Web3 Weekly Wonderland | Edition #4 – Aug 2022

Wassup Web3 Wanderers!

Finally, it's Friday. And we’re back with another Web3 banger to get you even more excited for the weekend. Grab your seat on the Web3 rollercoaster ride ???and experience the exhilarating thrill ? of six enchanting themes from the decentralised world. Let's get pumped up, kay?

But first, subscribe ?? to our Web3 Weekly Wonderland newsletter and unleash the Web3 spirit!?

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To start off the newsletter, here's a tweet that highlights the exploding craze of metaverse~

From?Ariana Grande?slaying her?Positions?to today’s?big-time?sensation ― BTS ― dynamiting?the virtual stage, and?Travis Scott antidoting?the audience?to Chainsmokers?pulling their fans?Closer?via their virtual performances – the list goes on and on! Artists are rocking their musical masterpieces in virtual reality performances. The metaverse is shaking up the music industry beyond our wildest dreams! So, putting all this effort and hype into the limelight,?MTV?has become one of the first mainstream television channels to launch the “Best Metaverse Performance” category for its annual?Video Music Awards?show.?

MTV clearly understood the assignment! ?

Here’s the TL;DR:?

• The past week, keeping everything “out for loan,”?Coinstore?announced the launch of its futures credit feature, enabling users to boost up their crypto holdings without having to use their own funds. Playing in on the loan game further,?MakerDAO?announced its “first commercial loan collaboration” program, set to debut at $100M DAI, helping?Huntingdon Valley Bank?support its businesses.
• Taking this rollercoaster ride across borders, we arrive at Singapore, where The?Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)?took a proactive move to put a glimmer of hope on the turbulent crypto landscape by granting crypto exchange?Bhex?a standard payment institution licence. The licencing saga isn’t limited to just that, with?CoinZoom?announcing that its Bermuda-based subsidiary?CoinZoom?Global, Ltd. was granted a licence under the Digital Asset Business Act (DABA) from the?Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA).?
• It seemed to be a pretty popped-up week for?Polygon,?with its founder raising a staggering?$50M?for an emerging markets-focused Web3 venture fund. Social media network?Reddit?further added a spark to the Polygon ecosystem, as it began airdropping its Polygon-based “Collectible Avatars” to kickstart blockchain integration.
• Polygon?keeps the swag intact for the Web3 world, with its sub-division?Polygon Studios?collaborating with?Zignaly?to debut the hottest Polygon studios-backed projects on the ZIGPad. Well, amalgamation and integration were zinging on the to-do list for?Coinbase,?too, as Coinbase‘s Ethereum Name Service (ENS) integration went live last week.
• Wall Street also chimes into the tune of crypto, with Wall Street giant?DTCC?launching a private blockchain, officially joining the crypto-movement, and announcing that it has begun live testing a private blockchain. Meanwhile, making things juicier for the cryptosphere is?Orange DAO’s?fruitful funding news, in which it raised $80M intending to back crypto startups.

Let's dig deep into the decentralised dimension –

Decentralised Currency ??this space, right here, witnessed sun, rain, and hail the past week, keeping the show bustling with both grins and grims

You've got to check out how new launches keep ballooning in the decentralised currency land – with Latin American crypto company?Ripio?rolling out a prepaid debit card in Brazil that allows payments in any of 28 different cryptocurrencies AND earns cashback rewards in bitcoin payments. Then, there’s global cryptocurrency exchange?Coinstore.com, which announced the launch of its futures credit feature enabling users to increase their crypto holdings without using their funds.?

• To elevate the balloon even higher,?OKX?launched?Smart Gain?and?Platform Rewards to encourage savings. While?Smart Gain?allows users to invest for the long-term with auto-profit-taking features;?Platform Rewards?provides users with the ability to avoid high supply with an APY reward regardless of lending.?
• Horizons gotta expand, and the crypto chips segment is aiming for the same! Here's what we got:?CoinZoom, a US-based cryptocurrency exchange and leading FinTech company, announced its Bermuda-based subsidiary?CoinZoom Global, Ltd.?was granted a licence under the?Digital Asset Business Act (DABA)?from the?Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA), allowing the exchange to serve as a trading platform for non-US customers outside of the US.?
• Another one that's taking off the headlines is?Ripple, the enterprise blockchain and cryptocurrency solutions provider, which announced the launch of?RippleNet’s On-Demand Liquidity?(ODL) in Brazil with?Travelex Bank. Ripple’s ODL solution will allow customers to instantly send money across borders without holding pre-funded capital in the destination country.?
• Cryptocurrency's legal side is both thunderous and sunny.?The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS)?took a bang-on move to put some sunshine on the torrential crypto climate, by granting?Bhex, a Singapore-based crypto exchange, a standard payment institution licence. The approval will allow the company to offer digital payment token (DPT) services in the city-state. Dark clouds loom ahead ? crypto exchange?Coinbase?faced a class action lawsuit over alleged lapses in security claiming the crypto exchange failed to secure users' accounts against theft and hacks.?
• It was a swindling turn of events for an already hammered cryptosphere when developers behind?Sudorare, an NFT platform, and fork of?LooksRare?and?SudoSwap?scammed investors in a rug pull, pulling out more than $800,000 in various cryptocurrencies.?
• Things get messier ahead ??Celsius Network?sued crypto custodian?Prime Trust?in an attempt to claw back $17M in crypto that the bankrupt lender alleges its former business partner still holds.?
• As for other news,?Crypto.com?announced the completion of the compliance audit for Service Organization Control (SOC) 2 Type II. The audit was independently carried out by Deloitte.?

Wait, we’re not done spilling all of the crypto affairs just yet ? The revenue of popular global cryptocurrency exchange,?FTX,?jumped by more than 1000% to a whooping $1.02B in 2021 from $89M in the previous year. According to CNBC, which revealed the figures, the growth was driven by the exchange’s global trading business. Talk about taking the world by storm!?

dApps?— the one that holds all the purse strings, not resting on its laurels, and continues to join hands with others to push the sector to new heights.

‘Money on my mind’?moment for dApps as funding floods in the segment. Our rollercoaster ride begins with?MakerDAO,?who announced its “commercial loan collaboration”, opening new horizons of possibilities between real-world finance and DeFi. The loan program, set to debut at $100M DAI, will take help from?Huntingdon Valley Bank?to support its businesses. Further,?DAM Finance?celebrated a "DAMN" moment as it raised a $1.8M pre-seed fund that was led by Digital Finance Group and Jsqare. DAM intends to enable borrowers to deposit baskets of tokens in a single transaction to mint dPRIME.?

• Continuing the clinking of coins,?Safeheron, an open-source, zero-trust, self-custody solution for Web3 SMEs, announced that it has obtained $7M in pre-A funding and that its strategic partnership with crypto wallet?MetaMask?will involve integrating enterprise-grade Multi-Party Computation (MPC) multi-signature security solutions through devices and applications.?
• Everlend Finance, a decentralised, meta-lending protocol built on Solana, also raised $2.6M in a strategic round backed by some of the key players in the industry.
• There's money flowing in and brands flourishing ??Ready Player Me, a Tallinn-based cross-game avatar platform, announced that it secured $56M in a Series B round of funding led by Andreessen Horowitz.?
• Additionally,?Meson, a California-based provider of a cross-chain protocol for stablecoins, raised $4M in funding. The company intends to use the funds to expand its ecological partnerships and grow its business reach. When money talks, businesses grow!

Now putting the spotlight on partnerships —?

• PathDAO?took the path of partnership with Japan-based?GuildQB?with an aim to establish an interconnected ecosystem of games, NFTs, and communities.?
• Moving ahead,?Kingdom Game 4.0?expanded its territory with the announcement of its newest strategic partner —?Dog Kingdom, a metaverse project with a diverse and incredibly abundant ecosystem for dog lovers. The partnership will bring many benefits to their users in the GameFi & Move2earn world.?As they say, who let the dogs out?
• Further expanding the Web3 dominion,?Dapp Play Store?announced its partnership with?Hydraverse, a metaverse play-to-earn racing game. By the virtue of this strategic partnership, Hydraverse will be joining the family of DApps on the DApp Play Store. Welcome aboard!
• Copper.co?struck gold by integrating with?Solana. This provides Copper’s customers with the unique opportunity to connect with dApps in Solana’s fast and decentralised non-EVM blockchain ecosystem and enables them to transact securely under the protection of CopperConnect’s Multi-Party Computation (MPC) technology.?
• Brand mingling continues — digital asset exchange aggregator?1inch?integrated with?Aurora, providing users access to faster and cheaper transactions on a number of DEXes.

Meanwhile, in another hustle-bustle development, cryptocurrency lender?Hodlnaut?made headlines for trying to quash a Singapore police's order to hand over its balance assets, facing opposition over its choice of interim judicial manager.?

Virtual Assets World?– the segment that?keeps going out on dates with the sensations of the Web3 world??NFTs and Metaverse.

Nonstop NFTs

• It's like a boom of new introductions has blasted through the segment! Taking it up with?MetaBlox, who announced their miner-pegged NFTs would be pre-launched on?Binance?NFT market. The MetaBlox NFT will link to a miner that provides the general public with free Wi-Fi at particular locations.?
• Sparking interest in the segment is the on-chain social app,?Chingari, which launched?Creator Cuts. Marquee videos from Chingari’s top creators will be minted as video NFTs under the new offering.
• Creator.co,?a socially conscious platform that unites brands and creators, made its?Creator Passport NFT?available for presale. Creator’s Passport NFT is an immersive collection of 10,000 virtual art-inspired creators and purchase of this limited collection grants access to exclusive resources and brand deals, as well as real-life communities.?
• Further, NFT borrowing and lending protocol?BendDAO,?bowing to the present situation, proposed new emergency measures in an attempt to stabilise the ecosystem.?
• Coming to the partnerships,?Gamerse?announced a collaboration with?Animal Reckless Club (ARPC), a PFP NFT collection aiming to become the most sustainable brand on the Web3 market.?
• The teaming continues as?Elf Matrix?announced its newest partnership with?Galaxy Arena?to bring Cross-Marketing Events, Community Expansion, and much more! It’s evident that when the name includes terms like “matrix” and “galaxy”, it’s bound to be astounding!
• MotoGP?inks partnership deal with Animoca Brands’?Gryfyn. With this deal, Gryfyn is all set to become the title sponsor of the Gran Premio di San Marino e della Riviera di Rimini in 2022 and 2023.?

Mysteries of Metaverse

• If you want to grow, you've gotta work together. With this, the metaverse universe saw a rush of partnerships, including?OneRare?and its strategic alliance with?Axelar, enabling dApp users to interact with any asset or application, on any chain, with one click. But that's not all ??Cardalonia, a Cardano metaverse project, announced its collaboration with?Ready Player Me?to make avatars in the Cardalonia Metaverse. Users will be able to use their clan avatars and Ready Player Me avatars in a more life-like way to explore the Cardalonia Metaverse.?

Decentralised Tech?– this one has been enriching the ecosystem with loads of partnerships and an influx of funding rounds that caught our eye last week!?

Jumping into partnerships,?Genesis Universe?announced its newest collaboration with?Mixin Network, a free, lightning-fast & decentralised network for transferring digital assets. Rowing the boat of affiliations further,?Hut 8 Mining Corp., one of North America's largest innovation-focused digital asset mining pioneers, signed a partnership with?Zenlayer, a massively distributed edge cloud service provider, to bring industry-leading edge computing solutions to Web 3.0, blockchain, and enterprise customers.?

• Further,?Zignaly?collaborated with?Polygon Studios?to introduce the hottest Polygon studios-backed projects on the ZIGPad and prioritised Zignaly Vault access to the Polygon ecosystem.?
• Hold on; there's still more tea to serve??Blocknet?announced a partnership with?PIVX?via which the latter strives to maximise the potential of blockchains by communicating and collaborating.
• Furthermore,?Devon Energy Corporation?joined the oil and gas industry consortium?Blockchain for Energy,?which helps member organisations advance and transform how transactions, records, and data are managed in the energy industry. Injecting all that energy into getting work done right!?
• There was a tsunami of new inductions flooding the segment. Take a look at Wall Street giant?DTCC,?which launched a private blockchain officially joining the crypto-revolution, announcing that it has begun live testing the same to see whether it's up to the challenge of clearing and settling transactions in the world's largest equities market.?
• Things are looking up for India as it witnessed a tumultuous event with the launch of the?India Blockchain Forum?at Hyderabad, which aims to make India a global hub for Blockchain and Web 3.0 and build an India Blockchain Stack, among others.
• Next, we arrive in Mexico, where?Belfrics?introduced a blockchain-based wallet and remittance solution with the commencement of its Mexican operations to capitalise on the trend toward increasing remittance flows in Latin America.?
• Amid the Binance-WazirX dispute,?WazirX’s?co-founder’s plans to raise up to $20M for a new blockchain venture made the bulletin. The new venture aims to solve the existing shortcomings of Blockchains, such as Ethereum, including low scalability, high fees, and low throughput.?
• Our money journey leads us next to?Gallium Studios, an independent gaming studio founded by industry veterans Will Wright and Lauren Elliott, who scored $6M to fund its Web3 ambitions and develop simulation games powered by blockchains and NFTs.

In other news, Pavel Durov, founder of instant messaging service?Telegram, suggested the platform could soon roll out NFT-like smart contracts to auction usernames. This would create a new platform where username holders could transfer them to interested parties in protected deals — with ownership secured on the blockchain via NFT-like smart contracts.

Decentralised Governance?– the one that comes in with all the hype and energy, from money talk to the launch of new stuff and everything in between!

• Affirming the power of cash,?Orange DAO?brought together more than 1,000 Y Combinator alumni to back Web3 startups through an associated venture fund. The company raised $80M in funding.?
• Moving further,?Mural?– a crypto firm focused on DAOs infrastructure – raised $5.6M in seed funding. The funds will be used to bring on new talent and work with brands globally that want to create and use DAOs.
• With all things new keeping the segment fresh,?Sunrise Gaming?by DAO announced the launch of their alpha version to the open public. As the company was unable to handle the speed of the multiple transactions generated by the games, therefore, it decided to create a new blockchain. The mission to "make the full on-chain Casino games" turned out to be much harder than expected.?
• Limau DAO?launched an investment ecosystem powered by NFTs through which community members will gain access to a large investment portfolio covering multiple industries, including real estate, timber and forestry, manufacturing, mining, pharmaceuticals, and more.?
• Moreover,?KyberSwap?announced integrating with?Chainlink Price Feeds?on BNB Chain, Arbitrum, Avalanche, Optimism, Polygon, and Ethereum. The integration will allow the network to convert collected fees to KNC tokens at fair market rates.

That’s not all –?Fei Protocol?founder proposed ghosting?Tribe DAO?following hack repayment. An attack in April 2022, which drained off nearly $80M from various Rari Fuse pools, required Fei Protocol to devise a solution that minimises damage. With this proposal, the company intends to reimburse Fuze victims.?

Decentralised Identity?– the sphere that is all busy marking its own identity in the Web3 world, with tons of funds and industry players joining together to make it happen!

• Seems like money is streaming in for?Quivr, a decentralised social platform, that raised $3.55M in seed round funding. The investment will be used to launch the platform to the public, creating a social graph, and serving as a "digital résumé" that verifies behaviours and interests via badges.?
• Moving on, we have blockchain VC?Shima Capital,?which debuted with a $200M Web3 fund. The fund is set to deploy between $500,000 and $2M in pre-seed funding for crypto and blockchain-focused companies at the intersection of consumer products, decentralised infrastructure, and futuristic blockchain technology.
• dWallet Labs, a cybersecurity company specialising in blockchain technology, also added $5M to their wallets in pre-seed funding. The funds will be used for building protocols and projects.
• Heading towards the newbies of the segment, the hybrid credit protocol and decentralised credit bureau?Masa Finance?announced the test net launch of?Masa Soulbound Identity.?The revolutionary new Web3 identity credential will make it easier for users globally to establish a Web3 financial identity and confirm patterns of creditworthiness using 10,000+ Web2 and Web3 data sources in 78 countries.
• Coinbase‘s Ethereum Name Service (ENS) integration went live last week, changing wallet usernames to an ENS subdomain of Coinbase IDs. Users can now change their ENS names once a year and use them in any manner they choose to, as long as it complies with Coinbase’s Subdomain Terms — which have yet to be announced.

On top of that was?Hitachi ID’s?entrance into a new biometrics partnership with decentralised authentication expert?Hypr. As part of the collaboration, the companies have jointly released?Bravura OneAuth,?which provides companies with comprehensive security and employees with a practical way to access resources.

It can sometimes be overwhelming for our Web3 wanderers to get their heads around the Web3 world ?? with new things popping up every other day ??. So, let's learn more about Web3 as we wrap up. Come learn with us! ?

Web3 Word Of The Week

Self-Sovereign Identities (SSI):?Our lives are currently sandwiched between two worlds ? physical and digital ? that are individualistic yet intertwined. Many of our ID docs are neatly filed in folders or stuffed into “the drawer”. A number of digital identity services exist, but their bureaucracy continues to be questioned. The solution comes in the form of?Self-Sovereign Identities (SSI).?The main idea behind SSIs is that identity documents like birth certificates, driver’s Licences, University Degrees, and other things provide autonomy to users. A host does not control your data. There is no third-party server controlling it. You have sovereignty pertaining to the documents you digitise.?

Lastly, tuck into these Web3 goodies ?? this weekend to explore the Web3 World!

• Web3 Studios: Digital Identities: Who Will Be In The Metaverse –?Report
• Etherium.org –?Whitepaper

That’s all for now!??

We hope you enjoyed this edition of the Web3 Weekly Wonderland experience, and we'll see you next Friday! ??

If you're hungry for more FinTech insights, check out some of our other work at?WhiteSight.?

Our latest publications include insights on?Banks Compounding Their Interest In The Metaverse?and journeying through?Revolut's Quest To Become A Financial SuperApp?

If you're someone who likes to read think pieces, you will likely love our monthly blog?Fintersections, where our team members analyse the convergence of FinTech with the world.

FinTech research is in the WhiteSight DNA, so if you'd like to get in touch for features, sponsorships, and research content services, reach out to us at?hello@whitesight.net.

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