British Virgin Islands, 22nd Dec 2021 — Following a successful community raise on Launchpool, with 2.7 million tokens staked by 3,000+ wallets at a value of USD 9.4 million, Tony Hollingsworth, CEO of the Listen Campaign announced a massive increase in $LSTN utilities, including a 50% discount on Listen NFTs.
“We are very pleased with the private sales of theListen Tokens ($LSTN),” said Hollingsworth. “After the initial raise, we went back at the request of the Launchpool community for a total raise of $750,000 and an additional $350,000 on Infinity Pad. With Lightning and IDO coming up, we then decided to reward our loyal holders and give back via this massive discount.”
Listen NFT collections
The NFT sale will begin with an unprecedented collection of NFTs featuring never-to-be-repeated performances by huge artists such as Stevie Wonder, Sting, Bob Dylan, David Bowie, BB King, George Michael, Jon Bon Jovi, MC Hammer, and dozens more.
In addition to the discounts available, $LSTN token holders have a chance to win 1 of 50 pairs of tickets to the private view of the “Listen Live” event at the Los Angeles Coliseum on June 20th to 22nd, featuring dozens of film and music stars.
“In order to reward our most loyal holders,” continued Hollingsworth, “those with greater holdings will unlock greater discounts, but we will do more, including having auctions that are open only to $LSTN holders, staking benefits and spot contests and prizes.”
The Listen Campaign platform has an annual reach of 500 million people
The Listen NFTs are a part of the Listen Campaign, a global broadcast campaign in 200 countries, 9 languages and scheduled to reach over 500 million people. The Listen Campaign will benefit 1 billion vulnerable and disadvantaged children around the world. The tokens themselves will be supported via a massive marketing and advertising campaign.
Record-holding team
The team behind the Listen Campaign is headed by Tony Hollingsworth, who created nine of the largest global campaigns including the “Nelson Mandela 70th Anniversary Tribute” and “The Wall: Live in Berlin”. They will be bringing their expertise to the decade-long Listen Campaign.
As the team prepares for launch, they have lined up their final IDO Launchpad with Lightning to further increase the number of token holders, project supporters and community members.
Imminent completion of the security audit will be followed by a strong promotion and execution of TGE and NFT launch via the ‘Listen Collectibles Auction and Shop’.
LCAS, Built on Flow
Listen built their platform from the ground up to make buying NFTs as easy as possible for non-Crypto audiences. It is built on the Flow blockchain so it is faster, allows for native fiat payments using regular credit cards and has lower transaction fees. Flow is also more environmentally friendly than Ethereum.
Melbourne, Australia, December 22nd, 2021 — MRHB DeFi, the world’s first inclusive and ethical DeFi ecosystem platform, has announced today the IDO of its BEP-20 token $MRHB on launchpads, ZeroSwap and DODO. Upon IDO completion, immediate listings of the token on DODO and the ever popular PancakeSwap DEX will follow. This is exciting news for the loyal community of over 1000 investors and supporters of the project who will be able to publicly trade $MRHB for the very first time.
“We are thrilled to announce the upcoming IDO and TGE (Token Generation Event) of the $MRHB token, which is the culmination of all the dedication and hard work of the entire Marhaba team,” declared CEO and founder Naquib Mohammed.
“Likewise, we are indebted to our diverse and global family of partners and investors, as well as our loyal community, who have offered steadfast support for the project throughout. The $MRHB token will be the fuel that underpins our entire ethical ecosystem platform, driving our shared vision of an inclusive DeFi for a more sustainable cryptoverse,” he added.
The public sale price of the $MRHB token is USD 0.04 on both ZeeDO, the launchpad of multi-chain DEX aggregator ZeroSwap, and on the DODO BSC launchpad, whose whitelist for the IDO has reportedly already been filled, as of this morning. There will be zero lockup periods for these tokens, which will be 100% released at TGE.
Massive Community Interest for Ethical, Sustainable and Inclusive DeFi Offerings
The community-first project has already concluded two successful pre-launch sales on their website. Unlike many other projects, where only VCs and VIPs get priority, MRHB opened their early rounds to the community to help share the crypto-opportunity — a move celebrated by the now 70,000 strong supporters. For the team, this served as an importantvalidation of the interest for DeFi services rooted in ethics, sustainability and inclusion.
MRHB DeFi was founded with a vision of providing excluded and crypto-cautious communities greater access to the growing opportunities and utilities of the crypto sphere. The project is underpinned by offering faith-based DeFi services which adhere to the ethical investment and financing principles rooted in Islamic Finance — a sector valued at around USD 3 trillion of assets. Bringing even a small portion of Shariah-sensitive liquidity into DeFi will represent a major boost to the total value of the DeFi sector worldwide.
Business practices deemed ethical include those that avoid interest, usury, social exploitation as well as support sustainability, asset or utility backed financing, transparency and equitable risk-reward sharing. These principles have universal appeal far beyond the faith conscious community as evidenced by a large number of stakeholders beyond the halal-seeking population.
Many of the values upheld by the halal platform align with several of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and MRHB is also a signatory of the Crypto Climate Accords, a group that seeks to achieve net-zero emissions from electricity consumption by 2030 as well as develop standards and technologies to accelerate the progress toward 100% renewably powered blockchains by the 2025 UNFCCC COP30 conference.
To date, investors include Sheesha Finance, Blockchain Australia, Australian Gulf Capital, Mozaic, Contango Digital Assets, NewTribe Capital, Acreditus Partners, EMGS Group, Sinofy Group, MKD Capital and a grant from Polygon Technology.
About MRHB DeFi
MRHB DeFi is a halal, decentralized finance platform built to embody the true spirit of an “Ethical and Inclusive DeFi” by following faith-based financial and business principles, where all excluded communities can benefit from the full empowerment potential of DeFi.
The diverse team comprises researchers, technocrats, influencers, Islamic fintech experts & business entrepreneurs, who came together to ensure that MRHB DeFi prevails in a manner that will impact society as a whole, essentially bridging the gap between the faith-conscious communities and the blockchain world.
Singapore, December 20th 2021 — For most of history, games have had no direct link with finance, and players had nothing to do with investors. GameFi has now enabled the connections between them with mechanisms such as playtoearn, which opens up a brand new sector in the market.
PokeMine is a new action card mobile game with Pokémon as its theme. It is the first Pokémon mobile game where players can independently evolve elves and change their appearance. The overall game restores the Pokémon world in depth, adding a variety of rich gameplay such as the classic Pokémon gacha system, Pokémon cultivation system, checkpoint battles, Z move, Pokémon dispatch (mining), and many others. There are also Budokan, Invasion of Mythical Beasts, Daily Trail, Team Hunting, Battle Tower, Champions Road, Budokan Battle, Quartz Assembly, Alliance War, Cross-server PK and many other gameplay varieties available.
Pokemon has created a unique NFT mechanism that enables a user’s NFT to no longer just be a work of art but a way to build characters in a game. PokeMine has 4 different colors of Pokemon NFTs, red being the most powerful, followed by orange, then purple, then blue. More powerful Pokemons are relatively rare. Users can upgrade NFTs through PVE, or upgrade Pokemon with equipment. Equipment in the game can increase the Pokemon’s combat power, dispatch time, etc. PokeMine has many features to explore, and more detailed tutorials will be released when the official version is released.
Pokemon Exploration: Users can explore the levels to obtain rewards and reach higher levels for their Pokemon. Higher levels, better attributes, and stronger skills make the user’s Pokemon more valuable.
Pokemon Dispatch: Players can get rich rewards by dispatching. The longer the dispatch period, the better the quality of the Pokemon, the more lucrative the rewards, such as diamonds. Using the ‘limit Pokemon Dispatch’ will also double the revenue, depending on the actual profit. Each dispatch line accounts for the dispatch time independently, and each dispatch queue has 4 hours of free dispatch time every day. You can increase any dispatch queue’s available time on the same day by using the “Time aquatic” item produced by [Exploration Level].
In addition, the “limited Pokemon” mechanism and sending “limited Pokemon” can provide a certain percentage of dispatch value bonus for this dispatch queue. The higher the quality of the qualified Pokemon, the greater the increase.
Exploring level and Adventure level: Adventure points and exploration points both require stamina, so it is best to use the stamina of adventure levels in the early stages to level up your team, unlock new features, and then improve your Pokemon overall with appropriate experience gains. Players upgrade Pikachu to unlock to multi-adventure levels. Diamonds are consumed at each level. The amount consumed increases with the progress of the level.
Changeable Combat Strategies: Pokemon types are divided into attack, heal, skill, and defense, and each Pokemon can play according to its positioning characteristics, making the entire gaming experience a battle of wit and courage, and full of strategization.
Cultivate Pokemons: There are more skills that players can use in the game to make you invincible, as well as to increase the level of Pokemons, stars, skill levels, and more so that the Pokemons can continue to grow, allowing players to cultivate a unique and powerful Pokemon from scratch.
Equipment: Elf armor can be upgraded to increase stats. Armor attributes are given to corresponding Pokemons, which is the player’s goal.
Pokemon Center (Gacha Center): Pokemon center’s Gacha System is the main way for players to obtain Pokemon and Pokemon shards. The Pokemon are randomly selected, by consuming diamonds or props. And there are rare Pokemon hidden in it, which can make for surprises.
Pokemon Social Interaction: The built-in gaming environment can also be used for real-time interaction, efficient data interaction, and processing capabilities, so that all users’ data can be displayed in real time. Players can exchange ideas and experiences with other players in the “world” at any time, offering users an immersive experience.
How to start playing Pokemon:
1. Players need to register an account onhttps://deme.games, then connect their wallets and e-mails.
2. To download the game, sign in on the official website.
The Real World Impact of NFTs in Gaming
Besides gameplay, NFTs have more real-world value. NFT items in games are not just items sold on NFT platforms, but they can deal directly on the markets, making the dealing process much easier than in traditional games.
GameFi is one of the ways that can help users understand Metaverse with more clarity. While its beginnings are in the game industry, in the future, it will have a strong impact on more aspects of human civilization, for instance in finance and socialization. It is estimated that in 2021 the global game market will reach profits of $175.8 billion. It is expected that during 2023, the gains will exceed $200 billion. GameFi is at a relatively early stage of development, and it still has enormous growth potential.
The integration of NFT and GameFi has produced a huge impact on gaming and will continue to have both micro and macro effects on business models as well as virtual assets ownership rights.
With the combination of Pokemon and GameFi, PokeMine is without a doubt, the rebirth of the Pokemon world in the real world.
PokeMine was officially launched on December 16th, 2021. After completing its first round of $5 million funding on November 16 2021, more functions have been increasingly launched one after another in stages. The first funding round was financed by GMC, Blockchain Ventures, Hayek Capital, YIBI Exchange, YSL Capital, HKD.COM, NKCCapital, and others. The funds are being used for Pokemon’s technology development and team building so as to fund international growth.
Currently, PokeMine NFTs have been deployed on the Heco-chain and Binance Smart Chain based on the ERC-721 token standard. There are two different types of assets in PokeMine: NFTs and PokeMine Diamonds ($PMD). Users can purchase PokeMine NFTs on Treasureland and purchase $PMD from MDEX and ButterSwap and use PMD to get Pokemon NFTs from the Pokemon center in the game.
The project has also made an official announcement to attract influencers for PokeMine. The influencer initiative purports to give influencers the opportunity to join and share in a large portion of the bonuses. Influencers need to promote across Pokemine social platforms, which include: Telegram, Discord and Twitter.
Diverse game scenarios and unique gameplay have made Pokemon a high-profile GameFi project. There are plenty of strategies and methods to explore, both in the PvE scenario and future PVP. Better strategization will not only be more fun for the player, it will lead to a higher return on investment. In the aspects of game quality and tokenomics, PokeMine is one of the leading offerings in this market.
No Deme games will be deployed on centralized service clients like Amazon in the future. All Deme games will be deployed on the DEME mainnet node, a system which is completely decentralized. Technically, that is the biggest advantage of Deme.
In the future, Deme will access Metaverse and empower more Web 3.0 applications. Meanwhile, Deme will support Cross-chain bridge, Multi-chain wallet, NFT trading markets, and Defi assembly kits. It also sorts the utilities of Metaverse, helps users create decentralized identities, and makes it convenient for users to manage Token and NFT assets easily. What’s more, Deme will let users enjoy all kinds of encrypted applications, and build SocialDAO blocks, open up encrypted application communities, and decentralized governance. Deme will build a highly-decentralized Metaverse platform, inspiring the unlimited vision of every gaming and crypto enthusiast to the encrypted world.
Era7: Game of Truth is an innovative Play2Earn NFT trading card game (TCG) that has recently been creating a lot of buzz in the GameFi space. We reach out to Era7 to find out exactly what makes this game tick.
Q. Please introduce yourself and what you do at Era7, thank you.
Hi, I am Teddy Chen, responsible for the system design of the Era7: Game of Truth project. I graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Shu-Te University. I previously worked at Game Hours Inc as Vice President of Operations and before that I was the General Manager at Joycell Inc and the Operations Manager at ISTAR Inc.
In the game industry, I possess 20 years of experience — from PC online games to web games, mobile games, and now I am a part of the very exciting blockchain GameFi industry. My long gaming experience has taught me to focus on the players — how do they feel, what motivates them etc. As the person in charge of system design at Era7, I hope to provide the best gaming experience for players everywhere.
Q. Congrats on your recent fundraising with a staggering lineup of VCs and institutions. How did you manage that?
Era7’s Research & Development team has 15 years of experience in online game development and achieved great results in the traditional gaming space. To date, we have altogether accumulated nearly 10 million users in the online games that we have developed.
After adding the concept of NFTs and Play-to-Earn to the Era7 game, along with offering chain interoperability, we attracted many well-known blockchain investment institutions. These institutions are extremely interested in the three competitive features of Era7, which are:
1. Ability to attract the traditional gamers. Era7’s Trading Card Game (TCG) genre and rich gameplay are factors that resonate with traditional game players. Moving forward, the iOS and Android versions of the game will be launched simultaneously, and with promotional support from the traditional gaming circles, will bring in more valuable new traffic to the gamefi industry.
2. High-quality product. Era7’s offers rich gameplay content and competitive elements, providing users with long hours of entertainment. With 1,000 exquisitely crafted NFT cards that have different attributes, the players can come up with endless battle strategy combinations which can generate different performance outcomes in battle. In the near future, these players can form an ever-growing PVP (player-to-player) competitive gaming community where they can not only play to earn, but also play for fun. At the same time, Era7 is also in the process of building an Esport-Fi model, so that holders of rare NFT assets will have more avenues to earn.
3. Low threshold entry to Game of Truth. Era7 has no barrier to entry for players. Users who don’t understand cryptocurrency can still experience the game in the free-to-play mode. Indeed both novice and experienced gamers can find their place in the game, and together with the project, build their own worlds of truth that belong to them.
Q. What is the central concept behind Era7: Game of Truth?
Era7’s artistic inspiration comes from TCGs like Hearthstone and Magic: The Gathering.
The Game of Truth plot revolves around seven races on the Continent of Truth who compete for the title of “King of Truth.” Amongst the races are groups of specially gifted individuals who are sent to attend Summoner Academy to undergo rigorous training where they graduate to become Summoners. Upon graduation, they travel the world to make Summoning Pacts with the most powerful amongst the seven races, to establish strong allies in order to consolidate their power.
Since ancient times, throughout the year, battles amongst the Summoners have been held in the heart of the Continent. These Summoning Battles attract Summoners from all over the world who battle for the ‘King of Truth’ title. The winner is crowned ‘King of the Continent’, and he and his race are awarded the highest honors in the land.
At Era7, we hope to create a world of truth that belongs to all the players in this kingdom of truth.
Q. You are a Play2Earn NFT trading card game, are there other GameFi projects like you? If so, how are you different from your competition? If not, help us to understand your first-mover advantages in this space.
We have two types of competitors. The first type are those like Thetan Arena, with elements of esports and competitive attributes built into GameFi. The second type are those like the Splinterlands/Mytheria card games with GameFi. They are all undeniably excellent and successful projects, and have built their own core following.
Compared with the GameFi products on the market, the prime advantages of Era7 are the following:
With our rich game content and a mature economic system that support long hours of gameplay, we can guarantee a healthy ecosystem of players and token pricing.
Both our stable numerical card system and the large number (almost 1,000) of cards make confrontational battles fun and exciting, allowing players room for imagination to strategize their gameplay and create their own unique card libraries.
Our fast-paced and mildly competitive battles will not tire the players out.
While the players are experiencing the fun of gaming, Play-to-Earn is also an objective and we give players the opportunity to benefit financially while they play.
In terms of Esports, we have developed a system of balance and fairness, which will allow capable players to achieve more rewards and honors. This will encourage everyone to enjoy the charm of Esports gaming all the while easily earning as they play.
Q. Tell us more about your upcoming NFT Sale on December 20th. Can you share some pictures of the types of trading cards that will be on sale? What are the premium buys?
The NFT Sales Event will be launched on 20th December and will feature 6,000 standard Mystery Boxes (‘Light Box’) priced at USD 119 and 400 premium Mystery Boxes (‘Epic Light Box’) priced at USD 399 respectively. The Mystery Boxes will be released in batches on a first-come-first-served basis.
The NFT launch will start on December 20th at UTC 12:00 and end on December 22nd at UTC 00:00.
Using Metamask, buyers can connect to the official marketplace to pay for purchases with $BUSD.
The Light Box and the Epic Light Box will feature 16 Master Cards with varying levels of rarity and value. When a buyer obtains a Master Card, he or she has approximately 15 days, before the game is officially launched, to complete the ‘UNSEAL’ function. After the buyer completes unsealing, he or she will receive several Battle Cards in one go. Furthermore, the Master Card that he or she holds has the capability of automatically summoning Battle Cards daily. These NFT cards are all precious in-game resources.
Subsequently, when the user ecosystem is well-developed, the quantity and quality of the cards held by the player will be the conditions that determine the number of ERA tokens and GOT rewards that the player will be able to obtain. Both ERA and GOT are game tokens which can later be exchanged for cryptocurrencies on DEXes and CEXes in the future. The unsealed Mystery Box that has been successfully snapped up at this upcoming sale or the Master Card that is obtained after unsealing can both be traded and sold on the official marketplace.
Here are examples of the 2 types of Mystery Boxes:
Here are some examples of Master Cards:
Q. Please share with us any other exciting news that you would like our readers to know thank you.
Era7 officially launched global marketing for the project in November 2021 and since then we have been revealing news and updates in stages. To date, Era7 has completed its seed round and an initial private round of financing, led by Hashkey and MOBOX, and a dozen other renowned VCs and institutions including Huobi Ventures, OKEx Blockdream Ventures, Good Games Guild (GGG), AU21 Capital, AlphaCoin Fund, Waterdrip Capital and more.
In November 2021, we set up our official website and built our community on channels like telegram, twitter, discord, facebook, reddit and medium. Simultaneously we also launched our global PR in Southeast Asia, Europe, South America and other countries. Currently, we have more than 190,000 followers in our community.
On December 16th, the second phase of our official website was released and we launched the white paper as well. We had a series of airdrops and giveaways and started our NFT airdrop on December 13th. What is most important is that our NFT official marketplace will go live on December 20th, and at the same time, the NFT Mystery Boxes will be on sale for a limited time.
Come January 2022, Era7 will launch our IDO. We are excited that we have managed to collaborate with Pancake and another well-known IDO platform. We will be announcing whitelisting activities, how to participate in the IDO and final confirmation of the IDO platforms. After completing our IDO milestone, ERA token and GOT token will be officially registered on exchanges.
The first version of Era7 will be introduced in February 2022 to our players and they can join the play-to-earn game to play and earn. From here on, we are also planning for the development of an esport ecosystem, construction of a GameFi platform and building a series of IP for Era7 and other metaverse products. Players are welcome to check out the details on our official website or from the roadmap in our White Paper.
For more updates on Era7: Game of Truth, please check out its official Website, follow the project on Twitter and join the conversation on Telegram or Discord.
Melbourne, Australia, December 17th, 2021 — Community-focused platform MRHB DeFi has received an investment from Australian Gulf Capital, a global investment management company, as part of the strategic venture round of the world’s first inclusive and ethical DeFi ecosystem platform.
The funding from Australian Gulf (AG) Capital is not the first from the region, with the Islamic DeFi pioneer having received investments from institutions such as Blockchain Australia and other Aussie angel investors. The AG Capital investment presents further opportunity to expand MRHB DeFi’s presence and growth in this key market.
“We are pleased to have an early-stage opportunity to support first-mover Marhaba in the development of their high-growth, disruptive venture in ethical and halal DeFi,” commented CEO and founder of AG Capital, Salman Masaud. “Our investments are typically focused on a company’s early funding stages when the product is nascent and the upside potential is the greatest. We expect to support the project by bringing our legal, consulting and investment banking expertise to assist the Marhaba team in launching their socially impactful vision.”
The Australian PE/VC funds management company is also currently in the process of establishing a license under ADGM in the UAE, a key growth hub for MRHB DeFi, having recently signed a partnership with local partner Masary Capital to provide halal crypto solutions to the retail and institutional sectors in the UAE.
“Australia Gulf Capital’s ethos of actively supporting startups who align with their ambitious growth vision makes them a strong partner for us,” said MRHB DeFi CEO Naquib Mohammed. “As we continue on our journey of building the world’s first ethical DeFi platform, it is this shared vision and support from amongst our family of investors and partners that will help transform our dream into reality.”
MRHB DeFi: An Islamic Finance DeFi Pioneer
MRHB DeFi was created to bridge a perceived gap — by providing excluded and crypto-cautious communities greater access to the growing opportunities and utilities of the cryptosphere. The project is underpinned by faith-based DeFi offerings which adhere to the ethical investment and financing principles rooted in Islamic Finance. Many values upheld by the halal platform also align with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Business practices deemed ethical include those that avoid interest, usury, social exploitation as well as support sustainability, asset or utility backed financing, transparency and equitable risk-reward sharing. These principles have universal appeal far beyond the faith conscious community.
With the Islamic Finance market sized at around USD 3 trillion of assets, bringing even a small portion of Shariah-sensitive liquidity into DeFi will represent a major boost to the total value of the DeFi sector worldwide.
About MRHB DeFi
MRHB DeFi is a halal, decentralized finance platform built to embody the true spirit of an “Ethical and Inclusive DeFi” by following faith-based financial and business principles, where all excluded communities can benefit from the full empowerment potential of DeFi.
The diverse team comprises researchers, technocrats, influencers, Islamic fintech experts & business entrepreneurs, who came together to ensure that MRHB DeFi prevails in a manner that will impact society as a whole, essentially bridging the gap between the faith-conscious communities and the blockchain world.
Australian Gulf Capital is a prominent global investment management company specializing in alternative investments and providing innovative world-class products and services. AG’s substantial and diversified investor base includes corporations, financial institutions, sovereign wealth funds, superannuation/pension funds, insurance companies, qualified high-net-worth investors, and family offices.
Australian Gulf Capital’s business activities are distinguished by exceptional vigor and a profound understanding of clients’ needs and risk profiles. They have become the company of choice because of their insightful approach to creating partnerships with clients for sourcing and investing in attractive investment opportunities. Australian Gulf Capital employs high-caliber teams with diverse expertise and extensive experience.
Dubai, UAE, December 14th, 2021 — MRHB (Marhaba) DeFi, the world’s first halal and ethical Decentralized Finance (DeFi) platform, is proud to announce their partnership with UAE-based crypto pioneer Masary Capital to bring DeFi opportunities to both retail and institutional clients in the United Arab Emirates and beyond, for the first time in the Islamic Finance space — a market estimated at around USD 3 trillion globally.
The agreement was signed between Masary CEO, Mr. Khalil Abdullah, and MRHB CEO & Founder, Mr. Naquib Mohammed, in Dubai, UAE, a fast emerging global crypto hub for the sector.
MRHB DeFi will be providing an entire ecosystem of eight innovative and shariah-compliant DeFi products for distribution through Masary Capital’s retail platform that provides easy access to crypto payments, investments, services and global remittance facilities. Together, they will encourage maximum UAE participation in the crypto space for those consumers who are focussed on halal services and opportunities.
“Our pioneering crypto platform will provide a seamless path for our businesses, institutions and consumers to participate. Our partnership with MRHB DeFi is aimed atgiving access to the full potential of DeFi to our Islamic customers,” said Masary Capital CEO, Mr. Khalil Abdullah.
Masary Islamic is one of the key product suites of Masary Capital that will be “Powered by MRHB”. Under the leadership of Mr. Khalil, Masary Capital aims to unlock transactional efficiencies of blockchain technology to shape a new financial system that is both highly efficient and productive.
“We are proud that Masary Capital has chosen us to be their preferred DeFi partner,” said MRHB DeFi CEO Naquib Mohammed. “This partnership will drive both retail and crucial institutional growth in the region and support our vision of providing DeFi to over 1 Billion people who find themselves excluded from the cryptosphere due to faith, lack of access and complexity.”
MRHB DeFi has a Shariah Board that vets all tokens and projects before acceptance on their halal-only platform. Users of the platform will have access to an ecosystem of products, including DeFi investments, interest-free financing and blockchain startup launchpads amongst others. All products operate in a completely transparent, decentralized and secure manner while following the ethical principles of Islamic Finance.
An Unprecedented Commitment to Community and Ethics
With a strong first mover advantage, MRHB DeFi has built an active community of more than 70,000 across Twitter, Telegram and more. Approximately 90% of the 1,000 members who participated in MRHB’s two public pre-launch token sales were first-time cryptocurrency investors across the globe — including non-Muslims with a strong interest in a more ethical approach to crypto opportunities.
The MRHB ecosystem avoids business practices, tokens, crypto assets and projects that include any form of gambling, social exploitation, pornography and usury of any kind amongst other prohibitions. Islamic Finance principles in general encourage projects that support asset or utility-backed financing, transparency, sustainability and equitable risk-reward sharing. These principles have universal appeal far beyond the faith-conscious community. The project is also aligned with a number of the Sustainable Development Goals set by the United Nations.
Masary Capital has now joined the host of institutional investors and partners in MRHB DeFi who are on board to bring DeFi innovation to the Islamic finance industry. To date, investors include Sheesha Finance, Blockchain Australia, Mozaic, Contango Digital Assets, NewTribe Capital, Acreditus Partners, EMGS Group, Sinofy Group, Australian Gulf Capital, MKD Capital and a grant from Polygon Technology.
About MRHB DeFi
MRHB DeFi is a halal, decentralized finance platform built to embody the true spirit of an “Ethical and Inclusive DeFi” by following faith-based financial and business principles, where all excluded communities can benefit from the full empowerment potential of DeFi.
The diverse team comprises researchers, technocrats, influencers, Islamic fintech experts & business entrepreneurs, who came together to ensure that MRHB DeFi prevails in a manner that will impact society as a whole, essentially bridging the gap between the faith-conscious communities and the blockchain world.
About Masary Capital
Masary aims to become a pioneer in providing state-of-the-art seamless blockchain and crypto solutions across all channels of customer interaction and to successfully establish the adoption of crypto-related activities, solutions, payment services and infrastructure in the UAE and GCC.
The innovative and diverse team have key strategic partnerships with industry leaders and is poised to offer the region’s first Emirati-owned crypto super-platform, offering solutions that empower users to harness the investment potential of crypto-assets.
Era7: Game of Truth is a Play-To-Earn NFT-based trading card game (TCG). It offers the perfect combination of traditional gaming and decentralized finance (DeFi) to gamers, bringing an entertaining gaming experience while providing an avenue to earn.
According to Era7 ancient folklore, the seven races on the continent of Truth battle against each other for supremacy all year long, to vie for the title “King of Truth”. The victor from the Game of Truth emerges as the ruler of the continent whereby he and his race then enjoy the highest honors in the land.
Founded by core team members from internationally renowned game developers with over 15 years of valuable experience such as Com2uS, NCsoft, Nexon, and Netmarble, Era7 is backed by heavyweight VCs and blockchain institutions such as Hashkey, MOBOX, Huobi Ventures, OKEx Blockdream Ventures, Good Games Guild (GGG), AU21 Capital, AlphaCoin Fund, Waterdrip Capital and more.
Be among the first to experience an ethical NFT marketplace with Souq NFT.
Kyiv, Ukraine, 8 Dec 2021 — MRHB DeFi, the first inclusive and ethical DeFi ecosystem platform is set to launch its NFT marketplace — Souq NFT. For its debut launch, MRHB DeFi is pleased to partner with DEV Challenge Season 18!
DEV Challenge is a Developer Championship thatholds the title for being the largest European IT competition since 2012. As the largest championship created for developers and designers in Ukraine, DEV Challenge has been supporting the technical potential of developers in Ukraine. To date, more than 20,000 developers have participated in this challenge.
Introducing Souq NFT an NFT marketplace powered by MRHB DeFi
Souq NFT is a marketplace for digital art and other halal NFT objects. Artists will participate in creating digital artwork for the first halal NFT marketplace in the world, following image, audio and video content guidelines such as: no nudity (ideally no body art at all), no hate speech, no racism and must be an original piece (no rip-offs of existing NFTs).
Perfect for Artists and Creators
Artists and Creators are invited to participate in an upcoming NFT competition set within the framework of the DEV Challenge Championship. This challenge is perfect for you if:
You have long wanted to figure out the best way to leverage NFTs and start selling your artwork.
You are a creator, with existing work on NFT marketplaces, and are currently looking for other options to monetize your art.
Kindly register for the competition and you will be sent detailed information about the launch of the Souq NFT platform and how best to start using it.
Attend the online or offline master class where you will be introduced to the platform. There are limited slots for participants, kindlyregister to join.
In order to properly guide and assist you during the competitive process, the organizers are implementing an online workshop, where you will be guided through the platform and taught how to correctly upload your artwork to the NFT Marketplace.
A tutorial guide to creators (digital artists, 2D, 3D designers, etc.) on how to mint your NFTs on the Souq NFT Marketplace will also be provided, where you will be assisted in setting up your accounts through which you can receive funds from NFT sales.
Please register for the Workshop.
About MRHB DeFi
MRHB DeFi is a halal, decentralized finance platform built to embody the true spirit of an “Ethical and Inclusive DeFi” by following faith-based financial and business principles, where all excluded communities can benefit from the full empowerment potential of DeFi.
The diverse team comprises researchers, technocrats, influencers, Islamic fintech experts & business entrepreneurs, who came together to ensure that MRHB DeFi prevails in a manner that will impact society as a whole, essentially bridging the gap between the faith-conscious communities and the blockchain world.
Singapore, December 6th, 2021 — BSC-based (Binance Smart Chain) Era7: Game of Truth is set to open the sales of its first batch of NFT Mystery Boxes on 20th December 2021, paving the way for the launch of Era7’s most anticipated Play-to-Earn NFT Trading Card Game in the first quarter of 2022.
Era7’s journey into the blockchain gaming space is backed by some of the biggest names in the industry, who have rallied behind its vision and mission. To date, Era7 has completed its seed round and an initial private round of financing, led by Hashkey and MOBOX, and a dozen other renowned VCs and institutions including Huobi Ventures, OKEx Blockdream Ventures, Good Games Guild (GGG), AU21 Capital, AlphaCoin Fund, Waterdrip Capital and more.
Funds will be directed towards the ongoing game development as well as marketing and operations. Notably, besides investing, MOBOX will also come on board Era7 as co-developer consultants, providing technology support towards the development of Game of Truth.
An Excellent Opportunity to Access Privileged NFT Prices
The upcoming NFT sale provides a good opportunity for early supporters to benefit from the privileged pricing of the unique trading cards. In the first batch of NFTs on sale, while the Mystery Boxes are priced the lowest, buyers will be able to enjoy privileged pricing across all NFT trading cards. Endowed with different features, all cards have intrinsic in-game value and can hold considerable upside potential in the TCG market as the trading cards gain increasing value alongside growth in the game’s popularity and a corresponding scarcity of the NFT cards on open markets.
Indeed, for fans of the game, this is the perfect opportunity to strategically collect cards and position themselves early in the game, not to mention an excellent opportunity to invest early at the lowest NFT prices for future returns.
According to Era7, they will also implement an NFT airdrop right before the NFT sales to reward the community for their continued support and commitment to Game of Truth.
Game of Truth aims to be a Benchmark for NFT trading card games
Era7: Game of Truth is the first trading card game to deploy the concept of NFTs and DeFi to captivate gamers with its unique Play2Earn features. Designed to drive traditional gamers to GameFi, Era7 gives them and blockchain gamers the opportunity to earn, own, and exchange in-game items with real-world monetary value.
By providing modestly competitive and fast-paced gameplay, combining combat and strategy, Game of Truth hopes to become every gamer’s choice. In a three-minute game, players may think about how to configure and strategize their greatest decks in PVP (player-versus-player), PVE (player-versus-environment), and other tournament types to win the game as well as token rewards.
The Era7 developers aim to establish a market-oriented approach for the Game of Truth. By combining cutting-edge technology and ground-breaking new gaming innovations, Game of Truth’s target of being a TCG benchmark in the world of GameFi looks poised to take off.
About Era7: Game of Truth
Era7: Game of Truth is a Play-To-Earn NFT-based trading card game (TCG). It offers the perfect combination of traditional gaming and decentralized finance (DeFi) to gamers, bringing an entertaining gaming experience while providing an avenue to earn.
According to Era7 ancient folklore, the seven races on the continent of Truth battle against each other for supremacy all year long, to vie for the title “King of Truth”. The victor from the Game of Truth emerges as the ruler of the continent whereby he and his race then enjoy the highest honors in the land.
Founded by core team members from internationally renowned game developers with over 15 years of valuable experience such as Com2uS, NCsoft, Nexon, and Netmarble, Era7 is backed by heavyweight VCs and blockchain institutions such as Hashkey, MOBOX, Huobi Ventures, OKEx Blockdream Ventures, Good Games Guild (GGG), AU21 Capital, AlphaCoin, Fund Waterdrip Capital and more.
Following the tech journeys of four noteworthy Odisha personalities making their mark in the fast-developing blockchain space.
Blockchain technology offers a great many advantages to many industries, with the financial sector being one of the most notable examples. It has the potential to have an even greater impact in developing countries, where blockchain-enhanced fintech can help improve financial accessibility for the 1.7 billion unbanked people around the world through services such as peer-to-peer loans and alternative currency payments and investments.
This Is why it should come as no surprise that, while most of the first wave of cryptocurrency influencers such as Erik Voorhees, Charlie Lee, Tim Draper, Andreas Antonopoulos and many more all hail from first-world Western countries, it is from the developing countries that some of the technology’s biggest thought leaders can be found.
In fact, four highly respected champions of blockchain technology are Odia, referring to people who originate from Odisha, a state in the Indian subcontinent. Despite being one of the poorest states of the country, Odisha has produced four trailblazing journeys, united by both geographic origin as well as their respective challenges in the tech industry. In particular, these personalities are making their mark in the world of blockchain, in remarkably exciting times for disruptive technology.
Sopnendu Mohanty
Sopnendu Mohanty got his start in the IT industry back in 1995, following both a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in information science. In 1997, he moved to Japan to join Citigroup’s product and services development division. He would stay with the company for 18 years, eventually being promoted to Head of Citigroup’s Asia Pacific Branch Operations, and then later to Head of Citigroup’s Global Consumer Lab.
In 2015, Sopnendu Mohanty left Citigroup and joined the Singapore government-run Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) as Chief Financial Officer. At MAS, he has helped contribute to Singapore’s rise as one of the world’s top fintech hubs.
In addition to his work at MAS, Sopnendu is also an avid speaker and global thought leader in fintech, and an outspoken advocate for an accelerated transformation to a digital blockchain-based economy.
“Having a distributed ledger by design takes away the whole complexity behind settling things, checking things. And it allows some of the business rules to be built into the use cases — the payment process, the settlement process, the underlying business rules can be encoded to a single stream,” said Sopnendu Mohanty.
“There are two different processes in today’s world. There’s a process where you pay each other and there’s a process in which we exchange goods and services. Blockchain digital currency brings together these two processes into a single process in which you’re not only paying each other but also ensuring that goods and services are exchanged at the point of payment.”
In September 2021, the MAS granted DBS Vickers — a subsidiary of DBS Bank, the largest bank in Southeast Asia — a license to officially offer cryptocurrency services.
“This is a natural progression in any innovation and there has been a very clear growing interest in digital assets,” Sopnendu Mohanty said.
“Fintechs are always pushing banks out of their comfortable traditional finance space. It’s very encouraging for us to see DBS think about such new areas where they can add value and create a new service. This is truly a sign of the maturity of the Singaporean fintech sector. Here, we don’t see a difference between fintechs and banks. Both are complimentary, they come together and work together.”
Mriganka Pattnaik
Hailing from the ancient city of Bhubaneswar in Odisha, Mriganka Pattnaik got his fintech career off the ground with numerous internships even before he finished his technology Bachelor’s degree from ITT Guwahati in 2013. Upon graduation, Mriganka went straight to work at Bank of America as an analyst in their Mumbai branch.
Two years later, he left to found his first company, Datatrix Healthcare Technologies, to help people remotely order medication and home diagnostic tests from nearby pharmacies.
“I saw an opportunity to address a need and to this day, I believe that entrepreneurship is the most direct way to bridge these gaps,” Pattnaik said
“Unfortunately, there was a lot of regulatory ambiguity in the area of online pharmacies. It was difficult to understand the full picture in terms of risk. Through this experience, I understood how regulatory ambiguity can really hinder innovation and hurt early startups. Afterward, I moved to Singapore in 2016 to work at Luno, a prominent crypto exchange, to support strategy and country-specific execution across three continents.”
During his time at Luno, he witnessed firsthand the compliance challenges faced by digital asset businesses in diverse jurisdictions and the key role regulations play in the industry’s health and sustainable growth. He then joined the Entrepreneur First tech incubator where he met Nirmal Aryath Koroth, with whom he co-founded his second company, Merkle Science, in 2018.
Merkle Science is a risk and intelligence platform that helps companies and government organizations detect, investigate and prevent illegal activities involving cryptocurrencies.
“As blockchain and cryptocurrency gained popularity, more financial institutions, retail platforms and governments started adopting the technology. Unfortunately, as the legitimate use cases rise, so does its illegal use,” Pattnaik said. “In 2020 alone, it is estimated that more than 12 billion dollars worth of crypto was involved in illicit transactions.”
“Unsurprisingly, this has led to many governments around the world introducing new laws and regulations that govern how cryptocurrency businesses can operate. These new regulations seek to mitigate the risk that comes with cryptocurrencies. However, these new laws and regulations have made it difficult for companies to work with cryptocurrencies and they struggle to figure out how to comply. With these new laws, there is then a need for new-age solutions and this is where Merkle Science comes in. We have developed a suite of solutions designed to make use of the blockchain’s transparent and traceable nature in order to help businesses identify and protect themselves against criminal use,” commented Pattnaik.
Debajani Mohanty
Debajani Mohanty is the bestselling author of five books on blockchain and was ranked among the top 30 Blockchain influencers from India on Singapore Fintech news as well as the world’s top 100 blockchain social influencers by Piktale awards. Born in coastal Odisha, she studied Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering at Sambalpur University before launching straight into what would become a 24-year career (and counting) devising software solutions for companies from India and, since 2020, England.
She got her feet wet with blockchain in 2017, from which point she has worked in development using numerous blockchain technologies. “The true potential of blockchain is yet to be realized,” Debajani Mohanty said. “We need much more dedicated research.”
Debajani Mohanty’s books range from broad blockchain overviews for new students on the subject, such as her five-star books “Blockchain for Self Sovereign Digital Identity” and “Ethereum for Architects and Developers”, to deep-dive courses on the specific blockchain technologies R3 Corda, Ripple and Ethereum. She has also published a novel focused on themes of the empowerment of women, titled “The Curse of Damini”, for which she was honored with the Arya award by Nobel Peace prize winner Kailash Satyarthi.
Since the beginning of her blockchain career, she has tried to share her learning through books, blogs, videos and live sessions at numerous blockchain summits in India and abroad. She stresses that “propagating knowledge especially to business leaders and decision-makers is the need of the hour, as they have the authority to carry forward this blockchain journey to the next level.”
According to Debajani Mohanty, the next big trends in blockchain are expected to be CBDC, Decentralized Identity and enforcement of data acts (GDPR, CCPA, PDPA etc.) in handling personal data leading to privacy-preserving solutions.
Naquib Mohammed
Born in the city of Cuttack, Naquib Mohammed studied information technology at the Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology in Bhubaneswar. He then spent more than a decade in information technology, starting as a software engineer then later as a business architect, working for companies across the globe.
“My interest in cryptocurrency really started to get serious after spending a few years learning and working on enterprise use cases of distributed ledger technology in the bull run of late 2019,” said Naquib Mohammed.
“As an enterprise architect, researching the growing IT market was a natural move, and this is where I noticed blockchain as an important part of Industry 4.0 technologies.”
Mohammed was invited to Australia in 2020 by invitation of the Australian government as a “Distinguished Global Fintech Talent”. There, he dove headfirst into blockchain technology, devoting 7–8 hours a day to study and learn the technology.
“During this tenure, I completed over 15 certifications in different areas of blockchain within a six-month span.”
In April of 2021, after working at another startup he decided to launch his own pioneering decentralized finance startup, MRHB (pronounced Marhaba) DeFi. This was to address what he felt was a major gap in a crypto space that excluded many communities due to their faith (in particular himself as a Muslim), lack of access and technological complexity. The demand for financial services which are consistent with faith principles is evidenced by the Islamic Finance industry, currently worth around $3 trillion USD.
In addition, Mohammed wanted to build a more empowering, ethical and community focussed project that would cater to those new to crypto and also address the negative perception created by extensive instances of fraud, risk and opacity in the sector. As such, he hopes to create a more ethical and inclusive project that benefits everyone regardless of faith.
“As our platform is based on very high ethical standards, one of our product offerings is a crypto-based donations platform, the DePhi, a decentralized philanthropy protocol, planned in Phase 2. We sincerely hope to attract investors from all walks of life who are interested in making sure their investments have some form of social impact in addition to benefiting from the wealth opportunities of the cryptoverse,” explained Mohammed.
“By approaching the new crypto economy with a more ethical approach from the very start, we can all do our part to create a more equitable and more inclusive future for all.”
A landmark project in the DeFi ecosystem, being the first to target the USD 3 trillion Islamic Finance ecosystem and other excluded communities, MRHB DeFi is notably backed by Polygon Technology. A prominent Layer-2 blockchain, Polygon is supporting the development of the first dApp focussed on the Islamic and ethical finance sector.
With their blockchain stories impacting different industries and use-cases, from regulations, compliance, intelligence gathering and security to education, ethics, inclusion, and philanthropy, these blockchain personalities are an inspiration to people all over the world who wish to be involved in the revolutionary technology.
As the blockchain and decentralized finance movements sweep across the world, we will undoubtedly see more professional representation from everywhere. Hopefully, blockchain innovators and startup founders from underdeveloped economies especially will find great success, for these are the regions where the technology can do the most social good. Financial services such as zero-fee payments and transactions, peer-to-peer loans and all manner of banking transactions for excluded communities are possible in the realms of blockchain and cryptocurrency.
We need only for more pioneers to step up and seize the opportunity.
