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- 📝 #65: The Next Frontier
📝 #65: The Next Frontier
Adidas goes Roblox. Bitcoin NFTs are exploding. CryptoPunk sells for $16M. Coachella launches NFT. Record high digital asset inflows. Deutsche Boerse launches spot platform. Musk sues OpenAI & more.
Hey, it’s Marc. ✌️
This week, Adidas, Margiela, and Coachella launched Web3 activations, while Bitcoin broke its all-time high with record ETF inflows. We’re now in a phase of the innovation cycle with a lot of emerging narratives and euphoria. Keep cool, keep building.
Be inspired✨
“Culture drives everything.” – Nelly Mensah, VP of Digital Innovation at LVMH
📚 Top 5 Reads
Culture, Commerce and Code. With Nelly Mensah. Link
Building consumer at Internet speed. By Katie Chiou. Link
Notes on consumer crypto. By Josh Cornelius. Link
Starbucks Odyssey’s community lead expects NFT brand building to expand this year. With Steve Kaczynski. Link
Roblox’s Record 2023: What Does it Mean for Brands? By Link
Partner with us
⚡️ Get in front of thousands of Web3 industry leaders 👀
Partner with Dematerialzd to get your brand in front of thousands of b2b Web3 industry leaders & access the Dematerialzd network to grow your business. Get in touch today or reply to this email.
✨ Web3 & Brands
It’s all a game 🕹️
Be smart: Roblox is the most successful social gaming platform with over 200M monthly active users. 50% of them are Gen Z. Its daily engagement is about 3-5x larger than most other social apps.
Why it matters: Brands need to meet consumers where they are. Gen Z and Gen Alpha are more engaged in gaming than any other media.
Digital fashion is poised to become a huge market: 52% of Gen Z users would spend at least $10 per month, that’s $1BN per month or more.1
By the numbers:
In the U.S., 38% of Gen Z spend over four hours a day on social media, and even more time consuming content or gaming — more than any other generation.
In the latest Roblox study, 56% of Gen Z users now say styling their avatar is more important to them than styling themselves in the physical world.
50% are “very” or “extremely likely” to consider a brand in the physical world after wearing or trying a brand’s item virtually.
84% of Gen Z users said their physical style has been inspired by their avatar’s style.
Roblox exited Q4 2023 with 71.5 daily active users – a new record.
Devil’s advocate: Roblox doesn’t use blockchain, which means digital assets are locked into the platform. “Doesn’t matter”, say brands, earning billions with in-game items.
Yes, but: Web3 is a new era for consumer and brand engagement. Social gaming, and spatial commerce is part of that.
The big picture: We’re moving from transactional to relational, participative and community-driven brand relationships.
Punchline: This move is as much about gaming as it’s about social. Immersive, social commerce and digital fashion is one of the major opportunities for consumer brands.
Bitcoin NFTs 🖼️
Bitcoin-based NFTs have surpassed Ethereum in weekly sales, driven by collections like Bitcoin Ordinals and NodeMonkes. Link
Why it matters: Bitcoin NFTs (aka Ordinals) are still in their early stages. However, they might well become a cultural phenomenon that brands can capitalize on, similar to the NFT boom in the summer of 2021.
Read the full deep dive on ordinals.
The big picture The best brands are cultural. Wherever culture is made, brands should watch closely.
More on Web3:
Token2049 in Dubai is where top crypto and Web3 developers, investors, founders, brands, policymakers and an estimated 7,500+ attendees from across the globe get together on April 18th-19th 2024. I’ll be there too!
👉 Get a 10% discount on Token 2049 in Dubai with the code “MARC10”. ✨
🌎 Crypto & Macro
Going Mainstream
Digital asset investment products saw the second largest weekly inflows on record totalling US$1.84BN; 94% of the inflows were into Bitcoin. Link
BlackRock files to add Bitcoin ETF to its $36BN strategic income opportunities fund. Link
BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF added $778M in BTC amid all-time high. Link
Coinbase hit the top 100 in the Apple App Store for the first time in two years.
Bloomberg mentioned $WIF and $PEPE meme coins on live tv. Link
Zooming out: We’re officially in the bull market now. New narratives are forming almost daily, mainstream media is all over it, and institutional investors continue entering the market.
The big picture: Even though institutional investors focus on Bitcoin, other Web3 infrastructure assets booming as well.
More on Crypto:
🧠AI
🏗️ Start-ups & Tools to watch
LimeChain: A leading blockchain consulting & development agency with 120+ chain-agnostic devs. Link*
*partner of Dematerialzd.
💰 Money Moves
Stack: Onchain points startup raises $3M seed round led by Archetype. Link
Baanx: Crypto payments firm raises $20M Series A round led by Tezos, Chiron, and British Business Bank. Link
Utila: Crypto wallet provider raises $11.5M in effort to facilitate tokenization boom. Link
IO Research: Solana-based DePIN developer raises $30M Series A with a token valuation of $1B. Link
Taiko: Ethereum L2 raises $15M Series A, bringing total investment to $37M. Link
That’s all for now, folks. Thank you for being part of the journey.Talk soon,
– Marc
📈 Top 3 Charts to Share with Friends
Partner with us
⚡️ Get in front of thousands of Web3 industry leaders 👀
Partner with Dematerialzd to get your brand in front of thousands of b2b Web3 industry leaders & access the Dematerialzd network to grow your business. Get in touch today or reply to this email.
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