web3 Memo #26
š Iām Than Khine, a strategy consultant, and web3 Memo is a weekly email with the best of web3 content Iāve consumed recently. If you havenāt yet subscribed, get your free newsletter here:
š° In the News
Wimbledon celebrates 100 years of Centre Court with the launch of 'Wimbleworld' on Roblox. Itās been suggested Andy Murray will make an appearance, and fans can get items from the Wimbledon Ralph Lauren 2022 collection in the virtual store as Layered Clothing items.
Depop partners with Electronic Arts 'The Sims 4' on in-game marketplace, digital clothing and circular fashion collection.
Porsche hinted at an upcoming launch of an āNFT Universeā with an invitation to sign up to the waitlist.
Chevroletās first foray into non-fungible tokens was a non-fungible dud. The automaker netted zero bids for its first NFT during an auction, even though it came with a free 2023 Corvette Z06.
Lamborghini-backed GT racing team VSR has announced plans for a program that certifies racing car parts using NFTs.
The veteran music streaming company Napster plans to launch its own $NAPSTER token on Algorand.
Universal Music is planning to launch Frank Zappa NFTs and web3 projects.
Kevin Hart revealed his web3 initiatives including a curated crypto wallet and an NFT collection of āKevin and his alter-egos - that unlocks exclusive Metaverse content, his global comedy tour, wearables, ticket drops and much, much more.ā
Timbaland drops genesis NFT music video āHas A Meaningā on Glass Protocol.
Kylian MbappƩ joins forces with Sorare as an investor and exclusive player ambassador.
TikTok sensation Khaby Lame and Binance team up to educate the world about crypto and launch an NFT collection in the process.
Coca-Cola launched a collection of Pride-themed NFTs, with the proceeds going to LGBTQIA+ charities.
Meta has begun the roll-out of a new feature on Facebook that will allow users display Ethereum and Polygon NFTs on their profiles.
Metaās digital wallet payments pilot āNoviā will be shutting down permanently on 1st September.
Tencent started testing NFT avatars on its QQ music app using Tencentās blockchain, Zhixin Chain. QQ Music, which has over 275M MAUs, will also launch the virtual room function āMusic Zone,ā where users can invite friendsā avatars to be guests in the room and listen to music together.
30 Chinese tech companies including Tencent and Ant Group signed the "Digital Collectible Industry Self-Discipline Development Initiative" to stop the secondary trading and speculation of digital collectibles and to "self-regulate" their activities in the market.
EU Members reached an agreement on MiCA (Markets in Crypto-assets) bill with how crypto should be regulated in the bloc. Hereās a quick overview š§µ
UKās regulator Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) appoints a new digital assets director to oversee crypto.
āāš» web3 Tech, Platforms & Marketplaces
Flow blockchain announced that complete permissionless deployment of smart contracts on mainnet is now live.
ConsenSys and StarkWare announced a new partnership.
Polygon introduced modular data availability with Polygon Avail.
The Sandbox is deploying on Polygon.
Coinbase Commerce adds support for more crypto payment options.
Coinbase NFT introduces Drops; exclusive curated NFT collections.
OpenSea announced the ālaunchpad experience.ā
OpenSea reported a big data breach.
OpenSea Co-founder Alex Atallah steps down but will remain on the board.
GemĀ launched Live Mints to track ongoing NFT mint events & allow minting straight from their UI.
Nansen adds analytics data for Solana NFT collections.
ENS (Ethereum Name Service) frenzy continues, with a new record for highest sale at 300 ETH ($317K).
š» Notable NFT Projects
Yuga Labs announced First Trip for Otherside Meta on 16th July.
The World of Women museum went live in The Sandbox.
RTKFT announced all Clone owners can now unlock their 3D files with full commercial rights, in what is being referred to as āthe start of an Avatar Economyā as part of the future of the CloneX ecosystem.
Moonbirds released a Twitter directory of their holders, and Kevin Rose discussed the Ravens trademark + the Moonbirds ecosystem.
Ex-Moonbirds COO Ryan Carsonās fund did a sweep for 34 Moonbirds (~28% of then available supply).
Doodles concluded Bucket Auction for its Genesis Box Collection containing accessories for the forthcoming Doodles 2 project. Whatās worth noting here ā 23.11 ETH (~$26K) in gas fees in an auction to raise 11,975.42 ETH (~$13M).
Axie Infinityās Ethereum bridge back online after $622M hack.
š° Deals & Dollars
Mona, a Metaverse platform, raised $14.6M Series Aā¦ Project Twelve raises $8M to build a sustainable web3 gaming ecosystemā¦ and more tracked here, courtesy of the MilkRoad team.
Other things I read and listened to - and found interesting.
š Read
Crypto-Enabled Marketplaces byĀ Fabrice Grinda and Matias Barbero. The authors discussed ways that tokens can be used to bootstrap and catalyse marketplaces, whether through user incentives or as low-cost marketing spend.
The Chainalysis State of web3 Report by Chainalysis; in which the blockchain data platform analysed the growth of the different parts of the web3 ecosystem to discuss what both builders and users are getting out of it.
š§ Listen
Building Yuga Labsā Otherside Metaverse with CEO and Co-founder of Improbable - Hearman Narula by Luke Franks (21:35 mins). A timely episode to listen to as the Otherside load testing begins .
I hope this was helpful and you guys got a ton of value from this. As always, I'd love to hear from you either by replying back to this email or hitting me up on Twitter with your feedback. I want to know, what exciting projects are you working on? What do you want to see more / less of in this newsletter?