Gamers>Bears

Welcome to The Daily Moon. It was on the cards and now it is here. India’s taxman will demand 1% TDS for every crypto transaction over Rs 10,000 in a year (or~ $128). Where does that leave traders, institutions, or retail investors? We don’t know. All we know is that it kicks-in from July 1.

GameFi Going Strong

The crypto winter isn’t giving the chills to gaming. Despite price fluctuations, GameFi is going strong on investments. We may have found another recession-proof business. GameFi is raising and deploying capital despite the crypto market cap shrinking to $895 billion.

What’s driving it?About 11.5% of the $1.43 billion worth of blockchain investments was directed towards GameFi. Big crypto investors such as a16z and Dapper Labs are driving the momentum, having invested around $1.3 billion so far.

A few factors are aiding this growth:

• There were 1.5 million unique active wallets on GameFi in May.

• High engagement rates are overcoming bear market worries.

• Games such as MiningNetwork are attracting new users.

Answer to the recession?There are some short-term blips. Active users fell 13.4% in May to 19.83 million, thanks to the bear market. However, the good news in the form of a $600 million Games Fund by a16z also followed.

The primary reason for the growth is the potential to earn while playing. New models such as play-to-mint brought in a fresh set of gamers. So it is no surprise that games such as Axie Infinity stay on the top of the NFT community across the globe.

Fantasy game Illuvium, for instance, sold 20,000 digital land plots worth $72 million. With Ethereum’s Layer 2 scaling underway, there’s more to come.

While we’re on the subjectBinance has launched zero-fee bitcoin trading in the United States. It is planning to eliminate charges for other tokens too, but in the future.

Maple’s Cash Troubles

Another crypto lender is calling out for help. Crypto lender Maple Finance is the latest to succumb to a fund crunch. Maple announced that they are running out of capital and there is “insufficient cash” in pools. It has also asked lenders to wait for borrower repayments.

Another crash victim?Celsius and Babel paused all withdrawals and spooked lenders and investors. In fact, Babel had to raise a debt worth $10 million. Now Maple has joined the queue.

Bitcoin slipped below $20,000 on Wednesday. Crashing prices mean that borrower repayments could get affected.

What happens next?Maple has said when loans mature, borrowers will start paying their debt and interest. Once this happens, there will be more cash in the system. Here’s how it will work:

1. If there are insufficient funds, the lenders will have to wait for at least 10 days to withdraw.

2. There is a 48-hour window to withdraw post this cooldown period.

3. In case of funds going below a certain amount, there will be another 10-day cooldown period.

4. Once all withdrawal requests are completed, the pool will start issuing loans again.

5. Lenders will earn interest and rewards during this period.

So far, Maple has already disbursed loans worth $1.5 billion. It has deposits worth $929 million.

Stable No.5

There is another stablecoin from the Tether stable. And this one is pegged to the British pound. Slated for launch in July, the GBP Token will be Tether’s fifth stablecoin.

The list gets longerTether already has the USDT (dollar), CNHT (Chinese yuan), EURT (Euro), and MXNT (Mexican Peso) in its stable. GBP Token is now added to the list.

The UK government is planning to make the country a crypto hub. Tether says that the GBP Token will put British Pounds on the blockchain and provide a faster, less costly option for asset transfers.

Brexit woesThe GBP Token launch comes ‌when the UK is battling its own share of troubles post-Brexit. Inflation is at a 4-year high of 9.1%. The British pound has also stumbled against the US dollar.

The Terra-Luna crash triggered a $60 billion loss to the crypto market. But for now, Tether’s USDT stays stable against the US dollar.

XBox’s BFF PlayStation

Sony and Microsoft are coming together. The gaming and technology giants are now working on an interoperable metaverse. Nvidia, Meta, Adobe, and Alibaba are among other companies joining this forum. The vision is to build a common infrastructure for an open metaverse.

Why does this matter?So far, technology companies have been fierce competitors on and off the metaverse. But there now seems to be a consensus that it is better to build together. An agreement that a single company shouldn’t dominate the metaverse. Just like how the world wide web was built by multiple companies. What’ll the forum do?The first meeting is in July. Microsoft, Sony, Meta, and the rest will come together to discuss open-source tools that can be deployed. Guidelines for building projects on the metaverse will also be finalised over the next few meetings.

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Who are we? There is a lot happening in our world. Everything has layers, and each layer has to be carefully peeled so you, the reader, know how the world of money is changing every day. That’s our promise. Help you unpeel the onions, which are the public markets in the US, India, and crypto, so that you know just a little more.