This Week in Web3: Friday, April 1, 2022
Living with crypto hacks, Web3 comes to the Grammy org, the delusions of Web3 leaders, BFF for the crypto curious, NFT discovery tools and a conversation with Juice Box founder
Hello Friends,
The Web3 naysayers have been out in force this week, and that’s ok. While I disagree with many of them, it’s important we engage in healthy dialogue, listen, learn and approach Web3 with a balance of optimism for the positive changes it can bring, while being pragmatic and grounded in the realities of where things are likely to head.
Scott Galloway had some choice words to say about this in a monologue during this recently launched CNN streaming show “No Mercy, No Malice”. In it, he says “Web3 promoters would say it's a new version of the internet that is owned by users and builders and powered by tokens or crypto. Unlike Web2 -- the current web, which is dominated by centralized platforms, including Google, Apple, and Facebook -- they claim Web3 will use blockchain, crypto, and NFTs to take the power away from Big Tech and transfer it back to the internet community. If that sounds like bulls**t, trust your instincts.”
He’s not entirely wrong and it would be naive to think that Web3 is a silver bullet solution, but he’s also missing the larger point. The pendulum might not shift entirely towards decentralization and might not put all the power in the hands of the Internet community, but undervalued, underserved, and underrepresented communities are likely to benefit from a world where power is not concentrated among a small number of very powerful tech companies.
I’m hopeful, are you?
Enjoy this week’s digest.
TL;DR
Bloomberg: Expensive Crypto Hacks Are Becoming Part of Web3 Life
The Blockcrypto: Binance announces web3 partnership with Grammy organization
CNN Business/Scott Galloway: Tech leaders are delusional if they think Web3 will give power back to the people
Why Brit Morin And Jaime Schmidt Are BFFs For Crypto-Curious Women
Techcrunch: Improving discovery for NFTs will amplify digital creators and marketplaces
Modelling NFT Projects: NFTs, Networks, and Rhinos in Top Hats
Cointelegraph: Decentralization, DAOs and the current Web3 concerns
Modern Finance with Kevin Rose: Liquidable Eth Staking with Lido
Seed Club DAO Podcast: Ep 23 - DAO Contributor Series - Nnnnicholas (Juice Box)
Digital Bits an easy-to-use open-source blockchain used to power digital assets
Crypto Packaged Goods facilitating alpha community, product incubation, and services in web3 consumer
WalletConnect: The Narrow Waist Protocol Between Wallets & Dapps
News we’re following
Bloomberg: Expensive Crypto Hacks Are Becoming Part of Web3 Life
Early adopters of decentralized finance have lost millions of dollars in multiple breaches. Who’d want to return after that?
A popular blockchain game called Axie Infinity has suffered what could well be the biggest security breach in the history of decentralized finance.
The Blockcrypto: Binance announces web3 partnership with Grammy organization
Binance announced Thursday that it has partnered with the Recording Academy, the organization behind the Grammy Awards, to become its first official crypto exchange partner.
The partnership will allow Binance to bring "web3 solutions" to the Recording Academy's music community, a Binance spokesperson told The Block. They declined to comment on specific initiatives but said it wouldn't involve NFTs, when asked.
(CNN)Similar to "the internet" or "cryptocurrency" in their infancy, the term "Web3" has entered the public discourse before being widely understood. However, Web3 might be the haziest and most vague of the bunch.
Web3 promoters would say it's a new version of the internet that is owned by users and builders and powered by tokens or crypto. Unlike Web2 -- the current web, which is dominated by centralized platforms, including Google, Apple, and Facebook -- they claim Web3 will use blockchain, crypto and NFTs to take the power away from Big Tech and transfer it back to the internet community.
If that sounds like bulls**t, trust your instincts.
Things we’re reading
Why I left the Bored Ape Yacht Club, Horacio Torrendell
“To truly have the full experience of the BAYC, one must break the link between one’s individual identity and take on the Ape as a sole independent identity.
I’m not selling, I’m eliminating the link between my personal identity and the Ape. By setting my Ape free, its unique personality can flourish as an independent digital individual.”
Why Brit Morin And Jaime Schmidt Are BFFs For Crypto-Curious Women
The internet is evolving with the emergence of Web3. Unlike earlier versions of the internet where most monetization and financial benefit went to corporations (e.g., Google and Facebook), Web3 offers more power and earning potential to users with resources and tools like cryptocurrency and NFTs.
This new iteration of the internet is one of the fastest-growing industries in the world and is set to be worth more than $10 trillion by 2026. While men make up 81% of users and investors in Web3, a new community called BFF, founded by Brit Morin and Jaime Schmidt, is empowering more women and non-binary people to explore, master, and profit from crypto.
Techcrunch: Improving discovery for NFTs will amplify digital creators and marketplaces
Four years ago, my team set an ambitious goal: build the smartest recommendation platform on the market. Since then, our algorithms have empowered companies of all kinds to provide tailored product and content recommendations, all without using cookies or invasive strategies.
Our algorithms are so precise, they can leverage only a few on-site actions from a consumer to predict what else they’ll like. Ostensibly, that would seem to be the happy ending.
But NFTs are different.
NFTs, Networks and Rhinos in Top Hats
Editors note: This is from October 2021, but is a great primer if you’re thinking about putting together an NFT drop
This year has been really, really interesting in the cryptospace. Apart from the massive growth in decentralised finance, the NFT metaverse has truly opened up and presented a broad spectrum of use cases. NFTs are being used to capture real-world value in many different arenas — from finance to artwork to gaming, and the number of projects in the space continues to expand exponentially. This begs the question, though, what are the hallmarks of a good NFT project? And, how does one model these projects in a sensible way?
Cointelegraph: Decentralization, DAOs and the current Web3 concerns
“The fully matured Web3 space is still a long way off, and nobody has a clue what exact form it will actually take. As the Web3 infrastructure is intended to be fully decentralized and use peer-to-peer networks, dispensing with traditional trust validators (or intermediaries), people will be fully responsible for their data and their crypto activities.
This means the necessary overcoming of cultural barriers and a change in behavior on the part of users, who will need to learn what digital wallets are, how public and private keys work, which cybersecurity practices are most appropriate, be constantly alert for phishing scams, never give their private key to a third party, among other things.”
Things we’re listening to
Modern Finance with Kevin Rose: Liquidable Eth Staking with Lido
Vasiliy Shapovalov, the cofounder of Lido.fi, breaks down the mechanics of staking for digital assets, including Ethereum 2.0, while still allowing for liquidity with a token representing your portion of the stake.
Seed Club DAO Podcast: Ep 23 - DAO Contributor Series - Nnnnicholas (Juice Box)
On our final episode of the DAO contributor series, we speak with Nnnnicolas. We learn about his experience entering the DAO landscape the many DAOs he has contributed to, such as FWB, Party DAO, Shark DAO, and, most impactfully, JuiceBox. We learn about what payroll looks like in a DAO like JuiceBox. Navigating leaving a DAO and lessons learned, And what Nnnnicolas is up to today.
Bankless Podcast: The Return of Aave | Stani Kulechov
Coming off the heels of Aave's huge v3 release a couple weeks ago, we wanted to bring on Founder and CEO, Stani Kulechov to unpack it for us. Stani is also the Founder of Lens Protocol, a permissionless, composable, & decentralized social graph that might just be the future of Web3 social platforms.
Projects we’re following
DigitalBits is an easy-to-use open-source blockchain used to power digital assets. These may include: branded currencies, NFTs, stablecoins and more.
David Beckham recently joined the DigitalBits ecosystem as the new Global Ambassador.
NFTs facilitating alpha community, product incubation and services in web3
Crypto Packaged Goods has three objectives:
Create community at the intersection of crypto, consumer, and web3
Facilitate mentorships and high-level peer networks
Give back to charity
WalletConnect: The Narrow Waist Protocol Between Wallets & Dapps
WalletConnect is a generalized protocol to facilitate a secure connection between any wallet and any dapp. Under the hood, the protocol facilitates end-to-end encrypted communication between two clients — akin to a “Signal for wallets”. With their wallets, users can either scan a QR code on the browser or connect on mobile through deep-linking. WalletConnect generates a key pairing, and creates a session between the wallet and the dapp.