DOT Fantasy, Game On! (July 15th - July 21st)

What is up, my friends! As always, we’re overwhelmed with the weekly activity in DotSama.

Auctions sprang a few surprises this past week, as Snow’s Kusama crowdloan took the lead on its opening day. Yet later, when GM’s parachain won blocks with fewer contributions, a mistake was revealed as well as the subsequent withdrawal of Snow’s bid for now.

Then there was the unknown Parathread 2055 who ended up winning the Polkadot auction with a self-funded bid. Wrapping up, it's going to be exciting to see when the Kusama crowdloan candle blows out, as Heiko leapt into the lead moments after they boosted their crowdloan rewards.

Away from the auctions, much of the discourse this week has been around Minecraft’s terms of service around NFTs. In no uncertain terms, they’ve stated that NFTs and blockchain technology is not permitted in any capacity.

There is valid discourse around their reasoning, such that NFTs are based on ideals around scarcity, which does not align with their values of inclusivity. Equally valid against their stance would be arguments for true asset ownership, and a broader inclusivity as a result of game asset ownership especially in regards to cross-platform and cross-gaming…however this argument may not be the most pressing.

Just as the recent collapse of centralized entities in the broader cryptosphere has increased awareness of how far crypto community has drifted from the ideals of self-custody, Minecraft’s abrupt announcement may be an early wakeup call–a reminder of why we are building fully decentralized alternatives that cannot be unilaterally shut down, banned, or eliminated based on a single party’s stance.

While integration with existing, popular clients and servers may allow quick bootstrapping, it would be not surprising if others follow the same path forward as Minecraft.

Thankfully, in the case of some affected by Minecraft’s decision, adaptability was always planned, and the functionality of NFTs to cross multiple games and metaverses has always been one of its greatest value propositions.

With Dotsama projects like Ajuna, Phala Network, Cyphermod, and Enjin, all building towards the decentralized gaming future, our hopes are high especially with this recent announcement. Read on to learn more.

TOP NEWS OF THE WEEK

NFTs to be based on Final Fantasy will be coming to Polkadot, with the annoucement of a partnership between Enjin and Square Enix! Image: Square Enix

On July 21, 2022, Enjin announced a partnership with Square Enix, a video game company best known for titles such as Final Fantasy (168 million units worldwide), Dragon Quest (84 Million units), and Tomb Raider (88 million units). Enjin is a Polkadot parachain that offers a suite of products for NFT integration with over one billion assets created so far.

Enjin will be launching a digital collection of cards and figures on Efinity paired with physical collections based on Final Fantasy. Pre-orders for action figures have already begun which includes digital redemption codes for matching NFTs, while trading cards will go live later in the year.

Enjin’s CTO, Witek Radomski, states, “...fans can experience interactive NFTs without even realizing they’re on the blockchain. Enjin can establish the next phase of growth in blockchain entertainment…”

Efinity allows for a non-exclusive wallet, market, and toolkit, allowing anyone to build their own NFT based games, products, and features without highly specific knowledge of blockchain-specific architecture.

This is a good example of partnership with existing markets and brands, while maintaining the ethos of blockchain. Both Minecraft’s news and Enjin’s partnership with Square Enix are paths forward towards a deeper and wider DotSama ecosystem.

Speed Reading

Kintsugi won the Kusama auction with a self-funded bid

Nitty Gritty

• Acala integration with Astar will be announced soon, a move that allows for aUSD to be bridged through the Astar portal.

• 3 months multi-chain hackathon sponsored by Acala with $800k in prizes.

• Totem KAPEX Pledge round started on Monday 18 July 2022. Here is the article with more details. You are eligible if you contributed to their crowdloan, however, this excludes CEXs. Those who forgot to use the referral bonus can use it for the pledge. Here are details for Parallel contributors. Information about the estimated number of tokens to be earned, including the Totem Pledge round, can check here.

• Check out the video covering dApps built on Acala, which includes Mufi and Zyfty. The former helps artists receive advanced payments for streams, whilst the latter brings Real Estate NFTS.

• Did you catch Yung Beef’s presentation from Decoded which gets into solving common problems of social networks?

• The UNQ token distribution has been completed. Distribution includes both locked ( to be vested) and unlocked tokens. Check out the article on how to claim vested tokens.

• A significant update from OriginalTrail on Decentralised Knowledge Graph version 6. This includes the final stage of software implementation (allowing the DKG graphs to extend from data to Web3 assets), Uniform Asset Locator (UALs) introduced (it’s a Web3 extension of the URI/URL scheme used in Web2), Web3 search is now fully decentralized with the discovery of assets indexed in DKG, 500x performance boost over the previous iteration. The foreseeable road ahead includes: EVM support on the testnet, staking & delegation, incentives on the Parachain, marketplace tools, web3 integrations, and continued development of The Magnify project (an interface for driving adoption).

• The latest public beta and last opportunity to test & break things before the BSX release (expected soon).

• Another week another Litentry weekly newsletter with a brief update on development.

• Robonomics network launched their redesigned dapp dashboard with the ability to activate subscriptions for decentralized IoT.

• Implementation of KodaDot NFT marketplace on Basilisk. The aim is to extend the functionality of KodaDot so users can benefit from features like Royalties and Offers on their minted NFTs. In the process of implementation, they started their NFT campaign where you can win $50 in KSM.

• EWT in collaboration with Volkswagen Group Innovation and Elli has developed a new smart charging solution that allows EV owners to use renewable electricity to charge their vehicles. It optimizes clean electricity usage based on the vehicle’s real-time electricity consumption and charge schedule. Along with a traceable and secure audit trail for transactions, consumers and corporate EV fleets will be able to show proof of renewable energy purchases as well as proof of carbon emission accounting.

• Polkaholic_io provides details of Polkadot chains based on XCM transfers from the past 7 days.

• Binance US will be listing KSM.

• Check out the thread for more details on the Swanky new Astar developer tool for WASM Smart contract.

• DAM is a new protocol with a stablecoin that will be coming to Moonbeam.

• Q1/Q2 2022 report about Manta highlights the focus on the development of Dolphin until v2, manta signer, Dolphin dApp, and private on-chain transacting. Additionally, on Calamari XCM was enabled to a few chains, the community Collator Program was introduced, and OpenZL (an open-source library for developers) was launched. The team has participated in many social events to grow and build awareness. In fact, the core team was expanded to 32 along with Binance Labs strategic investment. Objectives for Q3/Q4 include MariPay, MantaPay, and more XCM integrations

• Interesting promotion of Polkadot, with soccer legend Lucka Modric.

• Karura’s KAR token has been listed and is now trading on Bitrue.

• Infstones partners with Acala, which will allow community members to launch a node on the Infstones platform with 1 click.

• Invarch latest report covers, a demo of their INV4-GIIT, builders program, and Web3 grant submission.

• Kylin Network partners with OnFinality to provide one-click deployment, scalable and performant API services.

• Peaq Network joins substrates builders program.

• Integritee's TEER is now available on the Karura network.

• Kilt provides a summarized review of web3 history. Covering data being sold, fat protocols in contrast to thin ones (IP or HTTP) with more innovative functionality, decentralized identity, and the value of dApps.

Snow launched and withdraw their crowdloan all within a week

Content creation

• @kryptoschain covers Icon in his video ahead of its Snow Kusama crowdloan.

• @Sanchez posted his first article about creating the perfect game with Gamedao. Well done! And also props to the WagMedia writing room who provided some support.

• @DrCAO provides valuable educational videos and complementary articles covering a number of things this week which includes: checking some notable APY including Astar festival, creating your own collection on, Singular, losing 10 DOTs with on-chain ID, LP market updates, Snow crowdloan (with article), important crowdloan updates (with article), DotSama ecosystem updates July 20th (with article), and Heiko increasing rewards for first 8K contributors (with article).

• @daveydoo creates a video that provides a brief introduction of Moonriver.

• @ikhaled28 puts together an article summarising all the WagMedia Translations from the last 4 weeks.

• @daveydoo releases a video introducing Astar on his Dot Daily channel.

• @kryptoschain gets into how to unstake Turing tokens in his video.

• @dotgraphic created a useful infographic that explains Edgeware App.

• Another weekly TLDR on all things Astar by @DrPreposterous.

• @dotgraphic puts out another infographic, this time to explain the first page of Polkadot.js webpage.

• @kryptoschain drops a video on the Snow Kusama crowdloan.

• @daveydoo covers Crust Network Storage For The Metaverse in his video.

• @MaxTheo drops a video summary of Messari’s report "State of Polkadot Q2 2022“.

• Another week another Weekly recap of the Moonbeam/Moonriver ecosystem from @Bapt15ta.

• @kryptoschain talks about Polkadot news including who is the mysterious parachain winner in another video.

• “I hope this stays this time” as @JB creates content on Reddit covering Astar’s Swanky tool

• @manescugheorghe brings together a brief on each parachain winner in his article.

• @jrafaelangarita created a thread with an infographic to educate people on the parachain slot auctions mechanism.

• @PNP covers bridging assets over chains in his thread.

• @DrPreposterous with a meme for you to enjoy.

• @johnrhodel writes about why projects should join WagMedia.

Messages From the Treasuries

• Moonbeam has another week of numerous integrations with Rubic fully supporting Moonriver and Moonbeam making transactions and swaps between networks very seamless. Talisman has fully integrated with all of Moonriver and Moonbeam making the wallet for the paraverse even more universal in Dotsama.

• Banksea releases its API ro provide NFT data analysis and AI valuations for the top collections on Moonbeam and Moonriver. DAM finance announces it plans to launch on Moonbeam as well. Learn more about this project here.

• The State of Subsocial continues to develop as they release part 2 of their series outlining their vision for the future. Don’t miss their community call at 4pm UTC on July 26th to dive deep into the topics in these two articles.

Crowdloan Updates

Heiko surged with an incentive for the first 8K KSM contributions

• @AliceundBob reminded us that 5 Parachains fighting for 4 slots on Kusama. GM Chain, bringer of Chaos.

• Snow Network released the tokenomics for their crowdloan. Key points are 5% supply for crowdloan, 35% airdrop for Icon holders, and no vesting at launch. They approached the end of the first day of their crowdloan with the most KSM contributed. However, sometime later the team confirmed that they made a mistake in launching crowdloan, they inadvertently launched with only 1 lease period that covered 8 weeks instead of the intended 48 weeks.

• Parathread 2055 won the 22nd DOT auction with a self-funded bid of 76K DOT, yet still remains anonymous.

• Kintsugi BTC wins auction 44 on Kusama, beating out GM/GN. Congratulations to Kintsugi.

• The Basilisk team has given a warning to NOT participate in the BSX crowdloan, as it will be done via Self-fund and any contributions will not be rewarded.

• Parallel making a move with its 2nd Heiko crowdloan for renewing their Kusama lease. If you contribute within the first 8K KSM you will get a base of 500 HKO instead of 200 HKO.

What's in Your Wallet?

• New tokens are now supported by Novawallet, which include tDOT, xcKMA, scCRAB, xcTEER, KMA, TUR on Phala.

• You can now use Talisman wallet to connect to the Moonbeam/Moonriver for staking.

• Data Highway is now supported on Nova wallet. You can now Store Data Highway tokens and receive Data Highway crowdloan rewards on your Nova wallet.

• A new phase of the Sentinel program for Talisman is opening. This includes more roles, better performance, and incentivization.

• Community-requested improvements have been addressed on Nova Wallet with its latest iOS v3.3 update.

AMA and IRL Events Round-up

• Astar meeting with Starlay on Twitter spaces on July 18th. NOTE: it doesn’t look like it was recorded.

• Mangata Monday (July 18th) featured David from Oak Network as their guest.

• Check out Talisman Q&A hosted by Astar spaces recording from July 18th.

• The next Bifrost community call is on July 28th @ 4PM CEST on their discord.

• Here is a link to the streams of Paris Dot that covered a recent 3-day event between July 19th to 21st

• Pendulum did a Twitter spaces call on July 21st with guests from Bifrost, Interlay, and Amber.

• Listen to the spaces recording from July 21st where Acala gets into aUSD fungibility pallet.

• Check out Dustin’s Defisummit Stream about Defi on Polkadot with representation from Acala, Itering, Darwinia, and Evolution Land.

The next phase of the Talisman Sentinels program

Translating DotSama

Some excellent translations and non-English original creations, which you may find fitting to share with family, friends, and neighbors around the world.

• @paulll translated the Bifrost technology road map announcement document, for the Italian community.

• @pitcoin drops a video to keep the Portuguese-speaking Astar Network community informed about updates and news.

• @YuliKay does a Russian translation of Bifrost SALP support for Integritee Crowdloan

• @YuliKayTranslated into Ukraine some tweets from Bifrost channel here is one on Token2049 conference, raindrops Back to Asgard Whitelist, and round-up of rainbow boost 2nd round.

• @ikhaled28 puts together an article summarising all the WagMedia Translations from the last 4 weeks.

• @YuliKay does another Russian translation on Bifrost, covering Back to Asgard.

• @jrafaelangarita posts an infographic in Spanish to explain the Moonbeam Harvest Moon campaign

• @Ma translated into Italian the latest on Moonbeam’s Integration with Prime Protocol.

• @paulll did Italian translations of two important articles on the new Polkadot Staking Dashboard and how the nomination pools work on Kusama (and soon Polkadot).

• @JimmyTudeski releases the second edition of Dotsama news for the Polish community.

• @jrafaelangarita releases a summary in Spanish of AMA with Stellaswap

• @Ma did an Italian translation of Partnership between Moonbeam and Parallel

• @daveydoo translated in Spanish his own brief Solarbeam introduction article.

• @johnrhodel does a couple of rapid Bitfrost Spanish translations on covering what it is.

• @johnrhodel covers Bifrost tokenomics in his Portuguese translation.

• @DrCAO translates Polkadot’s announcement on the release of Governance 2.0 to Chinese.

• @johnrhodel provides a Spanish translation of getting started on Bifrost.

• @johnrhodel begins his Portuguese translations on use cases for RMRK. Part 1 and Part 2.

• @johnrhodel provides a Portuguese translation of Bifrost Wiki that explains SALP for liquid crowdloan.

NFTs and the Metaverse: The Heartbeat of Dotsama

Final Fantasy NFTs will utilize the Efinity Parachain, Enjin CTO Witek Radomski pictured with an iconic replica from the game, and imposed in this awesome backdrop!

• Entropia Universe collaborates with Efinity, releasing a new NFT collection with planned utility.

• DPS announces that they will work on renting out your pirate to work if you don’t have time, though it may take some time to develop.

• Saurus Crew collection is coming, all Donkey 2.0 holders will receive a drop.

• Kusama Dragons has collaborated with Zeitgeist to launch a special edition Zeitgeist Dragon Egg at a price of 1.5 KSM. Aside from the unique skin, there are special attributes and an undisclosed advantage with the Zeitgeist team. There will be a limited supply of 55 Zeitgeist Dragon Eggs, with a giveaway ending on July 19th.

• KodaDot has an NFT campaign to test out their minting system in beta. Join the KodaDots NFT raffle after you read about their new Reactive NFTs.

• Planet Neo has released Dino X Dino’s Metadata. Check if your dinosaurs have higher tier genetics above their class. Each Dino also has additional traits such as city & location, personality, good and evil ratings, and a few more extras. Equippable items will be airdropped. And discussions are open around what will be done with unsold eggs. Some info on Planet Neo's Recon leagues game was also released.

• Moonsama has integrated Kilt and gotten extra publicity for it. However, Minecraft announced the ban of NFTs within their game. Donnie (from Moonsama) explains the implications for future plans, with mention that this has no effect on development of "Pondsama" and the "Battle for Nova" games.

• Exiled Racers Racecraft attributes are released. Read this to understand attributes such as speed, handling, acceleration, and more.

• Check out this Skybreach Land Tool.

• The last handheld item drop for RMRK Punks has occurred, with an announcement that any unsold items at the end of July will be burned.

• Want to know more about PhalaWorld? Check the first 7 chapters of PhalaWorld’s lore.

• Evrloot campaigning will start in August.

• Moonfit Mint Pass NFT minting is live. Those who held a Moonpet NFT, or staked with TF Alpha DAO collators, can mint one free mint pass for Round 1. (You need to import your Whitelisted EVM address to SubWallet to mint the pass.)

• MoonriverBAYC is giving away 200 Ape Themed NFTs in partnership with MOVR News over the next 4 weeks!

• Efinity is bringing some attention to Polkadot with a partnership with Final Fantasy using the Enjin parachain.

Content creation

• @MaxTheo explains the new App Promotion Staking model from Unique Network.

• @DrCAO creates a tutorial on how to make an NFT collection on Singular.

• @Cris_Pap makes a “How to Carnage Beginners Guide👇”

• @Pnin made a video for Evrloot's burning event.

• @TheFVK, as always with his amazing twitter threads, this time on Dotsama Music NFTs.

• @DeFi_Jedi with a twitter post on Moonfit.

• @cobruz writes his first subsocial piece, a speculative deep dive on RMRK Punks.

• @johnrhodel begins his Portuguese translations on use cases for RMRK. Part 1 and Part 2.

DeFI

Decentralized finance on Polkadot. Some DOT DeFi use case parachains featured in the picture

• New paper from Equilibrium explaining Bailouts to help mitigate risk using their Defi platform.

• Starswap announce Bitcoin/Ethereum and Astar farming pairs are now live.

• Parallel had Superstar Time to earn extra points.

• Bifrost Analysis panel goes live, now you can follow the data analysis of TVL, $vKSM, $vsKSM, $vsDOT in real-time. Bifrost also releases details of vDOT, plus 50,000 $KSM will be deployed on the @ZenlinkPro swap $vKSM / $KSM pair!

• Capx partners with Subquery. Also integration with Sphereon to give dApps access to decentralized cloud services.

• Leonicorn Swap launched a dex aggregator on Astar.

• Stellaswap launches Zap feature and updates farming rewards to improve long-term stability.

• Avault partners with ADAO and is now using Blast API.

• Moonwell Artemis hits 200M in TVL!

• Stakers on Sirius Finance are eligible for the PolkaEx airdrop. And Algem partners with Sirius to deploy the nASTR/ASTR pair.

• Single-sided wGLMR pool on Beamswap offering high APR.

• Tapio discusses the advantages of tDOT launch.

• The new function '1U Grab' is launching now on SoSwap–it's a chance to win rewards and PCX tokens.

• Acala’s LDOT is earning sustainable staking rewards.

• Athos Finance to be integrated on Subwallet.

• Composable team shares the vision and team introductions.

• Ledger integration coming to Parallel.

• Polkadex lays out its upcoming development stages.

Content creation

• @daveydoo covers Acala, “The Cryptocurrency that could change the world” and writes an article about Solarbeam

• @PNP shares use cases of Astar Pass.

• @pitcoin.astar introduces Algem liquid staking on Astar–launching on July 25th.

• @DrCAO provides valuable educational videos and complementary articles covering a number of things this week which includes: AIR/aUSD LP rewards in Karura and Parallel Finance events, and updates on his Snow crowdloan announcements.

Governance

More news of Governance 2.0 is being released

• It’s finally here, Dr. Gavin Wood releases his vision for Governance 2.0 in this detailed article.

• Referendum 211 rewards are out from the GovNFTs initiative and they are centered on the three referenda related to Pichiu’s superfluous referenda.

• Referendum 215 has been put out and is passing by a large margin. This referendum has been opened to remove 18 spam referenda that aim to remove council members.

• Quartz Network is now producing blocks after the referendum to unblock their chain has been passed.

• Referendum 216 is now live. This runtime upgrade is focused on a few minor upgrades related to referenda and conviction voting.

• Turing and Karura now have bidirectional HRMP channels open. Let the assets and automation begin.

• @pitcoin puts out a thread on Equilibrium and Astar Network HRMP channel proposal.

• @manonthemoon has developed a few idea on gamifying governance participation. This topic is tricky, but he lays out some solid points in this in depth article.

• @DrCAO translates Polkadot’s announcement on the release of Governance 2.0 to Chinese.

Rumors & Alpha

Do Your Own Research! These finds are unconfirmed alpha in Dotsama

• Waggers appear a bit shy with the rumors, or things happen just too quickly.

Beginner’s Guide

New to Polkadot? Or maybe you have some friends who keep coins on a CEX but haven't become a part of a community yet? Share this with them to get them started! It will be updated weekly with new content and is open for changes. Feel free to leave a comment and I'll add content that's needed.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to Dotsama

Another mind-blowing week! Our WagMedia discord is the primary source for most of the content in this newsletter – thanks a ton fam! These are just the highlights, for more in-depth news join the discord and get incentivized to learn more about the ecosystem and provide news, alpha, and content to us all. As always, I’m open to feedback and I hope you find this helpful. Looking forward to yet another week of exponential growth in the DotSama ecosystem.

What is WagMedia?

WagMedia Discord.

Jay Chrawnna’s The Kusamarian channelprovides us all with extremely entertaining updates on everything DotSama. Here is the playback listing of the past week:

1. Rocky Mountain Oysters, NFTs, & Subsocial w/ Yung Beef 4.2 - Space Monkeys Crypto Podcast 062.

2. RMRK NFT Game Creators Cocaso and Koxed Giving the Scoop on SubstraKnights @ Decoded 2022 in Berlin.

3. From Clubhouse to Polkadot Decoded w/ Polka Häus co-founder Alex Hatoum -Space Monkeys Podcast 063.

4. W3F Grant Recipient Prosopo founder Chris Taylor Talks Battling Bots @ Polkadot Decoded 2022 Berlin.

5. Bonus Episode with Jusup11, Host of the Alpha Podcast w/ NVRLand Labs - Space Monkeys Podcast 064.

6. Gavin Wood Reveals Polkadot Gov 2.0 at Polkadot Decoded 2022 in Buenos Aires - Csaint's Alpha Shots.

Looking for more to read, why not check out the other works by the Wag Weekly Squad: Pnin, Csaint, Jb_blah, and Dodow.

Tips appreciated

KSM

GL85fwNiFfUqkCcmtrq7eD5DphB1QWJrxkgMme5qdSuFfap

Metamask

0x66b9f30B38Cb6d61374D15D8A9D220561E715995