This week’s field notes, your 100% signal in Web3:
-
Lalique
launches Digital Product Passports
- Skoda’s new Roblox activation
- Top NFTs now down 80-90%, including BAYC
- Ethereum beats SEC –?clarity on security classificatio
-
Tether.io
’s new gold-backed stablecoin
-
苹果
halts its high-end Vision headset
- Dell’s AI Factory for Elon Musk’s supercomputer
-
TikTok
launches new AI features
Let’s dive in. ?? | Read time: 4min
?? Top 5 Reads
? Web3 & Consumer
- Lalique launches Digital Product Passports after Bvlgari with Aura Blockchain Consortium. Link
- Skodaverse is entering
Roblox
with "Skoda Bike Planet". Link
- Top NFTs now down 80-90% from highs as farmers exit Blur, a big NFT exchange. Bored Ape Yacht Clubs’ NFT prices hit a 150-week low, down 93% from their peak, reflecting a broader decline in NFT market enthusiasm since the 2021 hype. Link
- Fox and
TIME
use blockchain to combat fake news. Fox’s Verify protocol is set to transition to its own zero-knowledge blockchain, enabling developers to create authentically provable projects and content. Link
- ...
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?? Crypto & Macro
Ethereum Beats SEC ??
- The US SEC has concluded its investigation into Ethereum 2.0, confirming ETH sales are not considered securities transactions. Link
- SEC Investigation: The SEC has launched a campaign to classify Ethereum (ETH) as a security, issuing subpoenas to companies linked with the Ethereum Foundation after its shift to proof-of-stake in 2022.
- CFTC vs SEC: Previously, CFTC classified Ethereum as a commodity. Both the SEC and CFTC were in dispute over regulatory authority in the expanding digital assets industry.
- Consensys Lawsuit: Consensys sued the SEC in April 2024, following a Wells notice concerning its MetaMask crypto wallet's alleged securities law violations. The lawsuit accused SEC Chair Gary Gensler and the agency of viewing ETH as a security since early 2023.
Why it’s important: The SEC's approval of spot ETH ETFs in May 2024 affirmed Ethereum's classification as a commodity, prompting the agency to cease its Ethereum 2.0 investigation.
This resolution eliminates significant regulatory uncertainty, potentially fostering greater Ethereum adoption and investment by institutional investors.
Tether’s New Gold-Backed Stablecoin??
- Tether, the leading stablecoin issuer, has launched Alloy, a new gold-backed stablecoin designed to track the US dollar.
- Users create digital assets like Alloy USD Tether (aUSD?), a synthetic dollar, using Tether Gold (XAU?) as collateral, merging the dollar utility with the millennial store of value gold.
- The technology uses Ethereum-compatible smart contracts for reliability and security across platforms such as Ethereum Mainnet, Polygon, and BNB Chain.
Why it’s important: Tether (TUSD) is the most important stablecoin by market cap. This is the first gold-backed stablecoin by a major stablecoin issuer.
Instead of earning from T-Bills, Alloy could leverage gold's 8% long-term gain. This approach contrasts Terra/Luna's failed model, as Tether's $5.5B annual income and time to build gold reserves provide stronger backing. Future possibilities include Bitcoin-backed stablecoins if market conditions stabilize.
- The stablecoin market, valued at around $162B, is largely controlled by tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC), capturing a combined 97% market share.
- Tether dominates stablecoin trading with a $45.5B volume out of a total of $55B.
- Tether's Q1 2024 profit surged to $4.52B, driven by US Treasury investments and appreciating Bitcoin and gold reserves.
- XAU? has a $570M market capitalization and is backed by physical gold stored in Switzerland.
Be smart: It's important to distinguish between stablecoins,?which aim to maintain a stable value against a specific asset (like the US dollar),?and gold-backed tokens,?which track the price of gold. Tether Gold (XAUt), Digix Gold (DGX), and AurusGOLD (AWG) are gold-backed tokens.
Regulatory compliance: Moon Gold NA and Moon Gold El Salvador, both authorized by the National Commission of Digital Assets of El Salvador, will oversee the issuance and management of Alloy by Tether.
Punchline: On USDT Tether makes revenue on the underlying bonds. But, gold costs to store and has no yield, so they don't really make money driving its growth. What’s the business model?
More on Crypto:
- MicroStrategy buys $750m BTC,?German government sells.
- Ondo Finance partners with Drift Protocol to integrate USDY, enhancing capital efficiency and liquidity in Solana's DeFi ecosystem. This integration will allow users to earn a yield on collateral while trading. Link
- LayerZero Foundation initiates ZRO token airdrop claims with 85M tokens. Link
- 94% of central banks are exploring CBDCs, with a focus on wholesale over retail versions in the next six years. Link
- ...
?? Gaming
- Ronin Network will support zkEVM L2 chains using Polygon's technology, enabling third-party game developers to build their own scalable blockchains on Ronin. Link
- APhone launches AppNest, a fee-free web3 native app store for DeFi and gaming, offering an alternative to Apple's and Google's restrictive models. Link
- ...
??Artificial Intelligence
- Apple halts its high-end Vision headset to prioritize a cheaper model, targeting release next year. Expansion of Vision Pro sales to eight new countries is planned. Link
- Runway has introduced Gen-3 Alpha, a major advancement in fidelity and motion for its multimodal training infrastructure, powering enhanced Text-to-vide, Image-to-video, and Text-to-image tools. Link
- NVIDIA introduced Nemotron-4 340B, an open model family for generating synthetic data to train large language models, optimized for NVIDIA NeMo and TensorRT-LLM. This allows developers across industries to create high-quality training data efficiently and cost-effectively. Link
- TikTok launched Symphony, a new suite of AI features including digital avatars, translation tools, an AI assistant, and more. Link
?? Regulation Update
- El Salvador President Nayib Bukele proposed a Bitcoin Bank, making it the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. Link
?? Money Moves
- Pantera Capital targets a $1B fund to fuel AI and blockchain innovation. Link
- ZKsync allocated 3.68B ZK (17.50% of the total supply) for token airdrop while 14B ZK to the community. Link
- Apecoin DAO proposed a new Banana Bill that seeks a 100 million ApeCoin budget to support ApeChain's growth. Link
-
Polkadot
parachain Moonbeam launches a $13M Web3 gaming fund. Link
- Renzo: Restaking protocol announced a $17M fundraise led by Nova Fund, Brevan Howard Digital and GalaxyHQ. Link
- Factory: AI company has raised $15M led by Sequoia Capital. Link
- ...
That’s all for now, folks.
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Senior Project Manager
7 个月This is great
Seed Raise: Tokenizing premium spring water & helping 1.4 billion people in need of clean drinking water ?? Quenching thirst, boosting profits ?? 30M+ Impressions/Year | RWA | DeFi | DAO
8 个月Thank you for the update, Marc Baumann.
MD at Midis Group
8 个月Is Lalique bringing something different with its DPP than boss or other brands Marc?