Mythical Games shares strategy for partnering with the NFL, Pudgy Penguins and more

Welcome back to Talking Tokens and happy 10-year anniversary to the Ethereum ICO! Time flies by.

We’re building the best place for quick crypto insights, news and in-depth interviews with the best leaders, startups, market players and up-and-coming founders that are changing the industry.

If you haven’t already, subscribe here.

Exodus Announces Passkeys Wallet: Frictionless Onboarding for dApps and Users 

This newsletter is sponsored by Exodus, a leader in crypto wallets, which has unveiled its Passkeys Wallet – enabling one-click web3 onboarding.

Forget lengthy sign-ups, seed phrases, and downloads. Users can create and fund a wallet in one-click directly within a platform. 

Here's why it's a game-changer:

Effortless Onboarding: One-click wallet creation with biometrics that eliminates friction

Seamless UX: Manage crypto directly within a platform

Security: MPC technology gives users peace of mind without custodial risks

Developer-Friendly: Integrate Passkeys in minutes with a few lines of code

Be among the first to experience the future of crypto.

Access Passkeys at passkeys.foundation

Web3 gaming is just getting started

There’s been a lot of talk over the years about web3 gaming. Some view it as the future catalyst to mainstream web3 adoption, while others see it as a tool to improve the gaming industry.

For John Linden, the CEO of web3 gaming studio Mythical Games, it’s a mix of both.

Mythical Games aims to sit at the intersection of blockchain technology and gaming. It has launched games like its NFL Rivals - Football Game and Nitro Nation World Tour and earlier this year partnered with the team behind the NFT collection Pudgy Penguins to build a new mobile party game.

The studio bakes in blockchain technology into its games, letting gamers learn about it as much or as little as they want to, opposed to labeling them as “web3” games. And it seems to be working.

NFL Rivals launched last year and has since amassed over 5 million users, Linden shared on the Talking Tokens podcast. But this is just the start of it.

(Listen in on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube.)

“We’ve been working with pretty big IPs," like the NFL, Linden said. Mythical is also talking with other sports leagues on launching IP-based games and recently partnered with Pudgy Penguins to launch a new web3 game.

“These are brands people already know and are interacting with and I think with that being able to tell the lore, the story behind those brands made people come in easily into these economies,” he added.

While it’s not always easy to get a brand on board, that style of gaming can bring in a unique angle, Linden said. “With web3, we’re telling a new story in essence of the NFL on how you can interact and play together.”

And people learn they can earn and trade items, which teaches them about blockchain technology and in-game assets without forcing them to learn about web3 terms.

“You’re going to start seeing more of these coming out,” Linden said, highlighting that other gaming studios are launching two “very web3 games” built by “two of the biggest legends of the gaming industry,” one has been in development creating original IP, meaning not repurposing another brand’s IP, for three years and other for seven years, he said. “It’s not short timelines to get these games out.”

And in general, a lot of big game creators are seeing opportunity to integrate blockchain technology, he noted.

When NFL Rivals launched at the start of the 2023 football season, its secondary revenue (the money Mythical made from trading fees) was about 15% of the entire game, Linden shared. Last month, it accounted for nearly 50% in secondary revenue. “That’s huge, we’ve almost doubled the opportunity of that game through the secondary economy.”

He thinks this model will attract more gaming studios as those metrics for success continue to surface for blockchain-based games.

“If we make this economy open and truly hand some of the keys back to the community you can really take things to a new level.”

Check out the next section for more details and the full episode.

The latest Talking Tokens podcast 🎙️

For this week’s Tuesday episode, I interviewed John Linden, CEO of Mythical Games. 

We talk about the state of web3 gaming, how it has evolved over the years, Mythical Games’ NFL Rivals game bringing in 5 million gamers and the company partnering with Pudgy Penguins to launch a new game.

Talking Tokens episodes are released on Spotify and Apple Podcasts at 6AM EST or YouTube at 10AM EST every Tuesday and Thursday. Listen in!

Make sure to subscribe to keep up with the latest episodes. Feel free to leave a review and tell us your thoughts.

Monitoring blockchains

Looking at some of the biggest developments onchain.

• The total value locked (TVL) for all of the top 14 blockchains increased over a seven-day period, DefiLlama data shows

• Base blockchain saw over 4M in daily transactions and greater than 25M in weekly transactions, according to Dune Analytics data 

• Ondo Finance integrated with Injective to bring USDY into the Finance-focused blockchain’s ecosystem and enable new institutional and RWA use cases for the chain’s token

Taking on the tokens 

The total crypto market cap lowered less than 1% in the past 24-hours to $2.44 trillion. It is up 4.72% over a 7-day period.

As for the largest cryptocurrencies by market cap…

These metrics were taken prior to publication Tuesday morning EST.

Other numbers we’re eyeing…

• $3.2 billion — that’s how much digital asset investment products saw for buying inflows across the past three weeks, with last week making up $1.35B of that total amount, according to a CoinShares report (chart below)

Money and people moves

Latest updates on crypto startups that secured funding and industry players who are starting something new.

1. Etherfuse raised $3M in a seed round to bring emerging market debt onchain

2. Messari CEO steps down amidst controversial political tweets (Axios)

3. Swan Bitcoin Drops IPO Plan, Cuts Staff and Will Shut Managed Mining Unit (CoinDesk)

4. Ava Labs Head of Gaming Ed Chang is departing the company after 2.5 years

5. Animoca Brands subsidiaries Mocaverse and MOCA Foundation partnered with TON Foundation in token-swap agreement

Talking points for the road 

Here’s some headlines and topics that you can talk about at your next dinner party, crypto event or on a first date to look smart (results may vary.) 

1. Crypto Traders Bullish as Biden Bows Out of US Presidential Race (Bloomberg)

   1. Also see:

      • Crypto surges on political respect as Donald Trump courts bitcoin enthusiasts (Yahoo Finance)

      • Kamala Harris could mean an end to Democrats’ hard line on crypto—but it’s too soon to say for sure (Fortune)

2. $235M WazirX exchange hack has implications for India’s crypto industry (Cointelegraph)

Get involved and share the newsletter. The more you share, the higher your ranking.

• Refer 25 people and get my customized media guide.

• Refer 50 people for a chance at a 1:1 meeting with me to dive into best practices when engaging with the media.

Was this email forwarded to you? Subscribe here.

If you do (or don’t) like what you see, let me know by sending feedback to [email protected].

This product was built by Token Relations. 

Please note that this content is for informational and entertainment purposes only. Any views shared should not be considered financial advice, nor should it be used to make investment decisions. Cryptocurrencies are high risk and you should consult a financial professional before making any financial decisions. Make sure you do your own research. We may have a direct or indirect financial interest in content mentioned in this newsletter.