📝 Web3 Field Notes #17 – I build, therefore I am
Microsoft and Sony enter Web3. Coinbase enforcement. Paris Blockchain Week. zkEVM goes live. Big win for Bitcoin NFTs. Arbitrum airdrop. Revolutionary ChatGPT plugin feature. New start-ups & more.
Hey, it’s Marc. I write about Bitcoin, Web3, and technology. ✌️
Welcome to another issue of my obsessively curated field notes.
⏱️ Reading time: 4 min
(💎 at the end)
📚 Key Reads
I build, therefore I am. Joseph Lubin. Link
"Crypto wants its shine back.” I know many people in crypto who disagree with that perspective (me included). All the more valuable. New York Times. Link
“The future of influence marketing is offline and hyper-niche.” Highly relevant if you’re building culturally relevant brands (with the help of Web3 tech). Vogue Business. Link
“Web2 media is broken. The future of media is tokenized.” Interesting approach by NFTNow to content co-creation, community building and monetization. Link
Ownership rights and permissions for NFTs. Link
Paris Blockchain Week report from the Bullish team. Link
The age of AI has begun. Bill Gates. Link
The big picture of what’s happening in AI. 🧵 Link
How will AI transform photography? Link
🚨 What caught my eyes
✨ Web3 + NFTs
gm zkEVM! A few days ago, Matter Labs launched “zkSync Era”, the world’s first zkEVM on Ethereum mainnet. Today, Polygon is launching its own zkEVM chain on mainnet. These are big milestones, as zkEVMs will reduce transaction costs and massively increase throughput, while maintaining the security of Ethereum L1. It’s going to be interesting to see whether or not these solutions steal market share from Arbitrum and Optimism.
Ready to deep dive? Here’s Vitalik Butterin’s technical overview.
Microsoft is building a crypto wallet into its Edge browser. Pretty soon, every browser will ship with a pre-installed wallet. The distinction between an "account" and a "wallet" will increasingly blur. Link
DeGods, one of the most popular NFT communities, launched its Bitcoin ordinals collection. After Yuga Labs, another big name has now entered “Bitcoin NFTs”, giving the already popular ordinals another boost in credibility. Link
🌎 Crypto & Macro
Coinbase received a notice from the SEC identifying potential violations of securities law. A federal regulator threatening to enforce the biggest, publicly listed crypto player in the US is unprecedented. This has prompted outcries among industry leaders (e.g. Brian Armstrong (Coinbase), Rian Selkis (Messari), and Ryan Wyatt (Polygon), and Jeremy Allaire (Circle) among others). I wrote a longer piece on it here. Important links:
President’s Biden annual economic report to Congress argues crypto has “no fundamental value.” Key passage: “although the underlying technologies are a clever solution for the problem of how to execute transactions without a trusted authority, crypto assets currently do not offer widespread economic benefits. They are largely speculative investment vehicles and are not an effective alternative to fiat currency. Also, they are too risky at present to function as payment instruments or to expand financial inclusion.” This is another in a series of attacks on crypto in the US. I wrote a longer piece on it here. Link to report
🧠 AI
OpenAI announced ChatGPT plugins. This is the next big computing interface revolution. You can sign up for the waitlist here.
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🔥 Other Trending
Pudgy Penguins filed new trademarks for a variety of printed goods and merch
Coinbase explores overseas venue as US ramps up crypto scrutiny
👀 In case you missed it
First impressions from Paris Blockchain Week:
The era of artificial intelligence:
🚀 Hot Web3 start-ups:
NMKR: Create and sell NFTs on your own website.
Interface: Social mobile app with human readable web3 feed.
Luma: Host token-gated events.
Boardroom: DAO voting.
💡Word on the street:
Wow, what a time to be alive. While crypto is under heavy attack in the US and the industry is fighting its biggest battle yet, AI seems to be taking the world by storm.
OpenAI’s launch of plugins for ChatGPT this week marks the start of a significant paradigm shift in how we interact with computers.
This is one of those rare moments in technology where you see a glimmer of how everything will be different going forward.
With Web3 (decentralized computing) and AI we will likely witness the emergence of new protocol level technologies enabling an explosion of creation and ownership online.
That’s all for now, folks.
Back to building! 🚀
– Marc
PS: 💎 Congrats on making it! Here’s a collection of the top 40 Web3 analytics tools.
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🎨 Artwork: “{Compend-AI} #0, 2022” by Agoria
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