📝 #66: Payday
📝 #66: Payday
VeeFriends: From NFTs to IP franchise. Bitcoin all-time high. Casio and Japan Airlines in Web3. Metamask X Mastercard. Ethereum gets cheaper. Top fundings & more.
Hey, it’s Marc. ✌️
This week, Ethereum got cheaper and Bitcoin reached a new all-time high. Bitcoin ETFs are 58% of the way to flipping Gold ETFs for total assets. The space is euphoric and it feels like we’re just getting started with a new cycle of infrastructure and applications.
Be inspired✨
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” — George Mumford
📚 Top 5 Reads
Web3 in Practice. With Tyler Moebius & Marc Baumann. Link
NFTs and IP: A report to Congress. By US Patent & Trademark and Copyright Offices. Link
Infrastructure. By Vitalik Buterin. Link
Blockchain tech is reshaping digital marketing & advertising. By Blockchain Council. Link
Building The Internet of GPUs. By Multicoin Capital. Link
From our partners
Certhis is Reinventing Brands – Customers Interaction!
With just one click, Customers can add their Digital Assets to their Apple or Google Wallet. No more Web3 wallets' complexities.
Brands send push notifications to their community with updates, offers and promotions.
Brands use Geolocation and the Digital Pass QR Code so their customers can immediately enjoy exclusive experiences in a physical store or attend events.
✨ Web3 & Brands
From collections to brands 🦄
Gary Vee announced a new VeeFriends partnership with Moonbug Entertainment - which is the team behind top children’s entertainment brands Cocomelon and Blippi - to build content franchise. Link
VeeFriends is a collection of 283 hand-drawn NFT characters, each with unique traits, created by Gary Vee to build a community around entrepreneurship, innovation, and kindness.
Zoom in: Together, they’re creating a 2D-animated show, titled VeeFriends, tailored for children ages 6–11 and their families.
What they’re saying: Gary Vee insists that VeeFriends is “not just a brand, but a modern entertainment franchise.”
Why it matters: From collectibles, events, games, technology, to entertainment, this moves VF one step closer toward Pudgy Penguins notoriety and fame and further heightens the Web3-native brand’s presence outside of the Web3 bubble.
Be smart: community-led IP-franchise around NFT collections and could potentially establish a new business model for the industry.
Punchline: We’re seeing web3 native brands like Pudgy Penguins and VeeFriends write the consumer commercial IP playbook in front of our eyes.
More on Web3:
Several notable Japanese companies (including CASIO, Japan Airlines, and Kyushu Railway Company) are involved in web3 adventure Yoki Origins. Link
Nokia’s Technology Strategy 2030 report reveals expansion web3, metaverse, and AI expansion. Link
Crypto.com and Altava Group partner to offer digital fashion services. Link
Boys Club put on a highly lauded consumer crypto event called /brandnew this week at SXSW. Link
Token2049 in Dubai is where top crypto and Web3 developers, investors, founders, brands, policymakers and an estimated 7,500+ attendees from across the globe get together on April 18th-19th 2024. I’ll be there too!
👉 Get a 10% discount on Token 2049 in Dubai with the code “MARC10”. ✨
🌎 Crypto & Macro
Payday 💳
MetaMask is testing a Mastercard payment card, claimed to be the first entirely on-chain card, allowing users to spend crypto on everyday purchases. Link
Issued by Baanx1, the card would let users spend their crypto "on everyday purchases, everywhere cards are accepted”. Link
Visa, meanwhile, has been working with the USDC stablecoin and Solana on cross-border payments and smoothing out wrinkles like paying ETH gas. Link
Why it’s important: MetaMask is the most popular non-custodied wallet with more than 30M monthly active users.
This fusion of two powerhouses in MetaMask and Mastercard would be a massive unlock for brands in Web3 as more and more consumers come on-chain.
Zooming out: Large legacy payments companies have been exploring payments via Ethereum, stablecoins, and other cryptocurrencies for a while now.
Ethereum gets cheaper 💰
Ethereum underwent the Dencun upgrade, which makes fees cheaper on layer 2 solutions like Optimism and Base. Link
The average cost of transactions on scaling solution Optimism has dropped to nearly 4 cents, down significantly from the recent average of around $1.4. Link
Why it’s important: Low transaction fees are key for mass consumer applications and big brands entering the space. This is an important step towards that.
More on Crypto:
Bitcoin reaches a new all-time high. Bitcoin ETFs are 58% of the way to flipping Gold ETFs for total assets. Link
Wyoming creates new legal framework for DAOs. Link
London Stock Exchange to start accepting crypto ETN applications. Link
Hong Kong’s central bank starts regulatory sandbox for crypto. Link
🧠AI
OpenAI reveals licensing deals with a handful of content providers. Link
🏗️ Start-ups & Tools to watch
LimeChain: A leading blockchain consulting & development agency with 120+ chain-agnostic devs. Link*
*partner of Dematerialzd.
💰 Money Moves
Beoble: Web3 messaging and social platform received an undisclosed strategic investment from Animoca Brands.
Eclipse Labs: Layer 2 developer raises $50M Series A co-led by Placeholder and Hack VC.
Monad Labs: In talks to raise $200M+ round led by Paradigm
Elixir: Modular network project raises $8M in Series B, bringing it closer to unicorn status with $800M valuation
That’s all for now, folks. Thank you for being part of the journey.
Talk soon,
– Marc
PS: Follow me on LinkedIn and X for shorter insights.
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