3rd July 2022 - Middle East

The Metaverse is a confusing place for some but as elite fashion brands join the Metaverse it represents the next evolution of interconnectivity. In fact, it's not really a?place, it's merely an idea of what many believe will be the future of the internet.?

A new wave of tech companies is working alongside well-established fashion labels like Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Nike, and many more to shape the future of fashion and personal style in the metaverse. It is clear that high fashion labels are conceiving ways to use both the metaverse and Crypto-related tech to their advantage by pushing their boundaries to stay in line with current trends.

With the massive advancement?happening within the fashion industry that’s fast becoming a digital fashion world and digital wearable industry, the term ‘Metaverse’ isn’t new anymore.

Top news this week included Gulf News now having an NFT marketplace, Shopify adding NFT-Gated options for online retailers, and BlockFi securing a $250 Million line-of-credit from FTX. Fashion brand Salvatore Ferragamo opens Ethereum NFT booth in NYC, Meta releases “Meta Pay,” a special digital wallet for the metaverse & Luxury brand Bvlgari joins the Metaverse with virtual Rome and introduces NFT watch.

Latest Investment News:-?Ex Sports

This Week in NFTs:-??Snowfro: Chromie Squiggles by Niclas Genovese

NFTs in Focus:- Futugo

Education:-?Account-based Model?with Prof. Dr.?Fabian Sch?r?

So here's what else happened this week in Crypto

In the News

?Future of the web presented at Gulf News technology event. The aim of the event was to raise awareness of web3 technology, and its use in emerging markets like the UAE, as well as its role in fostering innovation.?Gulf News

Iran plans to launch a test version of the crypto rial within two months. The monetary authority will be the sole issuer of the crypto rial, which will be available exclusively for transactions inside the country.?Bitcoin.com

Exclusive digital art reveals in the Gulf region. Gulf News Web3 DeCode will be the first event to showcase this unique cross-section of the human voice, technology, and performance by Voice Gems in the region.?Gulf News

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and BlockFi SECURE $250 Million line-of-credit from FTX. The company will use the capital to bolster Blockfi’s balance sheet and platform strength.?Bitcoin.com

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Crypto is more popular than mutual funds among millennials, survey shows. According to the research, millennials between the ages of 25 and 40 are more likely to invest in cryptocurrency than mutual funds.?Cointelegraph

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TRON reached 100 million users and announces a massive hiring drive. TRON expands as a network and is able to work directly with a Layer 1 Blockchain, offering unique opportunities.?Bitcoin.com

Polkadot unveils a new on-chain governance model. Polkadot's new governance is more inclusive and decentralized, allowing it to make decisions faster.?Cryptonews.com

Tether to Launch Stablecoin Pegged to British Pound Sterling. The GBPT is set to join the USDT, EURT, CHNT, and MXNT as Tether's fifth stablecoin linked to a fiat currency.?Bitcoin.com

The Moroccan Central Bank will implement a regulation governing cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.?Morocco is reportedly joining the list of countries aiming to legally regulate the cryptocurrency business by working on a clear legislative framework to control the market.?Crypto Crunch App

Why Solana Is Going Big on Mobile—And Making a Smartphone.?The Solana Mobile Stack (SMS) software kit provides tools for developing native Android mobile applications, walls, and games. It also includes a decentralized app store. The company also unveiled the Saga, a powerful Android smartphone that will be available in early 2023.?TheCoinRepublic

To increase its live users, Alkemi Earn will integrate with Ledger.?The integration will enable Ledger Live users to yield their assets via Alkemi while providing the safety of the hardware wallet protection model.?CoinQuora

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Kashet has recently appointed Alex Wilmot-Sitwell as their new chairman. The appointment of Alex is a significant step on their journey to build the most trusted, regulated digital finance services for customers and partnership opportunities for private banks.?Kashet

NFTs, Web3 and Metaverse News:?

eBay acquires leading NFT Marketplace, KnownOrigin. The move is in line with the company's recent push into the NFT sector. Since May, the platform has been offering its new Genesis collection, which features sports-themes collections for digital assets. Blockworks

Tencent, a tech company, launched its extended reality division and entered the metaverse. The department will be in charge of incorporating all metaverse-driven initiatives, including advances in both hardware and software, with plans to employ more than 300 people.?CryptoCrunchApp

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Doodles NFTs Announces Pharrell as Chief Brand Officer, Fundraise Led by Alexis Ohanian.?Doodles, Ethereum NFT project, revealed that musician and producer Pharrell Williams will join their project in an event hosted alongside the NFT NYC conference. They also announced that venture capital firm Seven Seven Six has led the first round of funding.?Decrypt

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Dubai: Michelin chef releases twin cookbook and NFT worth $50,000. The first-ever digital win NFT of “Sacred Foods of India’” a limited-edition book by Michelin-starred chef Vikas Khanna, is unveiled in Dubai via the world’s first “Phygital” platform, consisting of gold, precious stones, and crystals. Khaleej Times?

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Gulf News now has an NFT marketplace.?Gulf News is now one of the first-ever Middle East-based media houses to launch its collectible NFTs and take them live in the virtual world. The Gulf News NFT launch was held in association with Virtua, a blockchain-driven virtual reality (VR) platform, which will also be serving as the marketplace for Gulf News' NFT collection.?Gulf News

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Fashion brand Salvatore Ferragamo opens Ethereum NFT booth in NYC. Salvatore Ferragamo, the luxury fashion brand, has set up an NFT booth in the Soho district of New York where customers can design and mint their own Ethereum-based NFTs.?Decrypt

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Gucci invests $25K in DAO of NFT marketplace SuperRare to start a digital art vault.?According to Oudinot, Gucci Vault CEO, the partnership will offer the fashion house a chance to participate in a more interconnected and decentralised economy.?CryptoTimes

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Shopify adds NFT-Gated options for online retailers. Shopify revealed it’s already partnered with the Adam Bomb Squad, Doodles, World of Women, Invisible Friends, Superplastic, Stapleverse, and Cool Cats NFT collections to create token-gated storefronts.?Decrypt

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Blankos Block Party NFT game to launch on Epic Games store. According to publisher Mythical Games, the game has already amassed more than one million users ahead of the Epic launch.?Decrypt

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Japanese virtual IP firm raises $10 million to accelerate Metaverse business. Brave Group Inc. raised $10 million to help improve its current business operations and broaden its client solution services for the metaverse marketing industry, bringing the total amount raised so far to $18 million.?Bitcoin.com

Uniswap buys Ethereum NFT aggregator Genie. The move comes just a couple months after the OpenSea team announced that it was also buying the NFT aggregator Gem and integrating NFT aggregation features into its main platform.?Decrypt

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Meta releases “Meta Pay,” a special digital wallet for the metaverse. Meta's digital wallet manages transactions and value exchange, digital identity and proof of ownership, along with the usual handling of payments.?Bitcoin.com

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Mark Zuckerberg affirms the use of the Metaverse by billions of people. The scale of the metaverse has been approximated by several big companies: Mckinsey & Company predicts it could generate $5 trillion by 2030, Citi predicts it could generate $13 trillion with 5 billion users by 2030, and Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley both predict it could generate $8 trillion.?Bitcoin.com

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Jason Derulo Slides into the Metaverse with TerraZero Technologies, Inc. Jason Derulo and Atlantic Records team up with TerraZero Technology Inc., a Metaverse technologies and interactive experiences developer, to create unique activations in the Decentraland Metaverse.?WeeklyVoice

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HTC unveils Desire 22 Pro ‘metaverse’ smartphone. HTC has finally announced the release of its new and exciting ‘metaverse’ mid-range Desire smartphone. The company previously launched models like the Exodus 1 and Exodus 1S blockchain smartphone.?CNBC

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Catalonia could soon have its own metaverse, Minister Macro says. The entry of Catalonia to the Metaverse is a great way for the ecosystem to grow. It complements the market and the region is likely to be a pioneer in the space, which is very encouraging for investors.?Coinspeaker

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Luxury brand Bvlgari joins the Metaverse with virtual Rome and introduces NFT watch. Bulgari, an Italian luxury brand unveiled its new Metaverse concept, the “futuristic Rome” and introduces “Octo Finissimo Ultra” the thinnest mechanical watch on the market by linking it to an NFT. The Italian brand uses this item as the perfect link to a private virtual universe.?HighXtar

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Cryptoys raises $23 Million to mix NFTs, Gaming, and virtual toys. Cryptoys, a startup based on NFTs, has announced that it has raised $23 million in a series a funding round led by a16z. Mixing NFTs with virtual games and toys, the company will create a ‘cryptoyverse,’ in which it will also implement play-to-earn features.?Bitcoin.com

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Snoop Dogg and Eminem become Bored Apes in new music video. Music legends Snoop Dogg and Eminem released a new music video which features their NFT Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) avatars. Both artists recently joined the non-fungible token (NFT) sector.?BeinCrypto

Top 10 Crypto Currencies this Week

Learn to Earn

?? Interested in learning more about Account-based Model. The only intermediary in the network. Prof. Dr.?Fabian Sch?r?combines his expertise with the?Center for Innovative Finance (Universit?t Basel)?to make this valuable knowledge accessible to everyone.

Latest Investment News

EX Sports?expands into the Crypto Oasis Ecosystem! ??

Excited for?EX Sports?Urbanball's Belgium NFT drop??

Get ready! Our Ecosystem partner,?EX Sports?is releasing Urbanball's newest?#NFT?drop exclusively at?Binance?NFT. Newly designed characters await with new attributes, skills levels, and prices. ??

EX Sports?is a fan engagement platform & game publisher powered by Blockchain focused on connecting & promoting fans & athletes of niche sports.?

The Dubai-based company helps less well-known athletes connect with their fans and develop their own personal brands.

Get your NFTs early to secure the elite players you need to win Urbanball's upcoming play-to-earn street football game. ?

Learn more:?https://www.ex-sports.io/

This Week in NFTs

Chromie Squiggles by Snowfro was?the first project on Art Blocks. The Squiggles are getting incredible traction with a floor of 10eth and new partnerships with Venus over Manhattan and Pace Gallery.

Erick Calderon and his signature series, Chromie Squiggles: Each Squiggle is unique in its attributes including starting color, ending color, color spread, color direction, height, segments, and steps between segments.

Erick (also known as Snowfro) is an artist from Houston who works with various physical and digital media, including LED art, digital art, 3-D blocks, and ceramic tile.

?Most importantly, Erick is the founder of Art Blocks, the world’s first platform dedicated to decentralized generative art.

Art Blocks is a generative art platform that allows collectors to mint tokens without actually knowing what they will get until it’s minted. The artist writes a code that is plugged into the platform, which generates different combinations of the variables at random.

Snowfro came up with the idea for Art Blocks when he was scooping up CryptoPunks in 2017.

?He felt it was unfair that he got to claim & hoard zombies. He sold 20+ zombies over the next few years in order to fund the development of Art Blocks.

About the marketplace

Art Blocks is a storefront for genuinely programmable and on-demand generative artwork that is stored directly on the Ethereum blockchain.

Each piece is randomly generated by an algorithm defined by the artist, there are endless possibilities for what your unique generation could look like.

Art Blocks is split into two sub-marketplaces: Curated and Uncurated.

NFTs in Focus

Futugo strives to be the ultimate destination in luxury commerce in the Metaverse. It will digitally transform the world of fashion by integrating the scattered areas of luxury fashion and art into its app. It will be home to a thriving social network where fashion lovers, creatives, consultants, creators, and consumers can all come together and usher in a new era of luxury fashion and art.

The Futugo app is democratising the luxury fashion landscape by creating a digital marketplace in an immersive Metaverse that will connect fashion-first service providers with the fashion-forward consumer. It will house a disruptive eCommerce platform with 3D product views, virtual fitting rooms, and livestream shopping tours. The multifunctional eCommerce platform will support wearable NFTs, art exhibitions, with a focus on luxury fashion and art. It will have bustling digital catwalks and shopping districts enabled by cryptocurrencies.?

This modern fashion bazaar will open the notoriously exclusive fashion industry up to the world by using decentralised technologies and blockchain for product authentication, traceability, and sustainable shopping. As part of their ambition is to create the biggest community of luxury fashion and art lovers in the world, they are launching their first NFT collection. Futugo Meta Icons are 10,050 unique characters, inspired by 50 legendary fashion designers and will ring in unprecedented opportunities and new territories for luxury fashion in the digital world.

That's it for this week, see you next week.