Moku CBO Exposes Crypto Gaming’s Fatal Flaws — And Reveals the Fix

Crypto gaming's promise of play-to-earn riches has crashed into reality—here's why it's failing players and investors.

The Ponzi Problem

Tokenomics built on hype collapse when new players stop flooding in. Most 'earn' mechanics are just repackaged pyramid schemes—ask any VC who dumped their bags at ATH.

Solution: Real Utility

Games need sustainable economies where tokens power experiences—not just speculative trading. Think digital property deeds, not meme coins with a Unity wrapper.

The Wall Street Take

Traditional gaming studios are watching—and laughing—as crypto teams reinvent DRM with extra steps. Meanwhile, their stock prices keep printing while Web3 'disruptors' beg for Series C funding.

“It’s built for AI,” Osgood told me of the upcoming game. “I think a lot of the problem in Web3, and people are seeing, is there are a lot of bots, and there isn’t a sticky audience.”

“Moku is turning it on its head and being like, we’re going to build a game for AI, and we’re going to create this whole AI system,” she said.

Essentially, Grand Arena players can bring select NFTs they own into the game as cards and have them battle each other in a hands-off way where the human player is primarily a spectator. NFT owners can also earn royalties on their assets when they’re used in-game.

NFTs that can connect to Grand Arena will be able to battle others’ NFT characters, and their characters’ personalities will change based on what happens.

Some early renderings and art of the game’s environment suggests it may have vertical battler elements in the vein of MapleStory or Super Smash Bros. 

“I think this could transcend and just become like an AI-native competitive LAYER for all of gaming,” Osgood said. “Even past gaming, it’s mostly idle NFTs, assets, or IP that can come in and plug themselves in.”

Grand Arena has traits of an idle, casual battler game that could be appealing to those holding different NFTs but who maybe don’t have the time to grind levels in different games. 

The Moku team plans to focus on Moki Mayhem with its own NFTs within Grand Arena first, with plans to let third-party collections plug in in the future. 

“It actually is creating a whole new niche within crypto,” Osgood said.

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