Hey, it’s Marc. ✌️

What a packed week in consumer Web3. We cover:

• Consumer: Pudgy rebuilds Disney. Louis Vuitton’s new phygital. Balenciaga and Coach enter gaming. Ferrari now accepts bitcoin.

• Gaming: Animoca Brands partners with TON (Telegram). This is huge.

• Crypto: Spot ETH ETF launches in the US. Polymarket explodes.

• AI: Meta launches the largest open-source LLM to date.

And these are just the highlights. 🤯

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📚 My Top 6 Reads

• The Web3 Gaming Growth Handbook. By Jihoz. Link

• The State of Smart Contract Platforms [PDF]. By Messari. Link

• The Intersection of Blockchain and AI. With Eric Schmidt. Link

• Digital identity – Web3’s identity building blocks. By J. P. Morgan. Link

• Future of Loyalty Programs with Web3 [PDF]. By Polygon, Google, Accenture. Link

• Half-year report 2024. By Binance. Link

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✨ Web3 & Consumer

Disney 2.0

Igloo, the parent company of Pudgy Penguins, raised $11M led by Peter Thiel's Founders Fund to develop a new Layer 2 blockchain called Abstract.

What you should know:

• Pudgy Penguins and NFT licensing platform OverpassIP revealed their new parent company, Igloo Inc. in June.

• Abstract is designed to be a consumer-focused blockchain, leveraging zkSync and EigenLayer technology for faster and more secure transactions.

• The funding round included contributions from investors like Fenbushi Capital, 1kx, and Everest Ventures Group.