📝 Field Notes #54: Game On
Lamborghini & Nivea enter Roblox. Lego & Skoda enter Fortnite. Inscription NFT boom. China to boost NFTs. Solana overtakes Ethereum. UK crypto sandbox. Midjourney V6 released. Top fundings & more.
Hey, it’s Marc. Welcome to my weekly, obsessively curated field notes on Web3 & crypto to help you filter out the noise. ✌️ Follow me on LinkedIn.
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“Creativity is the power to connect the seemingly unconnected.” – William Plomer
Boson Protocol – Real Web3 Commerce, with Web2 UX
As the next bull market emerges, so does a new crypto-rich, Web3-savvy demographic, who are demanding authentic Web3 commerce experiences. Uniquely, with Boson, you can sell physical things as NFTs, with a slick Web2 experience while running on a fully decentralized Web3 backend. No more Web3 washing required!
📚 Top 5 Reads
Coinbase crypto market outlook 2024. Link
Bitcoin Suisse Crypto Outlook 2024. Link
Blockchain gaming quantified. By
. LinkTop NFT events of 2023. By Waleswoosh. Link
TCG Crypto Year in Review 2023. Link
🚨 Top Stories That Caught My Eye
✨ Web3 + NFTs
Big brands go virtual 🕹️
Lamborghini launched its first Roblox experience together with Flaunt, where users can test-drive and buy limited virtual assets that unlock real-world VIP experiences at the firm’s headquarters in Italy.1 Link
Nivea launched its first Roblox experience; Givenchy Beauty started a holiday activation.
Skoda expanded its “Skodaverse” to Fortnite; Skodaverse, launched in 2022, is its virtual world built on the Web3-enabled Nemesis platform. Link
Lego unveiled a Fortnite game together with Epic, making the Lego experience truly virtual. Link
Zoom out: With gamified brand experiences, brands are vowing for the brand love of next-gen consumers and meeting them on their most popular platforms.
By the numbers:
Roblox boasts 200m+ monthly active users, half of them Gen Z, with an average user spending 2.6 hours on Roblox – every day.
In October 2023, Barbie DreamHouse Tycoon became the top branded experience on Roblox, amassing over 30m+ visits.
Fortnite has about 70m monthly active users.
Beyond blockchain: Neither Roblox nor Fortnite is blockchain based. So what? Engagement is all that counts – for now.
Punchline: Gamified e-commerce is trending. For now, all this happens on siloed platforms. In the future, virtual experiences and corresponding digital assets may turn into interoperable, top-of-the-funnel gateways into a brand’s ecosystem.
A new type of NFT🖼️
“Inscriptions” are booming; they’re responsible for over 90% of transactions of many EVM chains this week.
Simply put, inscriptions are a new type of NFT directly “inscribed” into blockchain transactions.
What started with Bitcoin “Ordinals” earlier this year is now populating other chains, causing huge gas spikes.
Punchline: Inscriptions remain a sideshow – for now. For brands, these new types of “NFTs” aren’t viable, as the deployment of inscriptions and the surrounding infrastructure isn’t scalable.
More on Web3:
China wants to boost NFT. Link
🌎 Crypto & Macro
Solana vs. Ethereum🔥
Active addresses on Solana have increased by nearly 400% in Q4 compared to 3% on Ethereum, now boasting over three times the daily active addresses (1.1m) of Ethereum.
NFT volumes have surged on Solana, increasing nearly 500% in the last 90 days.
Google search volume for “Solana” increased 250% between October and December.
Bringing back royalties: On top of that, 4 of the top 5 royalty-earning projects were on Solana last week. Unlike on Ethereum, royalties are enforced at the contract level, across exchanges.
Be smart: Solana’s is more scalable than Ethereum’s L1, but comes at the cost of decentralization. Brands building on Solana need to be aware of that.
Zoom out: As crypto winter thaws, the renewed interest in Solana is part of a bigger market comeback fueled by an upcoming ETF, hype around tokenzation, and ongoing institutional adaptation.
More on crypto:
US court approves settlement against Binance, firm to pay $2.7bn to CFTC. Link
UK set to launch crypto sandbox Jan. 8. Link
Switzerland continues to allow staking without a bank license. Link
🧠AI
MidJourney V6 released. Link
⚡️Get in front of 8,000+ of Web3 leaders 👀
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💰 Money Moves
Addressable: The Web3 marketing growth suite secures second tranche of $13.5m funding round. Link
Medallion: Web3 fan platform for artists secures $13.7m series A co-led by Dragonfly and Lightspeed Faction. Link
Nexon invests $100m into MapleStory to build a blockchain-based MMORPG game for its 180m users, including NFT-based gaming assets. Link
That’s all for now, folks. Thank you for being part of the journey.
Talk soon & Merry Christmas✨
– Marc
PS: Follow me on LinkedIn for shorter insights.
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Users can test-drive the brand’s first all-electric Ultra GT car. The experience generated 150K+ visits in the first days.
thanks, Mark!
as usual best content ⭐️