Web3 Round 1-29-24
Web3 Round 1-29-24
A roundup of activity in NFT, Metaverse, Gaming and AI
Brand Web3 Activity
Hilton Hotels Launches Loyalty Program in Roblox
Hilton Hotels and Paris Hilton’s media company 11:11 are integrating a loyalty program within a gaming experience built on Roblox
Players who visit the Hilton Lobby within Roblox can complete challenges in exchange for Hilton Points which can be redeemed at physical hotels
Through the activation Hilton will be giving away 12 million Hilton points as well as elevating 11 players to diamond tier status for a year
Hilton Hotels will also be giving away 50,000 digital wearables on Roblox and additional points to those who tweet about the Roblox experience
This is a first in tying an actual loyalty program directly to a gaming experience
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Disney Previews HoloTile Floor
While Apple and Meta are releasing headsets, Disney is also thinking about the same paradigm shift but from a different angle
On January 18th Disney unveiled what it is calling “The worlds first multi person, omnidirectional treadmill ground that can move any person or object for an immersive virtual reality experience”
The small interconnected tiles allow the user to walk an unlimited distance in any direction without hitting walls or objects
Multiple people can use the HoloTile at the same time and interact with each other in VR
Another interesting application is the ability to move props and objects remotely that are placed on the HoloTile using hand gestures
A full demo of the HoloTile can be seen in the article below.
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Trump To Release Ordinal Collection
Trump seems to show no signs of slowing down his web3 presence having released multiple trading card collections all featuring his likeness in various scenarios
His latest release will see him taking advantage of the Bitcoin ordinal craze, but with a twist:
People can become eligible for a Trump Ordinal if they buy 100 digital collectibles from his “Mugshot collection” for $99 a piece
Upon receiving the ordinal, owners will not be able to trade the NFT for a full year… the team has said this is meant to restrict their appeal as investment vehicles, but it is a strange move regardless
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Reddit Reportedly Looking to IPO in March
According to insiders, popular social media company Reddit is looking to go public with a reported $10B dollar valuation in March
This would come three years after the company hired IPO advisors to help with the process
The company reportedly plans to sell about 10% of the total stock during the IPO
If Reddit does go public it will be the first social media company to do so since Pintrest in 2019 and one of just a few IPOs in the last two years
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Mercedes Incorporates NFTs and AI at CES
Mercedes brought their A-game at CES this year, showing off their latest tech advances
The most notable takeaway is the incorporation of “MBUX virtual assistant” which is a large language model AI that can be shifted across 4 emotional profiles
These profiles can be switched between natural, predictive, personal, and empathetic
Over time the AI will learn and naturally adjust radio stations, air conditioning, seat massagers, and more to suit the driver’s preference
They also announced a new in car app that will act as an NFT gallery for all those times you’ve wished to display your digital collectibles across your car’s dashboard.
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GameStop NFT Marketplace to Officially Close
In May of 2022 it seemed GameStop was intent on adopting blockchain technologies and making it a core part of its business
They announced their own self custody wallet as well as their own NFT marketplace - however the launch of the marketplace was plagued by odd choices from day one
Creators had to submit projects for approval, and both offered no utility other than pfp style projects.
Finally, months later, the marketplace incorporated NFT game assets through Immutable X that could be utilized in a host of games, but by that time the attention of the Web 3 community was focused elsewhere.
Then came a flurry of bad news: sales had a significant downtrend and the CEO who led the push into crypto was fired
Over the summer support for the crypto wallet was stopped and the wallet itself was eventfully shutdown
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Epic Games Legal Battle with Apple Finally Ends
The Epic Games and Apple lawsuit has been going on for a number of years and was centered around Apple taking a 30% cut from in-app purchases as well as limiting the iPhone to only accessing the official Apple app store
Epic Games makes the majority of their revenue via skin purchases in Fortnite so they altered their app and directed their users to make payments via an external website in order to get around Apples paywall leading to the initial lawsuit
Unfortunately their is no resolution to this multi year battle as the Supreme Court has declined to hear the case
This has resulted in a compromise that neither side is happy with; IOS will not open to competing app stores and Apple can keep their 30% take of in app purchases though developers can still embed their apps with buttons and links that take users to external payment methods
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Native Web3
Pudgy Penguins Launches “Overpass” IP Licensing System
Pudgy Penguins continues to expand both in the web2 and web3 space and launched a platform by which holders can opt-in to license their NFT’s IP
The on-chain platform puts the NFTs in a pool for potential licensors to comb through to choose the IP that best fits their need
This platform will likely not be unique to Pudgy Penguins holders and could expand well beyond to any project that gives its holders IP rights
Article links:
https://luckytrader.com/nft/pudgypenguins/news/pudgy-penguins-releases-project-overpass-beta
Magic Eden Announces Points System
Cross-chain NFT marketplace, Magic Eden became relatively popular in the last six months or so
Originally Magic Eden only offered access to NFT’s on the Solana blockchain but began adding cross chain capabilities as Solana faltered (post FTX)
It is also working in collaboration with Yuga Labs to release a marketplace that enforces royalties to support creators
Magic Eden has had a loyalty program for a while, with any interaction on the platform from buying and selling to attending community events earning users “diamonds”
Until recently, these diamonds have had limited utility or reason for existing but Magic Eden has confirmed that sometime in the future diamonds will be able to be exchanged for a liquidity token called $NFT
Diamonds can be earned through interactions with Magic Eden but they are also being awarded retroactively for past use which has led to intense speculation and many now using Magic Eden over competitors such as OpenSea or Blur
Solana Announces Saga 2 Crypto Phone
The Solana Saga phone quickly became a hot topic in crypto after the community at large began including owners in various airdrops
The phone is still selling on eBay for roughly three times the retail price
As a follow up, Solana recently announced a new model phone that will be released in 2025 and sell for a lower price point than the original Saga phone
Solana is currently taking preorders on this model and saw over 30,000 preorders in 48 hours, already making this phone a bigger success than the previous model
Solana also announced a referral campaign to go along with the preorders; the referral campaign has leaderboards of the most used referral links
Winners will receive valuable Solana NFT’s as well as Solana coins.
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AI News
Sony Creates New AI Personas from Dialogue
Sony has created an AI model that is able to fleshed out personas from just snippets of dialogue
According to Sony the end goal is to make generic AI less dull, however many are seeing further applications of this if it is successful, especially in gaming
For example, based on some written backstory, this model could generate NPC characters with depth to fill out a large video game world
Unfortunately, the possibility to abuse this system presents ethical concerns
The biggest being that if this is successful it would be possible to train an AI as an advertising agent on specific customer data, allowing the advertisements to become extremely targeted on an individual basis
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OpenAI and Arizona State University Partner
LLMs like ChatGPT work and learn best when they have access to large amounts of data which is why we’ve seen OpenAI offering their services to companies such as Axel Springer for free in return for access to their past and future data
OpenAI is now partnering with Arizona State, but not for their data:
ASU will be the first higher learning institution to collaborate with Open AI… beginning in February faculty and students alike can submit proposals on how the AI will be integrated into the school
They hope to incorporate AI into three main fields within the university, student success, new avenues for innovation research, and stream lining organizational processes
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Microsoft CEO says Rabbit R1 was Most Impressive New Device Since the iPhone
Rabbit R1 is a handheld digital assistant complete with a 2.88 inch LED screen, camera, and wheel that allows users to scroll
Its internal AI is what’s called a large action model which can surf the web and learn from live data, allowing it to be a more useful assistant than say ChatGPT or Siri
The Rabbit R1 has the tech community pretty divided, some hailing it as the beginning of a new era of handheld technologies with others saying its only slightly better than Siri and just overblown hype. Well Rabbit R1 has picked up an impressive fan with Satya Nadella, the current CEO of Microsoft. In an interview Satya compared the demo of Rabbit R1 to seeing Steve Jobs unveil the first generation iPhone. Certainly high praise from one the most important figures within tech.
To see the demo of Rabbit R1 please click here
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Metaverse / Gaming
NFT Game Gas Hero Does $90M in Volume
Satoshi Labs is the web3 game developer behind popular walk to earn app Step’N which has been downloaded over 4 million times and was one of the first blockchain games to be available in the App Store
Now, Satoshi Labs has another hit on its hands with Gas Hero
Gas Hero will be a mobile game but for the time being is only available on browser
Nevertheless players have flocked to it - boasting a robust 10,000 player base, Gas Hero has done $90M in secondary volume this month alone and was the second most traded collection in the world on January 23
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Palworld Sets Records, Angers Pokemon
Palworld has burst onto the gaming scene out of nowhere… Best described as a survival game that includes Pokemon-like creatures with guns, Palworld has sold 7 million copies in just over 5 days and passed 2 million concurrent players on Steam
As technological advancements make game development cheaper, independent gaming studios have become more viable and able to compete with AAA game studios
In just 7 days Palworld in terms of sales is the 11th most successful independent game ever:
In less great news, Pokemon’s parent company has announced they will be looking into Palworld for any instances of IP infringement.
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Dookey Dash is Returning as a F2P Game
Yuga Labs is releasing a free-to-play version of its popular endless runner game “Dookey Dash” in an effort to bring their IP beyond web3
Originally Dookey Dash was only playable for a limited time for Yuga Lab NFT holders
At the end of the campaign the top scorer was given an NFT that was later sold for $1.63 million dollars with many others also receiving prizes
Dookey Dash will soon be releasing an updated version of the original game to the masses
Updates will include custom skins, new game play loops, and a leader board
Yuga NFT holders will still get perks as well, with those players being eligible for “Token Benefits”, Yuga has yet to clarify what those benefits are exactly
Dookey Dash will be playable on Mac, PC and in the mobile App Store. It’ll be interesting to see if the app can draw players outside of the web3 bubble.
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Nifty Island’s Open Beta Receives Major Praise
Nifty Island launched its beta game last week with a different angle in on web3 based metaverses
Unlike Sandbox, Decentraland and others, Nifty Island is not based on limited purchasable land tokens… but is taking a more Roblox style approach, allowing anyone to create their own Island (game) for free
The game still runs on web3 rails however and allows players to connect their wallets and play as their NFT avatars (over 180 projects have integrated)
Nifty Island will also launch a token ($ISLAND), which will be distributed to those players that engage the most others (by building great islands) and for simply playing the game
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Crypto
India Bans All Foreign Crypto Exchanges
India has recently made waves in the crypto industry as the ministry of finance banned all foreign crypto exchanges including but not limited to industry giants such as Binance and OKX
It’s estimated there are $4B dollars worth of Indian crypto investments being held in foreign exchanges
This new law aims to bring that $4B back to India via Indian owned crypto exchanges and increase the Indian governments tax revenue in regards to the crypto industry
Many Indian exchanges are taking advantage of this moment offering lucrative deals for natives transferring their crypto from foreign companies
Inflows across most major Indian crypto exchanges surfed 2000% after the announcement of this new measure
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Fidelity Ethereum ETF delayed as Leveraged Bitcoin ETF Applications Flood the SEC
In non surprising news, the SEC has delayed its decisions in regards to approving an Ethereum spot ETF
After the recent passing of the Bitcoin ETF all eyes are on Ethereum as the most likely contender of the second major crypto ETF
The SEC was supposed to give their answer on January 18 and has delayed their decision for 45 days to March 5
In other news, the SEC has been flooded with leveraged Bitcoin applications in January, with 11 being filled in the past two weeks alone
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Franklin Templeton X Account Leans into Crypto Culture
Franklin Templeton is one of the largest TradFi asset managers in the world managing around $1.4T and as such is usually very “buttoned up”
That’s why everyone was surprised when the X account associated with the company started tweeting in depth analysis of several blockchains and tokens such as Bitcoin, Solana, and Ethereum
The account also posted memes and interacted with crypto Twitter in a surprisingly web3 native way
This was likely an attempt to advertise their new Bitcoin ETF to a web3 native audience
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