In this issue:

• Scammer Scamming Scammers (by Flower83)

• This Week in Neo Tokyo: $BYTES Will Find Their Bottom In Becker’s Lap (by PhoenixxDown)

• The Current State of “Web3” Crypto Gaming (by Flower83)

Guys you will not believe this. We have some more spicy juicy drama this week.

These types of events are my favourite: Scammers Scamming other Scammers.

Okay, admittedly, calling Trump’s kids or Justin Sun flat out scammers might be a bit overkill, but it does make for a good clickbaity title and rolls off the tongue quite nicely. “Grifters,” might be a better word to describe them, and some of their shitty antics and behaviour can once again be seen in their latest online beef.

So what exactly happened?

So apparently Justin Sun went heavy into the $WLFI token presale. A project conjured up by Eric and Donald Trump Jr. called World Liberty Financial that focuses on RWA and had a relatively successful launch. It is now sitting at a healthy 18 billion FDV with 4,5b mcap.

So congrats to them, I guess. Even though the $WLFI chart looks like a Solana memecoin after all the hype does down and I am tempted to short it here:

Well, Justin Sun was smart you see. He bought a bunch of tokens on presale and is making massive profits - on paper. So naturally he found ways around that in an effort to turn his newfound fortune into cold hard cash.

That's relatively easy when you own a crypto exchange, it turns out.

The gameplan was simple and his thinking brilliant: “I should make my users lock their precious $WLFI tokens into hard-staking for a few weeks and proceed to dump the supply on open markets. That way, I win either way. Either the price goes down and I buy back cheaper, or my own tokens unlock just in time and I give them back to the good people.”

Ah, yes, it was foolproof.

But the $WLFI team was also smart, you see. And they don't like being taken advantage of, oh no. So they decided to retaliate.

Turns out it’s easy, when you can just freeze someone else's tokens.

For more details and wallet tracking, read here.

And here.

The latest development in this fascinating story is now Jusin trying to persuade them to unfreeze the tokens.

So now here we are - locked into an eternal tug of war of musical chairs being played by billionaires while people try to spectate and bet on who will rug who faster.

I wouldn't be surprised if this drags on for a few more days and results in a lawsuit or two. But one thing is certain - the rich people entering crypto these days are finding out the hard way how brutal and predatory our industry can be.

Subcoder’s NT Insider VC was one of the highlights this week, and they’re gaining a lot of traction for the quality of the sessions. Topics included NT updates and alpha (good call on Blackhole there), live TA, Web3 news, and general chit-chat.

These sessions aren’t public. They’re for Citizen ears only. Here are those links again for anyone still on the fence… these prices won’t be around forever!

• Neo Tokyo S1 Citizens

• Neo Tokyo Outer Citizens

Additionally, last night the Citizens 1:1 networking VC went ahead. These sessions are a chance for Citizens to get to know one another and network without the noise.

This is perfect if you haven’t been able to make the IRL events, if you’re new and need a place to start networking after the legendary NT Welcome Party shows you around, or even if you’ve been here a while and just want to meet newcomers. Win/win for everyone.

Again, only available to Citizens. Stop glossing over the links above and click them. WAKE UP MEATBAG. JOIN THY BRETHREN.

Lastly, set aside the first sentence of Becker’s post - which admittedly goes HARD AF - scroll down a little further, and you’ll see what NT’s vision has been all along… and it’s coming to life before our very eyes. When we are vindicated, they will call us lucky.

Off The Grid and Pudgy’s are leading the way, and Neo Tokyo is well positioned.

Yes, one last time, OpenSea links can be found above.

This Weeks Neo Tokyo Content

Interlinked #92

Market Monday #138

NT x Unfungible Space - Today at 12:00 EST

Short Scoops

Until next next week, citizens.

On the latest Space with Unfungible x NT, I sincerely enjoyed a lot of takes from panellists. Some that are building in the industry and know what they are talking about - because they lived it; and it shows. Thus, we got some really beneficial takes…

You can listen to the whole thing here:

The Twitter space inspired me to add my own spin on the current state we find ourselves in, as a community trying to build in the crypto gaming space.

If you are tuned into the current gaming landscape, even slightly it becomes apparent that the entire thing is not at all where we’d want it to be a few years ago. It somehow got a bit derailed. It's like on the one hand you have founders that are pretending to try, and on the other there’s players that are pretending to care.

I think what we are experiencing is, in some way, the afterglow of the “good old days.” (which were not at all good, but lets slide that to the side for now). I think a lot of us were there and remember what it was like back in 2021 when discord WL grinds were the norm, when gaming tokens went 5x in a week after a hype update or partnership announcement, when free mints were doing 50x in a week, when everyone thought we will soon live in “The Metaverse,” when token TGE’s were scarce and there was an emphasis on hype and promises over track record and execution.

The 2021 & 2022 hype cycle was in hindsight bad for our industry; it created a lot of stupid expectations, both from the founders as well as, and especially by, investors. In a sense, the mess we are in now is just the other side of the pendulum swing of what was happening back then.

Now nobody trusts everyone, investors and community members instantly sell because we all have PTSD from getting rugged one to many times and it is hard to trust others. We run from the slightest shred of FUD in the air around any project and the “WAGMI” mantra is long forgotten. They tried to replace it with a much weaker “believe in something” saying this time around, but that didn't really stick either. Nobody believes anymore. But the reason is in its core really simple:

The games that we've built aren’t anywhere near the level of hype that was promised for them.

We were scammed - but not in the usual way. They didn't drain our wallets, they drained our trust. They are not typical scammers, but you all still know them; it’s the projects that raised millions & promised the moon, but then they dipped when it was time to build and half-assed the game and pretended that its done, then took a mental health break from all the emotional pain they had to endure from their community.

The side effect of all this is the impact their behavior left on the community and bagholders.

The gambling degens of web3 realized (the hard way) that good games take time to build, and that it's hard even for those that truly try. So they have moved on from speculating on which game founder is gonna deliver and not run away with the money raised.

They moved on to prediction markets, memecoin trenches, or (we are seeing this more frequently with various influencers doing promotions) actual casinos. In a way it's freeing to be honest - now we know where we are and the veil of lies was pulled back.

But the aftermath of all this is that our entire industry is falling behind compared to other crypto sectors that seem to be flourishing; RWA, AI, DeFi - even art & PFP NFTs seem to be making a comeback.

It's actually hard to raise money for crypto gaming now or find serious team members to build alongside you or get VC's to investors and especially community members /players to mint your in-game avatars as NFTs and not sell your token in a race to 0 one TGE day (remember our latest - $END, but honestly all charts look similar).

So. You knew this was coming, and, yes.

Obviously I have to say it; I am bearish.

It's just a predictable statement to make this article proper and truly flowery.

But… also slightly cautiously optimistic.

Maybe there is freedom in this disillusionment.

Perhaps this was necessary. Maybe it was a productive stepping stone towards our final state. Perhaps now we can be honest with one another and move on to truly building, not just talking about it and promising stuff. Perhaps our industry will mature faster because of this and come out ahead in the long term?

The rest of crypto is still plagued with scams and rugs, while our people have learned to see through it. If the game sucks, it sucks and we simply don't play it or pretend we like it. So you - as a founder - get FUDDed to oblivion and you can extract no more money from us.

And, to add to this renewed optimism, now web3 studios are actually forced to build quality games that will get recognition. Obviously the process is slow. Because again; building something worthwhile takes time. But the consequence of all this is that the reputation of our space is slowly healing.

I think in the past project founders leaned heavily into buzzwords that we overused (metaverse, web3, blockchain tech, digital wallet, land plots, NFTs, cryptogaming…). This has somewhat changed and now people realized these are meaningless props and are focusing on the gaming aspect of the “crypto gaming” not the crypto aspect of it.

Projects are starting to implement “invisible crypto elements” into their games.

I actually think that's one of the most important things for us going forward; not emphasizing the web3 aspect at all. Make the wallet creation, the NFT’s as in-game items, the currency within your game; make all that happen in the background and only put it out when really needed or if someone is genuinely interested in that aspect of your game.

That way you actually reach both audiences. The “Web2” gamers and the Web3 enthusiasts and investors.

And this is how we truly reach the endgame.

One day there will be no visible distinction between “Gaming” and “Crypto Gaming.” And the games will actually be good.

On that day we will know we won.

See you next week.

All content from Neo Tokyo News is for entertainment purposes only, is not financial advice, and does not reflect the opinions of Neo Tokyo.

That’s it for our 113th edition of the Neo Tokyo Newsletter. Be sure to subscribe and share with your friends so you don’t miss out on future content.

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