This week seems to be a bit calmer than previous ones, except for one huge thing… The Merge! We speak about the Ethereum’s merge, of course, which is definitely the weeks central event. So let’s see what newscasters have to say on this significant turning point in the world of Web3, and what else has happened during the last 7 days. 

Market Updates and Conditions 

As always, we start with bitcoin’s (BTC) price for the moment before we publish this article. On Friday, September 16, Bitcoin’s price was $19,757.83. It seems to be lower than a week ago, when it was 21,490.60 USD and this is how the curve looks like for the last 7 days. 

Ethereum’s (ETH) price has dropped quit a bit as well, as it was $1,465.55 on September 16, comparing to more than $1,700 a week ago. 

As it concerns to AR, it’s price was not very high on Friday morning, being $9.76. As you may remember, it was already up to 11.09 USD on Saturday morning. 

What’s Happening in Web3? 

Ethereum’s Merge Finalised

Last week we covered the status of Ethereum’s huge merge. Well, despite a few sceptics and their concerns on this process, in the morning of September 15, Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum, announced that the merge has finalised: 

And we finalized!

Happy merge all. This is a big moment for the Ethereum ecosystem. Everyone who helped make the merge happen should feel very proud today.

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) September 15, 2022

You can celebrate this milestone with “Proof of Merge” NFT featuring metadata that dynamically evolves as the Ethereum merge unfolds. And if you want to know more about how this merge works and will affect your ether life, here’s video with summary of five most important facts on Ethereum merge. And here’s an article on five issues “that will determine the significance of the crypto world’s switch”, as described by Financial Times. 

What do experts say on this merge? In an interview on CoinDesk TV, Polygon Co-Founder Sandeep Nailwal says, that;

It’s the first major step in the series of a large number of steps that can bring in a billion users into Web3. 

Exactly How Inclusive Web3 Is? Not Enough, Probably

In this article, a thought-provoking opinion on women-friendly Web3 environment is expressed by an author Regan Oelze, who is also representing company Minted Mojito, that happens to be a platform for women to develop their personal and financial freedom in Web3. According to her:

Only a staggering 19% of people who own digital currency identify as women.

That means that there’s a lot of work to do if we want Web3 products to be really inclusive. The author’s view is that, before Web3 companies can build inclusive products, they have to build inclusive teams. She offers two steps for any Web3 company that really wants to be welcoming and empowering women of Web3: 

1. Make sure educational resources are geared toward everyone
2. Build teams women actually want to join

If you want to know more on how to do that, check out free materials that are offered on MintedMojito. And here’s more on women of Arweave NFTs. Oh, and there’s also a new podcast coming right on topic! Here’s a teaser of ‘Women Who Web3’ – a weekly podcast that celebrates women supporting women, investing in women and bridging the gender gap in wealth through Web3. 

“What’s Happening In Reality, Is Chaos” says Randi Zuckerberg on Web3 

The founder and CEO of Zuckerberg Media, also the sister of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Randi Zuckerberg, was speaking at the Global Supertrends Conference 2022 on Wednesday, reports CNBC. In her speech, according to the article, she referred to Web3 as “a hypothetical, future version of the internet based on blockchain technology – an ideal utopia”. She criticised that everyone on Web3 is spending their resources on watching their own back and assets, building different wallets and protecting their own identity and this is the reason why contributing to the development of the area is not enough, in her opinion.

Well, Randi – yes, this is how decentralisation works. Further she suggests that there’s a need to figure out a system of interoperability. Ok, but how to do that, without giving up control of your own data to the third party? Zuckerberg’s suggestion is a compromise between Web2 and Web3, or

Web 2.7, where there is some centralisation, keeping people safe, but the ability to port your assets with you to any site.

As we told a couple of weeks ago, actually Meta also has claimed their plans to expand their NFT features in the very near future. 

Metaverse and Web3 Games Are Doing Great! 

Despite all the criticisms received, Web3-based games and Metaverse projects are doing really great, and they have raised $748 million since August 1, 2022, according to research by DappRadar, as reported on AMBCrypto. Despite the prevailing market gloom, interest in blockchain-based games continues to grow, claims the quoted resource. So despite some speakers in previous paragraphs, it has been predicted that Web3 services, according to the Australian NFT scaling platform Immutable, will take the lead in the future digital asset market. 

Crypto Startup Raises 123 Million USD To Grow Web3 Infrastructure And More

Slide is a startup that provides user experience infrastructure for decentralised applications (dapps). They offer a solution for the problem Zuckerberg pointed to in one of the previous paragraphs in this Weekly – in order to interact with a Web3 application a new user often has to find third-party sources for buying crypto and holding the assets. Slide’s product is an all-in-one tool that keeps users within the app with features that include non-fungible token (NFT) purchases via credit card and a non-custodial wallet that’s set up with an email address rather than a browser extension, as told on CoinDesk. Slide CEO claims that;

We’re enabling any user, regardless of their background or experience, to be able to use Web3.

Web3 Email Is Here – And, Yes, It’s Decentralised And Safe

Mailchain is a project of decentralised e-mailing system, where the blockchain is used as a form of communication. Now it has successfully closed a funding round to make decentralised communication easier than ever, informs business2community. Mailchain’s main goal is to make all your data and communication totally private and secure, with no third party players and so called oligopolists included, as it is in Web2. 

Mysten Labs Raises $300 Million to Onboard Billion Users to Web3

Another success story from Mysten Labs, a Web3 infrastructure company and developer of the Sui Layer 1 blockchain, that has announced the initial close of its $300 million Series B funding round a week ago. As Businesswire informs, the capital will be used to continue building the core infrastructure to power Web3’s next wave of applications and accelerate the adoption of the Sui ecosystem. Sui is a decentralised, proof of stake blockchain designed from the ground up to enable creators and developers from gaming to social media to finance to build experiences that, according to company, will cater to the next billion users in Web3.

NFT News

Queen Elizabeth II themed NFTs Flooding The OpenSea and Raising Discussions 

Last week’s central event globally was the death of England’s Queen Elizabeth II. Although it has been argued as taking advantage of the tragic event (at least some headlines are suggesting this type of stance), well, it is quite pretentious to act like Web3 and NFT traders are behaving differently from anybody else in this monetisation-driven world. As stated in other article about NFT tributes to Queen flooding the market, the demand surges along with the prices. All ethical discussions aside, it is another way of paying tribute to the longest reigning British monarch. 

The QueenE DAO shared similar position on Twitter: 

Opposed to some recent media coverage, @QueenEDAO have never been opportunistic to someone’s death.

Born as a legit tribute, we’ve always respected and honored Her Majesty.

RIP

— QueenE DAO (@QueenEDAO) September 10, 2022

Rest in peace, Queen. Rest in peace!

Doodles NFT Collection Raises Excessively 

NFT collection Doodles has raised $54 million at a $704 million valuation, according to the company’s Twitter feed and information in Coindesk.

We’re thrilled to announce that Doodles has raised $54M at a $704M valuation.https://t.co/XCTphrxpR9@sevensevensix @10TFund @AcrewCapital @FTX_Official

— doodles (@doodles) September 13, 2022

Doodles specialises in profile pictures and the round was led by venture-capital firm Seven Seven Six of Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. As Coindesk puts it,

The fundraising round comes during a crypto bear market that has put price pressure on the market for NFTs, digital assets like images and music with smart contracts to prove their uniqueness.

Decrypt explores further on September 13, that Doodles NFT sales volume has jumped more than 1,200% over the past day, with the floor price up 19% in that span. 

Starbucks NFTs Will Be Available Soon

In August, the coffee retailer unveiled their plans to enter the Web3 world, providing their Starbucks NFT owners with exclusive content and other perks. On September 12, Starbucks announced, that it will offer its U.S. members the ability to earn and buy digital collectible stamps in form of NFT’s, dubbed “Starbucks Odyssey”, as Cointelegraph reports. So, coffee-addict cryptofolks, maybe this is the marketing strategy that would attract you as a customer?  

David Bowie’s NFT Collection For Charity Goes Live On Opensea 

Despite avoiding non-substantial celebrity news in Weekly, me, being a David Bowie fan, couldn’t resist a peek inside the new collection of NFTs that were confirmed by David Bowie estate and goes on OpenSea since September 13. Well, we definitely cover dead celebrities the second week in a row, don’t we? 

And, yes, the David Bowie NFT collection “Bowie on The Blockchain” is stirring up the internet. Many are raising concerns about the artist’s legacy and how NFTs fit into that, but, as stated in NFT Evening, “ the collection is for charity, and 100% of the profits will go towards CARE. This non-profit organization aims to end world hunger and global poverty.” 

The collection was created in collaboration with OpenSea, and Web3 company We Love the Arts, and it was created by nine artists that are Nadya Tolokonnikova of Pussy Riot, Fewocious, Jake, Defaced, Osinachi, Young and Sick, Lirona, Glam Beckett, and Jonathan Wolfe.

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