💧 Pool parties

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I’ve only been in Seoul for less than 48 hours and I already think it’s way better than New York. It’s such a vibe. 

Also, my skin is glowing. Don’t be afraid to cleanse and hydrate before Korea Blockchain Week (yes, sers, this applies to you too). 

A little self-care goes a long way in fighting off the jet lag.

What GameFi looks like in 2025

Could liquidity pools spark a crypto gaming comeback?

Solana-based Tales of Meteora is an upcoming fantasy MMORPG browser game currently in alpha. The game’s token, TASM, is launching today.

The game comes from Mod Studio, a startup that’s also behind the Moddio browser game engine and the crypto project crowdfunding platform Indie.fun. 

As Tales of Meteora’s name suggests, Meteora LPs are core to the game’s blockchain economy. Players have to complete “quests” to up their reputation scores. From there, they can ultimately earn yield from various LPs and staking pools tied to the game.

“One of the biggest challenges that tokens have is [that] people sell their tokens,” Mod Studio co-founder and COO Linda Yuan told me in an interview. “So how do you stop them from selling? Well, you make them lock it up, or you make them stake it.” 

Yuan sees this approach to game economy as a more sustainable strategy than the play-to-earn economies of the past. 

A game token — or any token, really — swandiving 98% from an all-time high is a common narrative these days that can taint perception of a project. But heavily incentivizing lockups could lead to fewer dramatic price dumps and a less volatile game economy overall.

Tales of Meteora players are also rewarded in SOL, not the various projects’ tokens they’re locking up, which could further reduce selloffs of the many different tokens in the game.

20 third-party partners so far, including the Meteorite Collective, Jupiter, Find Satoshi Lab, Lowlife Forms, MonkeDAO and others, have signed on to steward their own “towns” within the game.

Each town can be customized and house its own marketplace — and use the town owner’s respective token.

That means ToM may have over 20 other tokens in play in addition to its own. 

Land NFTs are also expected to be a part of this game at some point, though we don’t know much more about that yet. 

Meteora currently has over $720 million in total value locked, Blockworks Research data shows, with a little over 40% of that amount being in stablecoins. 

Of course, some will scoff at the idea of yet another browser-based metaverse-style crypto game in the year 2025. 

But Moddio has conviction around browser games in part because of the engine they spent over eight years building. Browser games are also more accessible to more people because they don’t require a fancy PC, meaning they can reach audiences in both emerging and developed markets. 

Another big reason: As a platform type, browser games don’t face restrictions from Steam, Apple or other tech giants with strict rules around crypto games.

“You can’t really gatekeep a browser game,” Yuan said. 

My take? I’m still not so sure about mobile browser games from a user experience perspective, especially when crypto transactions and wallets get involved.

But on a laptop or desktop screen, I’d be game to try this one out.

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Katana was built by answering a core question: What if a chain contributed revenue back into the ecosystem to drive growth and yield?

We direct revenue back to DeFi participants for consistently higher yields.

Katana is pioneering concepts like Productive TVL (the portion of assets are actually doing work), Chain Owned Liquidity (permanent liquidity owned by Katana to maintain stability), and VaultBridge (putting bridged assets to work generating extra yield for active participants).

I found this video quite funny — and valid. Building generic, empty worlds that function as glorified walking simulators isn’t going to cut it, even in crypto. 

The convergence of AI, crypto, and capital is turning IP into the next real-world asset class, and the race to unlock it has already begun.

Join Story and Blockworks at Origin Summit, where this new market takes shape.

Use promo code: BWNL50 for 50% off your ticket.