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Play-to-earn games are ushering in the next generation of platforms

Blockchain-based games that allow players to earn cryptocurrencies as they play are paving the way for a new era in gaming.
The online gaming industry has been on the rise for the past few years and for a good reason. From a global…

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Blockchain-based games that allow players to earn cryptocurrencies as they play are paving the way for a new era in gaming.

The online gaming industry has been on the rise for the past few years and for a good reason. From a global pandemic pushing an online revolution to the ever-increasing mobile and internet penetration, more people are spending more time online. 

It is no wonder the industry is big money, raking in over $20 billion in revenue for 2020 alone. With an estimated 1 billion online gamers currently active worldwide, experts forecast growth in numbers reaching a whopping 1.3 billion active gamers by 2025.

The numbers speak for themselves. Gamers are so enthusiastic about their favorite games, that some spend hundreds of dollars just to get an upgrade on their avatar or access a coveted in-game item that will give them a leg up.

Blockchain-based play-to-earn (P2E) games are set to literally change the rules of the game by offering an equal playing field for everyone involved, giving players ownership as well as a source of income and making the time they spend playing worthwhile.

Here is a look at some of the top play-to-earn games that are taking the gaming industry by storm.

Axie Infinity

Axie Infinity is leading the way for play-to-earn games thanks to its growing popularity that has seen a million gamers come onboard to play the game daily. The astronomical success that Axie Infinity enjoys is mostly driven by the fact that players can earn real money while playing.

Axie Infinity is an Ethereum-based game with a player vs environment (PvE) mode as well as a player vs player (PvP) mode. In PvE mode, the player competes against a built-in environment or monsters in the game. A PvP mode is one where the player gets to compete with other players in a metaverse-type scenario.

Players have to acquire “Axies” that come in the form of monsters designed for battle with hordes of other small round monsters.

The game can be played either on desktop or mobile devices and its play-to-earn model is such that each monster and every other piece of gear used in the game comes in the form of a nonfungible token (NFT).

The victors of the skirmishes go home with the spoils of the battle in the form of cryptocurrencies called Smooth Love Potions (SLPs). The goal for players is to build a collection of the most valuable and powerful Axies as value is determined by Ether's (ETH) price.

Players can make money in the form of SLP tokens that can be traded for fiat currencies or sell their Axies once the value of those Axies appreciates due to won battles.

In November 2020, an Axie was sold for 300 ETH worth over $1.2 million in a wave of excitement that especially captivated gamers in Vietnam and the Philippines who took to the game as a means of generating income amid a global pandemic.

Gods Unchained

Gods Unchained is a free-to-play card battling game where players get to buy and sell cards that range in rarity and value to defeat their enemies in the game.

A close copy of Blizzard’s immensely popular “Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft,“ Gods Unchained offers a crypto edge to the game thus giving players of Blizzard’s game a familiar introduction to crypto and blockchain technology.

Granted, God’s Unchained gameplay by itself isn’t based on blockchain, however, the cards are built on the Ethereum blockchain, thus enabling true ownership where players can trade the cards they own on secondary marketplaces.

This turn-based card battling game became quite popular in 2019 with its player base almost tripling shortly after Blizzard’s infamous Hong Kong fallout. At its peak, one of the in-game cards sold for 137.8 Ether which is currently worth more than half a million U.S. dollars.

To date, Gods Unchained continues to grow with the recent launch of an expansion set called Trial of the Gods.

Plant vs Undead

Plant vs Undead is a free-to-play tower defense game that takes place in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by zombie attackers. Players have to strategically arrange the plants to prepare for an attack from an invading colony of zombies. The play-to-earn model of Plant vs Undead aims to capitalize on this aspect, which has considerable replay value.

Just like Axie Infinity’s growing popularity in the Philippines and Vietnam, Plant vs Undead has gained a lot of traction in Brazil and other places where such P2E games stand to make a significant difference in people’s income.

Players can acquire seeds to begin playing, which may be purchased on the platform’s marketplace with PVU tokens (the game’s native token).

Another aspect that is driving attention to this PvP game is the fact that gamers can earn and collect NFTs. Already, NFTs have catalyzed a revolution in the video game industry by giving players complete control over in-game assets. With Plant vs Undead, all the in-game assets can be sold or traded on the platform’s native marketplace.

Along with the Gods

Built on the Polygon blockchain, Along With The Gods is a role-playing P2E game that rewards players in NFTs and cryptocurrencies. The game revolves around powerful action heroes of five classes.

Each hero comes with distinct traits, skills and special capabilities that are to be used in battles. Players are expected to create teams of heroes of their choice as well as strengthen those heroes while using different strategies to win battles.

All in-game items are built as NFTs on Polygon’s blockchain thus allowing for better transaction finality and at cheaper transaction costs.

Farmers World

Farming games have grown increasingly popular in recent years thanks to their simple gameplay strategies where all that is required is for you to plant, harvest and upgrade crops or simply enjoy building barns.

Farmers World is a P2E game that lets players select from a variety of tools to upgrade crops and harvest them. In addition, while farmers wait for their harvesting period, they may launch an assault on other farmers.

Farmers can mine or mint GOLD (a native token in the game) and NFT-based in-game items within the game by simply participating in the activities built into the game.

Farmers also get to protect their farms from invading wild animals and monsters. From the GOLD tokens mined, farmers can create their own NFT based farming tools to further build their farms and cultivate crops.

The game has a membership aspect where users have to purchase membership packs ranging from a price tag in the range of $322 to $514. Membership enables players to play and earn NFTs among other in-game tokens.

The next step in the gaming industry

P2E blockchain-based games are the way of the future. These games offer players increased control of the in-game assets they tirelessly work for, as well as the opportunity to make a living earning cryptocurrency and NFTs while playing.

Related: NFT gaming proposition in question as regulators and traditional gaming pullback

As more companies in the gaming industry adopt blockchain technology, we will see the development of these games increase exponentially as well.

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International

US Spent More Than Double What It Collected In February, As 2024 Deficit Is Second Highest Ever… And Debt Explodes

US Spent More Than Double What It Collected In February, As 2024 Deficit Is Second Highest Ever… And Debt Explodes

Earlier today, CNBC’s…

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US Spent More Than Double What It Collected In February, As 2024 Deficit Is Second Highest Ever... And Debt Explodes

Earlier today, CNBC's Brian Sullivan took a horse dose of Red Pills when, about six months after our readers, he learned that the US is issuing $1 trillion in debt every 100 days, which prompted him to rage tweet, (or rageX, not sure what the proper term is here) the following:

We’ve added 60% to national debt since 2018. Germany - a country with major economic woes - added ‘just’ 32%.   

Maybe it will never matter.   Maybe MMT is real.   Maybe we just cancel or inflate it out. Maybe career real estate borrowers or career politicians aren’t the answer.

I have no idea.  Only time will tell.   But it’s going to be fascinating to watch it play out.

He is right: it will be fascinating, and the latest budget deficit data simply confirmed that the day of reckoning will come very soon, certainly sooner than the two years that One River's Eric Peters predicted this weekend for the coming "US debt sustainability crisis."

According to the US Treasury, in February, the US collected $271 billion in various tax receipts, and spent $567 billion, more than double what it collected.

The two charts below show the divergence in US tax receipts which have flatlined (on a trailing 6M basis) since the covid pandemic in 2020 (with occasional stimmy-driven surges)...

... and spending which is about 50% higher compared to where it was in 2020.

The end result is that in February, the budget deficit rose to $296.3 billion, up 12.9% from a year prior, and the second highest February deficit on record.

And the punchline: on a cumulative basis, the budget deficit in fiscal 2024 which began on October 1, 2023 is now $828 billion, the second largest cumulative deficit through February on record, surpassed only by the peak covid year of 2021.

But wait there's more: because in a world where the US is spending more than twice what it is collecting, the endgame is clear: debt collapse, and while it won't be tomorrow, or the week after, it is coming... and it's also why the US is now selling $1 trillion in debt every 100 days just to keep operating (and absorbing all those millions of illegal immigrants who will keep voting democrat to preserve the socialist system of the US, so beloved by the Soros clan).

And it gets even worse, because we are now in the ponzi finance stage of the Minsky cycle, with total interest on the debt annualizing well above $1 trillion, and rising every day

... having already surpassed total US defense spending and soon to surpass total health spending and, finally all social security spending, the largest spending category of all, which means that US debt will now rise exponentially higher until the inevitable moment when the US dollar loses its reserve status and it all comes crashing down.

We conclude with another observation by CNBC's Brian Sullivan, who quotes an email by a DC strategist...

.. which lays out the proposed Biden budget as follows:

The budget deficit will growth another $16 TRILLION over next 10 years. Thats *with* the proposed massive tax hikes.

Without them the deficit will grow $19 trillion.

That's why you will hear the "deficit is being reduced by $3 trillion" over the decade.

No family budget or business could exist with this kind of math.

Of course, in the long run, neither can the US... and since neither party will ever cut the spending which everyone by now is so addicted to, the best anyone can do is start planning for the endgame.

Tyler Durden Tue, 03/12/2024 - 18:40

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Government

Buried Project Veritas Recording Shows Top Pfizer Scientists Suppressed Concerns Over COVID-19 Boosters, MRNA Tech

Buried Project Veritas Recording Shows Top Pfizer Scientists Suppressed Concerns Over COVID-19 Boosters, MRNA Tech

Submitted by Liam Cosgrove

Former…

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Buried Project Veritas Recording Shows Top Pfizer Scientists Suppressed Concerns Over COVID-19 Boosters, MRNA Tech

Submitted by Liam Cosgrove

Former Project Veritas & O’Keefe Media Group operative and Pfizer formulation analyst scientist Justin Leslie revealed previously unpublished recordings showing Pfizer’s top vaccine researchers discussing major concerns surrounding COVID-19 vaccines. Leslie delivered these recordings to Veritas in late 2021, but they were never published:

Featured in Leslie’s footage is Kanwal Gill, a principal scientist at Pfizer. Gill was weary of MRNA technology given its long research history yet lack of approved commercial products. She called the vaccines “sneaky,” suggesting latent side effects could emerge in time.

Gill goes on to illustrate how the vaccine formulation process was dramatically rushed under the FDA’s Emergency Use Authorization and adds that profit incentives likely played a role:

"It’s going to affect my heart, and I’m going to die. And nobody’s talking about that."

Leslie recorded another colleague, Pfizer’s pharmaceutical formulation scientist Ramin Darvari, who raised the since-validated concern that repeat booster intake could damage the cardiovascular system:

None of these claims will be shocking to hear in 2024, but it is telling that high-level Pfizer researchers were discussing these topics in private while the company assured the public of “no serious safety concerns” upon the jab’s release:

Vaccine for Children is a Different Formulation

Leslie sent me a little-known FDA-Pfizer conference — a 7-hour Zoom meeting published in tandem with the approval of the vaccine for 5 – 11 year-olds — during which Pfizer’s vice presidents of vaccine research and development, Nicholas Warne and William Gruber, discussed a last-minute change to the vaccine’s “buffer” — from “PBS” to “Tris” — to improve its shelf life. For about 30 seconds of these 7 hours, Gruber acknowledged that the new formula was NOT the one used in clinical trials (emphasis mine):


“The studies were done using the same volume… but contained the PBS buffer. We obviously had extensive consultations with the FDA and it was determined that the clinical studies were not required because, again, the LNP and the MRNA are the same and the behavior — in terms of reactogenicity and efficacy — are expected to be the same.

According to Leslie, the tweaked “buffer” dramatically changed the temperature needed for storage: “Before they changed this last step of the formulation, the formula was to be kept at -80 degrees Celsius. After they changed the last step, we kept them at 2 to 8 degrees celsius,” Leslie told me.

The claims are backed up in the referenced video presentation:

I’m no vaccinologist but an 80-degree temperature delta — and a 5x shelf-life in a warmer climate — seems like a significant change that might warrant clinical trials before commercial release.

Despite this information technically being public, there has been virtually no media scrutiny or even coverage — and in fact, most were told the vaccine for children was the same formula but just a smaller dose — which is perhaps due to a combination of the information being buried within a 7-hour jargon-filled presentation and our media being totally dysfunctional.

Bohemian Grove?

Leslie’s 2-hour long documentary on his experience at both Pfizer and O’Keefe’s companies concludes on an interesting note: James O’Keefe attended an outing at the Bohemian Grove.

Leslie offers this photo of James’ Bohemian Grove “GATE” slip as evidence, left on his work desk atop a copy of his book, “American Muckraker”:

My thoughts on the Bohemian Grove: my good friend’s dad was its general manager for several decades. From what I have gathered through that connection, the Bohemian Grove is not some version of the Illuminati, at least not in the institutional sense.

Do powerful elites hangout there? Absolutely. Do they discuss their plans for the world while hanging out there? I’m sure it has happened. Do they have a weird ritual with a giant owl? Yep, Alex Jones showed that to the world.

My perspective is based on conversations with my friend and my belief that his father is not lying to him. I could be wrong and am open to evidence — like if boxer Ryan Garcia decides to produce evidence regarding his rape claims — and I do find it a bit strange the club would invite O’Keefe who is notorious for covertly filming, but Occam’s razor would lead me to believe the club is — as it was under my friend’s dad — run by boomer conservatives the extent of whose politics include disliking wokeness, immigration, and Biden (common subjects of O’Keefe’s work).

Therefore, I don’t find O’Keefe’s visit to the club indicative that he is some sort of Operation Mockingbird asset as Leslie tries to depict (however Mockingbird is a 100% legitimate conspiracy). I have also met James several times and even came close to joining OMG. While I disagreed with James on the significance of many of his stories — finding some to be overhyped and showy — I never doubted his conviction in them.

As for why Leslie’s story was squashed… all my sources told me it was to avoid jail time for Veritas executives.

Feel free to watch Leslie’s full documentary here and decide for yourself.

Fun fact — Justin Leslie was also the operative behind this mega-viral Project Veritas story where Pfizer’s director of R&D claimed the company was privately mutating COVID-19 behind closed doors:

Tyler Durden Tue, 03/12/2024 - 13:40

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International

Association of prenatal vitamins and metals with epigenetic aging at birth and in childhood

“[…] our findings support the hypothesis that the intrauterine environment, particularly essential and non-essential metals, affect epigenetic aging…

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“[…] our findings support the hypothesis that the intrauterine environment, particularly essential and non-essential metals, affect epigenetic aging biomarkers across the life course.”

Credit: 2024 Bozack et al.

“[…] our findings support the hypothesis that the intrauterine environment, particularly essential and non-essential metals, affect epigenetic aging biomarkers across the life course.”

BUFFALO, NY- March 12, 2024 – A new research paper was published in Aging (listed by MEDLINE/PubMed as “Aging (Albany NY)” and “Aging-US” by Web of Science) Volume 16, Issue 4, entitled, “Associations of prenatal one-carbon metabolism nutrients and metals with epigenetic aging biomarkers at birth and in childhood in a US cohort.”

Epigenetic gestational age acceleration (EGAA) at birth and epigenetic age acceleration (EAA) in childhood may be biomarkers of the intrauterine environment. In this new study, researchers Anne K. Bozack, Sheryl L. Rifas-Shiman, Andrea A. Baccarelli, Robert O. Wright, Diane R. Gold, Emily Oken, Marie-France Hivert, and Andres Cardenas from Stanford University School of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Columbia University, and Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai investigated the extent to which first-trimester folate, B12, 5 essential and 7 non-essential metals in maternal circulation are associated with EGAA and EAA in early life. 

“[…] we hypothesized that OCM [one-carbon metabolism] nutrients and essential metals would be positively associated with EGAA and non-essential metals would be negatively associated with EGAA. We also investigated nonlinear associations and associations with mixtures of micronutrients and metals.”

Bohlin EGAA and Horvath pan-tissue and skin and blood EAA were calculated using DNA methylation measured in cord blood (N=351) and mid-childhood blood (N=326; median age = 7.7 years) in the Project Viva pre-birth cohort. A one standard deviation increase in individual essential metals (copper, manganese, and zinc) was associated with 0.94-1.2 weeks lower Horvath EAA at birth, and patterns of exposures identified by exploratory factor analysis suggested that a common source of essential metals was associated with Horvath EAA. The researchers also observed evidence of nonlinear associations of zinc with Bohlin EGAA, magnesium and lead with Horvath EAA, and cesium with skin and blood EAA at birth. Overall, associations at birth did not persist in mid-childhood; however, arsenic was associated with greater EAA at birth and in childhood. 

“Prenatal metals, including essential metals and arsenic, are associated with epigenetic aging in early life, which might be associated with future health.”

 

Read the full paper: DOI: https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.205602 

Corresponding Author: Andres Cardenas

Corresponding Email: andres.cardenas@stanford.edu 

Keywords: epigenetic age acceleration, metals, folate, B12, prenatal exposures

Click here to sign up for free Altmetric alerts about this article.

 

About Aging:

Launched in 2009, Aging publishes papers of general interest and biological significance in all fields of aging research and age-related diseases, including cancer—and now, with a special focus on COVID-19 vulnerability as an age-dependent syndrome. Topics in Aging go beyond traditional gerontology, including, but not limited to, cellular and molecular biology, human age-related diseases, pathology in model organisms, signal transduction pathways (e.g., p53, sirtuins, and PI-3K/AKT/mTOR, among others), and approaches to modulating these signaling pathways.

Please visit our website at www.Aging-US.com​​ and connect with us:

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For media inquiries, please contact media@impactjournals.com.

 

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