Horizon Blockchain Games raises $4.5M for its NFT trading card game and wallet ' TechCrunch

Horizon Blockchain Games, as its name suggests, is a company that builds games on blockchain and provides tools to assist others in doing the same.Today, the company announced that it had raised $4.5M more. This brings its total to just over $13M.Horizons' first game is Skyweaver. This competitive digital trading card game taps into the blockchain to allow players more real-world ownership of their virtual cards. Cards can be traded, taken out of storage, or sold once they have been earned by competing with other players.Horizon is a topic I wrote previously:Horizon is currently working on two parallel paths. One, they are building an Ethereum-powered platform called Arcadeum to handle in-game items. This will establish who owns an item and allow it to be traded, sold, or given from one player to another. Horizon cannot take away an item once it is in their possession. They will eventually open this platform up to other developers. The company is also developing its own digital trading card game, SkyWeaver. This game will be a success in its own right and showcase the platform.The Arcadeum, which was mentioned above, has been rebranded to Sequence. This wallet system is easy-to-integrate and aims at removing the complexity of the blockchain. The goal is to allow users to store and buy digital goods on the blockchain, without the developer or user having to really think about it. Michael Sanders, Horizon's co-founder, said that the rebranding brings about a broadening in its focus. The Arcade in Arcadeum suggested that it was all gaming. However, the goal is to manage all digital items from NFT art to virtual gaming goods.I've been hearing Web3 more often lately, as the Horizon team frequently mentions that they were built to support it. In short (or, at least, as best I understand it), Web3 is a category of online-but-decentralized apps, services, and games built around the blockchain (Ethereum, in this case) to give individual users more control of their data. Here is a breakdown by the Ethereum foundation.Horizon had originally planned to open Skyweaver more widely in 2020. However, it is still in private beta and plans to open wider later in the year. Sanders says they have welcomed over 66,000 users so far.The company claims that this round (a preSeries A round SAFE round) includes investors such as CMT Digital and The Xchange Company, BITKRAFT ventures, Khaled Verjee and Zyshan Kaaba.