Web3 Creator Economy: January headlines

- Mastercard debuts web3-based musician accelerator program: Artist Accelerator is designed to give musicians tools to function in a digital economy using the Polygon blockchain (source)
- MINTangible takes on NFT intellectual property chaos with the introduction of a revolutionary NFT IP Rights Solution that enables brands and creators to digitally bind IP license and royalty terms to their NFTs (source)
- L'Oréal’s NYX makeup brand to launch DAO, Ethereum NFTs to ‘redefine beauty’: "GORJS was created to shine a light on “3D creators” and give them “a path to success within the Web3 ecosystem" (source)
- Quantum Temple, the Web3 platform dedicated to preserving cultural heritage, has announced $2 million in pre-seed funding led by Borderless Capital, with participation from Algorand Foundation, Outliers Fund, Shima Capital, New Moon Ventures, and NxGen, as well as other strategic angel investors (source)

#January2023 #creatoreconomy #trends

Metaverse: January headlines

- South Korea launches metaverse replica of Seoul: Metaverse Seoul will allow users to take their avatars to tax offices, access youth counseling and read e-books (source)
- CME Group to launch 3 metaverse reference rates - Axie Infinity, Chiliz and Decentraland will be represented in CME’s new reference rates and real-time indexes (source)
- Animoca slashes target for metaverse fund to $1 billion - the chairman of Animoca Brands had previously suggested that its metaverse fund raise could reach as much as $2 billion (source)
- Neopets raised $4M to bring 90s classic to the metaverse, Polygon Ventures, Blizzard Avalanche Ecosystem Fund, Hashkey Capital, IDG Capital, and gaming giant, NetDragon Websoft participated in the round (source)
- Metahood raised $3M to build the Zillow of the metaverse - seed round was led by crypto VC firm 1confirmation, with participation from Volt Capital, Flamingo DAO, and Neon DAO (source)

#January2023 #metaverse #trends

DeFi: February headlines

- Liquid Staking Replaces DeFi Lending as Second-Largest Crypto Sector, the value of cryptocurrencies deposited in liquid staking protocols has increased to about $14 billion, trailing just deposits at decentralized exchanges (source), Lido saw a $240 million inflow in the form of 150,000 ether (ETH), "apparently from Justin Sun" (source)
- G20 Financial Stability Board Report Flags DeFi 'Vulnerabilities', criticizing the niche's "actual degree of decentralization," the danger of crypto bridges, and bugs found in the smart contracts that underpin DeFi's applications (source)
- Forsage Founders Indicted for $340M Ponzi Scheme Masquerading as DeFi Platform, company relied on smart contracts whose coding is consistent with a Ponzi scheme, the U.S. Justice Department says (source)
- Solana-Based DeFi Protocol Everlend Announces Shut Down, the project highlighted a lack of liquidity and the overall shrinking of the borrowing and lending market as the causes of its demise (source)
- DeFi Pioneer MakerDAO Announces Aave Competitor Spark Protocol, Spark Protocol will “amplify the features of MakerDAO by enabling a liquidity market for supplying and borrowing scalable crypto assets with variable and fixed rates” (source)
- Several Leading DeFi Protocols Are Still Controlled by Whales, including Lido, GMX, Frax Finance, and Curve, which leads to the point that they are not decentralized, since VCs and whales can control governance (source)

#February2023 #DeFi #trends

Wallets: February headlines

- Algorand (ALGO)-Based Crypto Wallet MyAlgo Urges Users To Withdraw Assets After $9,600,000 Attack, Algorand Foundation CTO John Woods says about 25 wallets were affected by the attack (source)
- Mastercard Rolls Out System Allowing for Stablecoin Payments Directly From Crypto Wallet, a collaboration between financial services giant Mastercard and web3 tech company Immersve is set to offer a new option for paying physical, digital and metaverse purchases using crypto assets (source)
- Multicoin, Sequoia Lead $6M Round in Solana-based Crypto Wallet TipLink, Circle Ventures, Solana Ventures, and Paxos also participated in the round (source)
- Addressable raises $7.5M to match crypto wallets to Twitter accounts, the solution allows marketers to promote games or conferences etc. to crypto wallet holders on Twitter, thus increasing the return on ad spend by targeting audiences that are more likely to buy products, and introducing higher efficacy/ROI (source)
- Coinbase Adds New Wallet Security Features To Protect Against Phishing and Scams, including transaction previews, token approval alerts, and a new “enhanced layers of protection” (source)

#February2023 #wallets #trends

Payment Solutions: February headlines

- Twitter's payment system prepares for potential crypto integration, Musk's Twitter payment vision is in tune with fiat-crypto gateway Alchemy Pay (source)
- Visa Eyes High-Value USDC Settlement Payments on Ethereum, the company reportedly seeks to meet customer requests to convert digital assets into fiat payments, similar to how it converts foreign currencies (source)
- Brazil’s Oldest Bank Takes a Leap into the Future with Crypto Tax Payment Options: Banco do Brasil will allow residents to pay their taxes with crypto (source)
- UK Banks Blocking Crypto Access Given Fraud, Volatility, bank CEOs appeared more skeptical about the potential benefits of a central bank digital currency – the day after the Treasury and Bank of England said a digital pound was likely to be needed (source)

#paymentsolutions #February2023 #trends

Web3 Creator Economy: February headlines

- Maximizing Profits Will ‘Kill’ Web3: Animoca Brands Chairman: Yat Siu described royalties as the gas that keep an economy of creators humming, comparing it to the gas fees charged to process each transaction on Ethereum’s network (source)
- NFT Royalties Are 'Not Going Away on SuperRare': Co-Founder Jon Perkins - this statement is a response to the OpenSea’s controversial move to change its creator royalty and fee structure earlier this month that has raised serious questions about what the value proposition of NFT marketplaces will be if artists and the original creators are cut off revenue streams (source)
- New YouTube CEO Is Bullish on Web3 Tech Like NFTs and the Metaverse: Neal Mohan has said that NFTs could enable “creators to build deeper relationships with their fans” (sources)
- The harsh reality fosters dissatisfaction with web2 platforms for creators: the average income for a full-time creator is less than $100,000, the median is $50,000; stiff competition and high costs meant only 4% of creators earn a living from content; 46% made less than $1,000 a year in 2022 (source)

#creatoreconomy #February2023 #trends

Metaverse: February headlines

- Meta Free Cash Surge Clears The Way For More Metaverse Investment: with support from better-than-expected performance across the family of apps, including Facebook breaking into 2 billion daily active users for the first time, the results are likely to limit investor objections to the company’s spending on developing its metaverse (source)
- Tencent scraps plans for VR hardware as metaverse bet falters (source)
- Pantera Invests $10M in Metaverse Game Worldwide Webb - the Web3 game allows players to use their existing NFT collections as avatars (source)
- Colombia’s legal system experiments in the metaverse: a Colombian court recently hosted its first legal trial in the metaverse, with the court magistrate saying it felt “more real than a video call” (source)
- Mitsubishi, Fujitsu and Other Tech Firms to Create ‘Japan Metaverse Economic Zone’, the goal of the metaverse alliance is to help build the framework for corporations to tap into Web3 marketing, work reform and consumer experience initiatives (source)

#metaverse #February2023 #trends

DeFi: March headlines

- DeFi sees its biggest hack in 2023 as Euler loses $197M: Euler Finance faced a flash loan attack on March 13, the attacker stole millions in DAI, USDC, staked Ether (StETH) and wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) (source)
- CFTC’s tech committee gathered in DC to talk DeFi: most of the participants agrees that they can "no longer ignore decentralization", and that its "benefits “far outweigh” the challenges, which they believe will “self-resolve”. Members unanimously voting for creating a Digital Assets and Blockchain Technology Subcommittee. (source)
- The U.S. Treasury Department is close to releasing a risk assessment analyzing criminal use of DeFi: the department has reviewed decentralized finance’s role in such incidents as North Korean ransomware attacks, and will issue a risk assessment (source)
- DeFi TVL Reaches 2023 Highs as Lido Liquid Staking Expands Its Lead: given that stakers will be able to withdraw their Ethereum after the upcoming Shanghai upgrade, demand for Lido liquid staking is surging (source)
- DWF Labs Invests $20M in Derivatives Trading Platform Synthetix, Synthetix's perpetual futures product will be integrated into DWF Labs' trading business with the aim of boosting Synthetiix's trading volume (source)

#DeFi #March2023 #trends

Wallets: March headlines

- EU Lawmakers Vote in Favor of Payment Limits on Anonymous Crypto Wallets: Damien Carême, the French lawmaker who leads the parliament’s negotiations on the overhaul, earlier told reporters that the plans wouldn’t prevent crypto payments, because the cap of 1,000 euros won’t apply if a regulated wallet provider is involved or the identity of the payer is known (source)
- Elizabeth Warren is back with an Anti-Money Laundering act that would is likely to drive wallet providers overseas and weaken consumer choice: the act prohibits the use of digital asset mixers and requires self-hosted wallets, along with miners and validators to have AML policies (source)
- Crypto Wallet Prototype Discovered Inside Microsoft Edge Browser - the unreleased features suggest the tech giant is considering a deeper move into Web3 (source)
- Coinbase is starting a “wallet as a service” business that will allow companies to customize blockchain wallets for their own customers - the service could be used by gaming apps where tokens or NFT are part of the game, or by companies that might want to incorporate a wallet into an app and make that “almost invisible to the end user,” Patrick McGregor, Coinbase’s head of product for Web3 developer platforms, said in an interview (source)

#wallet #March2023 #trends

Crypto Payment Solutions: March headlines

- Telegram's Wallet Bot @wallet Integrates Tether (USDT) Payments on Tron Network: users can now send and receive USDT directly from their chats, as well as buy, swap, and make P2P trades with the stablecoin (source)
- Silvergate suspends crypto payments network; shares fall after-hours: Silvergate on Wednesday warned in a filing that it was evaluating its ability to operate as a going concern, Coinbase Global Inc, Galaxy Digita, Paxos, Circle, Bitstamp and Gemini suspended their partnerships with Silvergate after the warning (source)
- Visa, Mastercard Halt Crypto Initiatives Pending Industry And Regulatory Recovery, previously both companies forged multiple partnerships with crypto firms and dedicated teams to explore blockchain technology (source)
- U.S. Federal Reserve’s Real-Time Payments System FedNow Coming in July, FedNow has been seen as a potential precursor to a central bank digital currency (CBDC) (source)
- Bybit Launches Debit Card for Crypto Payments: the Bybit card will operate on the Mastercard network and will initially allow fiat-based transactions by debiting cryptocurrency balances when used to pay for goods and services (source)

#paymentsolutions #March2023 #trends

Web3 Creator Economy: March headlines

- Animoca Brands Japan invests in global entertainment company Rainshine Global Inc., the two companies aim to build a gateway for Japanese intellectual properties (IPs) to reach new global markets (source)
- Instagram scraps its Web3-related initiatives for now, previously Instagram tested the idea of limited-edition NFTs or digital collectibles minted from photos that users could create and sell (source)
- NEAR Protocol is Taking a Step Towards Web3 Social Networking: NEAR Discovery, "the easiest point of entry into Web3", is meant to make it easier to create Web3 social networks. Many of the blockchain operating system’s building blocks already exist, like NEAR Crowd, a gig economy platform, and NEAR Social. They aim to address the drawbacks of centralized platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok, including little to no anonymity or privacy, few rewards for content creators, no community input and censorship concerns (source)
- Epic Games announced updates this week to Unreal Engine 5.2, including MetaHuman technology and procedural generation tools that allow creators to design custom maps and experiences within the game (source)

#creatoreconomy #March2023 #trends

Metaverse: March headlines

- NVIDIA and Microsoft to Bring the Industrial Metaverse and AI to Hundreds of Millions of Enterprise Users via Azure Cloud: NVIDIA today announced a collaboration with Microsoft to provide hundreds of millions of Microsoft enterprise users with access to powerful industrial metaverse and AI supercomputing resources via the cloud (source)
- Disney cuts metaverse division under Iger’s restructuring as part of the layoffs set to begin in March (source)
- Animoca Brands Cuts Metaverse Fund Target to $800M, the fund previously announced in November 2022 that it was working on a new Animoca Capital fund with a target of $2 billion (source)
- Meta says its single largest investment is now in ‘advancing AI’, analysts mention that Zuckerberg "altered the narrative of the company to one focused on efficiencies rather than looking to grow the metaverse at any cost" (source)
- South Korea invests $51M into metaverse projects, South Korea’s Ministry of Science said the earmarked funds will be used to prop up 13 new projects leveraging virtual worlds in the health, tourism, and education industries (source)

#metaverse #March2023 #trends

DeFi: April headlines

- Treasury Releases 2023 DeFi Illicit Finance Risk Assessment, the assessment highlights that "illicit actors, including criminals, scammers, and North Korean cyber actors are using DeFi services in the process of laundering illicit funds" and proposes measures to strengthen U.S. AML/CFT regulatory supervision (source)
- SEC’s Proposed ‘Exchange’ Definition: “The SEC’s proposal to replace ‘orders’ with ‘trading interest;’ remove ‘multiple’ before ‘buyers and sellers;’ and add ‘communication protocols’ would meaningfully expand the SEC’s ability to enforce registration requirements against DeFi protocols that perform the functions of securities exchanges” (source)
- What DeFi Must Sacrifice to Appease Regulators? SEC pushes towards programmable compliance, regulation and privacy-preserving Identity (source)
- Older Version of DeFi Yield Aggregator Yearn Finance Exploited for $11.6M: attacker minted 1.2 quadrillion tokens by exploiting a Yearn vulnerability, selling them for $11.6 million in stablecoins (source)
- Deposits to zkSync surpass $110M as its DeFi ecosystem explodes: crypto traders are actively investing in projects launching on zkSync as the hype around its potential governance token airdrop increases (source)

#DeFi #April2023 #trends

Wallets: April headlines

- Robinhood Launches 'Connect' to Link Native Crypto Wallet to DeFi Apps: an update that will allow users of its crypto wallet to access their credentials and funds directly from decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols and applications—all without having to open the Robinhood app itself (source)
- Trust Wallet Fixed Vulnerability But Warns $88,000 of User Funds Are Still at Risk: “Despite our best efforts to minimize loss, we proactively identified 2 likely exploits with a total loss of $170K,” the project said on Twitter. “To do right to users, we created a reimbursement process for affected users to make them whole.” (source)
- Uniswap Launches Mobile Wallet. The wallet is intended to enable users to buy crypto, offering what the protocol says is a competitive 2.55% fiat on-ramp fee. Users can also swap funds on popular DeFi platforms, including Polygon, Arbitrum and Optimism. The wallet features in-app token price and NFT data, allowing users to favorite tokens and wallet addresses so they can track the trading activity that matters most to them. (source)
- MetaMask Denies Wallet Draining is Due to Exploit, which is a response to a Twitter thread tracing fund related to the loss of about 5,000 ETH. According to the wallet provider, an attacker withdrew 5,000 Ethereum (ETH), worth about $10 million, from different addresses across 11 blockchains rather than only from MetaMask users. (source)
- Trust Wallet Partners With Web3Auth to Simplify Web3 Onboarding Using Social Logins, the solution eliminates the current requirement of a written-down seed phrase, safeguarding users from human error and a single point of failure and thus strengthening account safety and security (source)

#wallet #April2023 #trends

Payment solutions: April headlines

- Alchemy Pay Raises $10M at $400M Valuation to Push South Korean Expansion Plans - the funding came from DWF Labs, its eighth investment of $10 million or more in the last six weeks (source)
- FedNow is set to launch in July: U.S. Federal Reserve wants to release a real-time payments and settlements service in order to boost the country’s infrastructure. Experts ask: Why not use crypto? (source)
- Stablecoin payments: Visa shares plans for ‘ambitious’ crypto product: According to a Visa job posting published on April 20, the company’s crypto division is building the “next generation of products” to facilitate the digital commerce of everyday life (source)
- NOWPayments, a Renowned Cryptocurrency Payment Provider, Integrates Shibarium for Efficient Crypto Payments - this integration allows NOWPayments to cater to the needs of various projects and tokens that operate on the Shibarium network (source)

#paymentsolutions #April2023 #trends

Web3 Creator Economy: April headlines

- Mastercard Drops Free NFTs, Launches Web3 Music Accelerator: Music Pass NFT allows musicians to access its Mastercard Artist Accelerator Program, giving artists tools and resources to bolster their Web3 music careers (source)
- Nfinity.io launched a Decentralized SocialFi Platform, Transforming the Web2 Social Media Landscape, the platform seamlessly integrates incentives with content creation and dissemination (source)
- Roblox, the dominant online gaming platform, recently rolled out a new class of wearable virtual goods that can be sold in limited quantities by third-party creators, per a recent company announcement. The goods, called Limiteds, can also be resold by Roblox users at any price of their choosing, with a 10% cut of each secondary sale going to the original creator (source)

#creatoreconomy #April2023 #trends

Metaverse: April headlines

- What is Apple's Approach for the Metaverse? Apple is yet to confirm the rumours of it launching a long-rumoured VR or virtual reality glass at its annual Worlwide Developers Conference in June (source)
- Mark Zuckerberg denied the ‘narrative’ that he’s ditching the metaverse and he unveiled a new goal: bringing ‘A.I. agents’ to ‘billions of people’, previously Zuckerberg fired off a series of figures and metrics showing progress in the metaverse: More than one million Meta avatars have been created; Half of the people who use the company's Quest VR headset every day spend more than one hour inside its virtual realm (source)
- Shiba Inu's Metaverse Will Partially Open by End of 2022 - the metaverse is unlikely to be fully completed on release as it will be an “ongoing project,” developers said (source)
- UK’s New Technology Department to Tackle Country’s Metaverse, Web3 Strategy: the department will explore economic growth, investment and business opportunities in these areas, as well as implications on regulation (source)
- AI Will 'Accelerate' the Metaverse, Empower Creators: The Sandbox Co-Founder: “What used to take days before, from ideation and conception, can now take just a matter of seconds,” Borget told CoinDesk TV’s “First Mover” on Thursday. AI will “accelerate and empower even more creators,” he said. (source)

#metaverse #April2023 #trends

DeFi: May headlines

- Curve Finance Deploys Decentralized Stablecoin on Ethereum - crvUSD is an over-collateralized stablecoin backed by assets like USDC, Ethereum, liquid staking derivatives like Frax’s sfrxETH, and liquidity provision tokens of stablecoin pools (source)
- Cardano DeFi Total Value Locked Hits 400M ADA Milestone - in US Dollar terms, DeFi activities on Cardano had grown consistently since the start of the year when the TVL was just around $50 million (source)
- Tenet, LayerZero partner to drive cross-chain liquid staking adoption - Tenet’s network allows users to create projects and tokens which will now be integrated with LayerZero technology. The interoperability opens up users to the broader DeFi ecosystem across a variety of smart contract blockchains (source)
- DeFi space braces for possible increase in DAI savings rate from 1% to 3.3% - MakerDAO’s proposal to raise the DSR follows a series of rate hikes imposed by the U.S (source)
- Uniswap to Launch on Polkadot via Moonbeam Parachain - the decision follows a near-unanimous governance vote first championed by Blockchain at Berkeley, a student educational group linked to UC Berkeley, and brought back to life by Blockchain at Michigan, another educational organization (source)
- DeFi Project Bancor Hit With Lawsuit Over Impermanent Loss Protection Promises - investors claim promises fell short, adding that Bancor’s DAO was centralized and its liquidity pools operated as unregistered securities (source)



#DeFi #May2023 #trends

Wallets: May headlines

- Ledger Crypto Wallet Under Fire Over Seed Phrase Recovery Service - in a nutshell, it’s an ID-based key recovery service that backs up users’ seed phrases. To use the service, users must provide a passport or national identity card to confirm their identity. While this service requires users to opt-in and pay a $9.99 monthly fee, some are concerned that this could even pose a security risk for those who don't opt in (source).
- PayPal Ventures Leads $52M Round for Crypto Firm Magic - the startup offers non-custodial wallet infrastructure for an enterprise client list that includes Macy’s and Mattel (source)
- Decentralized Wallet Developer Odsy Network Raises $7.5M at $250M Valuation - the funding round was led by Blockchange Ventures and included participation from Rubik Ventures, Node Capital and FalconX among others (source)
- Openfort Raises $3 Million for 'Frictionless' Web3 Gaming Wallet - Openfort is building infrastructure for game developers and aims to reduce the number of times gamers have to engage with the blockchain (source)
- Crypto Storage Firm Qredo's Revamped Self-Custody Wallet Goes Live - The New Qredo remains aimed at the institutional crypto market, but now it's low-cost and open to anyone, says COO Josh Goodbody (source)

#trends #wallet #May2023

Crypto Payment Solutions: May headlines

- Ethereum: Payment Giant Visa Deploys First Paymaster Smart Contract on ETH Testnet - on March 1, 2023, ERC-4337 was rolled out to the Ethereum mainnet, adding the ability for smart contracts to transact on behalf of the user (source)
- Tether and Strike have partnered to make USDT easily available for transactions via Strike's payment platform, the payment app is in expansion mode and has announced the move of its headquarters out of the United States (source)
- Stripe Rolls Out New Fiat-to-Crypto Onramp To Make Digital Asset Purchases More Convenient - Web3 companies can now direct their US-based customers to the link without the need for any access code (source)
- Transak Raises $20M - the startup offers on- and off-ramps that could make it easier for new users to interact with Web3 project (source)
- Argentina Bans Payment Apps From Offering Bitcoin to Customers - the central bank said Thursday that payment platforms cannot offer crypto trading services to their customers (source)

#trends #May2023 #paymentsolutions