Blockchain fantasy football platform Sorare has launched out of Beta in the UK, and welcomed Paris Saint-Germain as its 100th club.

The 2020 Champions League Finalist, which is the 100th club to join Sorare, has entered an agreement that will see digital collectibles of its players made available on the platform. This includes ‘legendary players’ from 2013, including David Beckham. 

From today, collectors and gamers in the UK and elsewhere will be able to freely buy, sell, and play with limited edition digital player cards of PSG players including Neymar and Kylian Mbappé, and historic players from 2013 such as David Beckham.

Discussing developments CEO of Sorare, Nicolas Julia, said:

“We​ are delighted to officially launch in the UK today, getting Sorare one step closer to closing game changing partnerships with major teams and clubs in the country. The​ European Fantasy Football market was estimated at close to USD 900M per annum1 in 2018, and expected to double in the next five years. Expanding into more European markets early on in our growth is a strategic step for Sorare both in terms of market acquisition and brand recognition with users, football teams, and investors alike. 

“With the inclusion of PSG to the platform, football fans in the UK and elsewhere will be able to leverage their football knowledge to play as a strategic manager and compete for rewards with skin in the game. PSG fans will be able to join the economy of their passions in a way that wasn’t possible before Sorare’s global fantasy football.”

While Head of Merchandising and Brand Diversification at Paris Saint-Germain, Fabien Allegre, added:

“Paris Saint-Germain is the new generation club. We are driven by our values of competitiveness. At the forefront of innovation, we are always looking ahead, looking to the future, to offer our fans new experiences. To constantly improve them, and to offer better coverage for our brand, Sorare will enable us to reach out to new, young communities, especially in Asia and America. We are proud of this new collaboration.”

The UK currently ranks 5th in terms of total numbers of Sorare users, though it is number one in terms of time spent per player on the platform. According to the company, its launch out of Beta paves the way for significant partnerships with UK-based football clubs.

Since launching early in 2019 Sorare has seen an average month-on-month growth rate of 52%, and now has more than 40,000 worldwide.

AYO.NEWS says:

With the COVID-19 crisis still meaning many football matches are being played behind closed doors, platforms like Sorare are providing a valuable way to boost fan engagement, and we expect the market will keep growing rapidly. 

Staying with non-fungible token-based sports collectibles, in August Dapper Labs launched a marketplace for its Flow blockchain-based NBA Top Shot. 

‘AYO.NEWS says’ features the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Pentagon Digital Limited or its affiliates or associates. 

All original content featured on this site is © Pentagon Digital Limited, 2020

Reddit’s MOON token seems to have gone ‘slightly off the rockers’, with a market cap of 30 septillion. 

Though Reddit’s ERC-20 based MOON and BRICK tokens are still on the Rinkeby testnet, being trialled by users of its cryptocurrency and Fortnite subcommunities – traders have already worked out a way to trade them, and the results are surprising to say the least!

According to Etherscan, more than 30,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 MOONs, Reddit’s crypto community token, have now been distributed to around 7,800 addresses. 

On 26 September xMOON reached $0.35 on Honeyswap, before falling back to $0.055 on the 30th. It means that, at one point, the market capitalisation was somewhere in the region of USD $2.66 septillion – or roughly 2 trillion percent more than then the value of the entire global economy in 2019 (approx. $133 trillion). 

Reddit is expected to launch its community tokens on the Ethereum (ETH) mainnet before 2021. 

AYO.NEWS says:

Crypto traders will be crypto traders – Reddit should have known they’d find a way to trade MOONs and BRICKs in short order. As for their performance? Well, perhaps best not take things too seriously right now. 

‘AYO.NEWS says’ features the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Pentagon Digital Limited or its affiliates or associates. 

All original content featured on this site is © Pentagon Digital Limited, 2020

New online casino Trustbet.io has become the first brand to go live on the DAOPlatform blockchain-based igaming platform. 

After a successful community-focused soft launch in mid-August, Trustbet.io is now available for players in several jurisdictions across Latin America, Africa, Europe, and the CIS. 

The casino has initially launched with five games from the provider’s in-house publisher, DAOGames: Blackjack, Dice, Baccarat, Three Card Brag and High Card – all off which feature tamper-proof on-chain RNGs approved by GLI. 

Trustbet.io players will also benefit from no deposit requirements, instant payouts, ultra-fast game finality, and will avoid high blockchain transaction fees. 

Discussing the launch DAOGroup’s CCO Glen Bullen, said:

“Trustbet.io will do just as it says on the tin: offer players the ability to keep their money where they can control it, while reaping instant pay outs from quality games with verifiable randomness.”

“We’re very excited to showcase the DAOPlatform and its cutting-edge performance with such a quality brand as TrustBet.io; and, with their initial success proving the product, we look forward to rolling it out to further brands and help shape the future of igaming.”

Players and white label operators, like Trustbet.io, also benefit from the crypto-fiat gateway DAOWallet, allowing for both on and off-ramp payments for crypto (ETH, BTC), stablecoins (TrueUSD, Tether), and fiat (Euro via SEPA, USD via Swift).

All original content featured on this site is © Pentagon Digital Limited, 2020

New York-based blockchain tech company Kadena has announced a multi-protocol decentralised exchange (DEX) named Kadenaswap. 

Kadenaswap will utilize Kadena’s 20-chain sharded and scalable layer-1 public blockchain with 480,000 transactions per second capability. To celebrate the occasion, Kadena is offering a free month of gas during October 2020, is launching a developer engagement program, and is partnering with ZelCore on full-node incentivisation for miners. 

Explaining the motivation behind Kadenaswap, the company pointed out that as DeFi continues to grow by billions each month, the fundamental problems of Ethereum are “breaking platforms and sending developers scrambling.” 

Ethereum is currently the infrastructure that most DeFi activity relies on, but it is struggling to cope, and gas prices have reached as high as $99 per transaction. Non-DeFi apps have been crowded out and recent hacks have caused losses of ten of millions of dollars – highlighting the major security issues faced by developers when dealing with Ethereum’s smart contract language, Solidity. 

While major DeFi projects have looked at alternative blockchain platforms, including “CeFi”, which leverages centralised exchanges’ scalability, and layer-2 networks like the Lightning Network, Kadenaswap is taking a different approach.

By leveraging Kadena’s multi-chain scalability and scaling on the base layer, and using decentralised bridge technology in Pact for access to major protocols regardless of the chain they originate on, Kadenaswap maintains a truly decentralised approach.

Kadena Co-founder and President, Stuart Popejoy, explained:

“Ethereum made DeFi possible, but congestion and high gas prices threaten the sustainability of the DeFi experiment just as it is poised to skyrocket.

“Kadenaswap’s support for multiple protocols and the ability to scale across the Kadena public multi-chain network will provide a much-needed, fully decentralized alternative to ‘CeFi’ on centralized exchanges and off-chain Layer-2 solutions. 

“Combined with community efforts like our developer program launch and free gas campaign, Kadenaswap shows a way forward to mass adoption of DeFi protocols.”

Kadenaswap will leverage the Pact smart contract language to interoperate with major DeFi protocols and stablecoins such as BTC, CELO, DAI, DOT, LINK, and ETH. It will also launch in stages beginning with the creation of native decentralized bridges to Ethereum as well as other networks such as Cosmos and Polkadot. 

Kadena’s founders bring proven financial and technical expertise from building J.P. Morgan’s first blockchain and previously working at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Additionally, as the first layer-1 multi-protocol DEX, Kadenaswap will create opportunities for automated market makers (AMMs) to balance liquidity across networks. 

Toward this end, a governance token named KDAX is under consideration to allow stakeholders to participate in setting incentives and other mechanisms. The first stage of Kadenaswap, which will include major components such as bridges, ERC-20 wrapped tokens, etc. will go live in Q4 of this year. Additional details can be found in the release of the company’s Q4 2020 roadmap next month.

AYO.NEWS says:

Has Kadena just presented the first real alternative for the DeFi ecosystem? There’s little doubt that Kadena’s multi-chain, sharded, scalable blockchain is technically impressive – and has resulted in the world’s fastest blockchain (which also addresses both environmental and security concerns), so success might end up coming down how well Kadena sells itself in the social sphere – after all, there are, for some reason, still a lot of diehard Ethereum loyalists out there. 

‘AYO.NEWS says’ features the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Pentagon Digital Limited or its affiliates or associates. 

All original content featured on this site is © Pentagon Digital Limited, 2020

French esports data startup PandaScore has secured €5M in a Series A funding round. 

The company, which specialises in artificial intelligence-driven statistics and odds data, attracted investment from French VC firm Serena, aXiomatic Gaming (owner of Team Liquid), Alven, and KB Partners. 

PandaScore, which previously raised $2.8M in a July 2017 seed round led by Alven, says it will use its latest funding to grow its team and expand its data services to cover more games.

Commenting on the round Founder and CEO of PandaScore, Flavien Guillocheau, said:

“Esports’ explosive growth is dependent on better data. Better data lets media companies broadcast more engaging content, bookmakers offer better esports products, and teams and tournaments capture more lucrative sponsoring money. Data is the fuel that powers the esports community and we’re proud to be supplying that fuel.”

While Principal at Serena, Olivier Martret, added:

“The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted a significant lack of resilience among traditional bookmakers, who really need to increase their agility. And this is where Pandascore can help. 

“At Serena, we are convinced that PandaScore’s tech is a key asset both for traditional bookmakers, enabling them to gain new market shares, and for newcomers in the bookmaker industry, offering them an unfair advantage to provide efficient and reliable services.”

Pandascore is based in Paris and also runs an office in Malta. The company’s current clients include BetCris, Pixel.bet, Sleeper, Strafe, and Top Esports. 

AYO.NEWS says:

With bookies everywhere falling over themselves to improve their esports offering, we’re sure PandaScore will put this latest investment to good use!

‘AYO.NEWS says’ features the opinion of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of Pentagon Digital Limited or its affiliates or associates. 

All original content featured on this site is © Pentagon Digital Limited, 2020

CelerX offers a new way to monetise casual games by tapping into the power of blockchain and esports.

Casual gaming is booming, but many developers are still struggling to effectively monetise their products. So, AYO.NEWS’ Simona caught up with Mo Dong, co-founder of Celer Network, to find out how the CelerX esports platform offers a compelling alternative to traditional monetisation strategies like advertising, and get his take on the future of blockchain and esports.

Discover more about Celer Network and the CelerX Game Monetisation Engine here.