🚫 6,000+ banned

Hey frens! Hopefully you’ve all been enjoying the shorter week so far.

We’re almost at Friday, and next week is already shaping up to be a great one for L2 news. More to come on that soon.

Today we’re talking about the dreaded — but inevitable — bot problem MapleStory N is tackling, plus info about a real estate investment platform using Avalanche.

Let’s dive in.

— Kate Irwin

MapleStory N bans over 6K accounts for botting, cheats

Crypto MMORPG MapleStory N said it’s banned thousands of accounts and is monitoring the game’s players for suspicious activity such as bot accounts or cheaters.

“With ongoing updates to the automated system, more than 200 detections and corresponding restrictive measures are now being processed every hour,” the game’s team said in a developer’s note. 

The note, the text of which can also be read on a mirror post published last week, continued: “Our team continues to conduct thorough manual reviews based on user reports and submitted evidence. As a result of these combined efforts, a total of 6,503 sanctions were issued over the past 24 hours.”

The MapleStory N team said they’re using security tools to detect cheat programs and those who might try to use multiple devices at the same time via automation tools. They’re also on the lookout for “mass logins, rapid character creation, [and] unusual trading and leveling activity.”

MapleStory N launched just two weeks ago, and it uses its own dedicated Avalanche L1 (also known as a subnet) for its crypto elements.

Because crypto games involve financial rewards, some are incentivized to “bot” a game, or automate activity across numerous accounts, to farm rewards in the form of tokens or NFTs that can then be cashed out.

Botting, or other types of cheating, can be present across all types of video games more broadly. 

In crypto gaming, though, botters present an issue to game developers because such actors are only playing the game to extract funds — not purchase items for cosmetic purposes or otherwise spend more than is absolutely necessary in a game. This can mean less revenue for the game’s studio, and real players lose out on rewards as a result.

Pixels, a pixelated MMORPG that uses Ronin, has been battling bots in its crypto game for years. For Pixels, ignoring bots would negatively impact their revenue, and may frustrate or even alienate genuine players if botters are the ones reaping most of the game’s rewards. 

Pixels’ founder recently noted that they’ve been able to finally get more deposits of funds into the game than withdrawals for the first time this month, creating a long-term healthier financial picture for the game. That’s come in part as a result of their extensive anti-bot efforts and plans to prioritize genuine players.

Going forward, MapleStory N says it’s looking at reducing the amount of false positives — where genuine players were labeled as bots or cheaters — and will adjust its approach accordingly.

Mogul puts real estate investments on Avalanche

Real estate has long been suggested by crypto fans as an area that could benefit from onchain records, whether it’s a blockchain-based deed or other data. 

Real estate startup Mogul is using blockchain tech to bring fractionalized investment to the sector. It recently launched Mogul Clubs, which are user-created real estate investment groups using the Avalanche C-chain. 

Now, Clubs are officially out of beta.

Avalanche developer Ava Labs has launched its own Mogul Club and is using the blockchain to power stablecoin-based real estate investments.

The goal of Mogul Clubs is “to give investors seamless access to high-yield, high-return single-family rentals across the US sunbelt—without the typical capital barriers or landlord headaches,” according to a release.

Mogul first launched back in 2023. It currently has over $22 million in assets on its platform. CEO Alex Blackwood told me they’ve already been able to give investors 10-12% cash-on-cash returns so far with an average internal rate of return (IRR) of 18.8%.

Fractionalized assets can sound complicated. But here’s how this works: When an investor funds a deal using USDT or a wire transfer, Mogul creates “a proprietary on-chain property NFT that represents their fractional membership interest in the LLC that owns the real estate,” according to Blackwood.

“Those tokens are not AVAX itself but custom ERC-1155 compatible contracts mogul wrote specifically for our platform, so all ownership records, distribution rights, and governance votes are immutably recorded on the chain,” Blackwood added.

Retail investors can join more than 30 different clubs. The startup says it vets every investable property on its platform, with the goal of giving investors the highest ROI possible.

“Mogul has a vetting process even stricter than Harvard’s, with less than one percent of properties we come across ultimately making it to the platform,” Blackwood told me.

Investors who join these real estate clubs can decide whether they want to buy in by themselves or alongside others — and need a minimum of $250 to get started. That price point makes it accessible, so investors can be just about anyone, no license required.

Mogul was founded by two former Goldman Sachs real estate investment group employees. Their site also offers a free rental property calculator, an Airbnb income calculator, a real estate calculator, and an investment property calculator to assess whether a property is worth a second look.

• Off The Grid is launching a new Battle Pass and a new limb tomorrow. Looking forward to checking out the update.

• GameStop has bought 4,710 bitcoin in its latest crypto play. It previously shuttered its NFT marketplace last year and sold $47 million worth of IMX in 2022.

  • “When I took over, the company was a piece of crap and losing a lot of money,” GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen said in a recent interview. “The company today is profitable in the US.”

• MetaMask finally added Solana to its wallet browser extension, while Phantom Wallet has added some social features to its wallet. Both are a sign of the times!

Coinbase says these memecoins are seeing lots of swaps: