In this issue:

• This Week in Neo Tokyo: Caitlyn Jenner: 5th Hand of the Citadel? (by PhoenixxDown)

• Crypto Unicorns: Unleashing the Magic! (by Flower83)

• Airdrops Are Not Free Money (by Flower83)

Weird week or two on this end. BYTES was under attack, presumably from a UAEC operative. Communication lines were sabotaged, again likely from a UAEC operative, which prevented last week’s newsletter edition from going out. Meanwhile, Caitlyn Jenner has been deep in the trenches, dropping memecoin contracts like she’s a Neo Tokyo degen living in The Crypt.

Who’s going to do the needful and get her inside the only place that matters in Web3? Hear me out….. Caitlyn Jenner: 5th Hand of the Citadel would go crazy.

Anyway! The Citizen-led team at The Kingdom has been hard at work building a leading Fantasy Cross-IP RPG ecosystem and is about to release their new Neo Tokyo Inspired Cross-IP Collection. What does this mean for you? All of us can claim free NT-themed gear to equip The Kingdom’s Avatars and start boosting their daily Silver!

Learn all the details here in the Discord announcement, check out the announcement tweet below, and listen back to the recent AMA NT had with them here.

Citizen Summer is gearing up to be a blinder, especially with the rare Evo Vegas meet-up in the works from August 15th to 17th. You can book your tickets at this link and get 20% off your GA or VIP ticket if you use the code “neotokyo.” Coordinate with your fellow citizens via the dedicated thread here.

Content wise, this is how things shaped up:

Meet Your Citizens - Our beloved Block Editor found herself on the other side of the hot seat when she was the featured guest on her own show. The Founder of TokenPR talks all about her journey and how The GOAT of Web3 PR is helping to tell the story of this space. Hosted by another GOAT in his own right, Seize.

NFT Market Monday 5/20 - The team and regular guests discussed whether crypto gaming is truly as inevitable as we all have believed. Conviction wavering? Give this a listen to either get back on track or lose all hope entirely! Listen back here.

NFT Market Monday 5/27 - It was never in doubt; we never thought for a second ETH wouldn’t catch up with the rest of the market! Just don’t listen to previous episodes, take my word for it. Get all the reaction to the news of the ETH ETF being accepted, plus is it all over for CryptoPunks? Listen back here.

Degen Digest - The boys are back! The much-loved Degen Digest returns with a bang, covering topics such as tools to identify up-and-coming meme coins, how to follow wallets to get ahead of the herd, and a whole host of other degeneracy-based delicacies.

Carv AMA - The AMA team hosted the Chief Business Officer of CARV, who are building the largest modular data layer for gaming and AI. Listen back here.

Bythen AI AMA - Continuing the AI theme, Bythen AI joined The Citadel for a discussion on their pioneering solution that aims to redefine human-computer interaction by empowering individuals with versatile 3D AI avatars. Listen back here.

Interlinked Episode #30 featured a firm favorite of The Citadel: Chronoforge. Westy and Jose, the CTO & Marketing Lead of the radical multiplayer Action RPG, discuss immersive universe building, $RIFT, and self-governance.

MXS Games AMA - With over 30 games in development, MXS Games aims to bridge the gap between Web2 and Web3 by making Web3 as invisible and seamless as possible, which is very much needed to crack the tough nut of mainstream adoption. Listen back to how they’re going to do it here.

Meet Your Citizens - Block returns to her formal position of grilling our esteemed citizen leaders with this interview with ‘Numbers Guy,’ MHL. The two delve into a host of subjects, including MHL’s area of expertise, tokenomics, and how a gold chain necklace was the catalyst for putting him where he is now.

Interlinked Episode #31 features Alex McConnell, the CEO of Vendetta Games, who are “reinventing blockchain gaming through Wild West adventures.” Ben, Jarred, and Nick take a deep dive into Vendetta, along with the VDT tokenomics, IMX integration, guilds, and more.

And here’s a good thread on how you can keep up to date with all the content Neo Tokyo is bringing you every week:

Wondering who was behind that mysterious Angie X account? It’s been revealed to be REL9X, who appears to be retiring the account for a while but will be back when the time is right to share some techniques on how they created this character.

And a big shout out to Felix, one of The Citadel’s finest ambassadors, who recently spoke at NFC Summit.

Until next week, citizens.

This week, we explore the latest updates and upcoming events from Crypto Unicorns, a unique crypto gaming ecosystem. As they migrate from Polygon to XAI, new opportunities will arise for both players and investors.

Designed to be self-sustaining and driven by community governance tokens, Crypto Unicorns aims to build a lasting IP that extends beyond games into toys, comics, and TV shows where owning a Unicorn NFT grants access to the entire ecosystem.

Starting June 2024, a significant play-to-airdrop campaign will offer daily rewards, with a large airdrop following after 60 days. Discover what’s in store and how you can be part of this exciting journey.

Crypto Unicorns are building an interconnected gaming ecosystem which includes various games, NFTs (Unicorns and land plots) and fungible tokens. Their vision is to create a sustainable economic ecosystem around a community-owned IP. At the core there is a land plot game serving as the main gameplay loop, which is complemented by numerous minigames for players to enjoy. For more details, check out their official whitepaper.

Crypto Unicorns was launched in May 2022 and has since operated for two years as a lively and thriving ecosystem with a stable in-game economy, releasing numerous new products and updates such as Unicorn party mobile app suite (the first ever apple approved crypto wagering games), Rainbow Rumble (a fallguys meets mario kart style PVP experience), as well as a Web3 Land gameplay experience with over 1000 DAU (Daily Active Users) and an impressive retention rate of 39% for 180 days and 29% for a year above.

They managed to raise 30m+ through their NFT sale and backers like Delphi, Bitkraft and Polygon. The gaming studio behind the Crypto Unicorns project is Laguna Games with Aron Beierschmitt as their CEO. The core team consists of 6 members who have 10+ years of experience in their respective fields ranging from game design and art to marketing and blockchain development. The rest of the team is composed of more than 80 people, working remotely across different countries and continents. The team has been working on many new exciting updates, collaborating with multiple external developers that will build upon Crypto Unicorns’ IP. In the future, they are looking to expand into other sectors such as Toys and merchandise and streaming media as well.

What To Look Forward To

In June, Crypto Unicorns will migrate to XAI kicking off a massive play-to-earn campaign with daily rewards as well as another airdrop after 60 days. They received a multi 8 figure XAI token grant which will commence after migration and run for 4 years. The first step of this was already initiated on May 8th with the conversion of their $RBW tokens to $CU on a 10:1 conversion rate (10 $RBW for 1 $CU).

With this, a new staking website and very generous liquidity bootstrapping event opened up for the community and holders in May 2024 with APY rewards up to 92%. There is also a leaderboard with additional rewards from 28th May onwards. Visit their new staking website and connect your wallet if you would like to participate or read more about their huge liquidity bootstrapping event.

Besides all of this, huge new PVP gameplay additions are also coming into the game. These new updates will expand on tribe gameplay and add much more active play experiences to the land gameplay.

What is the $CU Token Utility?

These tokens enable community-driven governance and can be used to participate in proposals, enabling holders to shape the future of the project. Additionally, they are central to all in-game transactions, facilitating trade, access and rewards.

Why XAI?

XAI is a layer 3 blockchain built on top of Arbitrum, which is custom made for gaming with a purpose to onboard more gamers into web3. This will enable them to achieve transaction speeds of less than a second, enabling better responsiveness and providing players with a smooth gaming experience. The almost negligible transaction fees will also further decrease the barrier to entry for many players.

For Players

The migration event will be followed by a massive play-to-airdrop campaign designed to reward players for their time and skill. The participants will be able to yield daily rewards for 2 months before the season ends.

For Investors

If you are not a gamer or don't have a lot of free time, you can still participate and earn rewards. Besides the play-to-airdrop campaign there will also be a LSE (Liquidity Staking Event), where stakers will be able to lock up their $CU tokens and be able to earn not only highly attractive APYs on your staked coins but also partnership airdrops and other tokens such as $CU, $XAI, $GRAIL and potentially more.

Stay tuned and locked in.

See you in C.U. 🫡

Useful Links

• Website

• Twitter

• Discord

• Youtube

• Land Gameplay

• Rainbow Rumble

• Shadowforge

• Opensea Unicorns market

• Opensea Land market

• Opensea Shadowcorns market

• Rainbow Token $RBW

• Unicorn Milk $UNIM

The concept of farming airdrops has sparked significant interest in the altcoin, gaming, NFT and DeFi communities recently. While some perceive it as an avenue for "free money," the underlying mechanisms of value generation are a bit more complex than one would assume at first glance.

In this writeup I will explore an intertwined flow of concepts such as value creation, meaning, time investments, tokenomics, and community engagement. I delve into the intricate dynamics of farming airdrops, elucidating where their value truly comes from.

Where Does the Value of Airdrops Come From?

Let’s just get this one little important thing out of the way first: airdrops are not free money.

At its core, the value of a certain asset stems from the inherent utility and demand for the tokens being distributed. Admittedly, sometimes it is just hype and the price appreciation is solely due to (sometimes empty) promises from the project’s team. However, those that stand the test of time, always have actual use cases behind their token.

Perhaps the most simple way to explain this is in the crypto gaming niche, where these tokens often(or rather, ideally) serve dual purposes: as governance power for voting (on updates, game direction, DAO proposals, etc…) as well as a currency that fuels in-game economy, where you can trade, buy land plots, skins, in game items, etc...

The presence of genuine utility drives buying pressure, thereby imbuing the tokens with tangible value. Moreover, the success and reach of a game or protocol further amplify its market capitalization, reflecting the community's valuation of its significance.

For instance, protocols like Wormhole, with an estimated valuation of $2.5 billion, reach such high valuation because thousands of people, investors, builders, devs, and other projects are building on top of it and using their cross-chain interoperability solutions. When they do an airdrop, its combined FDV is like a tangible representation of how much this means to people collectively.

Airdrops, in this context, transcend mere distribution mechanisms; they symbolize community participation, the energy put into the project and belief in the protocol's future utility. The project’s market cap, in this regard, is then simply a reflection of its perceived worth by the collective. Again, some of the value comes from the actual use case of the project, and a (sometimes quite sizable) chunk of it is based on hype, or promises, or other market participant’s belief that it will go higher in the future.

In short: Individuals invest their time, energy, and resources into projects they perceive as valuable, thereby contributing to the token's overall worth.

The Liquidity Cycle: Whales, Centralized Exchanges & Airdrop Farmers

Beyond the initial distribution phase, the liquidity cycle of airdropped tokens usually unfolds similarly for many TGE’s. Following the token generation event, mid-curvers, institutions and lazy whales often scoop up the supply that is flowing from grinders (testnet participants, early community members, devs, protocol(or game) researchers and yes, sybils too) to the centralized exchanges. So, herein lies a crucial dynamic: the flow of tokens from on-chain wallets to CEXs. Farmers are looking to redeem their time and energy spent grinding, and exchange it for tangible value. Those that do not have a web3 wallet then simply speculate on tokens’s price on CEX.

And thus, the cycle is complete.

The liquidity flow from on-chain wallets to CEX underscores the symbiotic relationship between decentralized and centralized platforms. While the former embodies principles of decentralization and user autonomy, the latter facilitates broader accessibility and market liquidity. Consequently, the convergence of these ecosystems engenders a robust and inclusive marketplace for token trading and investment.

Conclusion

In summary, farming airdrops encapsulates a multifaceted process of value creation and distribution within the cryptocurrency space. Beyond the allure of "free money," airdrops symbolize community engagement, belief in project fundamentals, and the intrinsic utility of distributed tokens.

As the landscape continues to evolve, understanding the intricate dynamics of farming airdrops becomes paramount for both investors and project developers.

All content from Neo Tokyo News is for entertainment purposes only, and not financial advice.

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