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How blockchain is revolutionizing the gaming industry?

GameFi is the new gaming frontier, providing an innovative model using blockchain and DeFi. Here’s all you need to know about blockchain-based games.
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10 months ago

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GameFi is the new gaming frontier, providing an innovative model using blockchain and DeFi. Here’s all you need to know about blockchain-based games.

What does the future hold for blockchain gaming?

As blockchain gaming continues to evolve and become more adopted in entertainment, it’s natural to contemplate the future of the industry. 

The future of blockchain gaming is promising and will likely see significant growth in the coming years, including mainstream adoption as more businesses endorse blockchain technology. More traditional game developers may incorporate blockchain technology into their games, leading to increased mainstream adoption.

One primary challenge for blockchain gaming will be overcoming entry barriers for players and organizations. Emerging market players like DeFi Kingdoms, 0xBattleGround and CryptoBeasts are built around DeFi models focusing on decentralization and players’ ownership of in-game assets. This leads to lower barriers to entry for new players and helps increase the overall participation and engagement in the gaming industry. 

By granting users more power and ownership over their virtual assets, the use of blockchain-powered NFTs has the potential to influence the future of the gaming sector. Blockchain-based games can employ NFTs to verify players and eliminate bad actors — as demonstrated by 0xBattleGround — making the gaming experience safer and more transparent.

Furthermore, having access to NFTs that stand in for in-game assets enables users to earn money from virtual goods outside the game environment. This might open up new revenue opportunities for users, promoting a more decentralized and fair gaming industry. 

As blockchain continues to gain recognition, further technological advancements are expected, enabling even more innovation in the gaming experiences as well. This could include more sophisticated smart contracts, advanced token systems and better integration with other technologies like virtual reality.

Increased interoperability may also be a focus in the future of blockchain-based gaming platforms to allow better communication between game networks. Players can use their assets across multiple games and platforms, creating a more seamless and integrated gaming experience.

Greater integration of blockchain gaming with DeFi would benefit from including more advanced DeFi features in blockchain games, such as staking, yield farming and liquidity provision.

There’s no doubt that the gaming industry has the potential to offer innovative and thrilling new experiences to players — all within a favorable sustainable environment. Will it rise to the challenge of replacing the traditional gaming industry? Only time will tell!

What are the downsides of using blockchain in gaming?

Blockchain-based platforms bring innovation to the gaming industry but may also carry some risks that could discourage players from using them. 

While blockchain technology offers several benefits to the gaming industry, including the use cases mentioned above, there are also some potential drawbacks that players should carefully consider:

  • Technical barrier: Implementing blockchain technology in games requires technical expertise and may be challenging for developers unfamiliar with the technology. This complexity can increase game development time and costs, making it more difficult for smaller developers to enter the market. Game players may also be discouraged by the technical complexity required by using crypto and blockchain technology, such as setting up a crypto wallet and acquiring cryptocurrencies or NFTs before being able to participate.
  • A limited selection of blockchain-based games: As a relatively new gaming sector, blockchain games can’t yet provide a competitive environment for experienced players who may not feel compelled to join the ecosystem.
  • Scalability: One of the main challenges with blockchain technology is scalability. Blockchain networks can struggle to handle the high transaction volumes required for online gaming if adoption proliferates. This can lead to slow transaction times, high transaction fees and poor user experiences.
  • Regulatory uncertainty: The regulatory landscape for blockchain technology is still evolving, with some uncertainty around how blockchain games will be regulated in different jurisdictions. This uncertainty could create legal and compliance risks for developers.
  • Crypto token security: While blockchain technology is decentralized and secure, centralized service providers, on the other hand, are vulnerable to hacking and other malicious activities.

While there is an increasing interest in the gaming world around blockchain-based applications, developers, investors and players should consider all factors and risks before implementing blockchain in their games or participating in the ecosystem.

What benefits does blockchain offer to the gaming industry?

The blockchain-based gaming industry market size is estimated to be worth $435 billion by 2028, corresponding to a record compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of almost 12.1% from 2022 to 2028.

According to a report released in 2022 by Zion Market Research, the COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to enormous growth, with people forced to stay at home and experimenting with the innovative games model. 

Since then, gaming industry key players have been showing an increasing interest in crypto games and have implemented blockchain technology in their products to stay at the forefront of innovation in the space.

Here are some of the most common benefits of implementing blockchain technology in the gaming industry:

  • Digital identity and reputation: Blockchain technology can create secure digital identities and reputations for players. These identities can be used to verify players and prevent fraud in the gaming industry.
  • Secure and transparent transactions: Blockchain provides high transparency and security to the gaming industry. Transactions on the blockchain are transparent, efficient and immutable, making it difficult for fraudsters to cheat the system. 
  • Players’ control: Users have complete management of their gaming experience, including the possibility to monetize their assets and set game rules and mechanics, upgrade features, and add new content for a more engaging experience.
  • Players’ security: Users can play the games and own their in-game assets in a secure environment, less vulnerable to cyberattacks due to the decentralized nature of the blockchain. Such security lets them manage and store their gaming earnings more efficiently.
  • Secure environment for game developers and entrepreneurs: Powerful data encryption and no use of single servers provide a safe working environment. A decentralized blockchain network relies on nodes to maintain the distributed databases in a shared manner, with each node having complete information in the database.
  • Interoperability: Players can use their public address for transactions across different blockchain platforms and take it from one game to another.

Blockchain is proving very useful in gaming due to its immutability and security. The decentralization factor encourages players to participate in the development and innovation process while monetizing their crypto assets. Its numerous use cases are revolutionizing how games are played, owned and developed. 

How is blockchain changing the gaming industry?

A new crypto-gaming model has emerged for businesses and the gaming community, which utilizes NFTs and cryptocurrencies for in-game asset purchases, convertible into real-life money.

This new model uses decentralized networks to make gaming more secure with protected data encryption and no centralized servers easily hacked by cybercriminals. Transactions on the blockchain are immutable, making it difficult for fraudsters to cheat the system. Blockchain also provides a decentralized and transparent ledger, which allows players to track their transactions and assets more efficiently.

These decentralized marketplaces allow for a more open and transparent economy enabling players to buy, sell and trade assets without the need for intermediaries like game developers or publishers. Most gaming on the blockchain is also community-operated, with players deciding about future updates, features and the general direction of the network.

Blockchain gaming allows actual ownership of in-game assets that make a contest more exciting than other competitive games available in the market. These items can be 3D props, characters, furniture, tools, vehicles, weapons and anything that can be stored on the blockchain as NFTs, making them unique and verifiable. 

Such ownership gives players more control over their gaming experience. It allows them to monetize their assets, which can be transferred outside virtual games and exchanged for real money on crypto platforms.

Most blockchain-based games offer secure payments using native crypto tokens, which are convenient and potentially profitable investments. They are also secure, with transactions validated and recorded on the blockchain.

What is GameFi, and how does it work?

GameFi is a term used to describe “game finance,” as it integrates traditional gaming and decentralized finance (DeFi) using blockchain technology.

GameFi employs blockchain technology to create decentralized gaming marketplaces offering players different economic incentives and financial opportunities through play-to-earn blockchain games. Players can earn cryptocurrency by playing games or participating in various activities within the gaming world. In contrast, the traditional gaming industry is mainly retained by corporations offering limited earning potential until now.

GameFi is the new frontier of gaming innovation that has rapidly impacted the traditional gaming industry since the rise of Axie Infinity. The Ethereum-based platform has developed a new gaming model that rewards players for the time and effort spent playing the blockchain game instead of just the money they put in, making platforms like Axie Infinity a popular investment option among crypto gaming enthusiasts.

GameFi typically involves the creation of gaming tokens or NFTs that can be used as in-game assets like virtual land, avatars, weapons, costumes or currency traded on cryptocurrency exchanges. Players can earn these tokens by participating in various activities within the game, such as completing quests, winning battles or staking tokens.

These tokens can then be used to purchase in-game items, trade with other players, or exchange for other cryptocurrencies or fiat currencies. GameFi platforms may offer additional DeFi features such as yield farming, staking and liquidity supply.

Overall, GameFi offers gamers a new and exciting way to earn money while playing their favorite games. It allows DeFi investors to make returns on their digital assets while participating in the gaming ecosystem.

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February Employment Situation

By Paul Gomme and Peter Rupert The establishment data from the BLS showed a 275,000 increase in payroll employment for February, outpacing the 230,000…

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19 hours ago

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March 9, 2024

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By Paul Gomme and Peter Rupert

The establishment data from the BLS showed a 275,000 increase in payroll employment for February, outpacing the 230,000 average over the previous 12 months. The payroll data for January and December were revised down by a total of 167,000. The private sector added 223,000 new jobs, the largest gain since May of last year.

Temporary help services employment continues a steep decline after a sharp post-pandemic rise.

Average hours of work increased from 34.2 to 34.3. The increase, along with the 223,000 private employment increase led to a hefty increase in total hours of 5.6% at an annualized rate, also the largest increase since May of last year.

The establishment report, once again, beat “expectations;” the WSJ survey of economists was 198,000. Other than the downward revisions, mentioned above, another bit of negative news was a smallish increase in wage growth, from $34.52 to $34.57.

The household survey shows that the labor force increased 150,000, a drop in employment of 184,000 and an increase in the number of unemployed persons of 334,000. The labor force participation rate held steady at 62.5, the employment to population ratio decreased from 60.2 to 60.1 and the unemployment rate increased from 3.66 to 3.86. Remember that the unemployment rate is the number of unemployed relative to the labor force (the number employed plus the number unemployed). Consequently, the unemployment rate can go up if the number of unemployed rises holding fixed the labor force, or if the labor force shrinks holding the number unemployed unchanged. An increase in the unemployment rate is not necessarily a bad thing: it may reflect a strong labor market drawing “marginally attached” individuals from outside the labor force. Indeed, there was a 96,000 decline in those workers.

Earlier in the week, the BLS announced JOLTS (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey) data for January. There isn’t much to report here as the job openings changed little at 8.9 million, the number of hires and total separations were little changed at 5.7 million and 5.3 million, respectively.

As has been the case for the last couple of years, the number of job openings remains higher than the number of unemployed persons.

Also earlier in the week the BLS announced that productivity increased 3.2% in the 4th quarter with output rising 3.5% and hours of work rising 0.3%.

The bottom line is that the labor market continues its surprisingly (to some) strong performance, once again proving stronger than many had expected. This strength makes it difficult to justify any interest rate cuts soon, particularly given the recent inflation spike.

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Mortgage rates fall as labor market normalizes

Jobless claims show an expanding economy. We will only be in a recession once jobless claims exceed 323,000 on a four-week moving average.

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1 day ago

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March 8, 2024

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Everyone was waiting to see if this week’s jobs report would send mortgage rates higher, which is what happened last month. Instead, the 10-year yield had a muted response after the headline number beat estimates, but we have negative job revisions from previous months. The Federal Reserve’s fear of wage growth spiraling out of control hasn’t materialized for over two years now and the unemployment rate ticked up to 3.9%. For now, we can say the labor market isn’t tight anymore, but it’s also not breaking.

The key labor data line in this expansion is the weekly jobless claims report. Jobless claims show an expanding economy that has not lost jobs yet. We will only be in a recession once jobless claims exceed 323,000 on a four-week moving average.

From the Fed: In the week ended March 2, initial claims for unemployment insurance benefits were flat, at 217,000. The four-week moving average declined slightly by 750, to 212,250


Below is an explanation of how we got here with the labor market, which all started during COVID-19.

1. I wrote the COVID-19 recovery model on April 7, 2020, and retired it on Dec. 9, 2020. By that time, the upfront recovery phase was done, and I needed to model out when we would get the jobs lost back.

2. Early in the labor market recovery, when we saw weaker job reports, I doubled and tripled down on my assertion that job openings would get to 10 million in this recovery. Job openings rose as high as to 12 million and are currently over 9 million. Even with the massive miss on a job report in May 2021, I didn’t waver.

Currently, the jobs openings, quit percentage and hires data are below pre-COVID-19 levels, which means the labor market isn’t as tight as it once was, and this is why the employment cost index has been slowing data to move along the quits percentage.  

2-US_Job_Quits_Rate-1-2

3. I wrote that we should get back all the jobs lost to COVID-19 by September of 2022. At the time this would be a speedy labor market recovery, and it happened on schedule, too

Total employment data

4. This is the key one for right now: If COVID-19 hadn’t happened, we would have between 157 million and 159 million jobs today, which would have been in line with the job growth rate in February 2020. Today, we are at 157,808,000. This is important because job growth should be cooling down now. We are more in line with where the labor market should be when averaging 140K-165K monthly. So for now, the fact that we aren’t trending between 140K-165K means we still have a bit more recovery kick left before we get down to those levels. 




From BLS: Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 275,000 in February, and the unemployment rate increased to 3.9 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in health care, in government, in food services and drinking places, in social assistance, and in transportation and warehousing.

Here are the jobs that were created and lost in the previous month:

IMG_5092

In this jobs report, the unemployment rate for education levels looks like this:

  • Less than a high school diploma: 6.1%
  • High school graduate and no college: 4.2%
  • Some college or associate degree: 3.1%
  • Bachelor’s degree or higher: 2.2%
IMG_5093_320f22

Today’s report has continued the trend of the labor data beating my expectations, only because I am looking for the jobs data to slow down to a level of 140K-165K, which hasn’t happened yet. I wouldn’t categorize the labor market as being tight anymore because of the quits ratio and the hires data in the job openings report. This also shows itself in the employment cost index as well. These are key data lines for the Fed and the reason we are going to see three rate cuts this year.

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Inside The Most Ridiculous Jobs Report In History: Record 1.2 Million Immigrant Jobs Added In One Month

Inside The Most Ridiculous Jobs Report In History: Record 1.2 Million Immigrant Jobs Added In One Month

Last month we though that the January…

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1 day ago

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March 8, 2024

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Inside The Most Ridiculous Jobs Report In History: Record 1.2 Million Immigrant Jobs Added In One Month

Last month we though that the January jobs report was the "most ridiculous in recent history" but, boy, were we wrong because this morning the Biden department of goalseeked propaganda (aka BLS) published the February jobs report, and holy crap was that something else. Even Goebbels would blush. 

What happened? Let's take a closer look.

On the surface, it was (almost) another blockbuster jobs report, certainly one which nobody expected, or rather just one bank out of 76 expected. Starting at the top, the BLS reported that in February the US unexpectedly added 275K jobs, with just one research analyst (from Dai-Ichi Research) expecting a higher number.

Some context: after last month's record 4-sigma beat, today's print was "only" 3 sigma higher than estimates. Needless to say, two multiple sigma beats in a row used to only happen in the USSR... and now in the US, apparently.

Before we go any further, a quick note on what last month we said was "the most ridiculous jobs report in recent history": it appears the BLS read our comments and decided to stop beclowing itself. It did that by slashing last month's ridiculous print by over a third, and revising what was originally reported as a massive 353K beat to just 229K,  a 124K revision, which was the biggest one-month negative revision in two years!

Of course, that does not mean that this month's jobs print won't be revised lower: it will be, and not just that month but every other month until the November election because that's the only tool left in the Biden admin's box: pretend the economic and jobs are strong, then revise them sharply lower the next month, something we pointed out first last summer and which has not failed to disappoint once.

To be fair, not every aspect of the jobs report was stellar (after all, the BLS had to give it some vague credibility). Take the unemployment rate, after flatlining between 3.4% and 3.8% for two years - and thus denying expectations from Sahm's Rule that a recession may have already started - in February the unemployment rate unexpectedly jumped to 3.9%, the highest since February 2022 (with Black unemployment spiking by 0.3% to 5.6%, an indicator which the Biden admin will quickly slam as widespread economic racism or something).

And then there were average hourly earnings, which after surging 0.6% MoM in January (since revised to 0.5%) and spooking markets that wage growth is so hot, the Fed will have no choice but to delay cuts, in February the number tumbled to just 0.1%, the lowest in two years...

... for one simple reason: last month's average wage surge had nothing to do with actual wages, and everything to do with the BLS estimate of hours worked (which is the denominator in the average wage calculation) which last month tumbled to just 34.1 (we were led to believe) the lowest since the covid pandemic...

... but has since been revised higher while the February print rose even more, to 34.3, hence why the latest average wage data was once again a product not of wages going up, but of how long Americans worked in any weekly period, in this case higher from 34.1 to 34.3, an increase which has a major impact on the average calculation.

While the above data points were examples of some latent weakness in the latest report, perhaps meant to give it a sheen of veracity, it was everything else in the report that was a problem starting with the BLS's latest choice of seasonal adjustments (after last month's wholesale revision), which have gone from merely laughable to full clownshow, as the following comparison between the monthly change in BLS and ADP payrolls shows. The trend is clear: the Biden admin numbers are now clearly rising even as the impartial ADP (which directly logs employment numbers at the company level and is far more accurate), shows an accelerating slowdown.

But it's more than just the Biden admin hanging its "success" on seasonal adjustments: when one digs deeper inside the jobs report, all sorts of ugly things emerge... such as the growing unprecedented divergence between the Establishment (payrolls) survey and much more accurate Household (actual employment) survey. To wit, while in January the BLS claims 275K payrolls were added, the Household survey found that the number of actually employed workers dropped for the third straight month (and 4 in the past 5), this time by 184K (from 161.152K to 160.968K).

This means that while the Payrolls series hits new all time highs every month since December 2020 (when according to the BLS the US had its last month of payrolls losses), the level of Employment has not budged in the past year. Worse, as shown in the chart below, such a gaping divergence has opened between the two series in the past 4 years, that the number of Employed workers would need to soar by 9 million (!) to catch up to what Payrolls claims is the employment situation.

There's more: shifting from a quantitative to a qualitative assessment, reveals just how ugly the composition of "new jobs" has been. Consider this: the BLS reports that in February 2024, the US had 132.9 million full-time jobs and 27.9 million part-time jobs. Well, that's great... until you look back one year and find that in February 2023 the US had 133.2 million full-time jobs, or more than it does one year later! And yes, all the job growth since then has been in part-time jobs, which have increased by 921K since February 2023 (from 27.020 million to 27.941 million).

Here is a summary of the labor composition in the past year: all the new jobs have been part-time jobs!

But wait there's even more, because now that the primary season is over and we enter the heart of election season and political talking points will be thrown around left and right, especially in the context of the immigration crisis created intentionally by the Biden administration which is hoping to import millions of new Democratic voters (maybe the US can hold the presidential election in Honduras or Guatemala, after all it is their citizens that will be illegally casting the key votes in November), what we find is that in February, the number of native-born workers tumbled again, sliding by a massive 560K to just 129.807 million. Add to this the December data, and we get a near-record 2.4 million plunge in native-born workers in just the past 3 months (only the covid crash was worse)!

The offset? A record 1.2 million foreign-born (read immigrants, both legal and illegal but mostly illegal) workers added in February!

Said otherwise, not only has all job creation in the past 6 years has been exclusively for foreign-born workers...

Source: St Louis Fed FRED Native Born and Foreign Born

... but there has been zero job-creation for native born workers since June 2018!

This is a huge issue - especially at a time of an illegal alien flood at the southwest border...

... and is about to become a huge political scandal, because once the inevitable recession finally hits, there will be millions of furious unemployed Americans demanding a more accurate explanation for what happened - i.e., the illegal immigration floodgates that were opened by the Biden admin.

Which is also why Biden's handlers will do everything in their power to insure there is no official recession before November... and why after the election is over, all economic hell will finally break loose. Until then, however, expect the jobs numbers to get even more ridiculous.

Tyler Durden Fri, 03/08/2024 - 13:30

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