In this issue:

• This Week in Neo Tokyo: Sunny Days in The Citadel (by ZeHI)

• Bytes Chart July Update (by StevenT)

• Quick n Dirty Insights on Rollbit ($RLB) (by Koko of NGMI Lab)

• Blur Unleashes V2 Upgrade (by CryptoTots)

Neo Tokyo - once a neon jungle in an ever-lasting night - has seen it’s fair share of sunny days these past few weeks. Where once there was chaos, now there is order. Builders connect, share resources and toil away on their projects, expanding our metacity and the wider metaverse, while innovating a new and hopeful future.

Even with fires blazing in the NFT horizon, the temperature in Neo Tokyo feels cool and comfortable.

In those past shadowy times, it was commonplace for the Dark Lord of The Citadel to roam the streets with his Super Shotgun, quick to his trigger, with Purgatory Club full of flippers and scammers Kareening out of control.

Nowadays, the Demon of Discipline’s big gun is solely focused on the gluttons of our society wasting their potential as the zss-Motivational Mephisto hacks his way to immortality.

Our Angelic Overlord - once consumed by his responsibilities to his extraterrestrial offspring - grows ever closer and available to help guide citizens with his inspirational vibes. This past week saw the debut of Weekly Game Nights with Ellio on Thursday (7/6) night with a sponsored EV.IO night.

Stay tuned and for details about the upcoming weekly game nights and competitions with Ellio.

The duo will be live on a Twitter Space - July 13 @ 2pm ET - with Tom Bilyeu to talk all things Web3, the future of crypto gaming and what’s to come for both Neo Tokyo and Project Kyzen. This will be zssbecker’s first appearance on the blue bird radio waves, and it promises to be a potent display of The Citadel’s value to the greater Web3 community. Citizens are advised to show up in force.

Bytes2.0 staking has been a huge success, as over 1 million BYTES are now staked and we just passed the bytes staking milestone of 45%. Check out the tracking sheet here, and read Steven-T’s full BYTES chart analysis below.

A new Neo Tokyo citizen LinkedIn Group has been created, and over 200 Citizens joined already to connect on a professional level. Join in on the networking here.

On the final Monday in June, the Community Leads hosted the 25th NT Town Hall. The event was highlighted by a partnership and BYTES integration announcement for Nexus platform. Check out the recording if you missed it.

Taking a break from his self-improvement tirade, zssbecker dropped a tweet in the midst of the recent NFT Market free fall. His tweet focused on his thesis that Neo Tokyo’s SoHo House model makes it immune to the kind of volatilaty that more airdrop-centric projects suffer from. The tweet blew up and was another strong demonstration of The Citadel’s staying power.

Twitter scam bots are on the rise. Citizens are advised to be cautious and not click any links unless you are sure you are interacting with the real Neo Tokyo and zssbecker accounts. Read Flower’s recent article about this topic here.

Staying on the theme of cybersecurity, Citizen Capital has announced its next investment opportunity for NT citizens that have staked the required $BYTES to participate: MintDefense.

MintDefense was founded by two of our most-famous gilded Elite Citizens, Danor and Metro. They’ve been with us since the beginning and are stalwart defenders of Citizen assets.

MintDefense is the only browser extension that protects crypto digital wallets by automatically detecting and blocking malicious web3 sites. It is powered by a proprietary AI scam detection algorithm with a 99.9% success rate. It operates seamlessly in the background without user intervention and intervenes when threats are detected.

The Investment for MintDefense will be going live Tuesday, July 11, 2:00 PM ET.

This will be the first offering on CitCap’s new and improved Investment platform.

For more details, check out the recent Twitter Space featuring the team leaders from both CitCap and MintDefense for more details.

Don’t miss this week’s Neo Tokyo News Twitter Space - NFT Market Monday - on 10 July, 5pm ET. This week we’ll be discussing the recent green week, Ether’s F’d Up Mint, Blur’s v2 Upgrade and some Crypto Gaming Updates.

That’s all for this week’s wrap up of news from The Citadel. Stay tuned for a special NT Builds issue next week with reports from the many projects being built by NT citizens.

Shout out to PM Firestorm for helping to compile the updates.

Reach out to ZeHI if you’d like to drop feedback, or contribute any scoops/news for future newsletters.

The BYTES staking upgrade had a strong initial month. Thanks to citizen Ktrap’s tweet we have some stats to look at.

Currently, 45% of total circulating supply is now staked, involving 2243 S1/S2 citizens. Impressively, 1227 citizens are staked for 1 year or more.

The June volatility caused wide-ranging pivot points, but without fundamental demand beyond staking, I'm predicting July's pivots won't impact much. A stable price should yield more relevant trading pivots in August. I'm eyeing previous support levels near $2.50 as inflation tests the liquidity pool's depth.

Looking at current liquidity depth, I can estimate about $100,000 (27,000 BYTES) worth of net buying pressure is needed to bring the price to the $5 monthly pivot level.

July Monthly Pivots in USD:

Support 1: $0.996

Central Pivot 🧲: $5.32

Resistance 1: $7.70

The BTYES/ETH pivots are:

Support 1: 0.0005

Central pivot 🧲: 0.0028

Resistance 1: 0.0041

Limited sell-side liquidity could lead to heightened volatility if current BYTES yield earners decide to sell, potentially driving us into a low-liquidity zone.

We have not seen the entirety of BYTES demand coming from citizens looking to maximize their staking allocation. Unless a new catalyst emerges to incentivize staking, I anticipate limited additional buying, given those who wished to stake have likely already done so.

As the BYTES landscape evolves, we'll witness the formation of new support levels. Over the initial 9 days of July, 56,000 new BYTES were generated through staking. I'll continue to monitor inflation trends and the market's ability to assimilate this fresh influx of BYTES.

These pivot charts are not meant to predict anything, but they can be used to assess risks and opportunities in the market. Catalysts can affect the price of BYTES in unexpected ways. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out on Discord at Steven-T or on Twitter @neotokyocat.

To learn more about pivot points and how to use them effectively, visit http://www.patterntrapper.com/floor-trader-pivot-calculator.html.

Disclaimer: I am not invested in Rollbit and this is not financial advice

Greetings! This is Koko from NGMI Lab. Today, I'm diving into Rollbit Coin ($RLB), which has been catching some attention on crypto Twitter lately, especially with its performance this year. Let's dive in and dissect what's brewing.

Rollbit is an online casino that's made its home on the Solana blockchain (and more recently, Ethereum, just in case Solana doesn’t have a comeback story). Their platform is all kinds of fun with an extremely nice UX – it’s like being a kid in a candy store, but with gambling.

Beyond its flashy facade, Rollbit’s coin, $RLB, made a stellar rise, leaping from around $0.002 in January to a lofty $0.06 in February. That's a head-spinning 30x in just a month.

As of 7th July $RLB is hovering around $0.05/$RLB and an FDV of $252m, ranking 189th on CoinGecko by market cap (that’s page 2 of 99, for context) with daily trading volumes around $4 million.

On the community front, Rollbit boasts an energetic Discord server with an impressive 48k members. It's well-organized and thriving. But here’s where things get murky: the team behind Rollbit is like a band of crypto-ninjas. They’re elusive. No amount of searching on Google, LinkedIn, Crunchbase etc. yielded any information about the team.

Digging a little deeper, Rollbit operates under the brand name Bull Gaming N.V., which is a licensed and regulated casino in Curacao. Curacao is a semi-autonomous entity nestled in the southern Caribbean Sea, under the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It’s kind of a hotspot for gambling companies.

An offshore company with an anonymous team in the crypto gambling sector, totally safe right?

With all this in mind, what’s the verdict?

Big daddy Becker said it: you can’t knock the narrative, casinos and gambling projects will be hot property. We’re all just monkeys in suits, and this stuff appeals to our primal instincts. Rollbit’s riding that wave.

But also, let’s get real. There are currently 1336 actively used gambling dApps according to DappRadar. Crowded, much? Plus, if Solana doesn’t make a Rocky-style come back, Rollbit may need to find an L2 home, and that’s like moving house mid-poker game. Then we’ve got regulations for days both from crypto and gambling. It’s a double whammy to make your head spin.

If a bull run rolls in and risk-on investing returns with gusto, this niche could be among the gaming subcategories that draw significant buzz and a genuine user base.

Rollbit has carved out an impressive track record, and that’s reason enough for me to keep tabs on it, but right now the buzz on Twitter feels like influencers hunting for exit liquidity.

Anyway, knowing the industry's penchant for the new and shiny, it wouldn't be surprising to see some newcomers make a splash in the future, leaving the dinosaur projects in the dust.

NGMI Lab members can get detailed reports on a wide range of crypto and crypto gaming projects at: https://ngmilab.com/

The landscape of NFT farming was shaken recently, with Blur's major update, marking the launch of its Season 2, triggering mixed reactions and wide-ranging speculation. With this update, hopes for an imminent end to Blur farming have been dashed.

Why should we care?

Blur farming is a significant contributor to the NFT marketplace, and any changes to its trajectory can send shockwaves through the market.

In the recent past, we've seen the debut of Blur v2, which brought in gas optimization and an innovative trait bidding system. These changes have been well-received. However, the announcement of Season 2, extending the rewards and farming period, led to controversy and backlash.

Are these new features set to disrupt the NFT market? Let's explore.

The update involves a number of major shifts.

First, gas optimization reduces the gas fees for trading by 50%, and second, a new trait bidding functionality allowing bids on mid-tier and rare NFTs. These are generally seen as positive changes.

However, the real contention comes with the introduction of trait bidding points, rewarding those who bid on traits above the floor for specific collections, and the revelation of three further major developments still to come in Season 2.

Here's the catch.

The impact of these trait bidding points remains uncertain. Blur's own blog suggests that the majority of points will likely go to collection bids, given there are usually more floors than mids and rares. Unless trait bidding becomes popular, this update might not significantly affect the market.

The primary concern? Season 2 looks to be extending.

What does this mean for the market?

A prolonged Season 2 means Blur farmers must continue farming, further affecting the PFP market and possibly extending the current downturn.

Despite some farmers' rage quitting in reaction to the announcement, total value locked (TVL) in Blur remains high at $147M (up ~$6M since the announcement), and there's little incentive for Blur's team to end Season 2 and distribute the 300M token rewards.

In this context, it's likely the NFT market will continue its recent downward trend, barring any major potential catalyst, like Blur ending Season 2 or a significant farming change.

The launch of Blur's Season 2 and its controversy-filled advent are definitely a narrative to follow, calling for vigilance from both participants and observers of the NFT space.

• If you want to see more of CryptoTots’ coverage of the NFT Market, be sure to follow @CryptoTots on Twitter.

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

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