?? Dapper Labs Heads To Court...Plus: Web3 Gaming Startup Unagi Raises Seed Round & DraftKings x PGA NFTs
Malcolm Lemmons
Former Pro Athlete | Founder of Vetted Sports | Senior Advisor at Trusted Sports | Daily insights around sports, technology & investing
GM. Welcome to The Hype Report where we break down the latest news, stories & happenings around sports & web3.????????
Here's What You Need To Know This Week???
DraftKings Tees Up PGA Tour NFT Fantasy Golf Game???
DraftKings is going all-in on NFTs.
After launching NFT-based fantasy sports games around the NFL and UFC, the sports betting giant announced that it will launch an NFT fantasy golf game in partnership with the PGA Tour.
The Reignmakers PGA Tour experience, as they call it, will release in March, following the same sort of format as with the other NFT sports projects.
Here's the rundown:
The first set of PGA player cards will launch on March 6th, then, ahead of the first in-game event —?The Players Championship?— from March 9th-12th.
The NFT-driven experience should be very familiar to that of other Reignmakers games but expected to have specially-themed future NFT drops around major PGA Tour tournaments.
This is the PGA Tour’s second NFT collaboration, after solidifying a deal with Tom Brady’s NFT startup Autograph last September which has yet to materialize.?
Tom Jeffs, the PGA Tour’s VP of media business development, believes the PGA Tour sees potential for NFT projects "to boost fans’ affinity for players through ownership of their respective assets."
Binance-Backed Web3 Gaming Startup Unagi Gets Funded
Unagi, the Paris-based blockchain gaming studio that?garnered attention from Binance Labs, recently raised €4.7 million (about $4,978,193 exactly) in funding.
The round was led by games early-stage VC?Sisu Game Ventures?with participation from?Sfermion, UOB Ventures,?Signum Capital,?2B Ventures,?Machame, and angel investors?Sandeep Nailwal,?Sebastien Borget, and?Mario G?tze.
The capital will go to R&D and hires as they look to bring on 10-15 employees to its already 30-person headcount.
This is Unagi's fourth round of funding; it agreed to a $4 million CHAMP token sale with Binance in November.
Unagi's first release is a fantasy sports game called Ultimate Champions which is currently in open beta.
The studio is led by?Remi Pellerin?and?Charlie Guillemot,?both previously worked at French gaming giant Ubisoft.
The Ultimate Champions game lets users accumulate virtual playing cards representing soccer players, allowing them to choose their dream squad and change players by adding new cards to their selection.
Each player card has skillsets that become stronger or weaker depending on the player's performance and track record in real life, with skills updating after each real-world fixture.
Unagi currently has licenses with 47 leading soccer teams spread around Europe, including France, Germany, the UK, and Romania.?
They're also preparing to launch a basketball variant of the game as well.?
Euroleague Basketball —?Europe's premier basketball league?— signed a licensing deal to enable the best teams and players to be featured.
Rémi Pellerin, CEO and co-founder of Unagi, commented:
"Web3 gaming is on the rise. For Unagi, Ultimate Champions is a pilot with which we’re creating, testing, and improving the gaming web3 tools we’re developing in our studio. We’re incredibly proud of the game’s progress over the last few months in the football world and we’re looking forward to expanding on that experience and offering sporting enthusiasts our new Euroleague Basketball game. It's an exciting time”.
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Federal Judge Denies Dapper Labs’ Plea To Dismiss Top Shot Class Action
It's been a rough week for blockchain company Dapper Labs.
This past week, a federal judge denied Dapper Labs’ motion to dismiss a class action lawsuit claiming it's?NBA Top Shot NFTs are securities.?
Here's what we know about the case:?
Dapper Labs will now have to continue with the suit, per the court?filing.
In its motion to dismiss, Dapper Labs alleged the plaintiffs used Dapper’s native FLOW token to “confuse” the court.
Dappers Labs also added that The NBA moments and?FLOW tokens?are separate entities.?
While Judge Marreo agreed that while FLOW and NBA moments are two separate products, Dapper “ignores that FLOW is part of the economic realities of the investment scheme in dispute.”?
Looking at this and other recent court rulings surrounding other blockchain companies, it's clear the SEC is trying to set a stern example for legislation around digital assets and the web3 ecosystem.?
Looking at this and other recent court rulings surrounding other blockchain companies, it's clear the SEC is trying to set a stern example for legislation around digital assets and the web3 ecosystem.
If this case makes it to trial it has the potential to set the precedent for all NFTs and securities laws.
Quick Hype???
The top 10 companies building the sports metaverse.?Here are just some of the companies investing in the evolution of the sports metaverse.?
NBA All-Star Baron Davis wants to democratize photography with blockchain—just don’t call it NFTs.?The star athlete and tech entrepreneur will announce SLiC Images, a photo and video rights management platform.
NBA star Paul Pierce was fined $1.4 million for promoting Emax cryptocurrency. ‘The Truth’ is the latest celebrity to be penalized for shilling dubious Emax tokens without properly disclosing the paid promotion.
How Are NFTs Impacting the Sports Industry??This write-up is about the impact of NFTs on the sports industry, investigating how they are revolutionizing the way fans collect and trade memorabilia.
What To Watch???
Web3 gaming will be a crucial driver for mainstream NFT adoption over the next few years.
The blockchain gaming market size is expected to grow from $4.6 billion in 2022 to $65.7 billion by 2027.
This episode of the NFT Now podcast features:
They cover understanding gaming as a social platform, how new tools are supporting collaboration and co-creation like never before, how to dispel the distrust the gaming community has around this new technology, and much more.
Thanks for reading!
Malcolm
This newsletter is for informational purposes only and is not financial or business advice in any capacity. The information shared is my thoughts & opinions and does not represent the opinions of any other person, business, entity, or sponsor.
The contents of this newsletter also should not be used in any public or private domain without the author's express permission. The contents of this newsletter should not be used for any commercial activity, for example, research report, consultancy activity, or paywalled article, without the author's express permission.