Delphi Roundup | June 7th | Delphi Digital

Recent Research

📊 Solo, Liquid, or Centralized: A Guide to Staking ETH – 6/6

In this report, we delve into the diverse options available for staking ETH, the latest developments in ETH staking, and strategies that could amplify the compounding effects of your earnings.
There’s currently a 45-day waiting period for new validators to enter the network, a factor that represents a significant opportunity cost for solo stakers.
When comparing purely on yields, solo staking options are the clear winners.
Liquid staking protocols show strong growth, with them holding the majority share of ETH staking inflows over the past few months.
CEXs have seen a significant decrease in their market share, falling from 52.8% at the start of 2022 to just 30.6% in May 2023.
In contrast, liquid staking and staking pools have been progressively growing their market shares, currently at 51.5% and 17.8%, respectively.

Gaming VC deals are up 240% MoM, but funding is still down 29% from March.
Ronin’s RON token continues to be the only token to end the month in the green.
Illuvium raised an additional $10M from Framework Ventures at a reported $289M valuation.
On May 17th, Sky Mavis announced that Axie Infinity: Origins would launch on the Apple App Store in select countries.
The recent approval of ERC-6551 token standards will change how NFTs can be utilized in on-chain gaming. ERC-6551 defines a system that can give ERC-721 a smart contract account.

As mobile gaming grew its share of the global games industry, representing roughly half of total revenue, the free-to-play business was booming.
Today’s players have embraced certain IAPs, such as in-game cosmetics, to such an extent that they generate more revenue per month than some of the highest-rated games make in a year.
81% of US gamers want to get real-world money for their cosmetic items, and 75% of those interested in real money trade stated that they would spend more on skins if they had real-world monetary value.
Broadly speaking, there are two main monetization models currently implemented by the most popular gaming titles that include some form of in-game purchasable items – the open and closed models.
Developers may be able to increase their bottom line by introducing NFTs and should be encouraged to open up and incentivize healthy amounts of external competition.

Relevant Reminder

📌 Solana the Monolith – 5/31

This report focuses on the new and upcoming optimizations for Solana, including isolated fee markets, Firedancer, MEV, state compression, DePIN, DeFi, and SVM rollups.
It will also cover Solana’s validator decentralization, economics, and some centralization concerns that arise.
As it stands today, the majority of SOL fees are from voting, usually making up anywhere from 65-85% of validators’ income.
Until the Solana network starts to generate meaningful fee revenue outside of votes, the minimum stake required to be a profitable validator will be quite high.
Now, if you’re asking the question “Should Solana just become a rollup on Ethereum?” the answer is a resounding no.