Is this the year of AAA and poop games in crypto?

In Token Issue this week, we dive into Oasys’ plans to take GameFi by storm as BAYC’s Sewer Passes entice players to flush cash down the drain. [Read from your browser]( Token Issue Welcome to Token Issue! Delivered every Friday, this free newsletter breaks down the biggest stories in Asia’s crypto scene and beyond. View past issues [here]( or [sign up here]( to receive future newsletters. Written by Shihan Fang Crypto journalist Hi {NAME} Japanese blockchain firm Oasys has plans to dominate the crypto gaming sector this year, starting with a listing of its OAS token on Bitbank, a local crypto exchange. OAS is already listed on five centralized exchanges - OKX, KuCoin, Bybit, Gate, and Huobi - but Bitbank will allow Oasys to finally pursue Japanese gamers. Talk about a homecoming. OAS has been on a steady ascent and is now trading at roughly US$0.074, a 13% increase from December last year when it was first listed. This week’s premium story dives deep into Oasys’ plans to be the blockchain of choice for the AAA gaming world and why - despite being backed by Japanese gaming giants like Sega and Bandai Namco - it’s taking the firm so long to release anything. -- Shihan  ---------------------------------------------------------------  🤿 THE DEEP DIVE  [Oasys aiming for the moon in 2023]( The blockchain company does not have any games launched on it yet but hopes to see 20 titles running on the network by the end of Q2 this year. One reason for the slow rollout is the complexity of launching a game on a blockchain - no publisher wants to be remembered for releasing a game that crashed. Traditional Japanese companies, in particular, are not keen to rush out titles that could diminish the standing of their precious intellectual property. My colleague Scott speaks to Ryo Matsubara and Daiki Moriyama, both directors at Oasys, to understand how the firm plans to go big this year.  --------------------------------------------------------------- 👀 ALL EYES ON... *What everyone’s talking about.* Fed hikes interest rates sparking Bitcoin rally The US Federal Reserve [hiked its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points]( on Thursday to a new range of 4.5% to 4.75%. The announcement sparked a Bitcoin rally, pushing prices up roughly 5%. In the post-announcement press conference, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said that the bank was seeing signs of the disinflationary measures working, but it was still too [“premature to declare victory”]( on inflation. FTX, Alameda, Voyager lawyers tussle over who owes what The lawyers recovering funds from FTX and its sister company Alameda appear to be making a healthy profit from the mess left behind by SBF & Co. Earlier this week, the lawyers representing FTX [filed a suit on behalf of Alameda]( claiming that crypto lender Voyager Digital owed Alameda US$445.8 million. The amount represents the loan repayments that FTX made to Voyager last year when the latter filed for bankruptcy and then demanded repayment of all outstanding loans, including those made to FTX and Alameda. The FTX lawyers said that these loan repayments are eligible to be clawed back as they were made close to FTX and Alameda’s own bankruptcy claims last November. Both Voyager’s creditors and Voyager itself have [rejected Alameda’s attempt to recover the sum]( arguing that Alameda’s claims should either be equitably subordinated to all other creditor claims or recharacterized as equity. The creditors added that Alameda’s “inequitable and fraudulent conduct” cost Voyager between US$114 million and US$122 million.  --------------------------------------------------------------- ⭐ TO THE STARS Impactful developments and projects in Web3. [BAYC flexes with poop game]( Yuga Labs, the company behind the NFT behemoth known as Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), released a poop game in January called Dookey Dash - the firm’s first major deliverable since it raised US$450 million in March last year. The gameplay resembles Temple Run but instead of running through a temple, avatars don scuba suits and swim through a sewer filled with crap. And unlike Temple Run, gamers have to purchase a Sewer Pass to play - there are four tiers and the more expensive tiers give you more points in the game. One crypto bro [hired a pro gamer]( to up his stats (he was successful) and others have been busy on crypto Twitter doing explainers. [This guy claims to have invested US$100,000 in the game](. Like the original BAYC NFTs, Sewer Passes don’t come cheap - a [Tier 1 pass costs roughly 2.7 ether (US$3,760)]( on OpenSea. Holders of BAYC or Mutant Ape Yacht Club tokens get one for free, however. Yuga Labs has already made US$1.7 million in royalties from its Sewer Passes, according to an analysis by a group of traders called [Origins NFT](. Holders of Sewer Passes can unlock more experiences as long as they keep playing. The higher you score in Dookey Dash, the more eligible you are for rarer mints in future. The scores are non-transferable. I haven’t played it myself (Tech in Asia doesn’t want to sponsor a Sewer Pass --------------------------------------------------------------- MORE TO CHEW ON Stuff that’s good to know. 1️⃣ [Lessons learnt from a failed Web3 startup - Part 1]( [Part 2 here](. GameFi startup Voyage Finance (not to be confused with bankrupt crypto lender Voyager Digital) secured US$1 million in pre-seed funding last year but closed down a few months after the raise. Ian Tan, the company’s founder, says Voyage was hit hard by the FTX collapse and became commercially unviable with no product-market fit. He learned some hard lessons from this failed venture and hopes that future founders will do better. 2️⃣ [South Korea to start tracking crypto transactions in money laundering crackdown]( The country’s ministry of justice will use third-party software for its tracking but plans to develop its own system, which is likely to be ready by the later half of this year. The ministry looks to use the software to monitor transaction history, retrieve information about the transactions, and confirm fund sources. 3️⃣ [Hong Kong to require stablecoin issuers to register as early as this year]( The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA), the city’s regulator for stablecoins, has laid out plans based on feedback that it received last year. Based on the 58 responses it received, it will set up a regime to supervise stablecoins backed by reserve assets. Algorithmic stablecoins like TerraUSD will not be allowed. Read the full HKMA report [here](. 4️⃣ [Crypto wallets combat scammers with transaction previews and blocklists]( US-based crypto major Coinbase, which is also licensed to operate in Singapore, has integrated new safety features to its wallet for users to easily spot and take action against scammers. These include a preview that gives the user an estimate of how their “token and NFT balances will change” before they press the confirm button on their transactions. Other crypto wallet providers that have similarly ramped up their safety features include Phantom, Ember, and Bitski.  --------------------------------------------------------------- That’s all for this issue - we hope you liked it. WAGMI! P.S. Don't miss out on the biggest tech news and analysis. Add newsletter@techinasia.com to your address book, contacts, or safe sender list. Or simply move us into your inbox. Too many emails? Switch to a different frequency or get new content through our [preference center]( or [unsubscribe](. You can also break our hearts and remove yourself from all Tech in Asia emails over [here](  Copyright © 2023 Tech in Asia, All rights reserved. 63 Robinson Road, Singapore 068894