Eggverse and SPLabs team up to venture into Southeast Asian Web3 market

South Korea’s securities and investment banking house, Shinhan Securities, has maintained the investment rating for Korean game company Wemade as “hold,” according to local financial media outlet Etoday. Shinhan Securities cited uncertainties in the crypto market outlook and the firm’s need to improve business performance as the ground for its latest investment rating. The performance of the firm’s blockchain games is a significant factor in Wemade’s future success as the overall excitement surrounding mobile massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) cools down.  Shinhan Securities’ head analyst Kang Seok-oh wrote in his analysis report that for Q4 2023, the firm recorded an operation loss of approximately $53 million (KRW 70.8 billion) and a consensus deficit close to $39.4 million (KRW 52.6 billion). Sales for the game company declined during the same period because the revenue from license sales, which was included in the Q3 2023 revenue, was not counted in the Q4 2023 figures, according to the report. Photo by Lorenzo Herrera on UnsplashNew games to enter the Chinese market Wemade is set to roll out more new games relative to last year, with plans to enter the Chinese market with “Mir4” and “MirM,” both of which are based on blockchain technology. Its MMORPG “Night Crows,” which ranked 3rd in mobile game sales last year, is also scheduled for a global launch on March 12. “The Legend of Mir”, the firm’s another new game in the pipeline, will be released in the second half of this year.  Kang said the key question is how much influence the crypto market boom will have on the future performance of the firm’s blockchain games. Furthermore, with the firm’s local sales slowing down following the cease of its referral marketing strategy, keeping its existing services profitable would be another important point, he said.  “Although Wemade keeps making its efforts to enter the Chinese market by signing contracts and obtaining the license permit Version Number from the Chinese government, it seems unlikely that Korean games will enjoy the high popularity they once had before China’s ban on Korean culture. Everything would have to turn out in the game company’s favor to improve its business performance,” Kang said. 

Singapore-based decentralized liquidity infrastructure and on-chain funding project Solv Protocol has raised $11 million in funding, bringing its total inward investment to date to $25 million. Taking to Medium on Oct. 14, the project outlined that in this most recent funding round, $11 million had been raised with participation from Nomura subsidiary Laser Digital, Blockchain Capital, gumi Cryptos Capital, OKX Ventures and CMT Digital. Angel investors associated with a number of blockchain projects such as Berachain, Ethena, Mezo, Core, GMX, Curve and EigenLayer also invested. $200 million valuationThis latest funding round was carried out while placing a $200 million valuation on the company. Going forward, the company plans to roll out additional products over the course of the next few weeks, with a view towards further expanding yield opportunities for Bitcoin (BTC) holders. Solv Protocol’s leading product, SolvBTC, was introduced to the market last March as the world’s first-ever yield-bearing Bitcoin. The protocol initially ran on Ethereum, Arbitrum, BNB Chain and Merlin Chain. Since launch, it has been expanded across 10 blockchain networks. The product claims to enable BTC holders to earn additional BTC all the while maintaining Bitcoin exposure. In excess of 20,000 BTC is currently staked within Solv Protocol’s SolvBTC product, accounting for around $1.3 billion in value. The project claims to have 400,000 users, with 80% of their assets allocated to yield-generating strategies.Photo by Traxer on UnsplashMarket opportunitySolv Protocol’s Co-Founder Ryan Chow spoke to the market opportunity that Bitcoin staking presents. Chow stated: “With a market cap of over $1.2 trillion, Bitcoin holds immense growth potential, Bitcoin’s staking rate is currently much lower than Ethereum’s 28%. If we can unlock similar levels of participation, Bitcoin staking could unlock $330 billion in value. We believe BTCFi will drive the next wave of innovation in the blockchain space.” In a series of X posts published on Oct. 14, the project pointed out that the lack of a native yield, limited integrations with core DeFi primitives and fragmented BTC liquidity relative to DeFi are key challenges for Bitcoin, which Solv claims to have resolved. Staking Abstraction Layer (SAL)Earlier this month, Solv, alongside BNB Chain, Ceffu and Chainlink, launched the Staking Abstraction Layer (SAL). SAL is a framework which has been designed to simplify and standardize Bitcoin staking across a number of blockchain networks. Key SAL features include cross-chain compatibility with Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible chains, support for liquidity staking tokens (LSTs) and a focus on security and custody with the involvement of crypto custodian Ceffu deemed to ensure that the user’s underlying Bitcoin is secure. Solv has launched three LSTs. These include SolvBTC.BBN, an LST representing staked Bitcoin on Babylon, another Bitcoin staking platform. SolvBTC.ENA is a trading strategy involving Ethena’s basis trading. Meanwhile, SolvBTC.CORE focuses on providing Bitcoin liquidity on CoreDAO, a Bitcoin-aligned EVM-compatible layer-1 blockchain. Bitcoin staking is a more recent development which appears to have considerable potential. As Solv pointed out on X, Ethereum has a 28% staking rate right now, with Bitcoin not coming anywhere close to this figure. Staking platforms on Ethereum like Lido has $23.7 billion in total value locked (TVL) while EigenLayer weighs in at $10.9 billion.

Dunamu’s Luxury Watch Trading Platform Thrives with Blockchain EdgeViver, a luxury watch trading platform and subsidiary of Dunamu, which operates the Upbit cryptocurrency exchange in South Korea, has been experiencing continued success amidst an ever-growing interest in luxury items as real-world assets and lucrative investment drivers.Photo by Christian Wiediger on UnsplashLeveraging blockchain technology and a showroom experienceThis success can be attributed to the platform’s commitment to taking advantage of Dunamu’s cutting-edge blockchain technology and infrastructure, setting it apart from other luxury platforms and boosting competitiveness in the market.Another major factor is the Viver showroom in Gangnam, southern Seoul, which allows visitors to try on and purchase watches, get their own watches polished and checked, and speak with a professional watch curator.Moon Jae-yeon, CEO of Viver, unveiled plans to surpass global competitors like the US’ Watchbox and Europe’s Chrono24 within five years by growing the app into a global vertical commerce platform focused on luxury watches.Rolex’s finest dominate Viver’s diverse collectionIndeed, Viver has become a popular trading hub for timepiece enthusiasts and investors across the country, and the platform recently revealed in a special article for its 100th magazine issue that its best-selling watch is the Rolex Submariner — a globally renown line of high-end divers’ wristwatches.Different models from the Submariner line have taken up the top three ranks of most sold watches. Coming in first is the Submariner Date in Oystersteel, priced at KRW 16.5 million (approximately $12,500) on Viver, which accounted for 16.5% of total sales. Following close in second place with just two fewer watches sold and a 16.2% share of sales is the Submariner in Oystersteel, which is set apart by its lack of a date indicator. Last but not least, the Submariner Date in Oystersteel and yellow gold took up 13.7% of sales.The watch sold the fastest on the platform was the Rolex Datejust 41 in Oystersteel and white gold. Sporting the iconic Jubilee bracelet and fluted bezel, the timepiece took just a minute and 42 seconds from registration to sale.Though Rolex has evidently claimed its superlative title as the platform’s most popular brand, Audemars Piguet secured its own as the most expensive. The priciest timepiece to ever be sold on Viver is the Royal Oak model for KRW 130 million.Exponential growthThe platform also added four new brands in June — Patek Philippe, Omega, Cartier, and Vacheron Constantin. Consequently, total transaction value, product registrations, and product purchases in July increased by 34%, 116%, and 36%, respectively.As a result of these combined efforts, both monthly trade count and transaction volume on Viver have spiked by more than 15 times since its establishment last August, while the number of users has grown by about 10 times over the past year.The number of products directly registered by sellers also increased by about 30 times compared to the first month since the platform’s launch.