Metaverse: November headlines:

- Meta is laying 11,000 employees or 13% of its workforce after its aggressive hiring during the pandemic to maintain its momentum on Metaverse, meanwhile Metaverse remains a fuzzy concept and MAU targets are not met - Meta had expected 500,000 active monthly users on its VR platform, Horizon Worlds (which is accessed by VR headsets), by the end of this year; but the current figure is fewer than 200,000 (source)
- Animoca Brands announces $2 billion Metaverse fund, the fund's focus "will be everything on digital property rights" (source)
- The tiny island nation of Tuvalu recently announced that it would be the first country to fully replicate itself as a virtual reproduction in the metaverse (source)
- Deloitte’s new report, titled “The Metaverse in Asia: Strategies for Accelerating Economic Impact,” examined the potential influence of the metaverse on 12 Asian economies: the metaverse’s contribution to gross domestic product in Asia could be between $800 billion and $1.4 trillion per year (1.3% to 2.4% of overall GDP) by 2035, according to Deloitte (source)
- Yahoo Finance releases a new industry report: the metaverse market size to grow by $677.98 billion between 2021 and 2026, however, the growth momentum is expected to decelerate at a CAGR of 33.26% (source)

#metaverse #November2022 #trends

Macroeconomic forecast for 2023

Citi: Share of tech in SP500 reached 25% (15% 20 years ago, 5% 30 years ago, 33% at the peak of the dotcom bubble), & health 14% (4% 40 years ago, 30% at the peak). 2002-2020 imports from Taiwan to the US of chips were $300B/year & after 2020 jumped to $700B/year (me: Taiwan is 2/3 of the world's chips, and 90% of the most advanced chips in the world are from Taiwan)

Goldman Sachs: The big question is can inflationary overheating be stopped without falling into a recession? We believe, unlike to consensus, that yes, & that a soft landing will work. The rate hike should slow down the economy/growth, thus unemployment will rise, and, finally, wage growth will slow down -> inflation will fall. In 2023, there will be not 0% (market consensus) growth of US GDP, but 1% (our calculations), since the effect of fiscal policy has already been 1.5 years old, its peak has already been passed. At the end of 2023, the SP500 will be 4000, in Sep 2021 it was 4500.

BlackRock: 40 years of stable economic activity and inflation are over, now is the time of volatility, the central bank is likely to go too far in curbing inflation and growth will suffer. In 2023 we will think about risky assets, but there will not be such stable bull markets as before. Stocks have NOT reflected damage to economies yet, so more frequent rebalances of portfolios are needed from now on

JPMorgan: In 2023, the global GDP growth rate will be 1.6%, developed countries 0.8%, USA 1.0%, EU 0.2%, China 4%, emerging markets 2.5%. In 2024, the US will slide into recession (which will hit the stock markets of emerging markets). In 2023 brent will be $90, WTI $83, gold $1860. The SP500 will test the lows of 2022 (3600) in H1’2023, but will grow to 4200 by the end of 2023. The Fed will cut the rate in Q4’23-Q1’24.

Morgan Stanley: 2022 could have been worse. A recession is unlikely with such a labor market. China is trying very hard, but in 2023 other EM’s will outperform them. In 2023, the earnings/stock market will collapse, but this will be mixed between industries. 5 mega tech stocks are responsible for 20% of SP500 & 20-30x annual profits (reached 300x in 2000), but they did only 22 M&A’s in 2022 (100 M&A/year in the 2010s).

Mercer: Growth dipped (post-COVID overheating), but did not break, inflation has been the same in EM’s & in DM’s for 2 years (4% in 21, 8% in 22), inflation succumbed in autumn, but will remain >2% targets of FED’s, rates will remain high. Geopolitics presses in EU & Taiwan + Iran risk + COVID in China can bring down growth (as the real estate market has already collapsed). The dollar has strengthened too much, consider other currencies

#macroecon #2023 #trends

Trends of NFT Market in December

- NFT sales have dipped leading up to Christmas for the second year in a row. NFT trading volume fell from over $24 million on Dec. 20 to $12.9 million on Dec. 25 of this year — a 46.5% decrease (source)
- Starbucks opens up its web3 loyalty program and NFT community to first beta testers (source)
- Mercedes-Benz Hints at Metaverse, NFT Plans in Trademark Filing (source)
- Activision Blizzard Inc’s departing president will take on the chief executive officer role at the blockchain startup behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club collection of non-fungible tokens (source)
- NFT 2022 Year-End Review by Forbes (source)
- Revel raises $7.8M to become the Instagram and Robinhood of NFT platforms (source)
- Donald Trump NFTs sell out: a surprise end of year boost for the NFT marketplace came in December with Donald Trump's NFT Trading Cards selling out and raising over $5m.
- Mattel Launches NFT Marketplace With Hot Wheels Collection. The premiere drop features brands including McLaren and Aston Martin. The company hinted at future releases inspired by other iconic toy brands (source)
- Uniswap launches NFT marketplace aggregator — the tool can help users save upwards of 15% on gas fees when shopping for NFTs (source)
- NFT Marketplace Magic Eden Expands Support for Polygon-Based NFTs. The leading Solana NFT platform will welcome a new community of Web3 gaming developers and publishers on the Polygon network (source)

#trends #december #NFT

DeFi: December headlines

- Solana DeFi is down 98% from $10.17 Billion: the sharp decline has been majorly linked with the FTX demise as SBF, FTX’s former CEO, now termed the biggest fraudster in history, strongly backed Solana’s native token, SOL (source)
- Uniswap overtakes Solana and becomes 16th top crypto: market data shows that Uniswap’s market cap stands at $3.875 billion. It is 5.36% higher than solana’s current market cap of $3.678 billion (source)
- Solana DeFi exchange Raydium hacked for over $2 million (source)
- 6 quadrillion tokens were hacked on DeFi protocol Ankr, which is speculated to be an inside job (source)
- SushiSwap proposes 'immediate' action to support its treasury: SushiSwap is facing a significant deficit in its treasury that threatens its long-term operational viability, to address this, lead developer Jared Gray proposed setting Kanpai, a fee-diversion protocol, to 100% of fees diverted to the Treasury multisig for one year, or until new token distribution and reward schemes are implemented (source)
- T3rn raises $6.5 million for bridge-free multi-chain interoperability - t3rn is currently working on developing an expressive protocol for making generalizable function calls across multiple chains that will allow for the composition of multi-step transactions across several chains with a single call, which is not possible with bridges (source)
- DeFi protocol perennial launches, announces $12M in funding - Perennial is a decentralized-finance (DeFi) platform used to trade derivatives (source)

#DeFi #December2022 #trends

Trends of GameFi Market in December

- Magic Eden NFT marketplace integrates Polygon to tap into blockchain gaming (source)
- WEMIX PLAY, the blockchain gaming platform by Wemade, is releasing an expanded GameFi service to promote the growth of the ecosystem (source)
- Square Enix, has once again shared its thoughts on the year ahead in an open letter. This time around, company president Yosuke Matsuda, has doubled down on the firm’s support of Web3 technology and NFTs (source)
- The appointment of one of Activision Blizzard’s highest-ranking executives to a leadership position at Bored Ape Yacht Club parent Yuga Labs has been seen as a boon for its metaverse efforts and another validation of the crypto industry (source)
- Blockchain games played a significant role in the DApp space, accounting for 49% of activity in 2022, with an average of 1.15 million daily UAW. In total, the sector produced 7.4 billion transactions this year (source)
- Fenix Games raises $150M to fuel next-generation blockchain gaming. Chris Ko, CEO and co-founder of Fenix Games, considers Fenix Games “like a VC fund” for powering the next generation of blockchain games (source)

#trends #december #GameFi

Trends of SocialFi Market in December

- The top 5 most popular social media Dapps, according to DappRadar’s 30-day rankings of Unique Active Wallets (UAW)
1) Hooked Protocol — A community-driven social protocol with an on-chain tokenomics design (UAW: 1.07M)
2) Galxe — One of the largest Web3 credential data network (UAW: 753.1K)
3) Carv — User-owned gaming identity to empower Web3 games and players (UAW: 54.3K)
4) CyberConnect — A decentralized social network protocol that helps Web3 applications bootstrap network effects (UAW: 44.1K)
5) Lens Protocol — Crypto users create profiles and interact with each other, forming a decentralized social graph (UAW: 38.5K)
- Former Twitter employees are creating Spill as an alternative (source)
- The DeSo Blockchain, a custom-built layer-1 designed for the scalability of decentralized social applications for millions of users, recently crossed 2 million accounts and 130,000 MAUs (source)

#trends #december #SocialFi

Wallets: December headlines:

- Crypto wallet BitKeep loses $8 million in ongoing hack - Bitkeep points to malicious APK packages (source)
- Anonymous crypto wallet moves $80 million worth of Bitcoin onto Coinbase - cryptocurrency transfers from wallets to exchanges is typically a bearish signal (source)
- Senator Warren introduces new crypto bill targeting self-custody wallets, the bill would expand KYC requirements for crypto network participants, is descibed by critics as “opportunistic” and “unconstitutional” (source)
- Huobi releases a report on crypto wallet usage, highlights that crypto wallets users grew to 85 million in 2022 (6% increase) (source)
- SafePal integrates support for TON - SafePal users will now be able to store and send the native $TON token within their hardware and software wallets. Additionally, it will be possible to directly interact with the Decentralized Applications (DApps) that currently exist on the TON blockchain (source)

#wallets #December2022 #trends

Crypto Payments: December headlines

- Stripe debuts fiat-to-crypto payment offering for Web3 businesses - the widget allows customers to more easily use crypto to engage with businesses and content creators across the world (source)
- Crypto.com receives license as a payment institution in Brazil, the company is the first crypto exchange to become a licensed payments institution in the South American country (source)
- Visa released a technical paper in which it explored the possibility of developing an automatic payment system for self-custodial wallets on Ethereum (source)
- South African digital-only bank launches crypto payments gateway - Be Mobile Africa has reportedly launched a crypto payment gateway that allows merchants to convert digital currency payments to fiat currency to "help small businesses preserve wealth in unfavourable economic conditions” (source)
- Crypto Refills Labs releases a report on consumer adoption on crypto payments - according to report, cryptoshoppers are less worried about transaction fees, more interested in stablecoins and spend crypto more frequently (source)

#paymentsolutions #December2022 #trends

Web3 Creator Economy: December headlines

- Impact Venture Capital invests in $8 million seed round for Web3 startup Virtualness - Virtualness is a mobile-first platform designed to help creators and brands navigate the complex world of Web3 (source)
- Animoca Brands and its subsidiary TinyTap, the platform for user-generated educational games, announced that the second series of teacher-authored Publisher NFTs will be auctioned on OpenSea starting at 19:00 (EST) on 15 December, the firm’s recently introduced Publisher NFTs leverage Web3 technologies and community to improve earning opportunities for educators, create new earning and promotional options for co-publishers, and empower the community to directly support the growth of learning (source)
- Web3 Game project Magic Fantasy has completed $3 M private round investment - Magic Fantasy is a strategic card game, which enables players to co-share the rewards of the game through winning in PvP season and will release the creation power of equipment, gameplay, etc, so as to motivate the players become creators (source)
- Revel raises $7.8M to become the Instagram and Robinhood of NFT platforms - Revel is a cross between a social network and a marketplace meant to be a simple trading platform that’s gamified, allowing individuals to mint photos and videos as collectibles (source)

#creatoreconomy #December2022 #trends

Metaverse: December headlines

- BlackRock unveils metaverse and global SRI ETFs - Qontigo selects the top 10% of companies with High Quality Patents (HQP) in technologies ranging from 3D image modelling, avatars, blockchain, graphic processing units (GPU), non-fungible tokens (NFT) and virtual, augmented and extended reality, based on EconSight data (source)
- Metaverse-first blockchain Lamina1 launches rolling fund for Web3 builders to provide them with a capital-raising tool for their open metaverse ventures and to offer investors a chance to get in on projects at the ground level (source)
- South Korea’s wild plan to dominate the metaverse - the South Korean government has an ambitious $44.6 billion plan called the “Digital New Deal”, including $171.6 million earmarked to help South Korea become ranked No. 5 among the most metaverse-adopted countries in the world by 2026 — up from its current place at No. 12 (source)
- Alibaba's E-Commerce Platform Braces For Its Metaverse Debut - Taobao conducted final tests before making its first metaverse live-streaming product, which will likely launch online around the upcoming New Year's shopping extravaganza (source)
- Metaverse experience to sway real-world travel choices in 2023 - a survey participated by 24,179 respondents across 32 countries reveal that nearly half, or 43% of the respondents, intend to use virtual reality to inspire their choices (source)
- Warner Music Group Furthers Metaverse Push With Digital Fashion Startup DressX - Warner and DressX want everyone to have a “meta-closet” full of digital wearables (source)

#metaverse #December2022 #trends

DeFi: January headlines

- Lido Finance briefly topped Maker as the largest DeFi protocol, as several liquid staking tokens rallied this month: Lido’s LDO token was up 40% in the first week of January, Rocket Pool’s RPL was up 14%, as was Frax’s FXS. StakeWise’s SWISE token was up almost 70% (source)
- Sushi to shutters lending product to focus on DEX, the reasons are low public interest and the significant effort that went into maintaining the two (source)
- Balancer DeFi reports "issues," asks LPs to remove liquidity ASAP, the roots of the problem are not unveiled yet (source)
- Aave eliminated the bad debt of 2.7 million of curve dao tokens (CRV) from a botched November trade by Mango Markets exploiter Avi Eisenberg (source)
- Solana DeFi project Friktion shuts down its user platform: Friktion’s Volts are structured products for DeFi investments, the project’s website will no longer deliver the same services, operating in a withdrawal-only mode (source)
- MakerDAO’s community approved Monday a proposal to deploy up to $100 million in USD coin (USDC) from its reserve on DeFi protocol Yearn Finance, where the deposited stablecoin will earn a yield (source)

#January2023 #DeFi #trends

Wallets: January headlines

- Robinhood rolls out its MetaMask competitor called Robinhood Wallet to 1 million users (source)
- 1inch launches hardware wallet which supports multiple seed phrases and transparent transaction signing, as opposed to blind signing offered by some other devices (source)
- Life DeFi Wallet, a non-custodial digital wallet service, is now available on the Google Play store, making it the first multi-blockchain wallet in the world that allows users to make digital asset transfers to usernames (source)
- DeFi protocol Frontier started an in-browser wallet extension that allows crypto users to interact with staking, transactional and non-fungible token (NFT) activities over 35 supported blockchains (source)
- MSafe raises $5 million seed for developing multi-signature wallet solutions on Aptos, the round was led by Jump Crypto with participation from Circle Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Superscrypt (founded by Temasek), Redpoint Ventures, SV Angel, Shima Capital, Spartan Group and more (source)

#January2023 #wallets #trends

Crypto Payments: January headlines

- Coingate records a 63% increase in crypto payments in 2022, despite an ongoing bear market, its was found that college graduates and high-earners were the biggest drivers of crypto purchases (source)
- BitPay announced partnership with MoonPay, the world's leading Web3 infrastructure company, to provide BitPay users with new ways to buy crypto (source)
- Internet giant Wix adds CoinGate integration to its crypto payments service (source)
- Alchemy Pay wins Web3 Innovation Pioneer Award from Forbes - the Singapore-based payment solutions provider has a major research and development hub across Asia (source)
- Crypto payments platform Wyre secures funding - in a quick reversal, crypto checkout gateway Wyre is removing a recently-imposed withdrawal limit and announced it will continue operations as usual (source)

#January2023 #paymentsolutions #trends

Web3 Creator Economy: January headlines

- Mastercard debuts web3-based musician accelerator program: Artist Accelerator is designed to give musicians tools to function in a digital economy using the Polygon blockchain (source)
- MINTangible takes on NFT intellectual property chaos with the introduction of a revolutionary NFT IP Rights Solution that enables brands and creators to digitally bind IP license and royalty terms to their NFTs (source)
- L'Oréal’s NYX makeup brand to launch DAO, Ethereum NFTs to ‘redefine beauty’: "GORJS was created to shine a light on “3D creators” and give them “a path to success within the Web3 ecosystem" (source)
- Quantum Temple, the Web3 platform dedicated to preserving cultural heritage, has announced $2 million in pre-seed funding led by Borderless Capital, with participation from Algorand Foundation, Outliers Fund, Shima Capital, New Moon Ventures, and NxGen, as well as other strategic angel investors (source)

#January2023 #creatoreconomy #trends

Metaverse: January headlines

- South Korea launches metaverse replica of Seoul: Metaverse Seoul will allow users to take their avatars to tax offices, access youth counseling and read e-books (source)
- CME Group to launch 3 metaverse reference rates - Axie Infinity, Chiliz and Decentraland will be represented in CME’s new reference rates and real-time indexes (source)
- Animoca slashes target for metaverse fund to $1 billion - the chairman of Animoca Brands had previously suggested that its metaverse fund raise could reach as much as $2 billion (source)
- Neopets raised $4M to bring 90s classic to the metaverse, Polygon Ventures, Blizzard Avalanche Ecosystem Fund, Hashkey Capital, IDG Capital, and gaming giant, NetDragon Websoft participated in the round (source)
- Metahood raised $3M to build the Zillow of the metaverse - seed round was led by crypto VC firm 1confirmation, with participation from Volt Capital, Flamingo DAO, and Neon DAO (source)

#January2023 #metaverse #trends

DeFi: February headlines

- Liquid Staking Replaces DeFi Lending as Second-Largest Crypto Sector, the value of cryptocurrencies deposited in liquid staking protocols has increased to about $14 billion, trailing just deposits at decentralized exchanges (source), Lido saw a $240 million inflow in the form of 150,000 ether (ETH), "apparently from Justin Sun" (source)
- G20 Financial Stability Board Report Flags DeFi 'Vulnerabilities', criticizing the niche's "actual degree of decentralization," the danger of crypto bridges, and bugs found in the smart contracts that underpin DeFi's applications (source)
- Forsage Founders Indicted for $340M Ponzi Scheme Masquerading as DeFi Platform, company relied on smart contracts whose coding is consistent with a Ponzi scheme, the U.S. Justice Department says (source)
- Solana-Based DeFi Protocol Everlend Announces Shut Down, the project highlighted a lack of liquidity and the overall shrinking of the borrowing and lending market as the causes of its demise (source)
- DeFi Pioneer MakerDAO Announces Aave Competitor Spark Protocol, Spark Protocol will “amplify the features of MakerDAO by enabling a liquidity market for supplying and borrowing scalable crypto assets with variable and fixed rates” (source)
- Several Leading DeFi Protocols Are Still Controlled by Whales, including Lido, GMX, Frax Finance, and Curve, which leads to the point that they are not decentralized, since VCs and whales can control governance (source)

#February2023 #DeFi #trends

Wallets: February headlines

- Algorand (ALGO)-Based Crypto Wallet MyAlgo Urges Users To Withdraw Assets After $9,600,000 Attack, Algorand Foundation CTO John Woods says about 25 wallets were affected by the attack (source)
- Mastercard Rolls Out System Allowing for Stablecoin Payments Directly From Crypto Wallet, a collaboration between financial services giant Mastercard and web3 tech company Immersve is set to offer a new option for paying physical, digital and metaverse purchases using crypto assets (source)
- Multicoin, Sequoia Lead $6M Round in Solana-based Crypto Wallet TipLink, Circle Ventures, Solana Ventures, and Paxos also participated in the round (source)
- Addressable raises $7.5M to match crypto wallets to Twitter accounts, the solution allows marketers to promote games or conferences etc. to crypto wallet holders on Twitter, thus increasing the return on ad spend by targeting audiences that are more likely to buy products, and introducing higher efficacy/ROI (source)
- Coinbase Adds New Wallet Security Features To Protect Against Phishing and Scams, including transaction previews, token approval alerts, and a new “enhanced layers of protection” (source)

#February2023 #wallets #trends

Payment Solutions: February headlines

- Twitter's payment system prepares for potential crypto integration, Musk's Twitter payment vision is in tune with fiat-crypto gateway Alchemy Pay (source)
- Visa Eyes High-Value USDC Settlement Payments on Ethereum, the company reportedly seeks to meet customer requests to convert digital assets into fiat payments, similar to how it converts foreign currencies (source)
- Brazil’s Oldest Bank Takes a Leap into the Future with Crypto Tax Payment Options: Banco do Brasil will allow residents to pay their taxes with crypto (source)
- UK Banks Blocking Crypto Access Given Fraud, Volatility, bank CEOs appeared more skeptical about the potential benefits of a central bank digital currency – the day after the Treasury and Bank of England said a digital pound was likely to be needed (source)

#paymentsolutions #February2023 #trends

Web3 Creator Economy: February headlines

- Maximizing Profits Will ‘Kill’ Web3: Animoca Brands Chairman: Yat Siu described royalties as the gas that keep an economy of creators humming, comparing it to the gas fees charged to process each transaction on Ethereum’s network (source)
- NFT Royalties Are 'Not Going Away on SuperRare': Co-Founder Jon Perkins - this statement is a response to the OpenSea’s controversial move to change its creator royalty and fee structure earlier this month that has raised serious questions about what the value proposition of NFT marketplaces will be if artists and the original creators are cut off revenue streams (source)
- New YouTube CEO Is Bullish on Web3 Tech Like NFTs and the Metaverse: Neal Mohan has said that NFTs could enable “creators to build deeper relationships with their fans” (sources)
- The harsh reality fosters dissatisfaction with web2 platforms for creators: the average income for a full-time creator is less than $100,000, the median is $50,000; stiff competition and high costs meant only 4% of creators earn a living from content; 46% made less than $1,000 a year in 2022 (source)

#creatoreconomy #February2023 #trends

Metaverse: February headlines

- Meta Free Cash Surge Clears The Way For More Metaverse Investment: with support from better-than-expected performance across the family of apps, including Facebook breaking into 2 billion daily active users for the first time, the results are likely to limit investor objections to the company’s spending on developing its metaverse (source)
- Tencent scraps plans for VR hardware as metaverse bet falters (source)
- Pantera Invests $10M in Metaverse Game Worldwide Webb - the Web3 game allows players to use their existing NFT collections as avatars (source)
- Colombia’s legal system experiments in the metaverse: a Colombian court recently hosted its first legal trial in the metaverse, with the court magistrate saying it felt “more real than a video call” (source)
- Mitsubishi, Fujitsu and Other Tech Firms to Create ‘Japan Metaverse Economic Zone’, the goal of the metaverse alliance is to help build the framework for corporations to tap into Web3 marketing, work reform and consumer experience initiatives (source)

#metaverse #February2023 #trends

DeFi: March headlines

- DeFi sees its biggest hack in 2023 as Euler loses $197M: Euler Finance faced a flash loan attack on March 13, the attacker stole millions in DAI, USDC, staked Ether (StETH) and wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) (source)
- CFTC’s tech committee gathered in DC to talk DeFi: most of the participants agrees that they can "no longer ignore decentralization", and that its "benefits “far outweigh” the challenges, which they believe will “self-resolve”. Members unanimously voting for creating a Digital Assets and Blockchain Technology Subcommittee. (source)
- The U.S. Treasury Department is close to releasing a risk assessment analyzing criminal use of DeFi: the department has reviewed decentralized finance’s role in such incidents as North Korean ransomware attacks, and will issue a risk assessment (source)
- DeFi TVL Reaches 2023 Highs as Lido Liquid Staking Expands Its Lead: given that stakers will be able to withdraw their Ethereum after the upcoming Shanghai upgrade, demand for Lido liquid staking is surging (source)
- DWF Labs Invests $20M in Derivatives Trading Platform Synthetix, Synthetix's perpetual futures product will be integrated into DWF Labs' trading business with the aim of boosting Synthetiix's trading volume (source)

#DeFi #March2023 #trends