Web3 Weekly #2
Welcome to the second issue of Web3 Weekly, the new Arweave News column, which we started last week. Here we summarize all of the most important weekly news and updates about the crypto and NFT market, new developments, milestones and key events of Web3, along with interesting facts from the NFT world.
Market conditions and updates
So, let’s begin with the weekly prices of the most popular (and in our eyes important) cryptocurrencies.
By the end of Friday, BTC closed at around $21,600 after staying in the 21k range for most of the week. ETH closed at $1,600 and floated between $1,580 and $1,700. AR closed the week at $11.50, staying reasonably stable throughout.
In other news, CEO of Coinbase, Brian Armstrong, claims on Twitter that there has been significant progress on crypto regulatory clarity over the past year amongst G20 members. See more:
Not widely reported, but there has been significant progress on crypto regulatory clarity over the past year amongst G20. Lots more green and yellow here compared to a year ago.
Emerging consensus will drive much greater adoption. pic.twitter.com/Ruwp95YDEN
— Brian Armstrong (@brian_armstrong) August 21, 2022
What’s happening in web3
Cogni Integrates Web3 and Financial Services to Their Executive Team
Cogni, the lifestyle-focused digital banking platform bridging the gap between Web2 and Web3, has announced a new addition to its leadership team in a person of Simon Grunfeld, a product innovator, specialising in the cryptocurrency and NFT industries. His role will be VP of Web3 in Cogni, and his task will be to lead the platform’s Web3 expansion to seamlessly provide users access to services across traditional banking, crypto, NFTs, gaming, and the metaverse.
Is Telegram Going To Integrate Web3?
Pavel Durov, CEO of the popular messaging platform Telegram, has hinted at a series of Web3 enhancements coming to this social network. As Bitcoin.com informs, Durov examined the success of a recent domain name auction on the TON network where more than 2,000 domains were sold for prices as high as $260,000.
The creation of a Web3 marketplace would allow users that currently own Telegram usernames, group names and sticker packs or emojis to sell these to interested third parties and receive payments for this digital property in the same way that an NFT can be sold.
Mystic.com Launches New Platform, Declaring it the “Google Moment of Web3”
In previous week’s Web3 Weekly we covered, how mystic.com launches their version of search engine with goal of demystifying web3 and the metaverse. This would help to easily navigate Web3’s tangled mass of data. Mystic.com is a data aggregation and analytics tool for the Web3, NFT, and gaming ecosystems. Built from scratch in six months, Mystic is currently operating in public beta, and it is powered by proprietary indexing algorithms – enabling complete ownership of all its market data, which makes it different from other search engine platforms. Read more on PRNewswire.
Binance Blockchain Week Will Take Place In Paris
The world’s largest blockchain and crypto provider Binance announces its second conference this year, in Paris between September 14 and 16, 2022. Binance Blockchain Week will be a celebration of Web3 through a uniquely Parisian lens and will bring together thought leaders, captains of industry, cultural icons, and more.
Estimated amount of physical attendees is 5,000, and it will be available on live-stream via Binance Live. Topics range from art, film and fashion to the future of finance, regulations and more in a Web3 world. Previous conference was held in March, 2022, in Dubai and here you can see what was in the program and content of the event.
And, while we’re at it, here’s a manual how to use Binance to top up your ARconnect wallet.
The Vote for Top 10 Women in Web3 Changemakers 2022 Still Going On
On August 17, NEAR Foundation, the Swiss non-profit that supports the governance and development of the NEAR protocol, released the shortlist of 20 candidates for its inaugural Women in Web3 Changemaker list.
The winners – 10 most impressive Web3 Changemakers – will be selected by public vote. To participate in vote, follow the instructions in this article. Voting begun on August 18th 2022 and will end at midnight on August 29th.
Web3 Gaming Sees Increased Female Participation
Still interested in the topic of women in Web3 world? You can read in this interesting piece about female participation in Web3 games. The numbers of women in Web3 games are increasing, as Web3 games are focusing on community building, aesthetics, customization and representation to attract female users. This piece in CoinTelegraph explores the different women-inclusive features and approaches to Web3 game building, explained with examples.
How The Future Gaming Will Look Like?
Another read on Web3 gaming future you can find on Globe News Wire – in the article about Web3Games (do not confuse with general Web3 games, as Web3Games is an integrated platform for blockchain gaming), you can get to know the differences that Web3Games are offering from traditional gaming and what problems of Web2 games can be solved in the future with this new project.
On a related note, Krikey has accelerated development of its new web3 metaverse game SolarPups, which is a new Web3 game built on the Flow blockchain. Read more.
The Supercute World™ Teams Up with Web3 Developer Platform Alchemy
The Supercute World™ team announces that it has teamed up with Web3 developer platform, Alchemy, to power its upcoming NFT project, Supercute World’s ‘SELFi3S™, which will be launched in September. As the first truly inclusive NFT project on the blockchain, ‘SELFi3S’ will allow participants to create and represent the best versions of themselves online, as Globe News Wire writes. Supercute World™ will introduce the ‘SELFi3S™’ collection composed of 7,777 NFTs hosted on the Ethereum blockchain.
Spectral raises $23M to help create web3 credit scores
Spectral, a credit risk assessment infrastructure web3 startup, has raised $23 million in a round led by General Catalyst and Social Capital, TechCrunch informs. Other investors in the round include Samsung, Gradient Ventures, Section 32, Franklin Templeton, Circle Ventures and Jump Capital. To date, the company has raised about $30 million.
As the CEO of Spectral comments, a decentralized credit score would allow web3 users the opportunity to engage in an alternative and potentially “more equitable” risk infrastructure, as the users have little control over their scores in the current structure of creditworthiness today.
First Soulbound Identity In Web3
The hybrid credit protocol and decentralized credit bureau, Masa Finance, announced in August 22, the testnet launch of Masa Soulbound Identity, the first soulbound identity in web3. The revolutionary new web3 identity credential will make it easier for users globally to establish a web3 financial identity and confirm patterns of creditworthiness using 10,000+ web 2 and web 3 data sources in 78 countries.
NFT news
Blue chip NFT floors slip to lower lows
This weeks news highlight is the Ethereum NFT floor prices. The floor price of the biggest NFT collection – Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT’s – has slipped to its lowest level since the start of the year, several resources inform, starting with Decrypt.co, which wrote on August 20, that, at 65.68 ETH, the floor price of Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs has fallen to levels not seen since January 2, 2022.
All that happened after twitterstorm, following this tweet thread on possibility of liquidation:
There are currently 32,267 ETH ($59,048,610) worth of NFTs being used as collateral for loans on BendDAO alone
For the first time ever, a lot of these are at serious peril of liquidation
A thread on the single biggest risk to the NFT market that nobody is talking about
— Cirrus (@CirrusNFT) August 17, 2022
Other sources also comments the community’s fears of this price slip as potential collapse of the NFT Market. As CryptoBriefing wrote a week ago, the community’s fears surrounding BendDAO escalated after it emerged that a Bored Ape Yacht Club whale had borrowed over 10,000 ETH from the protocol. BendDAO is an “NFTfi” project that allows users to borrow ETH against NFTs posted as collateral. On August 22, two days later Decrypt published an article about solutions how Ethereum NFT lending service BendDAO aims to solve it’s liquidity crisis.
This has caused the CryptoPunks to flip Bored Apes as NFT prices continue to crater on August 22, but as CoinDesk informs, this flip didn’t hold for long.
The rarest of Pudgy Penguins NFT sold for 400 ETH
Actually, the title has it all. On Monday, August 22, the rarest Pudgy Penguins NFT according to Lucky Trader rarity rankings was sold for 400 ETH (see source), which is the highest sale in terms of ETH for the collection, that has seen its floor price almost triple in the last month, as written above.
Global NFTs Transactions Will Grow to Nearly 40 Million by 2027, Study Says
Fresh state reports predict, that global transactions related to NFTs will escalate from 24 million in 2022 to nearly 40 million by 2027, as published on CoinTelegraph in August 22. One of the top catalysts to push NFT adoption will be those linked to metaverse use cases, according to the study. This niche of NFTs will be the fastest growing in the next five years.
Just for dessert…
Arweave storage reaches 1,000,000 blocks
And to conclude on a really positive note – great news for the Arweave community! 350m pieces of data stored permanently on Arweave which makes it 1,000,000 of block height! We already covered it in our weekly but we think it’s a good step for web3 as a whole.
Happy 1,000,000 blocks, Arweavers 🚀
350m pieces of data stored permanently and the journey has only just begun! pic.twitter.com/TZKUeDgx0e
— 🐘🔗 sam.arweave.dev (@samecwilliams) August 21, 2022
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