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

📚 Key Reads

• Money, tokens, and games. Comprehensive, high-quality and timely report by Citi on blockchain’s potential. This is a must read folks. Link

• “The meme-utility spectrum.” The dichotomy between the tangible and intangible value of tokens. Seed Club. Link

• “Revenue? In this economy?” A closer look at Web3 business models. Seed Club. Link

• What’s going on with Web3 NFT tech. Sharp, succinct analysis of Thomas Issa, responsible for Web3 Strategy at Outlier Ventures. Link

• A review of Yuga Lab’s second trip to Otherside. The whole metaverse experience looked really impressive. This is the big bet the Yuga Labs is making on Metaverse and gaming. By Link

• “Due to SEC inaction, registration is not a viable path for crypto projects”. Paradigm, a US-based $2.5bn VC fund, voices its concerns about the recent regulatory developments. Link

• “Did the government start a global financial crisis in an attempt to destroy crypto?” Nic Carter’s second critical analysis after he wrote about Operation Chokepoint 2.0 a few weeks ago. Link

🚨 What caught my eyes

✨ Web3 + NFTs

• Gucci announced a partnership with Yuga Labs, the company behind CryptoPunks, Bored Apes, Meebits, and Otherside, among others. As funding and royalty fees decrease (cf. royalty fee wars between NFT exchanges), IP owners & NFT communities are looking for new revenue streams by growing beyond their Web3 communities into mass media brands. Yuga Labs is doing exactly that. Link

• Adidas launched “ALTS by Adidas”, its third and final phase of “Into The Metaverse.”, which focuses on identity and PFP. Chapter 1 of this new phase begins in April 2023 at NFT.NYC token-gated launch event with further utility and enhanced holder benefits rolled out over the following months. Link

• Bored Ape Yacht Club owner Yuga Labs' Otherside Second Trip metaverse demo with 7k+ players. This was a rare glimpse of how future “metaverse experiences” could look and feel like. The whole event was pretty impressive, but it’s still a long, long way to go. Link 

• This week, the Metaverse Fashion Week took place. 60+ brands, including Diesel, Tommy Hilfiger, D&G, or Adidas, organized runways shows, after-parties, educational talks, shopping, and other immersive experiences.

• Disney eliminates its metaverse division. The unit, once seen as developing a new form of storytelling, had about 50 employees. This was part of a broader restructuring to reduce head count by around 7’000 across the company. Disney still has a metaverse team within ILMxLAB, Lucasfilm's immersive entertainment studio. I wouldn’t take this as a directional decision (similar to Meta or Microsoft).

🌎 Crypto & Macro

• The Bitcoin hash rate reached an all-time high last week. BUT: Miner revenue decreased YoY. Neither of this is a direct function of the overall network’s security, but it’s an indication among a set of many variables, such as the total amount of miners, mining efficiency, and the distribution of mining power.

• CFTC charges Binance and its founder, CZ, with willful evasion of federal law and operating an illegal digital asset derivatives exchange. Wow. First Coinbase, now Binance. This is a potential fatal blow to Binance. Bloomberg: “If Operation Chokepoint 2.0 is real, the CFTC might go for the jugular and either impose a massive fine that puts Binance out of business or forces them to become a shadow of what they once were.” Meanwhile, traders are pulling billions of dollars from the exchange. That’s all you need to know for now. Link

• Citi: Tokenized securities market could reach $4 trillion by 2030. Link

🧠 AI

• Elon Musk, Yuval Noah Harari, former presidential candidate Andrew Yang and other 1000+ tech leaders have signed an open letter calling for a pause on further training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4 for at least 6 months. However, some signatories walk back their positions, others turn out to be fake, and many experts disagree with its proposal. Link

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🔥 Other Trending

• Smoke signals from Apples mixed reality headset. 👀

• Microsoft: sparks of artificial general intelligence: early experiments with GPT-4

• Levi’s Will Begin Testing AI-Generated Models

🚀 Hot Web3 start-ups: 

• Cookie3: Behavioral blockchain analytics.

• Dcommerce: Host your community (Web2 & Web3).

• Ethermail: Bringing mail to Web3.

💡Word on the street:  

Back to reality.

While we’re celebrating the small wins within our space, fighting regulatory battles on the merit of building a “fairer” system, let’s remember:

95% of people still don’t know what a wallet is, how an NFT works and why this all matters.

AI (and ChatGPT) took the world by storm and became the fastest-adopted tech product of all time. Why? Because it’s easy and accessible.

Let’s not forget to step out of our bubble once in a while.

What Web3 needs is an AI moment. That’s all for now, folks. Back to building! 🚀

– Marc

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🎨 Artwork: “{Compend-AI-X} #5” by Agoria

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