Launched ahead of the 2023/24 Series A season, StarzPlay Fantasy Sports allows players to make score forecasts and predict possession percentages within the in-game arenas. Successful predictions enable players to win various prizes, including STARZ$, the in-game currency usable for acquiring NFTs.

In the future, the currency will be exchangeable for platform subscriptions, football merchandise, and even Serie A match tickets, complete with meet-and-greet sessions with football icons. While the game is essentially free to play, players have the option to buy and trade NFTs within the real-time marketplace. This empowers them to build distinct teams and boost their predictive abilities.

Alessandro Masaro, Chief Strategy Officer at StarzPlay, said, “StarzPlay Fantasy Sports is the first-of-its-kind blockchain service in the region which will give customers a new dimension to engage with sports while competing to win incredible prizes. Our goal is to make StarzPlay a hub for sports entertainment and provide users and rights holders with more opportunities to interact and build stronger and more valuable relationships. We believe this is the first step of a larger plan which will see StarzPlay Fantasy Sports expand into other leagues and sports in the near future”.

Also Read: Best Video Streaming Services In The Middle East

The release of StarzPlay Fantasy Sports is noteworthy due to the title’s cutting-edge Web3 and blockchain technology. The game uses Amazon AWS as a serverless infrastructure to support the peak of users and provide a stable, high-quality experience during matches.

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Soulbound Tokens use blockchain technology to represent a person’s identity and can be used for medical records, employment history, or any type of information concerning a person or entity. The certificates are permanently linked to a user’s personal account in their digital wallet, and ownership cannot be transferred to another party, sold, or disposed of.

“The accelerated pace of technological advancements has made the future closer than ever before, and here in Dubai, we are proud to have an agile government that wastes no time in embracing developments and putting them into practice to drive digital transformation and shape the future today,” says Digital Dubai’s director general Hamad Al Mansoori.

Also Read: Riyadh Air Makes Multi-Billion Dollar Deal With Boeing

The first secured digital certificate was issued by Dubai Cyber Innovation Park, an affiliate of the Dubai Electronic Security Centre at Digital Dubai. Tokens were granted to the first group of graduates from the Chief Information Security Officer Executive program, in which 17 government and semi-government entities participated.

The post Digital Dubai Issues World’s First Secured Digital Certificates appeared first on Tech Magazine.

“Consumers are interested in buying into stories, in buying into experiences. When you’re buying a product, you’re just buying the physical product. But when you are buying an NFT, you’re buying a whole lot of things that are linked with it,” says Arshad Zaheer, Senior Partner at YAAP.

NFTs sit on the blockchain network, meaning ownership and originality can be confirmed, making the technology ideal for artwork, but also relevant for the legal industry and other sectors where authenticity is required.

Also Read: New Tech Allows Faster Breast Cancer Detection In Middle East

The Middle East and Africa region have seen a surge in NFT-related activities. Several innovative NFT marketplaces have also emerged in MENA countries, including the UAE, making it easier for the general public to buy, sell, and trade digital assets.

“From NFT-based startups to cryptocurrency exchanges, several players are entering the UAE NFT market; the presence of several NFT marketplaces has also supported the rise in NFT trading transaction value and volume, the trend expected to gain further momentum over the next three to four years in the UAE,” says Business Wire in a recent report.

As NFTs begin to hit the mainstream, the opportunities presented by the technology are immense and could even rival the explosive rise of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

The post UAE NFT Sector Expected To Grow By Over 45% Per Year appeared first on Tech Magazine.

Today, Neves is using his innate knowledge of both haute couture and technology to explore how Web3 can enhance the world of fashion. Web3 describes the blockchain-integrated internet, where crypto and NFTs are built directly into platforms, creating a new online world owned by its users. On a recent Most Innovative Companies podcast, Neves explained his enthusiasm for Web3, explaining that “If Web1 was about ‘read’ and Web2 was about ‘read and write’, then Web3 is about ‘read, write, and own’.’’

Neves aims to take the Farfetch brand into the new Web3 environment using their Dream Assembly Base Camp accelerator program, which according to a press release back in July, will:

“Provide a cohort of the most promising Web3 startups in the luxury fashion and lifestyle sectors with a curated program of mentorship, networking, and support in order to help drive the future of Web3 luxury commerce.”

Also Read: Intro Platform Connects Users To Celebrity Experts

The 12-week program is a partnership with Outlier Ventures, which has backed startups since 2014. The platform will focus on “digital fashion, tokenized loyalty, immersive experiences, and the creator economy”, with participating startups having direct access to a network of investors and mentors.

Neves believes that with Web3, the potential is endless, with the application of principles of user control and decentralization being a perfect fit for fashion, where people’s styles often act as second personas, or even masks. The entrepreneur now hopes that emerging technology will increase interaction between creators and users, as Farfetch becomes actively involved in the Web3 luxury commerce space with its new accelerator program, yet again standing at the forefront of fashion, culture, and technology.

The post Farfetch Aims To Bring Web3 To The World Of Fashion appeared first on Tech Magazine.

At the moment, only a small group of artists are taking part in the experiment, including Steve Aoki and The Wombats. What’s more, only select US users of the Spotify app for Android can see NFTs when they visit the profile pages of the aforementioned artists.

“Spotify is running a test in which it will help a small group of artists promote their existing third-party NFT offerings via their artist profiles,” said Spotify spokesperson. “We routinely conduct a number of tests in an effort to improve artist and fan experiences.”

It’s important to point out that not all Spotify experiments result in new features. It all depends on the feedback the music streaming platform receives from users.

According to a survey some Spotify users have recently received, it seems that the currently tested NFT collections are just the first step toward a much broader implementation of NFTs into the platform. More specifically, Spotify seems to be thinking about allowing its users to directly purchase NFT art to support their favorite artists.

Also Read: 3 Best Cold Storage Wallets For Crypto In 2023

Considering how polarizing NFTs have been since their inception in 2014, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that many Spotify users have immediately expressed their dissatisfaction with the idea of NFTs becoming part of the Spotify music listening experience.

Other large tech companies are also experimenting with NFTs. Instagram, for example, started testing NFT integration last week, allowing NFT creators and collectors to display their tokens on the platform. Mark Zuckerberg himself believes that NFTs and digital collectibles in general will play an integral role in the metaverse, the new iteration of the internet.

The post Spotify Is Experimenting With Artist NFT Collections appeared first on Tech Magazine.

After all, plane tickets are not cheap, and not everyone is healthy enough to travel thousands of miles. Florian Ughetto and Liz Nunez, the owners of Easy Wedding Georgia, have come up with a truly cutting-edge solution: they decided to get married in the metaverse.

More specifically, the couple walked down the aisle in their own private Decentraland plot on May 19, accompanied by close family, friends, and select guests.

“We dreamt of flying in our family and friends from France and Paraguay to Dubai to attend our wedding. However, Covid and legal hurdles played spoilsport. That is when we decided to take things to the metaverse,” said Florian Ughetto.

During the wedding, their avatars were dressed in a black and brown suit and a white dress, both of which were purchased on OpenSea, the world’s largest NFT marketplace. As they exchanged their vows and said, “I do,” their guests were enjoying the ceremony from the comfort of their own homes using laptops and smartphones.

After the online ceremony, the couple held a metaverse afterparty where they interacted with those who joined and partied for hours.

Also Read: A Beginner’s Guide To Getting Started With NFTs

The biggest challenge Florian Ughetto and Liz Nunez faced when organizing the metaverse wedding was ensuring that everyone had a stable connection to the internet. To be extra safe, they had recorded backups of their vows at hand, but, fortunately, they were not needed.

The fact that people are already getting married in the metaverse even though the new iteration of the internet is still in its infancy goes to show just how huge its potential is, and it will be interesting to see what its impact on our lives will be a few years from now.

The post Decentraland Just Hosted The UAE’s First Metaverse Wedding appeared first on Tech Magazine.

NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, have exploded in popularity since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, with the most successful collections selling for millions of dollars.

By providing immutable proof of ownership, NFTs have transformed the digital art scene, and they’re expected to form a crucial part of the metaverse, a network of 3D virtual worlds that some of the world’s largest tech companies are trying to create.

“Emirates has always embraced advanced technologies to improve our business processes, enhance our customer offering, and enrich our employees’ skills and experiences,” said Emirates CEO HH Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum.

As the first step on its journey to the virtual realm, the main purpose of the NFT collection is to increase the digital appeal of Emirates Airline. The collection includes virtual replicas of collectibles, so its utility is limited. It can, however, generate profit for those who purchase it if it becomes popular.

“We are excited about the opportunities in the digital space of the future and are committing a significant investment in financial and resourcing terms, to develop products and services using advanced technologies that will deliver on revenue, brand experience, and business efficiencies,” added Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum.

Also Read: A Beginner’s Guide To Getting Started With NFTs

In addition to the NFT collection, Emirates Airline is also repurposing its Emirates Pavillion at the Dubai Expo 2020 site to create a center for innovation, where it wants to work on various future-focused projects related to NFTs, the metaverse, and Web3.

Other airlines have used NFTs for similar purposes as well. For example, Air Europa has recently released the first NFT flight ticket series in collaboration with the blockchain firm TravelX, fusing travel with technology and art.

If these and other applications of NFT technology gain traction, we can expect other companies in the travel industry and beyond to experiment with the technology as well.

The post Emirates Airline To Launch Its Own NFT Collection appeared first on Tech Magazine.

Now, the name of the popular peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing application is making a comeback as an NFT marketplace powered by the Algorand blockchain, which is also home to ZestBloom, Abrist, Dartroom, Blocsport, Asolp, and other NFT and digital art marketplaces.

“LimeWire is back to bring digital collectibles to everybody” states the official website, which currently features a waitlist for early access. LimeWire’s unexpected resurrection as an NFT marketplace can be traced to the 2021 purchase of intellectual property rights to LimeWire by Austrian brothers Julian and Paul Zehetmayr.

“The issue with the NFT market is that most platforms are decentralized” Julian told CNBC. “If you look at Bitcoin, all the exchanges are making it really easy to buy, trade, and sell Bitcoin. There’s no one really doing the same in the NFT space”.

Determined to fill the hole in the market, Julian and Paul established a core team in Q3 2021, and they’re now ready to launch an invite-only private token sale as the last major milestone before officially launching the marketplace itself in May 2022.

Also Read: 5 Gaming Cryptos That Will Explode In 2023

To be as user-friendly as possible, the LimeWire NFT marketplace will show prices in US dollars, instead of a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin or Ethereum. Even the choice of the Algorand blockchain is meant to increase the project’s mainstream appeal because Algorand relies on a low-energy consensus mechanism called Proof-of-Stake to address major concerns around the energy consumed by cryptocurrencies.

It will be interesting to see how many of the millennials who remember LimeWire from their childhood years will react positively to the platform’s comeback when it launches in the near future.

The post LimeWire Is About To Make A Comeback As An NFT Marketplace appeared first on Tech Magazine.

But since NFTs are technically just receipts to patronage that don’t prevent anyone from right-clicking on them and making as many copies as they want, distinguishing their rightful owners from impostors hasn’t been easy — until now.

All Twitter Blue paid subscribers in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand can now use the Twitter for iOS app (no other versions are supported at the moment) to connect to their crypto wallet and use their NFTs as profile pictures. Here’s how:

1. Launch the Twitter for iOS app.
2. Open your profile.
3. You should see a notification about using an NFT as your profile picture. Tap the Choose NFT option.
4. Connect Twitter to the cryptocurrency wallet that contains the NFT you want to use.
5. Choose your desired NFT and tap Done.

Even though it’s currently possible to set NFTs as profile pictures only on iOS, the results are visible to users across all versions of Twitter. To visually stand out from regular profile pictures, Twitter displays NFTs in an hexagonal outline instead of the regular circular outline.

Also Read: A Beginner’s Guide To Getting Started With NFTs

The NFT feature is powered by OpenSea, an online marketplace for NFTs. Since the feature depends on a third party, it could stop working if something happened to OpenSea. The profile pictures themselves are most likely cached on Twitter’s servers, however, so they probably would still be visible.

Twitter’s embrace of NFTs, which are closely tied to the cryptocurrency Ethereum, comes shortly after the departure of the company’s former CEO, Jack Dorsey, who is known for rejecting other cryptocurrencies besides Bitcoin.

The post Twitter Now Lets Users Set NFTs As Profile Pictures appeared first on Tech Magazine.

Even large video game publishers, such as Electronic Arts and Ubisoft Entertainment, believe that the most popular games in the future will be backed by blockchain technology, allowing their players to prove ownership of virtual assets and trade them as non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

Because the gaming metaverse is still in its infancy, gaming cryptos are emerging at a rapid rate, and the most promising projects could play important roles in it. By betting on them early, you can see a huge return on your investment down the road.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only, and it does not include any financial advice. Please remember to always do your own research before investing into any gaming cryptos. If you’re new to the crypto world, and would like to start your trading journey, we highly recommend you consider using a trusted exchange platform like Coinbase or Binance.

#1 – UFO Gaming (UFO)

Despite its recent slump, UFO Gaming has experienced an enviable growth this year, making the earliest investors extremely happy.

UFO Gaming is building something called a dark metaverse, which it describes as a closed-loop ever-expanding ecosystem consisting of play-to-earn games, breedable in-game NFTs, earning virtual land, and other aspects.

Right now, UFO Gaming has a single game, Super Galactic, but more games are coming in the near future. Thanks to the unique rating system, more active players can earn bigger rewards and access more challenging game content.

Recently, UFO Gaming branched off into the eSports territory by launching its own Apex Legends Tournament hosted by Twitch streamers Apryze and Nokokopuffs. The prize pool worth a whopping $10,000 immediately attracted plenty of attention, and that’s exactly what this gaming crypto needs to succeed.

#2 – Vulcan Forged (PYR)

Vulcan Forged is like an incubator for blockchain games. This community-based project supports developers by providing the resources, infrastructure, and money needed to create world-class blockchain games.

The platform has its own thriving NFT marketplace and a tool that allows for instant dApp and NFT creation, and they’re both powered by the PYR settlement, staking, and utility token.

What’s really interesting about Vulcan Forged is the fact that 10 percent of the entire PYR supply goes into the LAVA pool. Players can then earn LAVA tokens by simply playing and engaging with any Vulcan Forged-made or hosted game. Best of all, the more LAVA tokens a player has, the more PYR airdrops they can receive each month.

#3 – Merit Circle (MC)

Merit Circle isn’t your typical crypto game. Instead, it’s an innovative project whose goal is to maximize value accrual across different games in the metaverse.

To be more precise, Merit Circle is a branching decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) whose members work together to participate in play-to-earn games and precious NFTs so they can collectively earn money.

The project has partnered with many leaders in the play-to-earn industry, giving its members access to exclusive rewards and emerging games. If you would like to increase your earning potential, then you can join Merit Circle as a scholar by applying for a scholarship on the official Discord server.

Understandably, Merit Circle focuses on the largest games out there, such as Axie Infinity, which are often prohibitively expensive for new players to get into on their own. However, Merit Circle members can create subDAOs, each representing a specific play-to-earn game. All subDAOs then contribute to the mainDAO.

#4 – RMRK (Pronounced “Remark”)

It can be difficult to understand everything RMRK is trying to do because the scope of the project is pretty large.

What you should know is that it’s built on the Kusama blockchain, Polkadot’s canary network, and designed to enable NFT creators to put together and build a system of arbitrary complexity by combining the so-called NFT legos.

These NFT legos can own other NFTs and change their output media by equipping them with additional building blocks. For example, imagine that you own two NFTs: a virtual dog and a fancy dog collar. RMRK’s NFT legos make it possible to put the collar on the virtual dog to create what’s essentially an upgraded version of the original dog NFT, increasing its value.

If you would like to learn more about RMRK, you can join the RMRKable Hacktoberfest. Besides learning a lot of useful information, you can also earn $50,000 in prizes. Registration ends on November 30, 2021, so you better hurry up to secure your virtual seat.

#5 – Aavegotchi (GHST)

As the name of this gaming crypto suggests, the project is inspired by the wildly popular Japanese digital pet handheld game, Tamagotchi. Just like Tamagotchi, Aavegotchi lets you take care of a virtual pet, but there’s a lot more to it than that.

Each Aavegotchi virtual pet is an ERC-721 non-fungible token that has a cryptocurrency stake inside. This stake comes from tokens staked through the Aave DeFi lending protocol. Players earn interest depending on which token is staked inside their Aavegotchies.

Of course, Aavegotchies also have a certain rarity value, which reflects everything from the uniqueness of their names to their traits to equipped wearables within the Aavegotchi universe.

Aavegotchi has recently partnered with Blackpool, a quantitative hedge fund for the NFT, so the future is looking bright, indeed.

Wrapping Things Up

By looking at the top 5 gaming cryptos currently available, we feel that 2024 will be a huge year for blockchain gaming. Developers from around the world are working on extremely promising projects that implement many features cryptocurrency enthusiasts and gamers have been dreaming about for years, and major corporations see the growing demand and want to be part of this exciting space.

You can be part of it too. All you need to do is recognize the opportunity and join the right project early on.

The post 5 Gaming Cryptos That Will Explode In 2024 appeared first on Tech Magazine.