Gaming scams ‘red flags’, Axie evolves, Wall Street Games ‘addictive’: Web3 Gamer

How to spot a gaming scam

According to the Blockchain Gaming Alliance (BGA), a majority of people still think the Web3 gaming industry is rife with scams and con merchants.

In its 2023 State of the Industry report, the BGA highlighted survey results showing that almost three out of four people believe that blockchain gaming is a scam — and have done so since the industry emerged.

“Since 2021, respondents cited that the biggest misconception surrounding all of blockchain gaming is that people assume it is a scam or a Ponzi scheme. In 2023, 70.0% agreed that this was still the top fallacy about the industry.”

It may be a fallacy overall, but while the industry overall is on the level, the ease of stealing crypto does attract grifters with questionable intentions. They’re not blockchain games, though — they’re pretend games out to rip people off.

The FBI warned gamers earlier this year about sneaky criminals using pretend Web3 games to snatch people’s crypto. They reminded gamers about fake games that lure in users with promises of cash if they connect their wallet, and then, bam, they steal all your crypto.

In another notable example, CertiK recently shared with Cointelegraph that the team behind the FinSoul gaming project had pulled off an exit scam by reportedly swiping $1.6 million from investors.

The FinSoul team allegedly hired actors to pretend to be its executives, then raised funds for the apparent purpose of developing a gaming platform. Instead of creating the platform, the team allegedly just siphoned off $1.6 million in bridged Tether from investors to their own accounts.

So, how can gamers stay safe when diving into a new Web3 game?

According to Martin Peko, co-founder of Wallet Guard, gamers should always have their guard up when it comes to invites for pre-release games.

Speaking to Magazine, Peko points out that while it might seem tempting to hop on board early with projects before they launch or simply to boast about being an early adopter, it could end up draining your wallet.

While he’s bullish about Web3 gaming as a way of adopting new users into blockchain technology, he notes that “Users need to be aware that unsolicited DMs over Discord and Twitter are common grounds for distributing scams and malware.”

“Early warning signs of a scam are when someone you don’t know is trying to get you to be a ‘beta tester’ or is promising a reward for trying out their Web3 game. If they’re trying to get you to download an executable file, that should immediately be a red flag.”

As most users end up getting scammed by fake Web3 games when they hook up their wallets, the best way to avoid this is to use a transaction simulator (e.g., Wallet Guard) to get human-readable insights into the outcome of a transaction.

Axie Infinity update set to reshape the ‘Axie economy’

Axie Infinity is flexing it has the “first-ever” digital collectibles that actually evolve as you dive more into the game.

While CryptoKitties allows users to breed more kitties, Axie claims to be taking it up a notch, enabling users to tweak and modify the original Axie’s parts.

1/ The Countdown to Axie Part Evolutions has begun!

🎁 Garuda Shrine Shop is OPEN🍫 AXP Consumables are LIVE☁️ Release an axie, get materials

Axies will soon become the 1st digital collectibles that evolve as you play with them…

…if you’re prepared to make a sacrifice 🧵👇 pic.twitter.com/m9otekQ7xu

— Axie Infinity (@AxieInfinity) December 14, 2023

If you’re willing to part ways temporarily with your Axie NFT, you’ll be rewarded with POAP (Proof of Attendance Protocol) tokens called Mementos.

“Starting today, you’ll receive Mementos as ERC-1155 tokens in your Ronin wallet whenever you release an Axie.”

If you’re hoping for a quick buck, unfortunately, you can’t flip them for money, but you can trade them back to pimp out your Axie. Over 250 parts are available to spruce up your Axie.

It seems a fairly straightforward process, too.

Once you hit every 10th level, you can level up a fresh part of your Axie. After that, it’s time to dive into the specifics — find out what materials you need and how much of the Axie native token (AXS) to stash for the evolution. 

Then head to your inventory, pick the Axie you want to evolve, hit “manage Axie,” and then hit “ready to evolve.”

There is a chance that the evolution might even improve the value of your Axie(*not financial advice).

The more alpha your Axie – think higher level and more breeds – the better the loot you’re gonna score.

Hot Take: Wall Street Games

If you decide to download Wall Street Games, be sure to add a case and quality screen protector because you’ll be tempted to throw it away in frustration. It’s addictive but infuriating.

Wall Street Games is like carrying a mini arcade in your pocket as if you walked into Round1 or Timezone. Instead of trading paper tokens for a fluffy teddy bear or candy that expired ages ago, you can rake in the WSG crypto token.

Using BNB Smart Chain (BSC), Wall Street Games is loaded with five games: Alien Hop, Cannon Siege, Astral Warp, Dunk It and Viper Rush.

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Alien Hop is similar to the hugely popular Temple Run, with the same compulsive loop that’ll make you lose track of time…or your job.

Out of the bunch, Dunk It is the one that drives me insane yet keeps me hooked.

You’ve got this ball dropping, and the mission is to loop it through the hoops. It’s a grind, it’s frustrating, and honestly, I’m tempted to bill the game for the 500 hours it stole from my life (and maybe a new iPhone screen).

My top score? A whopping 3.

To start making some crypto in the game, you need to grab the Game Activation NFT for one of the five games you want to play. You can do this by staking WSG tokens on the staking page or just cough up a bit more for the NFT right away.

This will probably cull all the crypto noobs straight away. 

Once that is set up, just link up your crypto wallet, and you’re on your way to crypto gains (hopefully).

According to CoinMarketCap, WSG is currently priced at $0.000000002322 USD, with a 24-hour trading volume of $173,074.

So, don’t go quitting your day job just yet. You’ll have to gather a decent pile of WSG if you want to pay your phone bill on time.

Plus, enough aside to pay for a busted phone screen.

What’s cool about this game is it’s smashing the stereotype that Web3 games have to bribe people to stick around. Here, the games are legit fun, and it’s a sweet bonus if you happen to snag a bit of crypto along the way.

Aurory falls victim to a malicious breach

So, word on the street is that Aurory, the decentralized gaming ecosystem on the Solana blockchain, got hit hard this week. 

A sneaky hacker bypassed marketplace security measures to get more AURY tokens, around 600,000 of them. After that, they moved these tokens to the Arbitrum network and sold them back to Aurory, outsmarting the network by knowing their market bids.

According to CoinMarketCap, the breach messed things up big time— with an almost 80% drop in liquidity for the ARY-USDC pool on Camelot, the Arbitrum-based decentralized exchange.

Just a few hours ago, our team detected unusual activity on our marketplace. After quickly investigating, we discovered that a bad actor was able to exploit our marketplace’s buy endpoint, allowing them to increase their $AURY balance in SyncSpace. This allowed them to withdraw…

— Aurory (Play Now) (@AuroryProject) December 17, 2023

Good news – Aurory says they didn’t lose any user funds or NFTs, as all the AURY that was taken came from a “team wallet” belonging to Aurory itself.

Other News:

— Fortune Business updates forecast for Blockchain gaming market to grow to $614 billion by 2030. It has surged by 30% compared to its May forecast, where it was expected to reach a value of $469.49 billion by 2030.

— Mythical Games mobile title NFL Rivals has broken $2 million in terms of NFT trading volume.

— Pudgy Penguins announces Pudgy World Alpha will be released in Q1 2024.

— In an effort to keep players playing throughout the Christmas season, The Sandbox has thrown 100,000 SAND in rewards up for grabs.

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Ciaran Lyons

Ciaran Lyons is an Australian crypto journalist. He’s also a standup comedian and has been a radio and TV presenter on Triple J, SBS and The Project.