive metrics, and one of the most cleanly executed token launches, Pixion, the Fableborne game, and the Power Protocol are building a compounding machine.”
BK has been a fairly active deployer in the crypto gaming space over the last few years, with investments in Party Icons, Beamable, Smolbound, Cartridge, Cambria, Sonic, Avalon, Carbonated, BLOCKLORDS, and more
The Power Ecosystem consists of 4 core Pillars, see litepaper:
The Protocol: “…the infrastructure layer that makes blockchain entertainment scale.” This ecosystem connects partners and players through consumer apps, data-driven liveops, and $POWER
Power Labs: The Protocol’s incubator, “the engine for innovation and growth in the ecosystem”. Power Labs functions as a competitive funnel to onboard builders across gaming, blockchain, and AI into the Power Ecosystem
$POWER: The token that fuels the ecosystem, functioning as:
A gaming token within Fableborne, and future 1st and 3rd-party titles
An infrastructure token that fuels the Power Protocol
An incubation token, the unit of value for Power Labs
Fableborne: PP’s launch partner by being the first app to integrate $POWER into gameplay, staking, and liveops. “The first proof point of the Protocol”
The PP was born out of Fableborne’s initial success, using the game as a launchpad to bootstrap distribution and seed the ecosystem with users, attention, liquidity, and mindshare. The third-party expansion strategy will be an important factor in how this ecosystem continues to grow
AXIE INFINITY’S APPTOKEN bAXS GOES LIVE
Bonded AXS (bAXS) is now live inside Axie Infinity, a variation of the original AXS, and an Apptoken (programmable token). What’s bAXS (also discussed in GC NEWS 150)? Here’s everything you need to know:
bAXS is backed 1:1 by AXS
It’s a utility token that can be staked and used across sinks within Axie (breeding, ascensions, forging, etc.)
On staking, players can stake bAXS and receive AXS rewards. Paying out the same rewards as with AXS, and with the same governance weight
The token can only be spent on sinks within Axie. It can’t be traded or transferred, to retain most of the value inside the ecosystem
bAXS can be converted into AXS, but players will have to pay a “Treasury Fee”. This fee is determined by the “Axie Score” (reputation) of players, and ranges from 17.5% for the highest rank to 85% for the lowest rank
The score is influenced by Axie NFT holdings, treasury contributions, community contributions, and in-game performance
To date, Axie’s Treasury is worth ~$39M (-42% since Jan 23). Its main functions are backing AXS’s value and supporting the ecosystem by funding Axie Improvement Proposals (AIPs)
Interestingly, AIP-002, the “Axie Constitution”, was rejected last year. A proposal that created the foundation for community governance over the Axie Treasury
Treasury growth will be an insightful metric to watch to get an idea of how much bAXS is converted to AXS, and whether it can be a meaningful mechanic to extend the ecosystem’s run rate
Just like GIGABIT’s design, the fee is a strong incentive for players to keep their tokens within the platform. In turn, this also increases the likelihood of players spending the tokens instead
However, the bAXS → AXS conversion mechanic doesn’t have the rewards flywheel like GIGABIT has, where every conversion takes a % to return those rewards to the players. Perhaps a missed opportunity?
The first airdrop happened today and was based on players’ Axie Score and staked AXS amount (per a snapshot taken on February 5)
bAXS rewards will slowly be introduced as ecosystem rewards across: the Bounty Board, Classic and Origin, Homeland, Codex, and campaigns and community
bAXS is one of the few Apptokens that is live now. Other than vPIXEL and xFISH, I can’t name any. While I’m excited for this tech, and on paper, it makes a lot of sense, I remain cautiously optimistic about the impact of the tokens
Simply, because there’s no living proof out there yet that it can create a (more) sustainable token chart
Other than the integration of Apptokens, I’m interested to see the LBAMM go live, “The liquidity layer built for Apptokens”. Last August, in GC NEWS 132, we talked in more detail about what it is and what it enables:
“Dynamic player-driven fees, event-linked market rules, embedded quests and progression hooks, economy control and anti-bot tools, reward layer innovation, and custom market-making are some examples“
There’s currently an audit live for the LBAMM contract with $150K in rewards
Overall, we’ll have to experience how much this changes for AXS’s trajectory. We remain cautiously optimistic and look forward to how Atia’s Legacy can catalyze the token’s potential revival
FLASH NEWS
StarGrid Galaxy War goes live, but also halts funding and development
Cambria shares the details for the public sale of its RSGP token
Magic Eden is shutting down its Ordinals + EVM Marketplaces (+more layoffs?)
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