You can take out a $250,000 loan against your Bored Ape. Is that a good thing? The big institutions getting involved are betting it is.
Golden Ape Token ID #2089 is locked up for a loan on Arcade, an NFT lending service.
NFTs are no longer just cute JPEGs to use for a Twitter avatar — they’re big business. The latest proof: NFT lending, which lets people lend out their NFTs as collateral to borrow crypto, is booming.
Even as prices have taken a tumble along with the broader crypto market, NFTs are growing in use for everything from fantasy sports to social clubs. That has made NFT lending profitable and popular. It’s also an example of the way that crypto can turn almost anything into a complex financial instrument. That’s adding more and more risk along the way, with major implications for the future of Web3.
NFTs are often thought of as one-off artworks. But non-fungible tokens are still tokens, which means they can be traded on blockchains and used in smart contracts. That’s how crypto turns them into financial assets that can be loaned out and borrowed against.
Larger financial institutions are getting involved, which is tying the NFT trade to the broader financial system. Prime crypto brokerage Genesis Trading and crypto exchange Nexo are two of the institutions that are lending against NFTs on Arcade, one such service.
These structures also bring increasing risk. The steep drop in NFT prices, with some top-tier NFTs dropping 50% in the past month alone, shows how fast things can change in this market. And the more NFTs are collateralized, traded and held by larger institutions, the more risk they bring to the wider market, some investors say.
Why do NFT holders want to borrow against them? Many individuals or funds are sitting on large gains in value of NFTs. They often don’t want to sell their NFTs because they believe in the long-term value or don’t want to pay taxes on the gains.
Some borrowers want to maximize how many new NFTs they can buy, while others want the cash to opportunistically buy new investments, said Stephen Young, CEO of NFTfi. Others want to generate returns through play-to-earn games or yield farming. One person even took out a loan on a Doodles NFT to buy a truck to donate to Ukraine, NFTfi reported on Twitter recently.
Another strategy is hedging. In case an NFT drops in price below the amount borrowed, a borrower can default on the loan and walk away with more value in cash, Young said: “You can almost think of it as a put option in that scenario.”
Still, this form of lending is extremely risky, some investors say. “This is the peak of overcollateralizing and overleveraging,” said Adam Jackson, the CEO of Freelance Lab and an angel investor.
While this is more risky than NFT trading already is, these loans are self-contained and lenders can’t go after a borrowers’ other assets, Young said. That’s because the loans are all on the blockchain — those are the only assets lenders can access. But there’s still a lot of risk involved.
“Obviously, if you go super-leveraged on all of your assets, there’s still ways for people to get into trouble, right?” he said. His company tells people in presentations: “[B]e careful — your leverage allows you to increase your upside, but it also allows you to increase your downside. So you need to make sure that you know what you’re doing and make sure that you limit the risk to assets you’re willing to put at risk.”
NFT lending is typically done on-chain via smart contracts. Both NFTfi and Arcade offer fixed-period, fixed-rate loans. Both do not have access to the NFTs or capital involved, and their systems will not liquidate an NFT holder’s loan if the NFT’s price drops. That differs from some offerings such as decentralized protocol JPEG’d, which will liquidate an NFT if the loan-to-value ratio hits 33% or higher.
On NFTfi and Arcade, lenders compete on terms such as loan-to-value ratio or interest rate. Depending on the type of asset, the loan-to-value ratio may be higher or lower, and the interest rate may also vary.
NFTfi, one of the larger services, had its public beta launch in June 2020. It did $300,000 in loans in its first year, $14 million in 2021 and $150 million so far in 2022, with $37 million in loans outstanding. Its loans range from 30 to 180 days in duration. The loans are paid back all at once, like a traditional bullet loan. Typical loan-to-value ratio is about 50%, and NFTfi charges lenders 5% of the interest earned only on loans that don’t default. The largest loan NFTfi has done was an $8.3 million loan for 104 CryptoPunks at a 30% loan-to-value ratio and 10% APR.
NFTfi allows NFT owners to borrow against their assets.Image: NFTFi
The sharp crypto downturn this month has had a sizable effect on this market. That has “absolutely” caused more NFT holders to be liquidated recently, said Frank Chien, an NFT collector.
Meanwhile, the downturn has caused these loans’ interest rates to jump: Last month, the average APR was 50%. After falling, it’s now up to 60%. “So that’s the lenders telling you that they’re taking on more risk by doing loans, so that tells you that they think the markets are still gonna be choppy going forward, and there’s risk in that,” Young said.
NFTfi’s average loan size was around $20,000 prior to May, but now has dropped to about $16,800. However, the total number of loans has increased recently.
Defaults are also up. But Young said this isn’t necessarily because the borrower couldn’t repay the loan. “The main driver of defaults is when the market conditions completely change. And it just doesn’t actually make financial sense to repay the assets because it’s cheaper to just default it and then go buy another asset from the same project for cheaper,” he said.
Arcade, which launched in late January, focuses on higher-end NFTs like Bored Apes and CryptoPunks. The rates typically range from 10% APR to 40% APR, with an average of 18%, said Gabe Frank, its CEO. Arcade takes a 0.5% origination fee from the borrower.
Right now it focuses on 90-day loans with capital paid back in a lump sum. So far, it has not had any defaults. NFT holders have the option to extend the term. Arcade plans to add one-year installment loans that can be paid in 12 monthly installments.
Those with higher liquidity and demand, such as CryptoPunks, can get higher loan-to-value ratios of 60% to 70% from lenders, while on lower ones it can be 20% to 50%, Frank said.
Arcade provides valuations and appraisals on assets and uses machine learning to help appraise NFTs.
While this type of loan is clearly risky, most of the NFT holders borrowing on Arcade are crypto experts. “Most are sophisticated players in DeFi,” said Frank, who himself has taken a loan on Arcade against a Bored Ape that he owns. He plans to keep the loan recycling over time.
Meanwhile, these assets are becoming more complex, securitized and potentially more risky. Goblin Sax is building pooled liquidity on top of NFTfi through instant loan products, Young noted. Meanwhile, MetaStreet buys the NFTfi loans as promissory notes and packages them up in tranches to be sold, similar to the way mortgages are packaged in collateralized debt obligations.
There are also derivative products being built on top of MetaStreet that are similar to interest rate swaps, Young said. He also believes NFTfi itself can build products on top of those derivatives.
Meanwhile, there’s been consolidation among lenders. These more sophisticated lenders have set up APIs, AI and bots to automate their lending strategies. “Typically for an Ape or a CryptoPunk, you’ll get five or six offers within two or three minutes on listing that asset,” Young said.
This complex financialization of NFTs is making what started as a set of online art projects into a more tradable asset. Proponents compare it to the mortgage market. Critics who remember the 2007-2008 crisis might make the same analogy.
Get access to the Protocol | Fintech newsletter, research, news alerts and events.
Your information will be used in accordance with our Privacy Policy
Thank you for signing up. Please check your inbox to verify your email.
Sorry, something went wrong. Please try again.
A login link has been emailed to you – please check your inbox.
Tomio Geron ( @tomiogeron) is a San Francisco-based reporter covering fintech. He was previously a reporter and editor at The Wall Street Journal, covering venture capital and startups. Before that, he worked as a staff writer at Forbes, covering social media and venture capital, and also edited the Midas List of top tech investors. He has also worked at newspapers covering crime, courts, health and other topics. He can be reached at tgeron@protocol.com or tgeron@protonmail.com.
HR experts said companies need to be proactive about protections for contraception, privacy and LGBTQ+ rights.
Experts say tech leaders need to start thinking about future Supreme Court rulings.
Lizzy Lawrence ( @LizzyLaw_) is a reporter at Protocol, covering tools and productivity in the workplace. She’s a recent graduate of the University of Michigan, where she studied sociology and international studies. She served as editor in chief of The Michigan Daily, her school’s independent newspaper. She’s based in D.C., and can be reached at llawrence@protocol.com.
Sarah (Sarahroach_) writes for Source Code at Protocol. She’s a recent graduate of The George Washington University, where she studied journalism and criminal justice. She served for two years as editor-in-chief of GW’s independent newspaper, The GW Hatchet. Sarah is based in New York, and can be reached at sroach@protocol.com
Tech companies are still trying to prepare for a post-Roe world. But it might already be time to think about what the Supreme Court is planning next.
When the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade Friday, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a concurring opinion that the court should also reconsider rulings protecting contraception and same-sex relationships, citing Griswold, Lawrence and Obergefell. If those decisions were ever overruled, it would have massive implications for everyone, but especially for employees living in states where same-sex marriage is at risk of becoming illegal without a federal shield.
Dozens of tech companies have announced policies to protect workers seeking abortions over the past month, and many of the logistics of those plans are unclear or still being decided. But given that the Supreme Court’s decision on abortion might be followed by more rulings down the line, HR experts said companies need to be proactive about protections for contraception, privacy and LGBTQ+ rights.
“Anybody who’s thinking about what’s going on in this country generally has to think about this,” said Janet Stovall, global head of DEI at the NeuroLeadership Institute.
When the decision to overturn the Supreme Court ruling on abortion was first leaked last month, some companies responded immediately with benefits. Others stood on the sidelines.
Companies including Bumble, Microsoft and Tesla announced almost immediately that they would cover abortion-related travel costs, while others said they’d offer relocation assistance for those living in states where abortion is heavily restricted (dozens of tech companies are based in states where abortion could become illegal or restricted). Some tech leaders were more quiet at the time of the leaked ruling. Meta, for example, told workers not to discuss abortion on its internal messaging platform. PlayStation told workers to “respect differences of opinion.”
Now that the ruling is official, companies are much more outspoken. Meta and Apple joined the chorus of tech companies publicly announcing their abortion-related travel coverage, although the exact steps companies are taking to implement the policy without exposing employee data aren’t entirely clear. “We are in the process of assessing how best to do so given the legal complexities involved,” a Meta spokesperson told Protocol. Apple did not respond to a request for comment.
When it comes to future rulings, though, companies are once again choosing silence for now. Protocol asked 22 companies providing abortion-related travel coverage if they are preparing for a world in which same-sex marriage and same-sex relationships are not federally protected, given Thomas’ opinion. The companies that responded — including Indeed, Meta, Yelp, Match Group, Citigroup, DoorDash and Microsoft — reiterated their abortion coverage plans but did not say whether they are preparing for future Supreme Court rulings. DoorDash said it couldn’t speculate on future court decisions.
Yuvay Ferguson, a marketing professor at Howard University, said now is the time for companies to expand their actions beyond covering abortion-related travel. Ferguson said Justice Thomas’ opinion should serve as an alarm for everyone to act, including tech companies.
“Companies need to make sure they have a stance of supporting reproductive rights, not necessarily singularly focusing on abortion,” Ferguson said.
Contraception falls under that umbrella, but rights to same-sex relationships and marriage may come under fire as well. Tech companies will feel more pressure to go beyond rainbow-colored websites and declarations and stand up for LGBTQ+ folks internally and externally. Staying silent on bills like Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law may no longer fly.
“How are you supporting people internally who don’t have the same resources as the people at the top, writing these PR statements?” said Madison Butler, chief people officer at cannabis company Grav. “It all comes down to inward accountability.”
Stovall said companies should first take care of people internally and be sure to communicate the gravity of the situation. Next, look at the legal landscape and figure out the actions you could even take against a harmful law. Lastly, carefully consider if you want to take a stand on the issue externally because if you do, you have to follow through. You don’t want to be perceived as picking and choosing certain issues, Stovall said.
“Is what you’re saying deliberate?” Stovall said. “Is it educated, is it purposeful, is it tailored to who you are and is it habitual? You need to be sure that it’s something that you’re gonna support going forward.”
Butler said the first and most important action is to have honest conversations with your marginalized employees. In other words, the employees whose rights would be most impacted by the reversal of these rulings. What do they need in order to feel supported? Maybe it’s an immediate need, like relocation. Maybe they want more concrete anti-discrimination policies or active advocation against harmful legislation. Butler emphasized that this messaging should come from the top, not just from employee activists or ERGs.
“All of these conversations should live in the C-suite,” Butler said. “We should absolutely be expecting this work and emotional labor from the people who are taking home millions every year.”
Salaried tech workers are not the people who will struggle most to get an abortion or contraception. Ferguson said she hopes tech companies, with all their power and money, don’t forget about the hourly workers who are most harmed by the rollback of rights. Tech leaders may start to think about preemptively advocating against these decisions, or their role in protecting user data from being weaponized. Stovall said companies should think about their locations in states that especially limit rights. “How do we have equity when we operate in inequitable spaces?” she said.
In the immediate wake of the Roe reversal, and in potential future decisions to come, Butler recommended giving employees space to feel a complex bundle of emotions.
“This is not just some brushstroke news article,” Butler said. “It’s not an op-ed. This is people’s lives.”
Lizzy Lawrence ( @LizzyLaw_) is a reporter at Protocol, covering tools and productivity in the workplace. She’s a recent graduate of the University of Michigan, where she studied sociology and international studies. She served as editor in chief of The Michigan Daily, her school’s independent newspaper. She’s based in D.C., and can be reached at llawrence@protocol.com.
Nathan Coutinho leads Logitech’s global conferencing business strategy and analyst relations. A Swiss company focused on innovation and quality, Logitech designs products and experiences that have an everyday place in people’s lives.Coutinho leads strategy and execution of Logitech’s video conferencing solutions, from personal solutions to highly-scalable conference rooms.Coutinho has more than 25 years of experience in the IT industry with various roles in executive leadership, consulting, engineering, marketing and technical sales.
Now that most organizations are returning to the office, there are varying extremes – some leaders demand that employees return to the office, with some employees revolting and some rejoicing to be together again. On the other hand, some companies have closed physical offices and made remote work permanent; creating a sigh of relief for some employees and creating frustration for others.
Most of us are somewhere in between, trying our best to take a measured approach at building the right hybrid strategy tailored to company culture. Some seemingly have begun to crack the code, while the majority are grappling with the when, how, why, and who of this new hybrid work reality.
Hybrid work success looks different depending on who you ask. Your company is made up of a cast of players, each with a role critical to a competitive and thriving business, and with an eye on their North Star: employee happiness. How do you appease all those stakeholders so we can all just move on and do our jobs without getting bogged down with the mechanics of it all?
IT: The technology behind hybrid success
Let’s first consider IT, which is the team most bogged down in the mechanics of it all. Heroically having kept workforces running with ad hoc setups during the pandemic, this team is now focused on standardizing technology for the varied mix of remote and in-office employees.
However, employee expectations are completely different than they were pre-pandemic. Technology that was once a nice-to-have is now table stakes not only in conference rooms, but for any space — whether that’s a private office, hot desk, or remote desk.
As a result the IT team is now thinking holistically about how to outfit their hybrid workforces so that each employee has equal access to the highest-quality hardware, software, and solutions. The setups also have to play well in an ecosystem where employees routinely toggle between Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, and a number of other web-based platforms for video meetings.
Facilities: Configuring “anywhere” spaces
Since the pandemic, facilities teams have redesigned, closed, shrunk, expanded, rebuilt, moved, and retrofitted offices to accommodate the dynamics of an evolving workforce. Whether they’re creating hot desks, huddle rooms, or traditional conference rooms, this team has the difficult task of space-planning for employees who may or may not even come into the physical office on any given day.
Rightsizing, where each meeting space is outfitted for a specific purpose, is top of mind for facilities pros. Reconfiguring rooms to support new hybrid work schedules enables personalization and a safe return to the office. Understanding how employees will use spaces as they come back, and enabling them to easily find and use these spaces will be critical for success.
Human Resources: It’s all about the employee experience
Keeping the Great Resignation at bay is just the start for this team. HR professionals are trying to build and retain a healthy, productive workforce, in all its facets and complications.
Having distributed locations, while sometimes seen as a tremendous benefit, can also bring drawbacks from the lack of face-to-face communication, onboarding, and mentoring. HR leaders are also keenly aware of the lack of equitable experiences some remote employees face when meeting with in-office colleagues.
While some of the HR team’s concerns about employee experiences can be solved with technology (like using easy, intuitive tech to connect teams), the HR team’s challenges stretch into areas that are hard to measure. Cultivating creativity and building unified cultures within hybrid work are massive undertakings with no one-size-fits-all solution.
Finance team: Investment decisions
Finance teams are looking at the not-so-insignificant impact of hybrid work costs. One of the challenges is hybrid work’s coordination problem, as highlighted by Microsoft in its 2022 Work Trends Index Report. Because most organizations have yet to take a data-driven approach to hybrid work, they are continuing to incur the cost of maintaining their campuses while also shelling out work-from-home stipends to a growing virtual workplace.
Thinking smart about hybrid
Our focus at Logitech is helping the industry solve many of these problems.
Making hybrid work successful for everyone requires much more than AI-based innovations. We’ve built solutions that help make the virtual meeting experience more equitable for all, provide analytics and insights into meeting room usage, while bringing simplicity with one touch.
But that’s just the beginning. Listening to all stakeholders — and seeing their challenges through the lens of their role — is the smartest possible start to make this hybrid work actually work. And we’re on it.
Learn more about how Logitech Video Collaboration is making hybrid work for global brands.
Nathan Coutinho leads Logitech’s global conferencing business strategy and analyst relations. A Swiss company focused on innovation and quality, Logitech designs products and experiences that have an everyday place in people’s lives.Coutinho leads strategy and execution of Logitech’s video conferencing solutions, from personal solutions to highly-scalable conference rooms.Coutinho has more than 25 years of experience in the IT industry with various roles in executive leadership, consulting, engineering, marketing and technical sales.
From employee support to privacy concerns, tech companies play a critical role in what’s to come for abortion access in the U.S.
States banning abortion means that tech will play a critical role in what’s to come for abortion access in the U.S.
Alex Eichenstein (@alexeichenstein) is Protocol’s social media editor. Previously, she managed social media and audience engagement efforts at the Center for Public Integrity. She earned an B.A. in English, women and gender studies and political science from the University of Delaware. She lives in Washington, D.C.
Nat Rubio-Licht is a Los Angeles-based news writer at Protocol. They graduated from Syracuse University with a degree in newspaper and online journalism in May 2020. Prior to joining the team, they worked at the Los Angeles Business Journal as a technology and aerospace reporter.
The end of Roe v. Wade has sent the world of tech scrambling. Many companies are now trying to quickly figure out how to protect workers in states where abortion will be banned, while also facing potential privacy and legal ramifications.
Here’s a look at tech companies’ roles and responses to the ruling. We will update this page as news and events change.
Alex Eichenstein (@alexeichenstein) is Protocol’s social media editor. Previously, she managed social media and audience engagement efforts at the Center for Public Integrity. She earned an B.A. in English, women and gender studies and political science from the University of Delaware. She lives in Washington, D.C.
Apple’s “buy now, pay later” product has a distinctly different distribution strategy that means it doesn’t directly threaten Affirm, Klarna and Afterpay.
Apple Pay Later emerges as a distinctly different product than what Klarna and Affirm offer.
Veronica Irwin (@vronirwin) is a San Francisco-based reporter at Protocol covering fintech. Previously she was at the San Francisco Examiner, covering tech from a hyper-local angle. Before that, her byline was featured in SF Weekly, The Nation, Techworker, Ms. Magazine and The Frisc.
Apple’s entry into the “buy now, pay later” market was one of its worst-kept secrets: Analysts had been predicting the company’s rollout of a pay-later service as early as 2020. The most common read on the move was predictable: Apple was here to smash the competition. The company has a track record of jumping into new sectors late and still managing to come out on top — the iPod came out when there were tons of MP3 players on the market.
But some analysts have a starkly different view. When you look at it under the hood, Apple Pay Later emerges as a distinctly different product than what Klarna and Affirm offer, they say — and one that isn’t much of a market predator.
“This is an opportunity to greatly expand ‘buy now, pay later’ services to people who haven’t used them in the past,” said Ian Rasmussen, who co-leads the North American asset-backed securities ratings group at Fitch Ratings.
That’s for two main reasons. For one, Apple is marketing its pay-later offering to customers in an entirely different place than competitors. Second, the customers Apple is targeting have habits that differ markedly from traditional “buy now, pay later” users.
The most popular pay-later providers have a straightforward primary marketing strategy: partner with retailers that typically feature their logos at checkout, prompting customers to pay over time. Many of these partnerships are exclusive, allowing a company like Klarna, for example, to be the only pay-later provider for customers checking out at Macy’s. The tight integration is meant to boost conversions. Reducing or eliminating “friction” is a “huge factor” in helping sign customers up, said Harry Kohl, a director at Fitch Ratings.
The pay-later companies are trying to extend their reach through financial super apps, which allow customers to apply for payment plans even when there’s not a deal in place with a retailer, though that takes more steps than pressing a button at checkout. Other tools are the virtual and physical cards that allow customers to pay online or in-store, like Affirm’s Debit+ card or the Klarna Card.
Apple Pay Later lives in Apple’s digital wallet, an iPhone feature the company has been trying to build up. Users will be prompted to check out using Apple Pay Later any time they use Apple Pay, or can configure loans directly in the wallet. Customers who do will be able to complete the payment across four charges, spread out over six weeks. The wallet will also show users their Apple Pay Later plans and the payments due over the next 30 days, Apple said.
Confusingly, Apple Pay Later is almost completely separate from Apple’s other venture into consumer credit, the Apple Card. (Apple Card has its own pay-over-time feature, but only for Apple products.) Customers must link payments to a debit card, not a credit card like the Apple Card.
Apple’s advantage is the wide reach of iPhones among consumers and Apple Pay among merchants — particularly at retail, where the pay-later companies are trying to use cards to boost usage.
“It’s a different mindset,” said Patrick DellaValle, director in the financial services practice at Guidehouse. Apple doesn’t need to compete with other pay-later companies for exclusive contracts with retailers, he said, and can focus on continuing to monetize loyal Apple consumers. “They could miss out [on some customers], but it could also be an intentional strategy if you’re going to focus on those customers that will pay upfront with Apple Pay,” he said.
Those existing Apple customers differ from the kind of customer “buy now, pay later” companies have talked about serving: typically a younger person, turned off by credit cards. Third-party surveys consistently show that Apple customers have higher incomes and spend more than Android users.
About three-quarters of pay-later users in the U.S. are Gen Z or millennials, according to a report from eMarketer. Adults who make between $50,000 and $100,000 are most likely to use “buy now, pay later.” Research from The Ascent also shows that 45% of those customers are using “buy now, pay later” to afford something that didn’t already fit into their budgets.
That all points to Apple not making Apple Pay Later to woo existing “buy now, pay later” customers away from the services they use. Instead, it appears the company made a product for the people who love Apple, aimed at persuading them to make more use of the Wallet app and Apple Pay.
Mike Taiano, a senior director at Fitch’s North American Banks Group, sees it simply. “This is another tentacle for them to get into customers’ everyday life,” he said. “I wouldn’t necessarily assume that they automatically go to the top of the leaderboard.”
Veronica Irwin (@vronirwin) is a San Francisco-based reporter at Protocol covering fintech. Previously she was at the San Francisco Examiner, covering tech from a hyper-local angle. Before that, her byline was featured in SF Weekly, The Nation, Techworker, Ms. Magazine and The Frisc.
Don’t know what to do this weekend? We’ve got you covered.
Our recommendations for your weekend.
Nick Statt is Protocol’s video game reporter. Prior to joining Protocol, he was news editor at The Verge covering the gaming industry, mobile apps and antitrust out of San Francisco, in addition to managing coverage of Silicon Valley tech giants and startups. He now resides in Rochester, New York, home of the garbage plate and, completely coincidentally, the World Video Game Hall of Fame. He can be reached at nstatt@protocol.com.
We’re getting the weekend started early. Two of our favorite shows are back, and we’re digging a breakout hit vampire game that’s being called a “bullet heaven” and is only $3 on Steam.
Indie developer Luca Galante’s Vampire Survivors is one of the most unlikely breakout hits of the year. The influential roguelike shoot-‘em-up has been called a “bullet heaven,”’ in contrast to the bullet hell-style manic shooters in which you must dodge a near-endless stream of projectiles. In Vampire Survivors, the projectiles come from you as you maneuver away from small armies of enemies. The game shoots for you, while most of the fun comes from traversing custom maps and unlocking and upgrading unique characters. It’s hard to describe the appeal without trying the game yourself, but at just $3 on Steam, it’s well worth a try. The game was also added to Game Pass for PC last month.
The adaptation of My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way’s peculiar superhero graphic novel series returned this week for a third season. After season two’s time travel shenanigans, “The Umbrella Academy” has officially strayed into alternate universe territory, rife with some headache-inducing paradoxes: It’s all getting a bit overwhelming. Thankfully, the third season is grounded by some excellent performances, most notably by Elliot Page, who worked with writer Thomas Page McBee to incorporate his real-world transition into the fictional narrative.
To many casual observers, Axie Infinity looks like a wondrous success story, one of the first play-to-earn games to successfully deploy all the blockchain bells and whistles of Web3 like NFTs, cryptocurrency and virtual land. But the lesser-known story of its downfall over the past six months is a much more important tale, and one told in precise detail by Rest of World’s Darren Loucaides in an excellent feature published this week. The piece, flush with interviews with the company’s founders, tells the story of how Axie Infinity developer Sky Mavis rose to fame as a poster child of the blockchain gaming movement, and the perils of a fledgling industry rife with hacks and scams and intertwined with an uncontrollable and volatile financial market.
The sixth and final season of Steven Knight’s historical crime drama “Peaky Blinders” is here, having aired in its entirety on the BBC and appeared on Netflix earlier this month. Like prior seasons, season six can seem at first glance like a too-quick six episodes, especially given the length of Netflix’s many other series. But “Peaky Blinders” packs extraordinary amounts of depth into each of those hours as it explores the machinations of Thomas Shelby and his once-scrappy and now terrifyingly powerful criminal organization. If you’ve never watched it, now is a good time to dive in before Knight’s planned feature film wraps the series for good.
A version of this story also appeared in today’s Entertainment newsletter; subscribe here.
Nick Statt is Protocol’s video game reporter. Prior to joining Protocol, he was news editor at The Verge covering the gaming industry, mobile apps and antitrust out of San Francisco, in addition to managing coverage of Silicon Valley tech giants and startups. He now resides in Rochester, New York, home of the garbage plate and, completely coincidentally, the World Video Game Hall of Fame. He can be reached at nstatt@protocol.com.
To give you the best possible experience, this site uses cookies. If you continue browsing. you accept our use of cookies. You can review our privacy policy to find out more about the cookies we use.
