Saga is a a Cosmos-based blockchain that enables apps built on top of the protocol totake the form of their own L1 or multiple L1s. The protocol, which specifically focuses on onboarding teams in the gaming and entertainment space, recently held its airdrop, which had an interesting eligibility criteria for SAGA recipients.
With the $MANTA airdrop taking place today and some criticism from the community on its allocation, it’s worth taking a look at the motives behind eligibility requirements. It may be helpful to analyze what has worked well thus far when anticipating future airdrops like $DYM, $JUP, and more.
Stay alert, stay informed ⬇
News
- OKX's Middle East Business Wins Dubai Virtual Assets License: OKX Middle East Fintech FZE, a Dubai-based subsidiary of the cryptocurrency exchange, has received a license from Dubai's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority, enabling fiat transactions and spot services in the UAE.
- Binance's Joint Venture Commences Exchange Operations in Thailand: Gulf Binance, a joint venture between Binance and Gulf Innova, has started full crypto exchange operations in Thailand, offering local currency pairings.
- Arthur Hayes Predicts Bitcoin ETFs Could Attract Billions from TradFi: Arthur Hayes, ex-CEO of BitMEX, believes that the inefficiency in bitcoin markets and upcoming spot bitcoin ETFs could draw significant capital from traditional financial markets.
- IRS Delays Crypto Reporting Requirements: Businesses won't need to report crypto transactions over $10,000 as cash until new guidelines are established, providing temporary relief from stringent reporting.
- Indonesia's Crypto Tax Dilemma: The country's crypto exchanges report a 60% drop in transaction volume, attributing the decline to hefty income and VAT taxes on crypto transactions.
- ARK Invest Buys Into Its Bitcoin ETF: Cathie Wood's firm acquires $15.9 million in shares of its ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF, signaling confidence in its own product amidst market shifts.
Project Updates
- Manta Pacific Surpasses Coinbase's Base as Fourth Largest Scaling Solution: Manta Pacific, a layer 2 solution of Manta Network, has overtaken Coinbase's Base, becoming the fourth largest scaling solution with a TVL of $845 million.
- TrueUSD Stablecoin Drops Below $1 Peg Amid Sell-Off: The TUSD stablecoin has fallen below its $1 peg, trading around $0.985, amid significant selling volume on Binance.
- Solana Mobile to Launch Second Crypto Smartphone: Following the success of its first crypto-ready smartphone, Solana Mobile plans to release a second, more affordable model with similar features.
- Aave Considers Deploying on Neon EVM for Solana Integration: Aave governance is reviewing a proposal to expand its lending services to the Solana blockchain using Neon EVM, currently in the community feedback phase.
- Taiko's Final Testnet Launch Before Mainnet Release: Ethereum Layer 2 rollup project Taiko has introduced its final testnet, Katla, featuring a new rollup design, ahead of its mainnet launch in Q1 2024.
- Movement Labs Announces Parthenon Roadmap: Movement Labs unveils Parthenon, a plan to create the world's first network of modular Move-based blockchains, starting with a testnet phase for collaborative development.
- Jupiter's Launch Set for End of Jupuary: Jupiter (JUP) announces its launch on the 31st of Jupuary at 10am EST, following a comprehensive preparation including testing, public ceremonies, and white paper finalization.
Raises
- Ethereum Restaking Protocol Renzo Raises $3.2M in Seed Funding: Renzo, an Ethereum restaking protocol, secures $3.2 million in seed funding, led by Maven11, boosting its valuation to $25 million.
- Digital Infrastructure Secures $11.5M in Series A Funding: The DePIN startup, Digital Infrastructure, raises $11.5 million for its DIMO network, a decentralized car data protocol, with CoinFund leading the investment round.
- Kujira's Ambitious DeFi Roadmap: Kujira unveils a comprehensive suite of DeFi products and ecosystem enhancements, aiming to redefine the DeFi landscape with innovative solutions.
- dYdX Overtakes Uniswap in Volume: The decentralized exchange dYdX surpasses Uniswap to become the largest DEX by daily trading volume, showcasing the potential of its Cosmos-based platform.
- DWF Labs Supports XAI Games with Sentry Nodes: DWF Labs announces the launch of sentry nodes on XAI Games, marking a strategic move to foster a secure and decentralized gaming ecosystem.
Crypto Market Updates
- Top Gainer (24H) in the top 50 mcap: Bittensor $TAO increased in price by 8.2%.
- Top Loser (24H) in the top 50 mcap: Lido DAO $LDO is down -8.8%.
- Total crypto market cap has seen a decrease by 0.9% to stand at $1.64T.
- BTC dominance in the market is currently at 51.1%.
- Median gas price on Ethereum over the past 24 hours has been 35 gwei.
Airdrop Criteria for Saga
Diverse airdrops with different communities have proven to be an effective marketing strategy; building relationships with ecosystems ahead of time is crucial for successful airdrops.
Rebecca Liao, Co-Founder of Saga, expressed that the response to the protocol’s airdrop has been overwhelming.
She adds that the team prioritized Cosmos and ATOM wallets due to their strong partnership with Saga.
6% of the Genesis supply was airdropped, with future phases on the way.
It’s worth noting that the airdrop was Geo-blocked for US users.
Saga also has partnerships with Celestia, Polygon, Avalanche, and Solana as they have worked closely together on various projects.
Rebecca provides insights for builders who are planning to launch their own airdrops;
Forming relationships with ecosystems ahead of time for more effective airdrops is important.
Randomly offering an airdrop without prior familiarity or knowledge of an ecosystem may not yield the desired results.
Value Creation and Airdrops
According to Rebecca, holding $SAGA can provide access to a variety of games and potentially lead to value creation for token holders.
The project’s play-to-airdrop campaign allows players to earn $SAGA through game participation and leaderboards.
Multiple games with their own tokens offer double airdrops on top of SAGA rewards, enhancing user acquisition.
The team has stated that the play-to-airdrop campaign has been effective in driving user acquisition for $SAGA.
Additional airdrops are planned for each phase of the mainnet launch, providing further opportunities for token holders.
Staking $SAGA may also lead to additional benefits during these airdrops.
One interesting aspect of the airdrop is that ATOM stakers were required to increase their stake to be eligible.
SAGA Eligibility Criteria for ATOM Stakers
The stated reason behind this rule is that the team wanted to put their tokens into loyal hands, and those who increased their staked balances from April to October 2023 showed significant confidence in the Cosmos ecosystem when others may have been hesitant.
Other airdrop-eligible chains had bonuses for staking for a certain period of time.
Polygon wallets which bridged 0.4 ETH or more to Polygon zkEVM were also made eligible, rewarding those deeply interested in trying out new protocols and technology.
Some criticized this specific criteria, calling it too strict
Future airdrops from other protocols may start introducing measures like these to filter out sybil efforts or mercenary airdrop farmers.
For example, Manta Network’s airdrop rewarded users who actively participated in Galxe quests significantly more than those who simply staked $ETH.
Building Games on Saga and Upcoming Plans
Saga is a layer-1 blockchain where every application launched becomes its own layer-1 or several layer-1s.
Developers can deploy smart contracts through the web app, and it takes just a couple of minutes to deploy.
The platform is EVM-first, so applications are written in Solidity.
The CosmWasm smart contract platform is also in demand due to Cosmos integration.
Several ecosystem partners are building Tendermint-compatible VMs (Virtual Machines), including JavaScript VMs.
The platform aims to provide developers with their preferred environment for building applications.
Developers can choose the environment they are most comfortable with, the goal being to enable developers to deploy their applications easily.
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Focus on Gaming and Entertainment
Despite being a general-purpose infrastructure, Saga focuses on gaming and entertainment.
They have featured numerous games in their innovator program.
Scalability has been a major challenge for gaming on web3; games generate high transaction volumes but with relatively low transaction values.
Single chains struggle to accommodate this level of scalability.
Rebecca says that cost is another challenge, as most users expect games to be free and frictionless.
Gas tokens and fees can create barriers for players.
She adds that gaming relies heavily on providing a seamless user experience.
Complicated login systems, ads, or any points of friction can lead players to walk away.
Web3 needs to minimize these points of friction to attract gamers effectively.
Scalability and Economic Model of the Platform
The platform utilizes Cosmos interchain security for scalability.
Each chainlet spun up has the same validator set and security model as the mainnet.
Developers can deploy onto chainlets without requiring governance approval.
The platform aims to commoditize block space like servers or AWS instances. '
Developers can have their own chainlets at an affordable price until they need them again.
This economic model differs from the Hub's approach with $ATOM tokens.
Rebecca suggests starting with an additional chain for a game and compressing the state down to the desired chains as user traffic dwindles, as this allows for elastic scaling.
Inspiration is taken from cloud deployment in order to provide a similar experience for web3 developers.
The goal is to make block space more affordable by commoditizing it and avoiding increased costs due to dedicated block spaces per application.
Commodity Block Space and Abundance
The Saga system aims to make block space abundant so that developers can spin up applications without worrying about costs.
An auction is run among validators to determine the true cost of providing security, resulting in a monthly cost of $500 per chainlet.
Gas fees are not charged directly to end-users, allowing developers to determine how they want to monetize their applications.
Developers also have the option to make their applications entirely gasless but are advised against it due to potential vulnerability to DDoS attacks.
To address this, recycle tokens can be used as a gating mechanism, allowing users access while preventing attacks.
Recycle tokens work like arcade tokens or tickets that are returned after use, making the system free for users from the beginning.
Web 3 Gaming Motivations
Rebecca says that traditional gaming experiences have often frustrated players due to centralized control over in-game assets.
Web3 gaming offers the opportunity for players to truly own their intellectual property and monetize it across different communities.
Gamers increasingly want to become creators themselves and be treated as such, which aligns well with web3 capabilities.
User Generated Content (UGC) is a growing trend in gaming and is a use case that may be best suited for Web3/ crypto rails.
Some of the most mainstream games like Fortnite, Minecraft, and Roblox include UGC as a key component of gameplay.
Developers motivated by web3 gaming aim to build innovative technology within this space.
Expectations include advancements in intellectual property ownership, monetization, and cross-platform integration.
Cosmos as a Gaming Hub?
Rebecca expresses that Cosmos is excited about being a gaming hub.
The app chain model and scalable chains are important considerations for block space.
Rebecca says that turning on/off chains creates new opportunities beyond creating new coins or cryptocurrencies.
It opens up new operating systems and spaces for conducting commerce and gaming.
Abundant block space can bring more innovation to different sectors.
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