#48: Tides Turn

OpenSea lays of 50% of staff. ??

New NFT marketplaces by Rarible , Magic Eden , Yuga Labs.

HSBC & DZ BANK AG launch crypto offering, joining Goldman, Citi , J.P. Morgan .

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This week's obsessively curated field notes: ??

?? Top Reads

• Transforming Customer Loyalty with Joe O'Rourke. By Crypto Packaged Goods. Link
• The Wallet-Centric Customer Experience Stack. By Ben Basche. Link
• Real World Assets. By Spencer Noon Link

?? Top Stories That Caught My Eye

? Web3 + NFTs

From OpenSea to red oceans ????

• OpenSea lays off ~50% of staff, adding to a 20% cut in July 2022.
• Once the top NFT exchange valued at $13bn, it has now ceded much of its worth and dominance to competitors.

Marketplaces for brands. Meanwhile, Rarible has launched RaribleX, letting brands establish their own NFT marketplaces with custom search features and user interfaces, all without coding.

More competition. Magic Eden, a multi-chain NFT marketplace, partnered with Yuga Labs to debut an Ethereum marketplace that enforces creator royalties. A missed opportunity for OpenSea?

??Punchline: The trend is clear. Expect more specialized marketplaces for different types of NFTs and users, and brands leaning towards white-label solutions for stronger brand alignment and better user experiences.

Big finance dives deep???

• With Bitcoin up 120% year-to-date and a possible US BTC spot ETF inching closer, big finance keeps shipping.
• HSBC and Metaco have announced a new institutional custody platform for tokenized securities.
• DZ BANK AG, one of Germany's largest banks, has launched its crypto custody platform.

Unchained. J.P. Morgan went live with its first collateral settlement using a blockchain last month. UBS is testing a tokenized fund on Ethereum, Citi launched "Citi Token Services" in September, and Goldman Sachs unveiled a Digital Asset Platform in January.

??Punchline: Big finance is waking up to blockchain's transformative potential for legacy infrastructure. The pace of their strides is picking up.

?? AI

• G7 to agree AI code of conduct for companies.
• OpenAI released GPT Builder that allows anyone to create custom AI assistants (GPTs) without code. ?? (this is huge)

That’s all for now, folks. Thoughts?

Back to building! ??

– Marc

As always, much more in full notes for subscribers!

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