🔺 Visa goes red

Hey frens! Dropping in with another newsletter for ya. Today we’re looking at crypto credit cards, Sui gambling, pump.fun, and more. 

And if you aren’t already, make sure you follow us on X/Twitter — we’re posting extra articles and content you can only find there. 

We dropped our hot take on the Tokyo Beast (furry?) game coming to the Immutable zkEVM and touched on the Ethereum Foundation’s new president, too.

— Kate Irwin

Avalanche Visa lets you spend AVAX, stablecoins IRL

The Avalanche Foundation has unveiled a payment card called the Avalanche Card, which lets you spend your crypto at fiat-only merchants. 

Crypto: It’s not just magic internet money anymore!

I chatted with Eric Kang, Ava Labs head of DeFi and business development, to get a clear understanding of how exactly this card works. You aren’t paying merchants directly with crypto, so the card can be used anywhere that accepts Visa. But the crypto is ultimately sold using Avalanche’s C-Chain to pay for transactions that have already occurred with fiat.

“It took us a while to get this out,” Kang tells me. He sees it as an easy way for people to sell or use their crypto without having to go through a crypto exchange or DeFi platform.

It’s a bit like a mix between a prepaid card and a traditional credit card. You load it up with crypto — USDC, USDT, and AVAX are accepted, with plans to accept bridged bitcoin and potentially other tokens in the future. 

Half the US Dollar value of those cryptocurrencies is then considered to be your limit, to ensure padding for crypto price fluctuations. You can then use the card at any Visa-friendly merchant, and those charges are logged like a credit card.

Your crypto isn’t immediately sold when you make a purchase, though. Instead, the crypto is actually sold once a day at the same time (around 9 am ET) based on the past day’s charges and then become transactions on chain. 

Because it’s a credit card, you’ll need to hand over some personal information including your real name, address, and social security number or other government ID number to get the card.

You can also freeze the card, change your card’s PIN, dispute suspicious transactions and set up spending alerts. But because it’s crypto, your credit balance will fluctuate depending on crypto market prices. 

Sorting out your taxes with this card could be a challenge if you’re making a lot of purchases. As of right now, selling crypto (even to make a purchase, except for stablecoins and USDC) is considered a taxable event. That could be a headache for some prospective users looking to spend their tokens like cash.  

“We recommend that you speak with a tax professional regarding circumstances with the Avalanche Card,” the card’s site reads. “Spending against other crypto assets may involve selling your assets. Selling crypto assets can be a taxable event.”

If you’ve got a great crypto-savvy accountant, though, maybe that’s not the end of the world. 

Tech firm Rain Liquidity is facilitating the card. When you load it up with tokens, your card will effectively be a new hot wallet, with addresses for each asset.

The card is being launched in 35 US states, with the remaining 15 off the list due to regulatory reasons. The card is also available in Latin America and the Caribbean. 

If you’re a resident or citizen of any US-sanctioned country, however, you won’t be able to get the card — because it’s powered by Visa.

Sui gets degen-friendly virtual casinos 

South Korean mobile game publisher NHN has launched Pebble City — a mobile social casino game — on Sui.

“In this virtual city, players can explore different casinos, each offering unique slot games and community activities,” a Mysten Labs spokesperson tells me via email. “One standout feature is the Casino Membership NFTs, which let players own a share of casino profits.”

The slots are themed around different characters or items, with names like Miss Dynamite, Doge’s Dream, Big Heist, Kitten’s Present, Rainbow Wild, and Sweet Festival, to name a few.

Pebble City players don’t need to have the project’s Casino Membership NFTs to play. The game was designed with the goal of being easy to use for those new to crypto. You can check out virtual casinos, play slots, and try to win Stars, which can be used to play in the casino or be turned into the STBL token. 

You’ll have to confirm that you’re at least 18 years old to gamba. 

In my view, Pebble City is a prime example of how crypto builders are openly embracing the degen gambler cohort now more than ever. The gambling isn’t being hidden behind the scenes — it’s being openly celebrated and promoted. 

I’m not a gambler, but hey, to each their own. I won’t tell you what to do with your coins. 

MapleStory Universe plots rewards for Kaito fans

MapleStory Universe, the iconic pixelated MMORPG’s upcoming crypto spinoff title, recently made a vague promise that Kaito votes for MapleStory U “will be rewarded.” 

Maybe they’re going to reward people with a future token or NFTs? 

Why does MapleStory care about Kaito? Dominic Jang, the chief brand officer and vice president of MapleStory Universe who teased the rewards, tells me: “It's not just about TGE hype for us. It's not just about Kaito itself alone. It's a new way of marketing using socials with AI, previously not so possible or inaccurate. AI + Social are creating a massive synergy [in] marketing a product. It's the angle we are looking at here.”

X employee fail may have led to pump.fun hack

The pump.fun team seems to have regained control over their X account after the gold-checkmarked account was breached to shill a fake governance token this week.

The team says it’s “unlikely” that they’re at fault, and says the breach was limited to the X account only. 

In a post, they explain that the now-recovered account wasn’t connected to any third-party apps, no phone numbers were connected, no delegations were made, no external actors breach the email tied to the account, passwords were strong, and the one pump team member that used the account didn’t fall for any suspicious links. 

So how did it happen, then?

The team is still unsure exactly how the attacker got in, but say an X employee may have fallen for a social engineering scam that let the bad actor get into the pump.fun account without triggering any warning emails to be sent to the team. 

Pseudoanonymous blockchain sleuth Zachxbt believes this wasn’t the attacker’s first breach — and that the perp may have been behind prior Jupiter and Dogwifhat (WIF) X account breaches, too.

• Community Gaming, an esports platform that facilitates crypto tournaments, is working with the “Web2” game Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB) to host the MLBB Academy in Latin America. CG’s crypto-powered prediction market Forkast will also be a part of the events, too. 

• Onchain Heroes has been generating some buzz lately since its launch in the past week. It’s a crypto-powered idle farming game. Abstract Marketing Lead Phineas Totten believes the game is getting traction because “people are still looking for a short loop.” I think he’s right — there’s no shortage of farmers out there. There’s always been a play-to-earn cohort, and I don’t think that’s going away anytime soon.