While roughly half of the investors joined the GameFi space initially for profits, 89% of GameFi investors succumbed to Crypto Winter 2022. GameFi, the fusion of gaming and decentralized finance (DeFi), attracts a set of investors that tend to choose projects based on their use case rather than money-generating potential.

The GameFi ecosystem attracts GenZ investors and gaming enthusiasts. As a result, it stands as an entry point for numerous first-time investors. A ChainPlay survey participated by 2428 GameFi investors revealed that 75% of the respondents joined the crypto space solely because of GameFi.

3 in 4 respondents joined cryptocurrency because of GameFi. Source: ChainPlay
While roughly half of the investors joined the GameFi space initially for profits, 89% of GameFi investors succumbed to Crypto Winter 2022 — with 62% of them losing more than 50% of their profits.

GameFi profits are decreasing. Source: ChainPlay
However, investors believe that poor in-game economy design was the main reason for their losses. In accordance with this sentiment, the survey revealed that, in 2022, investors worldwide spent an average of 2.5 hours per day participating in GameFi, which is down 43% to 4.4 hours from last year.more

The SEC chief has gone from rhetoric to enforcement, targeting token projects from the present and past. Crypto companies are shook.As I cautioned in multiple segments on Yahoo Finance last summer, teaching one class did not necessarily mean he was a fan of crypto. Now, after 16 months on the job, I think it's safe to conclude that indeed, he is not a fan. (It is somewhat puzzling now to watch him talk animatedly about how blockchain could be "a catalyst for change in the financial sector" in his introductory lecture to the class in 2018.) In the eyes of the crypto industry, he began as a wild card, became a figure of concern, and is now a proud villain.more

Cardano Founder Charles Hoskinson says the Vasil Hard Fork is set for September. “We’re not quite over the finish line.”Hoskinson—who also co-founded Ethereum—told viewers the hard fork will occur “sometime in September.” Perhaps not coincidentally, the long-awaited Ethereum merge is supposed to happen on or around September 15.

The exact date of the Cardano fork, however, partly depends on crypto exchanges, Hoskinson said: “The next major lift is to get the exchanges on board. Binance is reporting that they’re currently upgrading by volume.” He added that “generally, what happens is after a hard fork date is announced, you see a big rush and people push through.” 

Once the largest three to five cryptocurrency exchanges have upgraded their systems, “a hard fork date will be set,” Hoskinson said. “Then, the rest of the exchanges feel the urgency and they start upgrading. It’s really hard to get them otherwise—they tend to need a bit of a push for that. We’re not quite over the finish line, but everything looks pretty good.more

Market pundits anticipate the dollar rally to either stall or correct by the end of 2022, benefiting Bitcoin.In addition, the dollar's ability to continue its rally for the rest of 2022 could be hampered by a classic technical pattern.

First spotted by independent market analyst Agres, the DXY's "double top" pattern is partially confirmed due to its two consecutive highs and a common support level of 103.81.

As a rule of technical analysis, the double top pattern could resolve when the price breaks below the support and falls by as much as the structure's maximum height, as shown in the chart below.more

The bear market has mauled yet another high-flying crypto firm.Crypto investment firm Three Arrows Capital, also known as 3AC, filed for Chapter 15 Bankruptcy Friday, Bloomberg has reported.

While not unexpected, the news brings an ignominious end to the prominent, decade-old firm that managed as much as $10 billion in assets as recently as March, according to blockchain analytics platform Nansen.The filing emerged hours after Voyager Digital suspended trading and withdrawals, citing unpaid loans to Three Arrows totalling $646 million. Voyager issued Three Arrows a notice of default on Monday.

On Wednesday, a court in the British Virgin Islands ordered the fund to liquidate due to an inability to pay off debt. And the Monetary Authority of Singapore reprimanded Three Arrows on Thursday for providing it with “false information” and being “misleading.more

The discount disparity has since recovered slightly, but only due to Bitcoin's falling price.Shares of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust were trading at an unprecedented discount of 35% following the Securities and Exchange Commission’s rejection of its application to transition into a spot market Bitcoin ETF.

The circumstance is ironic, given that the existing discount was one of Grayscale’s primary arguments for why the transition needed to take place. Last month, the company held a private meeting with the SEC, according to a CNBC report, in which it argued that converting its Bitcoin Trust (which trades as GBTC) to an ETF could potentially unlock $8 billion for investors by eliminating the discrepancy.more

Russia is turning to blockchain technology in an effort to counteract the economic isolation brought on by the sanctions imposed due to its invasion of Ukraine.The State Duma, the lower house of the Russian legislature, has passed a bill on the taxation of digital assets that exempts their sale from value-added tax (VAT) in the Russian Federation. Some other services of digital asset exchanges will also be exempted, according to state-run news service RIA Novosti.

In addition, the bill established income tax rates of 13% for Russian exchanges on the first 5 million rubles (currently about U$93,000) of the taxable base annually, 15% on amounts above that limit and 15% across the board for foreign exchange operators. The current tax rate for companies is 20%.

The taxation of digital assets under the bill is analogous to securities taxes, RIA Novosti reports. The government noted in the bill that a separate tax procedure for digital assets is key to the creation of an effective and competitive digital economy.more