Atari Partners on Crypto Casino in Ethereum-Based Virtual World
Atari, the gaming company behind the iconic Pacman, Asteroids and Pong, is to develop a cryptocurrency casino in partnership with Decentral Games.
According to a press release shared with CoinDesk on Monday, the Atari-branded casino will be built in “Vegas City” – a gaming district in Ethereum-based Decentraland‘s metaverse and will be leased on an initial two-year term.
In virtual worlds, players inhabit an avatar’s body while interacting with the digital world or “metaverse.” Decentral Games, part of the Decentraland ecosystem, claims to be the first community-owned metaverse crypto casino.
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The new casino, based on Decentral Games’ tech, will feature Atari-themed games including an Atari Special game based on skill rather than luck. Players will be able to earn Decentral Games’ native token ($DG) by playing with MANA, DAI and Atari tokens.
Token holders of $DG will also be able to utilize them to participate in governance and company-related decision making, according to the release.
“Through collaborating with Decentral Games, we can move the Atari gaming experience onto the blockchain,” said Atari’s CEO Frederic Chesnais in the announcement.
Atari Setting Up Crypto Casino to Tap Into Nostalgia and NFTs
InvestorPlace
I could have lived a good, long life without ever seeing, hearing, or using the word “fungible.” Source: Shutterstock Now, it’s everywhere. It sounds like a combination of “fun” and “eligible.”InvestorPlace - Stock Market News, Stock Advice & Trading Tips And while that’s not even close to what it really means, understanding it’s true definition can help you understand a huge opportunity. So let’s have some fun with fungible and find out how it could make you a lot of money … In short, non-fungible tokens — or NFTs — are fast becoming the hottest thing in cryptocurrencies. They are early in their growth cycle. And growth potential is off the charts. Cryptocurrencies overall are exploding. Bitcoin — the first, largest, and best known crypto — has shot more than 350% higher in the last six months … and that’s with a recent pullback off all-time highs. At those levels, it was up as much as 467% just since last September. I expect bitcoin to at least double in the next 12 to 18 months, with more to come after that. If you read MoneyWire regularly, you know that the real opportunity is in lesser-known cryptocurrencies called altcoins — basically anything other than bitcoin. These are not fantasy internet money but the software programs of the future. They may be smaller, but the right ones have much bigger potential. Within altcoins, the there are two areas in particular that are white hot right now. One is decentralized finance (DeFi), and the other is NFTs. But what the heck are non-fungible tokens anyway? Fungible means replaceable or interchangeable, so NFTs are digital assets that are unique. They cannot be replicated, counterfeited, inflated, or anything else. Bitcoin is fungible. One bitcoin is the same as every other bitcoin. NFTs are one of a kind. Take the Porsche Macan I bought last summer. Yes, there are other Macans on the road. Some may even be identical to mine… except for the VIN. That unique number makes my particular Macan non-fungible. These cryptos are just now beginning to take off. If this were a baseball game, the pitcher would still be warming up and we wouldn’t have sung the national anthem yet. Still, we’ve followed NFTs closely enough to see four areas of use emerging as the biggest: DeFi: Real-world assets can be turned into NFTs and used for financial purposes. For example, I could sell partial ownership of my Porsche through NFTs and basically earn interest. Collectibles: Trading cards, videos, pictures, etc. Did you hear about NBA Top Shot? It’s a digital collectibles platform that sold more than 10,000 packs of basketball videos for more than $1 million. Videos! Through NFTs, people basically bought the rights to specific videos. Digital art: The overall art market is estimated at $70 billion a year. But get this… fake art sales are believed to make up 20%-50% of that. That’s huge. Digitizing the art ownership through NFTs could dramatically cut that because the tokens are on the blockchain, which guarantees that they are genuine. Gaming: This is the biggie. It’s total addressable market (TAM) — or just how big this could be — is more than $200 billion. Gamers can basically monetize their own creations, whether it be a whole alternative universe, a new weapon, or a cute little animal. No middleman either. You get paid directly for what you create. And now for the eye-popping numbers … Throughout their history, there have been nearly $375 million worth of NFTs sold. In the past month, there have been almost $178 million worth sold. I’ll save you the trouble and do the math for you. Nearly half — 47% — of all NFT sales (in dollars) have come in the last month. That gets us to more than $2 billion projected sales here in 2021 based on the monthly run rate. But … that rate is going through the roof, and my team and I believe it will be much higher. As in possibly more than $20 billion! Our propriety MAG (McCall’s Altcoin Grading) System tipped us off to a couple of NFT altcoins very early, and they have been big winners for us — one is up 1,230% since January of 2020 and the other is up 770% since April. They have contributed to our Ultimate Crypto portfolio’s 675% gain in just 15 months. With the recent explosion, more NFTs are flashing higher scores in our system. (Technical indicators are roughly 20% of the score.) And with their enormous potential, we will add more. This is the future of finance — or decentralized finance to be more precise. We are heading toward not only a digital world but a tokenized world. Sending money anywhere will take seconds and cost mere pennies. Buying a home will take days, not weeks — and the transaction will cost a small percentage of what it does today. Even tracking a vaccine from the time it was created to the needle going into your arm will be done on the blockchain. This transformation continues to unfold, creating a once-in-a-lifetime financial opportunity for smart investors who act today. On the date of publication, Matthew McCall did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. Matthew McCall left Wall Street to actually help investors — by getting them into the world’s biggest, most revolutionary trends BEFORE anyone else. Click here to see what Matt has up his sleeve now. More From InvestorPlace Why Everyone Is Investing in 5G All WRONG America’s #1 Stock Picker Reveals His Next 1,000% Winner Revolutionary Tech Behind 5G Rollout Is Being Pioneered By This 1 Company Radical New Battery Could Dismantle Oil Markets The post NFTs Just Exploded — but Growth Potential Is Still Off the Charts appeared first on InvestorPlace.
Atari Setting Up Crypto Casino to Tap Into Nostalgia and NFTs
Bloomberg
(Bloomberg) – Saudi Arabia said some of the world’s most protected oil infrastructure came under missile and drone attack in an escalation of regional hostilities that pushed up crude prices.The attacks on Sunday were intercepted, Saudi Arabia said, and oil output appeared to be unaffected. But the latest in a spate of assaults claimed by Iran-backed Houthi rebels briefly pushed oil prices to above $70 a barrel for the first time since January 2020 and will likely complicate efforts by U.S. President Joe Biden to engage in nuclear diplomacy with Iran.The strikes against Saudi oil installations were the most serious since a key processing facility and two fields came under fire in September 2019, cutting production for about a month and exposing the vulnerability of the kingdom’s petroleum industry. Yemen’s Houthi fighters claimed responsibility for that attack although Riyadh and Washington pointed the finger at arch-rival Iran. The U.S. held back from military confrontation and said at the time it would boost air and missile defenses in the kingdom.The U.S. said on Monday that its commitment to defend Saudi Arabia is “unwavering.” In a Twitter post, the U.S. mission in Riyadh condemned the attacks, which it said demonstrated a “lack of respect for human life” and a “lack of interest in the pursuit of peace.”Hours later, the Houthis said they had fired a new type of ballistic missile at a military site at Abha airport in the kingdom’s south.In Pictures: This Is Where Saudi Arabia Gets Its OilAn oil storage tank farm at the Ras Tanura export terminal on the Persian Gulf coast was attacked by a drone from the sea, according to the Energy Ministry. Shrapnel from a missile also landed close to a residential compound for employees of national oil company Saudi Aramco in Dhahran, where windows shook and witnesses said they took shelter. The compound is home to families of Saudi and expat employees, and there’s a U.S. consulate nearby. Ras Tanura is about an hour by car up the coast.“Both attacks did not result in any injury or loss of life or property,” a spokesman for the Saudi Energy Ministry said. Two people familiar with the situation also said oil output was unaffected, and on Monday loading in the Ras Tanura area was continuing, with tankers docking on the north pier and sea islands.Brent crude rose as much as 2.9% to $71.37 a barrel on Monday, before paring gains. Oil had already received a boost from an OPEC meeting last week, when ministers agreed to keep a tight leash on supply.DefensesRas Tanura’s airspace is heavily defended: it is close to a large Saudi air base and its offshore loading terminals are equipped with protection against undersea attack. The Houthis launched eight ballistic missiles and 14 bomb-laden drones at Saudi Arabia, a spokesman for the group, Yahya Saree, said in a statement to rebel-run Al Masirah television.“This does not seem as effective an operation as the previous one,” said Douglas Barrie, a senior fellow at the U.K.-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.Ras Tanura is the world’s largest oil terminal, capable of exporting roughly 6.5 million barrels a day – nearly 7% of oil demand. The port includes a large storage tank farm where crude is kept before it’s pumped into super-tankers. A refinery at the same site is Aramco’s oldest and largest.Riyadh Blames U.S. PolicySaudi Arabia leads a military coalition which has been fighting the Houthis in Yemen since 2015. On Sunday it said a recent U.S. decision to stop designating the Houthis as terrorists had fueled the rise in attacks, sharpening its tone against Washington.The Biden administration has moved to ditch the designation after the United Nations warned of famine in the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest nation if aid was disrupted. The administration of Donald Trump adopted the label toward the end of his time as president, and it was seen as a way of increasing pressure on Iran.Understanding the Conflicts Leading to Saudi Attacks: QuickTakeAdds “The Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia will likely further complicate efforts of the Biden administration to negotiate a follow-on nuclear agreement with the Iranians,” Helima Croft, the head of global commodity strategy and MENA research at RBC Capital Markets in New York, wrote in a research note.During his campaign for president, Biden pledged to rejoin a multiparty nuclear pact with Iran that Trump had exited before imposing sanctions. But Washington and Iran are locked in a standoff over which government should make the first move.‘Iran Fatigue’Disappointed at the slow pace of developments, Iran could be returning to its “traditional playbook of leverage-building and pressure tactics in multiple arenas,” said Sanam Vakil, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at Chatham House.“What Iran risks, I think is overplaying its hand and underestimating the level of ‘Iran fatigue’ in the international community,” she said, adding Tehran could stymie diplomatic efforts aimed at reentering the deal through such “leverage-building attacks.”The Houthis have stepped up assaults on Saudi Arabia and last week claimed they hit an Aramco fuel depot in Jeddah with a cruise missile. It wasn’t clear if there had been any damage.The attacks have also provoked a retaliation in Yemen – the coalition bombarded the capital Sana’a with air strikes on Sunday, saying it was targeting the Houthis. The conflict has already killed tens of thousands of people and triggered what the UN says is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.“The Houthis are escalating missile attacks and being provocational to make gains in the negotiations and back-channeling taking place in the context of the Yemen war,” Vakil said.(Updates with new claim of attack on airport.)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.