Happy New year-updates and 2024
愿龙年吉祥如意，福禄双全。
or "Wishing you success and good fortune this year of the Dragon." for our Chinese community members and to everyone celebrating it.
We're 41 days into 2024 and the signs for an amazing, exciting cycle are all up on the wall, if one know how to take note.
While most would say it's like the ancient coffee reading fortune telling skill, it's far from it and we're in the business of creating the future, meaning it's not fortune telling if you're actually making it.
It's been 2 long years since the bear market started and it was not without its challenges to overcome, some with success some with lessons ( this is startup slang for failure ). Even so, failure in its own right comes with more lessons than success ever teaches.
Here's a recap on the progress so far in 2023:
- Finalist at Leap 2023, Riyadh, KSA
- Best Blockchain Startup at Crypto Expo Europe 2023, Bucharest, Romania
- We held our first ever Web3 Game Jam on itch.io ( independent platform ) where we had more than 1300 attendees ( while our success mark was 100 ) and an amazing lineup of partner.
- Inscribed our WAMPIRES collection on Bitcoin in August after months of creating it
- Picked the worst time to launch it - the 2-3 week dead zone in Sept, 2023
- In November we joined the The Blockchain Game Alliance, the biggest and most representative of them in the GameFi space
- We also automated our bridge ( Tradesilvania )
- Got listed on DeFinanceSwap and Vulcania in Dec, 2023
- Featured on Magic Square, Dec 2023
- Got back up on the horse with a keynote by Daniel at NBX Berlin, Dec 2023 which you can view here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Uh7BMxseY4
- WAM held an awesome after-party in Berlin with more than 300 attendees from all over the world
Regarding the numbers, we've already shared it but for brevity here's the tweet
https://twitter.com/playWAM/status/1739693127407997304
Since 2024 started we decided to double down on making a world class product, putting in all the lessons from the past 2 years into something we can be proud of down the line and our community can benefit from.
We revamped our website, made it clearer about what we do, who we are and when we started but we also did something that was long overdue: we added the Fiat-on-Ramp solution powered by Tradesilvania, which means users can now buy the $WAM token with their cards ( when paying in EURO ) or with cash solutions ( when paying with RON ). USD and more updates coming on this matter.
At the same time we got listed on xPortal, with the push and support of our community members ( thank you Mags, xL M and the rest who contributed ).
Finally, a few words about the months that lay before us as an industry and what is WAM's role in shaping the fure of the gaming market altogether.
We started with a mission that has not changed: To give players, developers and investors a platform where they can earn and trade digital assets by participating in a fair, transparent and decentralized ecosystem. A new platform, powered by AI, secured by blockchain suited for the new digital economy is our way of creating the future.
Everybody is pinned to their screens to watch what happens when the halving hits, how will it affect markets and where the profits will be made. It's definitely the point to watch this year, but not the only one.
Building game tech has always been at the core of our vision. Game tech that is built for the years to come, on brand new principles such as decentralisation, transparency and permissionless access.
You might be wondering: why is this important for us and why does it matter? and we'd not hold it against you since these are valid questions.
Our entire world is shaped by technology and we're heading to an even more technologically diverse and complex future where algos need to be held accountable and incheck for the exprience everyone has and where AI will be ubiquitous in our every day interactions all using the blockchain as a secure, trustless medium to exchange information and value.
WAM's role in the above is to be an active creator and shaper of the future we envision, in a responsible way. We've been able to experience the excitement of the 2000's ( year, some of us are that hold ) when the internet was growing and developing at an incredible pace then with its transition towards mobile and huge social platforms since 2010's.
We've also seen what platforms can become if they stray away from their vision, community and principles. This is where we can do better. We can build better tools, better platforms, transparent systems where participation is both rewarded and required at the same time, with shared benefits and responsibilities. A future good for everybody cannot be built by a few.
In a future where digital assets will be the norm, ownership and trustless proof of everything are the center of one's identity and the platforms of tomorrow will be build from the ground up with this in mind.
Why does the above matter? Because we want to contribute in a positive way to our shared future, because like it or not, we're sharing the future in many ways.
Coming back to the stats:
- the number of NFT patent applications for NFTs has skyrocketed ( check out the extensive list here - compiled by Ludo )
- the number of brands opening up to the blockchain are growing by the day
- the number of people who find out, educate themselves about blockchain and start using it, is growing
- the security of the deployed systems is improving
- gaming is rocking it hard
Gaming is a medium we as humans have been experiencing from the dawn of civilisation. It has helped millions of humans learn complexe topics by making hard topics fun again. Gaming expands the brain without the shortcomings of traditional education.
We'd even dare say: it's not gaming, it's playing. Having fun with transformative yet complexe topics leads to one thing: mastery and newly acquired skills.
To sum up: 2024 is the year when WAM is pushing towards a better future through gaming, AI and blockchain.