Game Scams ‘Red Flags’, Axie Evolved, Wall Street Games ‘Addictive’: Web3 Gamer

How to identify game cheats

According to the Blockchain Gaming Alliance (BGA), most people still think the web3 gaming industry is full of scams and con traders.

In its 2023 State of the Industry report, BGA found that nearly three in four people believe the blockchain game is a scam — and have done so since the industry's inception.

According to respondents from 2021, the biggest misconception surrounding all blockchain games is that people think they are scams or Ponzi schemes. In the year In 2023, 70.0% agreed that this is still the biggest mistake in the industry.

It may be wrong in general, but while the industry as a whole is on the rise, crypto's ease of stealing attracts grifters with questionable intentions. But they are not blockchain games – they are pretend games to exploit people.

The FBI warned gamers earlier this year about malicious criminals using pretend Web3 games to steal people's crypto. They remind players of fake games that trick users by promising them cash if they connect their wallets, and then bam they steal all your crypto.

Another notable example Certike recently shared with Cointelegraph is that the team behind the FinSoul gaming project stopped an exit scam that swiped $1.6 million from investors.

The FinSoul team hired actors to pretend to be the CEO, then raised funds for the purpose of developing a gaming platform. Instead of creating the platform, the group allegedly withdrew $1.6 million worth of Bridge Tether from investors into their own accounts.

So, how can players stay safe when entering a new Web3 game?

According to Wallet Guard founder Martin Peko, players should always be on their guard when making invitations to pre-release games.

Speaking to the magazine, Peco pointed out that while it may seem tempting to jump ahead with projects before they even get started, or simply brag about being an early adopter, it can end up draining your wallet.

While he talked about Web3 Gaming as a way to introduce new users to blockchain technology, he said, “Users should be aware that unsolicited DMs on Discord and Twitter are common reasons for spreading scams and malware.”

“Early warning signs of a scam are when someone you don't know tries to get you to become a ‘beta tester' or offers a reward for trying their Web3 game. If they're trying to get you to download an executable file, that should be an immediate red flag.

As most users get scammed by fake web3 games when they connect their wallets, the best way to avoid this is to use a transaction token (eg Wallet Guard) to get a human-readable understanding of the transaction results.

The Axie Infinity update is set to shape the ‘Axie Economy'

Axie Infinity is evolving with “firsts” digital sets that really improve as you get deeper into the game.

While CryptoKitties allows users to breed multiple kitties, Axi allows users to customize and modify the original Axi parts.

If you are willing to part with your Axie NFT temporarily, you will be rewarded with POAP (Proof of Presence Protocol) tokens called Mementos.

“Starting today, every time you release Axie, you'll receive Mementos as ERC-1155 tokens in your Ronin wallet.”

If you're hoping for some quick cash, unfortunately, you can't flip them for cash, but you can trade them back to cash out your Axie. There are over 250 parts to upgrade your Axie.

It seems like a simple process.

Once you complete each 10th level, you can level up a new part of your stock. After that, it's time to dive into the details – find out what materials you need and how much Axie native token (AXS) to store for evolution.

Then go to your inventory, select the Axie you want to evolve, hit “Manage Axie” and then hit “Ready to Evolve”.

There is a chance that evolution could improve your share price (*not financial advice).

The more alpha your Axie has – think higher level and more species – you'll get the best results.

Hot Take: Wall Street Games

If you decide to download Wall Street Games, be sure to add a case and a quality screen protector because you'll be tempted to drop it in frustration. It's addictive but annoying.

Wall Street Games is like carrying a mini arcade in your pocket as soon as you enter Round1 or Timezone. Instead of trading soft teddies or candy paper tokens from ages ago, you can trade in WSG crypto tokens.

Using the BNB Smart Chain (BSC), Wall Street Games has installed five games: Alien Hop, Cannon Siege, Astral Warp, Dunk It and Viper Rush.

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Alien Hop is similar to the popular Temple Run, with the same duty cycle that makes you lose time or work.

Out of the bunch, Dunk is the one that drives me crazy, but keeps me going.

You have to throw this ball, and the mission is to go around in the palms. It's grinding, it's frustrating, and honestly, I'm tempted to pay for the 500 hours (and maybe a new iPhone screen) the game stole from my life.

My high point? shocking 3.

To start making some in-game crypto, you'll need to grab a Game Activation NFT for one of the five games you want to play. You can do this by staking WSG tokens on the staking page or drawing a little extra for NFTs instantly.

This will probably turn off all the crypto noobs right away.

Once set up, simply connect your crypto wallet and you're on your way to (hopefully) crypto profits.

According to CoinMarketCap, WSG is currently trading at $0.000000002322, with a 24-hour trading volume of $173,074.

So, don't quit your day job just yet. If you want to pay your phone bill on time, you'll need to build up a good WSG stack.

Plus, it's enough to pay for a broken phone screen.

The most amazing thing about this game is that it breaks the stereotype that web3 games have to bribe people to stick. Here, the games are legit fun, and it's a nice bonus if you happen to do a little crypto hacking along the way.

Aurory falls victim to a malicious breach.

So, word on the street is that Aurory, a decentralized gaming ecosystem on the Solana blockchain, has been hit hard this week.

An undercover hacker has bypassed the marketplace's security measures to obtain 600,000 additional AURY tokens. They then transferred these tokens to the Arbitram network and sold them to Aurori, where they realized their market bid and outperformed the network.

According to CoinMarketCap, the breach messed things up big time—nearly 80% of the liquidity for the ARY-USDC pool on Camelot, an arbitrage-based decentralized exchange, was lost.

A few hours ago, our team discovered unusual activity on our marketplace. After a quick investigation, we discovered that a bad actor was able to exploit our marketplace's purchasing endpoint, allowing them to increase their balance by $AURY on SyncSpace. This allowed them to raise…

— Aurory (Play Now) (@AuroryProject) December 17, 2023

Good news – Aurori said they didn't lose any user funds or NFTs, because all AURY was taken from a “team wallet” owned by Aurori.

Other news:

– In the year Fortune Business has updated its forecast that the blockchain gaming market will grow to $614 billion by 2030. It is expected to reach a value of $469.49 billion by 2030, up 30 percent from the May forecast.

– Legendary Games' mobile title NFL Rivals breaks $2 million in NFT trading volume.

— Pudgy Penguins has announced that the Pudgy World Alpha will be released in Q1 2024.

— To keep players playing during the Christmas season, Sandbox has thrown in 100,000 coins as a reward.

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Ciaran Lyon

Ciaran Lyons is an Australian crypto journalist. He is also a freelance comedian and has been a radio and TV presenter on Triple J, SBS and The Project.