February Updates and Thoughts in the Creative Web3 Space

Is Web3 Regulation Ramping Up?

Hello Reflection Readers!

Well, February has been another interesting month in web3, hasn't it? As usual, this first section is a topic of my choice for the month. For February... regulation.

It's been all over the place recently. From Rhianna's NFT release coming with 0.0033% ownership of future track royalties being pulled from Opensea due to securities concerns to the Bank of England looking into a state-backed digital pound ?and then the US copyrights office hosting a series of roundtables looking into copyright and NFTs.

It would be silly to ignore regulation at this stage for any companies/projects in web3. Follow the news carefully and make sure any projects you are potentially investing in/starting have an eye on regulation.

For me, personally, regulation will be a good thing for the industry. Regulation will bring more eyes to the space, allow new people to feel trust in web3 and be more educated. We need the right people in place to build and understand this regulation, however. Let's make sure we have that.

Art

Real-world NFT galleries are going from strength to strength. One that's caught my eye recently is right on my doorstep - London's very own 'The NFT Gallery '.

A space for collectors and creators alike to purchase, produce and learn about NFTs and digital art, the gallery hosts consistent exhibits, with the end of this month seeing a team-up with VerticalCrypto Art and a collection based around Computational Realism.

I'm heavily involved with combining the physical and digital at RealNifty; the mixing of real-life and digital galleries has the potential to blow the fine art industry wide open and welcome new users, collectors and people into the fine art and web3 space. 2023 is going to be a strong year in this respect.

Music

Spotify are taking a deeper dive into the potential of NFTs. The streaming company is piloting playlists that could be unlocked through NFTs, unleashing new communities and ways to gift exclusive content and utility.

When Spotify is paying attention to NFTs, the music industry better listen. It might just be a test at present, but this has the potential to lead to much bigger things.

Chris Sarandos created a nice post about this which you can read here .

Fashion

This week the line-up has been revealed for Metaverse Fashion Week 2.0 . Held within Decentraland between March 28th and 31st, the event will house virtual storefronts from many global brands including Tommy Hilfiger, Dolce and Gabanna and DKNY.

Expect AI fashion, physical and digital integrations, catwalk shows and brands showing off what web3 holds for the future of fashion. Adidas will even be making an appearance with its own collection.

These types of events are going to get more frequent as the tech grows and it's going to be interesting to see how this develops.

The Red Devils getting it right on and off the pitch

This month a fantastic Tezos-based project has caught my eye within the sports industry.

It has, in most cases, been extremely hard for sports franchises to get an NFT collection right, but Manchester United have done the job admirably.

Starting with some free NFT giveaways before releasing a low-priced 7,777 collection of devils, the project has continued to offer holders benefits including real-life giveaways like tickets to matches or signed kits to digital collectible airdrops whenever the team wins a match.

This is how you do web3.

You make it easy for an audience to participate, keep the price low when necessary and form an active community, which in this case, comes in the form of a well-engaged discord.

You can check out the collection on OBJKT.Com

Kudos, Man U. Kudos.

NYU and Near Protocol

NYU is launching a Web3 learning workshop in partnership with Near Protocol, which seems pretty awesome.

The course touches on the basics of blockchain and digital assets with their utility in the sports world. Those involved in the course will be exposed to hands-on experience taught by a co-founder of the Near ecosystem, Michael Kelly and also be incentivised by blockchain-based rewards for participants.

Education in the blockchain is beginning to be taken seriously and this is a great thing. The more people get involved, the quicker it will become more useable and easier to onboard the masses. Education will be key for 2023.

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Hi, I'm Jamie, the CEO of RealNifty (https://realnifty.xyz ). I help the digital and physical worlds connect through NFTs.?Subscribe to my newsletter ?if any of the above interests you!