• Korean government tells Apple and Google stores to take down P2E games

The South Korean government has moved to block the release of new play-to-earn (P2E) games and requested that existing ones be removed from Google Play and Apple’s App Store.

P2E gaming has become popular in the cryptocurrency industry. Gamers typically must first purchase game pieces as nonfungible tokens (NFT) in order to play the game and receive in-game rewards. However, gaming prizes over a few dollars are banned in South Korea.

The Game Management Committee (GMC) in the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism on Monday requested major mobile app marketplaces block any games that require in-app purchases before playing the game. To combat the proliferation of what it sees as speculative money-making schemes, the GMC has made it all but impossible for P2E game developers to get their work listed on the most popular mobile app stores

The GMC’s stance has negative implications on all P2E gaming apps, including the suite of apps associated with the two most popular games to date, according to DappRadar: Axie Infinity and Splinterlands.

• Polygon upgrade quietly fixes bug that put $24B of MATIC at risk

Ethereum-based layer-two scaling network Polygon has quietly fixed a vulnerability that put almost $24 billion worth of its native token, MATIC, at risk.

According to a Wednesday blog post from Polygon, the “critical” vulnerability in the network’s proof-of-stake Genesis contract was first highlighted by two whitehat hackers on Dec. 3 and Dec. 4 via blockchain security and bug bounty hosting platform Immunefi.

The vulnerability put more than 9.27 billion MATIC at risk that is valued at around $23.6 billion at the time of writing, with the figure representing the vast majority of the token’s total supply of 10 billion.Polygon stated that the issue was fixed behind closed doors as it follows the “silent patches” policy introduced by the Go Ethereum team in November 2020. Under the guidelines, projects or developers report on key bug fixes four to eight weeks after they go live to avoid the risk of being exploited at the time of patching.

• A week of airdrop OpenDAO ($SOS) and GasDAO ($GAS)

Late last week, a new decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) called the OpenDAO suddenly emerged to distribute free tokens to users of OpenSea. The goal of the airdrop is to "to pay tribute, to protect, to promote" the NFT community. OpenSEA has nothing to do with OpenDAO. The airdrop is probably a way to gain attention to the project. However, $SOS has no actual utility and the purpose of the project is unclear, the value of the token could go down as the attention to the project decreases.

Following the $SOS airdrop, GasDAO announced the airdrop of GAS token to  nearly 650,000 Ethereum users. The final goal of this kind of airdrop is to piggyback on other communities to form their own community.

• Rari Capital merged with Fei Protocol

Two decentralized autonomous organizations (DAO) have consummated one of the biggest mergers in decentralized finance (DeFi) history. Rari is a lending and borrowing protocol, and Fei is a crypto-collateralized stablecoin protocol. 

The combined protocols will operate using one token, TRIBE, but keep their developer teams intact. The time frame for the merger is one year minimum, during which RGT (Rari Capital’s token)  holders swap their tokens for TRIBE at a fixed rate of about 26.7 TRIBE per RGT. There’s also a “TribeRagequit” provision, that will allow TRIBE holders to exchange their tokens for FEI, if they don’t want any part of the combined entity.

Rari’s core product gains a dedicated stablecoin, FEI, while the Fei Protocol will become more useful in DeFi thanks to Rari’s borrowing and lending pools.