📝 Web3 Field Notes #4

📚 Readings:

• Taking a long term view on Web3: Two veteran-VCs report. Markets are secondary, innovation continues.

• McKinsey on Web3 beyond the hype: Regulatory oversight, user experience, and the underlying technology still missing.

• McKinsey: The potential for value creation in the Metaverse is huge. Now we need products & content.

• Production, organization and access to information becomes cheaper. “Dematerialization”, as Peter Diamandis would say.

• With ChatGTP the world is waking up to AI. AI, AR, and decentralized computing will merge. Will that be the “metaverse”? Overview & consequences.

• Brands are storming into web3. Vogue Business NFT tracker plus a list of clothing brands that entered web3.

• The war on NFT creator royalties. Some want it, some not. NFTs might be locked in a platform. Isn’t that web2?

• Crypto funds with consistent track records of backing successful companies.

• The Bitcoin bottom probabilities.

🚨 What caught my eyes: 

• Porsche enters web3. Long-term engagement will be key.

• Adidas virtual gear: You can now dress your bored ape with Adidas fashion. Pieces are still available.

• “Extended Reality (XR)” vs. “Metaverse” – Apple’s naming for its new AR device category. Interesting contrast to Meta.

• The EU spent €400k on a metaverse event. Almost no one showed up. We’re still early.

• Kraken lays off 1100 employees, 30% of its workforce, so does Dubai-based exchange Bybit.

• UniSwap launched its NFT marketplace. Competition is good.

• Almeda VC portfolio revealed by FT.

🚀 Interesting Web3 start-ups: 

• Lens Protocol: composable and decentralized social graph. One wallet, one login, thousands of social applications. The future of web3 social?

• Wordcel: Another decentralized social graph for web3.

• Bubbles: Manage your web3 community.

• Sumer: Another one for web3 communities.

💡Ideas & Take-Aways: 

What's going on with Sam-Bankman Fried? On Twitter and elsewhere, he's joining panels, but who's going to hold him accountable? While the crypto community struggles for a way forward, dreams and hopes of web3 are as alive as ever (as seen at ArtBasel in Miami last week).

That’s all for now, folks. Back to building an learning. 

Onwards! 🚀

– Marc

“People are usually afraid of change because they fear the unknown. But the single greatest constant of history is that everything changes.”

–Yuval Noah Harari

Feedback, ideas? Please leave a comment!