Saturday, April 20, 2024
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2022-08-19
By Lauma

Web3 Weekly #1

This week we are rebranding our crypto weekly to cover the best and worst of Web3 – making this the very first Web3 weekly. 

We will look at the market conditions, talk about the latest tea in the Web3 industry and look at some cool NFT projects and initiatives. If you wonder – what does it have to do with Arweave? I have a simple answer. Whilst its own unique ecosystem, Arweave too is a part of Web3 and is affected by what’s going on around the bubble. The market, the law, the newest projects – they’re all part of the bigger picture that Arweave is a player of.

If you want to know about the Arweave specific updates check out our weekly report here. 

And now let’s dive in and see what’s going on on a greater scale.

I. Market conditions and updates

Let’s begin with a bitcoin situation here. On Friday, August 19, BTC was worth 21,721.47 USD (for comparasion – it was 24,248.07 USD week ago), which is a lot lower than a year ago when BTC was 44,721.13 USD, which means decrease of 49.87% during the year. 

Wanna see BTC price on this day and how it was previous years? Here, CZ Binance has a summary: 

 

The Ethereum price is $1,729.78, a change of -6.45% over the past 24 hours as of 1:57 p.m. So far this year, Ethereum has a change of -52.66%. A week ago, it’s price was 1,933.46 USD.

In other news: Ethereum.org attempts to debunk myths on Ethereum Merge. Do you have any preconceptions on Ethereum? See 8 popular myths explained and debunked on Blockworks: 

And here’s AR. It has fallen from 14.81 USD previous week to 11.85 USD on August 19, and decreased from the price of 29.88 USD a year ago. 

Also, dogechain is launching an EVM, which is big news, as that means that dogecoin has to be taken seriously even by any sceptics remaining:

II. What’s happening in Web3? 

Waitlist for Robinhood’s Highly-Anticipated Web3 Wallet Has Reached More Than 1 million Crypto Customers

The Daily Hodl informs that California-based firm Robinhood that opened waitlist for beta testers in May have reached over 1 million people who want to get early access to the retail trading platform’s Web3 wallet. The waitlist was opened after announcing that it is launching a multichain, non-custodial crypto wallet that will allow users to trade crypto, access decentralised apps (DApps), do yield farming and store non-fungible tokens (NFTs), among others.

LongHash Ventures Rolls Out Web3 Investment Fund Platform Worth $100M 

In a new development, LongHash Ventures will launch a $100 million investment fund for decentralised Web3. It announced this plan on previous Wednesday. LongHash stated that the fundraising targets to generate $100 million and would run till the year ends. As the CEO of LongHash Ventures claims, the firm is launching the fund to support the massive influx of Web 2 and 3. 

Taiwan turns to Web3 to guard against mainland China cyberattacks 

Taiwan’s Ministry of Digital Affairs’ new website is integrating Web3 components to ensure access amid cyberattacks from mainland China, so was told by Taiwan’s Digital Minister Audrey Tang Feng. The Web3 technology in use is InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), which is used for decentralised file sharing. IPFS identifies content through file hashes, which allows files stored by multiple parties to be found anywhere and can be accessed by simple HTTP.

This was done after US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s August 2 visit to the island, which was followed by several hacking attempts. As Tang noted that her agency was already using Web3 architecture to make sure information remains available, the minister took a step toward merging Web2 and Web3 technological implementations to strengthen Taiwan’s governmental information against cyberattacks. 

CIA Officer shadowbaned on Twitter 

Independent Security Researcher https://twitter.com/officer_cia announces that their Twitter account has been shadowbaned. Follow for more info and other resources here: 

Asset managers bet big on crypto 

Abrdn, BlackRock and Charles Schwab have done deals or launched products tied to digital assets this month, Financial Times informs. As FT describes them, the “big-name money managers” are stampeding into digital assets, thus finding new ways to monetise investor interest even as trading volumes and prices for bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have slumped. 

Although others have criticised these actions as speculative investments, e.g. Abrdn hopes to reap “substantial revenue” by giving clients access to its funds in tokenised form. 

New study course for 30K Web3 developers across Latin America 

BNB Chain prepares to launch a Web3 development course for Latin American students as the region continues to be a hub for adoption and crypto-related activity, so they plan to reach as much as 30K new Web3 developers across Latin America as soon as this year. 

BNB Chain is a blockchain network created by crypto exchange Binance. In collaboration with Latin America-focused education platform Platzi they will be launching a Web3 development course for the region offering this course to 30,000 students to grow their Web developer skills and to push wider adoption of blockchain technology and Web3 education in the region. 

Samsung Next executive: 2022 is a good time for product builders and investors to focus on the Web3 space

Raymond Liao, managing director at Samsung Next, has given an interview about the company’s move to dive into Web3 by investing in “MachineFi,” a term coined by IoTeX to describe a futuristic paradigm in which machines become the primary workforce and are powered by Web3 technologies. 

Liao also said that this year is better than the last one and is good for investors and product builders, and that “It’s now time to sit down and implement. We need more utility out of this amazing Web3 infrastructure.” 

CoinFund Launches $300M Web3 Fund

A crypto-specific investment firm CoinFund has inaugurated a $300 million venture capital fund to back early-stage blockchain projects. As CoinDesk defines it, it is a sign of investor confidence in an industry plagued by a bear market. Areas of interest include layer 1 blockchains, Web3 infrastructure, non-fungible tokens (NFT), gaming and asset management. 

Founded in 2015, CoinFund had previously focused on bitcoin (BTC) and seed stage investments in decentralised finance projects. Their portfolio companies include NBA Top Shot creator Dapper Labs, blockchain infrastructure platform Blockdaemon and data indexing protocol The Graph.

Mystic.com Launches With Goal of Demystifying Web3 and the Metaverse

The Metaverse and Web3 are already infiltrating all areas of life and a growing number of industries, so the founders of Mystic.com have announced their aim to simplify the complex and confusing Web3 ecosystem, PR Newswire informs. 

“Mystic is a Web3 crystal ball for the Metaverse, NFT and gaming ecosystems,” said Roger Clark, co-founder of Mystic. “We’re building a cohesive, cross-platform experience to help our customers see beyond the hype.” What exactly that is – a Google-like NFT search engine to easily search within an indexed list of top NFTs, marketplaces, and new collections. 

Wisdom Gaming Launches New Development Division, Wisdom Labs

On the August 17, Wisdom Gaming, the emerging leader in esports entertainment, announced Wisdom Labs, a new division that will expand the company’s creative and development capabilities. Similarly to Mystic ambitions, their goal is to expand Web3 offerings and thus make them more approachable. 

The Wisdom Labs team will be building capabilities to focus on augmented reality, virtual reality, mobile game development, and Web3 integrations.

III. NFT news

Weekly NFT Sales Show Improvement

Bitcoin News comes with good news for all the NFT geeks around the world. It is said that NFT sales managed to climb higher during the last seven days than the previous week’s overall sales. This week’s NFT sales managed to jump over 6.3% after recording more than $153 million in sales compared to last week’s $144 million. Two NFT collections have jumped more than 279% in 7 days. Which ones? See here. 

SOL, the market’s 9th largest cryptocurrency, reaches $1B highs 

Solana’s NFT ecosystem just surpassed a significant milestone. As per CryptoSlam, the Solana blockchain surpassed $1 billion in all-time total volume for the first time this month. Read more about it’s journey to this point here. 

Aid for Ukraine’s $54M crypto fund helps to buy military investment for Ukraine’s defense  

The crypto community has contributed an impressive $54 million worth of crypto funds through Aid For Ukraine to support it against Russia, the Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister has revealed – Coin Telegraph wrote on August 18. 

The $54 million has been funneled in through the Ukrainian government-run initiative Aid For Ukraine, according to Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov’s Twitter post on Thursday:

According to the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, Aid For Ukraine’s $54 million has mostly come in the form of 10,190 Ether (ETH), worth $18.7 million, 595 Bitcoin (BTC), worth $13.9 million, Tether (USDT) worth $10.4 million, and USD Coin (USDC), worth $2.2 million.

NFT Tech Announces Significant Increase in NFT Strategies and Launches 

NFT Technologies Inc. is a leading technology company mainstreaming decentralised ownership, NFTs and the metaverse for public markets. On August 16, it announced significant growth in its project pipeline off the back of recent partnership announcements. NFT Tech supports their clients throughout the Web3 journey: from idea to project execution and launch.

NFT Tech continues to over-deliver on partnership and contract goals and expects to close several more by year-end. Revenue increases are reflecting these successes, with NFT Tech reporting nearly $1M CAD in revenue (CAD$923,000) as projects start to roll out. 

Tencent Halts NFT Sales on Its Huanhe Platform due to scrutiny

CoinDesk informs that, according to an official statement cited by Reuters, Chinese tech giant Tencent will stop releasing digital collectibles on its NFT platform in light of scrutiny from regulators. Users will still be able to hold, display or request a refund for their digital tokens. 

Tencent’s NFT platform was founded in last August and stopped selling tokens only a year after launch, on August 15. This happened as result as regulatory scrutiny of NFTs mounts in the country. Huanhe is one of the biggest NFT platforms in China, with new collectibles often sold out instantly upon launch. 

As Forkast specifies, Tencent’s NFT marketplace Huanhe will allow buyers to refund purchased NFTs but will no longer issue the digital assets, citing a “focus on the company’s core strategic considerations.” 

Love Soccer? Olympix unleashes a NFT platform right for you!

Olympix, a newly launched crypto avenue, has established a new, blockchain-powered sports platform featuring NFT’s and other new-age technologies to provide a meeting place for all crypto-sports enthusiasts. It’s launching was confirmed on August 17, and it will provide a meeting place for all soccer fans and crypto enthusiasts, so if you’re into the soccer as much as crypto – jump in! 

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Lauma

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