Co-founded by Russian-born cryptocurrency, DeFi, and blockchain app entrepreneur Sergei Sergienko, CGU operates on the principles of uber-economy. Instead of players spending money to buy their initial NFT characters, they rent them from the platform in exchange for a share of their daily income. At the same time, the games themselves reward players with income proportionate to their in-game skill and performance. 

Before the final open market sale of tokens, CGU had already raised $5M and $10M in seed and pre-IDO rounds respectively. The tokens released during those rounds are subject to a blocking period, with a 3-year rights transfer schedule, meaning that CGU tokens are now only available on the secondary market. 

In total, 10 million CGU tokens were made available for sale, priced at $0.25 each. Just six seconds after the market opened, all were sold. 

Commenting on the sale, CGU Co-Founder, Sergei Sergienko, said: “Success of every project is always measured by the market. We never expected the demand to be high enough to sell all the tokens in under 6 seconds. This makes it even more pleasant to realize the importance of the gaming crypto platform CGU to the market, and to feel the support coming from the project’s community.”

According to the token emission prospect, the next step for CGU is to increase the number of active players on the platform to the 100,000 mark, while also creating and developing CGU and DAO communities for the project. 

Overall, Crypto Gaming United, has now raised $17.5M over three investment rounds, and the total volume of CGU’s emission is 1 billion tokens, 26% of which belong to investors.

The addition of Connecticut means Genius Sports is now authorised to operate in seventeen US states, powering official data, streaming, and marketing solutions for sportsbooks and lotteries. 

Online sports betting was authorized in Connecticut in May 2021, making the state the latest to legalise sports betting and begin operations. Connecticut’s online sportsbooks are set to launch 7 October, ahead of NFL Week 5. Earlier this week, Connecticut’s federal officials confirmed that FanDuel and DraftKings will both be authorised to take retail bets at the Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods Resort Casino respectively.

“We are thrilled that Connecticut has awarded Genius Sports its inaugural online gaming service provider permit, allowing authorized sportsbooks access to our industry-leading solutions,” said Mark Locke, CEO of Genius Sports. “There are an increasing number of U.S. states looking to provide their residents with the best quality fan experiences, while capturing the full value available to the state. Genius Sports welcomes the opportunity to work with states like Connecticut, using our official sports data-powered solutions to underpin their authorized sportsbooks.”

Staying with Genius Sports and the United States, last month, the company signed an official data and trading agreement with Golden Nugget Online Gaming.

The all-cash offer was unanimously approved by the Playtech board, and the transaction is expected to be completed in H1 2022, subject to the usual formalities and regulatory approvals. 

Playtech had previously agreed to sell Finalto to a Barinboim Group-led consortium for $210M, but that deal collapsed in August, when it was rejected by the majority of Playtech’s shareholders. 

For H1 of the 2021 financial year, Finalto generated an adjusted EBITDA loss of $0.6M. Playtech says its sale will allow the group to focus on its tech led gambling offering, and improve the predictability and stability of the group’s cash flows. 

Commenting on the news, Playtech CEO, Mor Weizer, said: “We are very pleased to have successfully reached an agreement with Gopher regarding the sale of Finalto. This transaction delivers on our strategy to simplify the group to focus on the high-growth B2B and B2C gambling markets.

“I would like to thank everyone at Finalto for their tremendous contributions to Playtech and wish them every success. We are pleased to recommend this transaction to our shareholders, and we remain well placed to capitalise on the exciting market opportunities ahead, driving sustainable growth for the benefit of all our stakeholders.”

OpenBet has more than 1,000 team members around the world, and focuses exclusively on licensed customers and regulated gaming markets. Its clients include top-tier sportsbooks like DraftKings, FanDuel, WynnBet, SkyBet, Ladbrokes, and William Hill. 

Specialising in betting engine technology, the company processed around three billion bets in 2020, and also offers trading, pricing, and risk management tools; player account and wallet solutions, front-end UX and UI; and content offerings including BetBuilder, DonBest pricing feeds, and a sports content aggregation platform. 

According to Endeavor, the acquisition will complement its position within the sports betting ecosystem, currently anchored by IMG ARENA, which works with over 470 sportsbook brands around the world, delivering official live streaming video and data feeds for more than 45,000 sports events per year. 

“OpenBet marks a strategic addition to our sports betting portfolio as we look to round out our technology and product offering for sportsbook operators and sports brands worldwide,” remarked Ariel Emanuel, CEO, Endeavor. “The combination of OpenBet and our IMG ARENA business will enable us to expand our footprint across the entire sports betting value chain and further capitalize on the tremendous upside we see coming from this fast-growing global industry.”

“This transformational announcement combines OpenBet’s market-leading sports betting ecosystem with unparalleled access to sports rights, content and data across the Endeavor portfolio,” said Jordan Levin, Chief Executive of Scientific Games’ Digital business. “Together, we are uniquely positioned to define the future of sports betting entertainment. Putting our customers and their players at the heart of our product and technology innovation will remain the key to our ongoing success. The team at OpenBet is second to none and we’re laser focused on the rapid expansion of the global sports betting market. Ari’s leadership and vision for the entertainment industry is exceptional and this is supported by Scientific Games’ commitment to Endeavor through the stock component of this deal.”

The transaction will see Endeavor pay Scientific Games $1 billion in cash and $200 million of Endeavor’s Class A common stock, and is expected to close in the second quarter of 2022, subject to regulatory consents and approvals, and customary closing conditions.

When Football Index, operated by Jersey-based BetIndex, suspended trading in March 2021, it was thought to have around 500K registered account holders, and approximately 30K regular users – with the average user estimated to have lost around GBP£3,000 each. 

Football Index customers can now request to withdraw their remaining balances, with transactions expected to take between 2 and 10 working days. Although the opening of withdrawals will come as some relief, users will still have to bear significant losses. 

As previously reported, the UK’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport, is in the process of investigating the collapse of Football Index, and serious questions have been raised as to how much the Gambling Commission really understood the operator’s business model.

The game, which provides a virtual property trading metaverse allowing players to buy, sell and trade virtual real estate as NFTs linked to real maps, wrapped up 2020 with over 100,000,000 million (in-game UPX) of property sales. 

High profile landmark properties have been sold on Upland, including Trump Tower, and The New York Stock Exchange – which sold for $23K USD. Developers say the game now has over 800 UPX Millionaires ($1 = 1,000 UPX), 100K monthly active users, and has sold over 500K NFT properties. 

The total net worth of all properties owned in Upland is currently 7 Billion UPX, and players have generated thousands of dollars in the real-world by cashing their UPX into fiat via Tilia Pay – the same payment system used in Second Life – enabling players to withdraw USD from virtual property sales directly into their PayPal accounts. 

Recently Upland also added a new dimension by releasing a set of NFT collectible card sets with Blockchain Heroes. These allow players to buy, sell, and trade in-game characters as NFTs on other digital marketplaces. 

Upland says it has plans to further expand rewards, with 3D property development features, and NFT portal to import art into properties, and tools enabling the running of virtual businesses. 

AYO.NEWS says:

With blockchain and cryptos now becoming mainstream, it’s only to be expected that more and more people are comfortable with the idea of NFTs. And, with the COVID-19 crisis, driven by vaccine resistant variants, likely to drag on for some time, further fuelling the demand for a digital life, we think 2021 will be a very pivotal year for the emergence of the digital metaverse. 

The company, which is licensed by the UK Gambling Commission, has confirmed that all trading and payments will be suspended until further notice. 

Styled as a “stock market for footballers,” Football Index had faced a spiraling crisis over the last few months, as liquidity dried up and prices collapsed – with problems worsened by the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on football. 

As reported earlier this week, the company had been forced to disable comments on its Twitter feed after anger started boiling over among users following a move to slash dividends. It is thought that many users have lost significant sums on the platform over the past few months, with some users reported to have invested six-figure stakes in the platform.

Football Index has released a statement saying: ““The Board of BetIndex Limited has consulted with external legal and financial advisors, and the UK and Jersey Gambling Commissions. The decision has been made to suspend the platform.

“The dividend restructure announced on Friday was a necessary step in a business recovery plan to seek the long-term sustainability of the platform. However, it is clear that this has not been well received and we need to find a more agreeable way forward.

“We are pursuing a restructuring arrangement to be agreed with our stakeholders including, most importantly, our community. We are preparing this through an administration with insolvency practitioners Begbies Traynor, to seek the best outcome for customers with the goal of continuing the platform in a restructured form.”

AYO.NEWS says:

Although Football Index has broached several possibilities with a view of saving the platform, including equity being shared among customers, a new management team, and board representation for users, it’s hard to see how the platform can possibly recover from this. 

At the end of the day, the fundamental flaws and risks, which were clearly not appreciated by many users, of the platform’s basic business model have been revealed. With trust absolutely shot to pieces, anger sure to grow as the scale of losses dawns on people, plus a popular press that is likely to crucify everyone involved in the project, we’d say “put a fork in it” because Football Index is done. 

And, let’s not forget, many have already questioned the way that Football Index has marketed itself, giving the impression it is more of an investment tool than gambling product. With anti-gambling sentiment at an all-time high in the UK, and the Gambling Act Review currently underway, the fallout from this collapse could affect far more than just Football Index.

Will we see a phoenix rise from the ashes or is this the end for the “football stock market?”

With the COVID-19 crisis significantly reducing liquidity on the platform, which allows players to trade shares in professional footballers stock market-style, Football Index has been forced to reduce dividends. 

Illustrating the scale of the crisis the platform is facing, a share in Borussia Dortmund’s Jadon Sancho cost players £15.04 GBP at the start of September 2020, but had plummeted to just £1.03 at the time of writing. 

With some players reported to have six-figure stakes invested in players on the platform, there has been growing desperation among users, with many angrily lashing out at Football Index, and some making personal threats against staff, prompting the platform to disable Twitter comments.

As previously reported, in December 2020, Mike Bohan took over as CEO of Football Index, while previous CEO, Adam Cole, was appointed company chairman.

AYO.NEWS says:

Football Index has made quite a splash in the UK over the past six years, offering players an alternative to traditional sports wagering. Of course, the COVID-19 crisis has been a true ‘black swan’ event, and hit many businesses in unexpected ways – none more so than football and other sports – so it’s not exactly surprising to see Football Index negatively affected. 

However, critics of the platform have long warned about potential dangers, especially the fact rules can be changed mid-contract, and we’re sure the development will prompt some observers to again question whether Football Index has been portrayed too much like an investment product, rather than a gambling product. 

UAE-based Al Khaleej Sugar, the world’s largest sugar refinery, has launched a blockchain-based sugar trading platform called DigitalSugar.io. 

The new platform enables users to trade the spot price of sugar via tokens pegged to up to 100K tonnes of raw sugar. Electronic warrants of ownership will be issued with the tokens by Universa blockchain, with each token representing between 1kg and 1M tonne of sugar. 

DigitalSugar.io has been launched in partnership with the Free Zone and Government of Dubai Authority on Commodities Trade (DMCC), and Universa Blockchain, and is the first exchange offering traders and investors immediate spot trades on raw sugar, as opposed to options or futures, which are offered for commodities. 

Introducing the platform, Executive Director, Commodities and Financial Services, DMCC, Sanjeev Dutta, said:

“Driving increased trade through Dubai is at the heart of all that we do at DMCC, and partnerships like this exemplify this commitment.

“DigitalSugar is set to democratise access to the trading of raw sugar, allowing retail and institutional traders to invest or speculate on the price changes of sugar on their own terms and at their own convenience. This is an exciting moment as we continue to utilise cutting-edge blockchain technology to broaden the range of commodities traded through Dubai.”

The sugar trading platform is in line with the UAE’s Blockchain Strategy 2021, which was launched in 2018, with the goal of migrating at least 50% of government transactions on to distributed ledger technology (DLT) before the end of 2020, and encouraging the adoption of blockchain in business. 

AYO.NEWS says:

Once again we see blockchain tech cut the middleman from commodity trading, making it more accessible to investors across the board, improving efficiency and transparency, and opening up yet another avenue in the digital economy. Sweet. 

‘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.

The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) has announced it is delaying the introduction of its blockchain-based replacement for its Clearing House Electronic Subregister System (CHESS) system again, because it wants to triple its planned capacity and make other improvements before it goes live. 

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered a surge in trade volumes from March, causing the ASX to revise the requirements for its new blockchain-based clearance system – which has already been in development for four years.

Originally slated to launch in April 2021, in March 2020 the schedule was pushed back by 12 months, with testing expected to start in December and a full launch in April 2022. Now it appears there will be further delays, with a new implementation schedule set to be confirmed later this month.  

ASX is working with several firms on the project, including VMware and Digital Asset Holding (DA), and is utilising open-source contract programming language DAML. 

Though some have expressed concerns that the new system may suppress competition, by further enhancing the ASX’s monopoly position, and even threaten the survival of brokers, share registries, and other stakeholders, the ASX argues it will actually present new opportunities and greatly improve efficiency for everyone. 

AYO.NEWS says:

Though the delays are sure to frustrate many, and encourage opponents who have vested interests maintaining the status quo, the very fact that there has been such a surge clearly illustrates the need for a state of the art blockchain-based system. 

Staying with Digital Asset’s DAML, last month it was confirmed as the exclusive contract language for China’s Blockchain Services Network (BSN). 

‘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