Web3 Roundup 1-2-2024
Web3 Roundup 1-2-2024
A roundup of activity in NFT, Metaverse, Gaming and AI
Brand Web3 Activity
FIFA is Minting New NFTs
FIFA has historically minted NFTs on its on platform “FIFA+ Collect” on the Algorand blockchain, but their next mint will be on Polygon in partnership with OpenSea
FIFA is releasing 1000 NFTs to celebrate the FIFA Club World Cup in Jeddah
The first 100 will be available on FIFA + Collect and the remaining 900 will be minted directly on the OpenSea homepage
Some rare NFT’s come with perks such as tickets to Jeddah and the games, merch, and more
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Trump Drops Third NFT Collection With Phygital Element
Donald Trump is dropping a third round of his digital trading card sets, this time with a larger ‘phygital’ element connected to his infamous mugshot
Those who purchase 47 of the new digital trading cards will receive a piece of the suit Trump was wearing during his mugshot picture
Those that purchase 100 digital trading cards will receive a piece of his tie
Each digital trading card retails for $99
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Casio Drops G-Shock NFT
Casio has dropped two NFT collections celebrating their iconic G-Shock watch
The NFT’s come in two designs: one centered a balloon concept with the other being centered on a “Leaf Spring concept”
Both NFT’s have the same utility which includes but is not limited to a:
Tour of the G-Shock endurance factory in Tokyo
Round table discussion with G-Shock designers
And the ability to pre-purchase future NFT drops
2000 NFTs were available however only roughly 220 sold
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Christies Continues to Champion Digital Artists
Christies recently held a physical gallery space in Miami that displayed some of their favorite digital artists
The show culminated in an auction where attendees could bid on the pieces as NFTs and place their bids in ETH
The show included some prominent digitals within web3 such as Jack Butcher and Bryan Brinkman
The total amount raised was 104ETH or roughly 230k USD
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Line Next Raises $140M for Push into Web3
The West is pretty unfamiliar with messaging app “Line”, but in the East they are the dominant messaging app akin to Whatsapp (in Japan it is basically a monopoly)
Recently Line Next (their NFT arm) has raised $140M in cash to expand its global NFT business and and promote wider web3 adoption
The round was lead by private equity firm Crescendo Equity Partners.
Line plans to build out an NFT exchange on a separate app as well as incorporate their beloved IP into blockchain based games
Last April, Line collaborated with popular NFT collection Azuki by working in their Beanz IP into stickers that could be sent through the messaging app.
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Native Web3
Ledger Hack Further Damages Their Reputation
Popular hardware security provider Ledger has unfortunately (not a good look for a security provider)
The hack occurred on Dec 14th which injected a malicious drainer in the Ledger Connect Kit software which allows users to connect hardware wallets to Dapps and websites
The exploit temporarily compromised a great number of active web3 oriented website, with the hacker stealing digital assets directly out of peoples wallets
While the reach of this hack was extraordinary, the hacker was only able to steal roughly 500,000 USD worth of digital assets
It seems that the only reason the hack was not more damaging was the incompetence of the hacker
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AI News
Instagram Adds Significant AI Features
Instagram has added a new feature on stories called “Backdrop” that allows users to replace their background with one generated from a text to image AI
Users can replace a messy living room with a forest, underwater setting or just about anything they can imagine.
For now the technology is limited to users in the United States
Instagram joins Snapchat who recently released similar features for their users
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Meta Releases Demo of New AI Audio Tool
Meta recently demoed its latest development in the AI sector, a text to audio generator called “Audiobox” which allows users to generate a variety of sounds and custom voices from a text prompt
Many have raised concerns due to the potential misuses of this technology
For example an AI generated deepfake audio recently rocked an election in Slovakia
The fake audio had one of the candidates discussing buying votes from an ethic minority within Slovakia and that politician went on to lose the race
To combat the potential for misuse Audiobox includes a digital watermark that cannot be heard by the human ear, but can be broken down and traced by a computer
To see the demo of Audiobox click here
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OpenAI Partners with Axel Springer for Article Summaries Tied to GPT Answers
OpenAI is partnering with legendary publisher Axel Springer who is best known for publishing iconic magazines such as Rolling Stone, Politico, Business Insider and many others
The collaboration will allow users to access summaries of articles created by ChatGPT
ChatGPT will also be used to analyze reader patterns and recommend articles and respond to users’ queries
In return Axel Springer will allow future GPT’s to be trained on their past and present publications.
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Dating App Installs AI Wingman
Popular LGBTQ focused dating app Grindr is adding their own AI virtual assistant to their platform, but with a twist
This AI is specialized to have emotionally meaningful and resonant conversations
The hope is that users will use this AI tool as a virtual wingman to help engage with other users
The bot can offer dating advice, help craft responses to messages and even suggest date venues in the area
The AI was developed by Ex-Human who have created a range of AI’s represented by Talking Heads
Their AI characters can be accessed on Botify.AI and users can chat to a wide range of AI enabled characters such as Santa, Hermione Granger from Harry Potter, Billie Eilish, and many more.
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Metaverse / Gaming
Ubisoft’s Free Mint; Sees Millions in Volume
Ubisoft has recently doubled down on its web3 ambitions, licensing its iconic IP to metaverses like the Sandbox and announcing that they would be building an NFT enabled game titled “Champions Tactics”
Recently they announced a free mint of an NFT collection titled “Warlords” that would be connected to Champions Tactics
The mint went on to sell out within 20 minutes and Warlords quickly saw over $2M of volume in secondary sales a few hours after the mint
Currently there is not much available info on Champions Tactics or how the Warlord NFT will be integrated into the game
What we do know is Warlords can be playable avatars
Holding a Warlord guarantees access to the upcoming Champions mint and that Ubisoft has arranged two collaborations with native web3 gaming projects, Pixelmon and CyberKongz
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Hacker Leaks 1.3M files From Insomniac
Unfortunately the hackers are coming for every industry this holiday season with Insomniac games being the latest victim
On December 12th, Insomniac’s data was breached with a 50 BTC ransom
Insomniac refused to pay and the hackers leaked 1.3 million documents onto the internet
The documents range from mundane to explosive
Some of the most impactful are early gameplay trailers of Insomniac’s upcoming Wolverine game that was scheduled for a 2025 release
To make matters worse the hackers released a playable demo which has subsequently been modded by the online community
Insomniac is tracking the IP address of everyone who downloads the demo and individually reaching out with a legal notice
Other leaked documents include upcoming releases for the next ten years, past sales, projected profits, employee social security numbers and passports, and proprietary information for partner studios Sony and Marvel
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Ultra Marketplace Exploring First of its Kind Transactions
Ultra is a video game marketplace where users can buy PC games and is now experimenting with tokenized ownership of those games
Ultra has released a new feature for a web2 game titled Josh Journey which will be the first digital PC game that can be resold to other users via a tokenized license
Players can buy the license to Josh Journey, complete the game, and then sell off the license to allow other users to play
It should be noted that the base game has no NFTs or blockchain integration
Developers will be cut into every resale of the license and can control things such as minimum sale price and royalty share
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Farcana Raises $10M for NFT Shooter
Web3 gaming continues to be a crypto sector that attracts intense speculation with many hoping that through games crypto will achieve mainstream adoption
Farcana is a third person tactical shooter that can be compared to popular games Overwatch and Valorant and raised $10M in a round lead by Animoca brands and Polygon Labs
Farcana subsequently released a free mint on the Polygon blockchain that is currently re-trading for roughly $2,500
Further, every asset in the game with be tokenized as well as using its own token: $FAR
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Immutable Games Passport Goes Live
Immutable Games is a crypto based startup that aims to give web3 game developers a platform to create on as well as a marketplace ecosystem
Currently there are over 150 NFT enabled games on the Immutable platform with 20 unique marketplaces
They have just debuted their newest feature for their ecosystem titled “Immutable Passport” that allows for the consolidation of accounts/wallets
Before Immutable Passport players would need unique profiles and sometimes different wallets for all 150 games
Now with Immutable Passport players profiles will be the same across all the games as well as have easy access to their NFT’s from those games
The goal is take out as much crypto complexity as possible and make these games more appealing for the average player
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Crypto
Coinbase Enters the French Markets
Coinbase continues their winning streak in Europe and received approval to offer all its services in the UK and France
Coinbase has stated they want to be active in countries with clear crypto guidance as they continue to get no guidance from the SEC
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Bitcoin ETFs Signal Imminent Approval as Advertising Spend Ramps Up
A number of Bitcoin ETF commercials have sprung up as providers feel confident in their imminent approval
The commercials also signal an expectation of fierce competition among them in the largely untapped retail audience
The ad has a familiar face in Jonathan Goldsmith who was popularized in the viral “Most Interesting Man Slive” ad campaign by Dos Equis
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Solana Phones Sell Out (After Initial ‘Flop’)
The Saga phone which boasted the first ever built-in hardware wallet and dApp store was released last year to limited fanfare, initially selling just 2,500 of the over 20,000 supply and prompting Solana’s founder to consider ending the program
In fact, Solana phone was rated the worst consumer phone by popular tech YouTube Marques Brownlee
Everything changed in the last two weeks with the phones immediately selling out and now reselling on eBay for thousands over the initial price
The change in narrative around the Solana phone is tied a recent explosion in the Solana ecosystem that has seen SOL, but more importantly meme coins like $BONK (which the phone came with) dramatically increase in value
Now, the Solana community has rallied around the phone with popular projects promising airdrops to owners of the phone
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