⚡️ 69% users bet metaverse entertainment will reshape social lifestyle: Data
Last year the crypto and Web3 saw a dichotomy between extremely turbulent markets, yet high prospects for the future of the space. Both users and investors alike have continued to pile into the industry, especially in areas concerned with the metaverse. A new survey from CoinWire, which surveyed over 10,000 investors in the crypto space in December 2022, found that user sentiment towards the metaverse has digital reality poised to influence all areas of social life. 69% of respondents have placed their bet on the metaverse to reshape social lifestyle with a new approach to entertainment, while 65% believed in metaverse's new approach to social activities. Over the last five years, Microsoft secured 158 metaverse-related patents, overshadowing Big Tech firms such as Meta, Tencent and Epic Games.
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🖼 NFT price tracker Floor acquires web3 analytics firm WGMI
NFT price tracker Floor said it acquired NFT analytics firm WGMI.io. Terms were not disclosed. Floor is currently invite-only and describes itself as an app "for everything NFTs." WGMI, founded by Thomas Mancini a year ago and named. The acquisition comes as prices for NFTs have plunged over the past year. Last year, Floor raised $8 million in Series A funding. The company said it grew over 700% during the 2022 bear market, with 20,000 monthly active wallets on the platform. "In talking with Thomas, we found an alignment with the Floor mission to make NFTs understandable and accessible that made acquiring WGMI a great fit," Floor founder Chris Maddern told The Block.
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💰 The Sandbox rolls out Lunar New Year Event to celebrate growing creativity in the metaverse across Greater China in 2023 🇨🇳
Marking the most important festival in the lunar calendar, The Sandbox users will be able to enjoy a series of new experiences developed by partners and studios based in Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China. These experiences are available free of charge and can all be accessed via the map on The Sandbox website. This year’s Lunar New Year Season will run for an extended period from January 18 to February 28 and offer an extensive reward pool of 200,000 SAND, memorabilia, in-game NFT prizes, and virtual “Chinese Dragon” mystery boxes which include limited PFPs and The Sandbox’s premium LANDs. “The Sandbox is growing as a multi-cultural metaverse platform that encourages openness and creativity in a new avatar-centric format of entertainment,”. The Sandbox to build experiences for the Lunar New Year Event around their popular IPs. The brands include: Softstar and Alpacadabraz (Taiwan).
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🇨🇳 China’s Automobile and Healthcare Amongst Sectors To Benefit From Metaverse Developments
A Deloitte report, “The Metaverse in Asia- Strategies for Accelerating Economic Impact”, estimates that the impact of the metaverse on GDP in Asia could be between US$0.8-1.4 trillion per year, roughly 1.3-2.4% of overall GDP per year by 2035. Whilst there is no universally agreed definition, the metaverse is envisaged as a highly immersive virtual world where people gather to socialize, play and work. The metaverse development is underpinned by several underlying technologies, including hardware devices, computing and communication networks, 3D real-time technology, Artificial Intelligence, and blockchain distributed ledger technologies. types of businesses particularly to exchange digital goods and services.
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📣 Railgun and Railway Wallet innovate on shielded NFTs
Railgun and partner project Railway Wallet have released the world’s first shielded nonfungible token (NFT) system on Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain and Polygon (with an Arbitrum launch arriving soon). Shielded NFTs are now live on the Railway web and desktop apps. This is a huge leap for privacy technology as NFTs continue to expand in utility and relevance in culture, art and decentralized finance (DeFi). With shielded NFTs, privacy-conscious users can anonymize their NFT holdings, using Railgun’s 0zk address system. The upgrade, part of the Railgun 2.0 protocol overhaul, supports all NFT token types, such as ERC-721 or ERC-1155, and is compatible with all NFT collections on Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain and Polygon.
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🖼 NFT sales topped 101 million in 2022: DappRadar report
Over the last year, nonfungible tokens (NFTs) continued to play an important role in the growing Web3 industry. NFTs initiated a shift away from hype-based drops, to utility-centric projects with long-term value. A new DappRadar report on blockchain and decentralized application (DApp) adoption in 2022. According to the report, the Ethereum ecosystem holds the top spot in the NFT ecosystem, holding 21% of the market share and over 21.2 million transactions processed. It is followed by Wax (14.5 million), Polygon (13.3 million) and Solana (12.9 million). Both the Solana and ImmutableX ecosystems saw massive growth from the previous year in terms of transaction activity, with a 440% and 315% increase, respectively. the data shows no change in the BNB ecosystem, with roughly 1 million transactions for both 2021 and 2022.
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📣 CME Group to launch three metaverse indices
The CME Group, world’s leading derivatives marketplace, announced the launch of metaverse indices beginning January 30. Together with CF Benchmarks, British provider of cryptocurrency benchmark indices, it will publish daily reference rates and indices on the following: Axie Infinity (AXS), Chiliz (CHZ) and Decentraland (MANA). The upcoming indices will not be tradable futures products, but to be used by market participants “to price sector-specific portfolios, develop structured products with greater confidence and manage price risk around various Metaverse-based projects”, according to Giovanni Vicioso, CME Group Global Head of Cryptocurrency Products.Each of the new Axie Infinity, Chiliz, and Decentraland benchmarks will be calculated with pricing data from a minimum of two of these exchanges.
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🖼 NFT startup Candy Digital raised $38.5 million at the start of this year
NFT collectibles startup Candy Digital raised $38.5 million from investors with the first sale occurring on Jan. 3. A U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulatory filing shows that the startup had been seeking to raise a total of $68 million with $29.7 million still to be sold to investors. At the start of the year, the startup closed a Series A1 funding round led by Galaxy Digital and ConsenSys. The raise enabled the company to buy sports merchandising platform Fanatics’ out of its majority stake. The financial terms of the Series A1 raise were not disclosed. Candy Digital did not respond to request for comment on the raise. It's unclear if the filing is linked to the Series A1 or is for a separate fundraising effort. A total of 14 investors have already participated in this offering, according to the filing.
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⚡️ IBF Net launches the world’s 1st metaverse on Algorand Blockchain: Netverse
IBF Net successfully launches Netverse, which happens to be the world’s first metaverse on the Algorand blockchain. It also, incidentally, happens to be the world’s first Shariah-compliant metaverse on just about any blockchain whatsoever. For the entire Islamic world, this will seemingly be a major thrust forward in overall digitalization. If the experts are to be truly believed, on one side is the ever-evolving scenario where Web 3.0 technology is concerned, and on the other side happens to be the ever-increasing numbers of the world’s population requiring to connect with the digital and virtual space. All of this has eventually given rise to the fact that the present digital economy is calculated to be approximately 20-25 % of the total global economy.
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🤟 Yuga Labs blacklists Blur, SudoSwap and other marketplaces in Sewer Pass mint
Yuga Labs blacklisted at least four marketplaces that don't mandate NFT royalties in its newest NFT drop, Sewer Pass.Sewer Pass includes coding that blocks NFT transactions from wallets belonging to Blur, SudoSwap, LooksRare and NFTX, according to Simon Cousaert. The move is the latest salvo in the ongoing war over NFT royalties. In blacklisting those marketplaces, Yuga Labs joins other NFT creators in blocking royalty-evading platforms from transacting with their NFTs. In September, QQL blacklisted X2Y2, another NFT marketplace with optional royalties, from dealing with the QQL Mint Pass NFT drop. X2Y2 responded to the blacklisting by saying, "When someone else can decide where you can transfer your NFT, you are not the real owners anymore.".has amassed nearly $5 million worth of ETH four hours after the launch.
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🇨🇳 China NFT platforms expand into Hong Kong in face of compliance risks on mainland
Non-fungible token (NFT) platforms in China are expanding into Hong Kong to offset compliance risk for an industry that remains in a legal gray area on the mainland. It helps that the city has thrown out a welcome mat for digital asset industries. ShucangCN, an NFT platform that launched in January 2022 in China to quickly become one of the largest players, has set up NFT China Ltd., a decision its chief executive officer said he made after the territory released crypto-friendly policy documents in October. Yifan He, chief of Red Date Technology, the developer of the state-backed blockchain infrastructure Blockchain-based Service Network, said in an interview that mainland clients who built NFT platforms on BSN plan moves to Hong Kong, and “they’re discussing with our Hong Kong team to build their platforms there.”
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📣 Bored Ape Flexes That $450M It Raised For Its Metaverse Empire With Poop Game
Bored Ape Yacht Club’s monkey poop game, so now you do, too. Dookey Dash is an upcoming game where you traverse a sewer system in pursuit of a treasure box key that a monkey shat out of his ass. I wish I was making this up. I really do. Dookey seems to be an infinite runner, which is a platformer in which you travel along an endless path while dodging any obstacles in your way. The genre became popular after the mainstream success of Temple Run, a series that crossed a billion downloads on mobile platforms back in 2014. Dookey will be the first game that BAYC launches as part of its $450 million metaverse initiative.
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Artist Duo Concept2048 Will Release 2048 NFTs To Raise Awareness of Global Problems
Creative duo Concept2048 releases 2,048 unique NFTs to raise awareness of global problems. The Metamorphoses collection, which will be on sale from January 24, is a polyptych of hand-made photographs, part of which was exhibited in the sixth edition of the contemporary art exhibition "Personal Structures" in Palazzo Mora at the 59th Venice Art Biennale 2022. Ekaterina Perekopskaya and Rostyslav Brenych are the creative forces behind the project who specialize in fashion, art and conceptual production.
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⚡️ VR Glove Enhances Metaverse with Realistic Touch Experience
A recent invention by a team of researchers from NUS promises to substantially enhance a user’s sense of touch in virtual reality (VR), with the aim of delivering a more authentic and immersive experience within the metaverse. Their new invention – called HaptGlove. While the concept of haptic gloves is not new, current technologies are not able to give users a realistic sense of touch. For example, typical haptic glove designs in the market use vibration motors, which could not accurately replicate the real-world sense of touch such as simulating the hardness and shape of a VR object. Other haptic gloves use pneumatic actuators, which are devices that generate a sense of pressure.
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🤟 Yuga Labs’ Collections Dominate as NFT Market Ascends
Recovering from the previous year’s blow will be the primary objective for the NFT market in 2023. All eyes will be on popular collections including Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), CryptoPunks, Otherdeeds among others. Latest data from CryptoSlam, a data aggregator, shows that global NFT sales declined by 4% this week. This is actually a positive sign as yesterday, a news website reported an almost 60% decline in a week. BAYC is currently leading the market with a trading volume of $16.3 Million, however the collection showed a decline by over 14% this week. Meanwhile, Its cousin NFT collection, Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC), demonstrated a whopping 45% rise, and Otherdeeds, the land plots persisting in Yuga Labs’ Otherside metaverse, were up by 22%.
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⚡️ IBF Net launches world’s first Shariah Compliant Metaverse
IBF Net has launched Netverse (www.ntvr.se), the world’s first metaverse on the Algorand blockchain, which is also the world’s first Shariah-compliant metaverse on any blockchain. Netverse is expected to be a major contributor to the digitalization move in the Islamic world. The digital economy today is estimated to be around 20–25 percent of the global economy, and this share is expected to grow steadily. The virtual economy is expected to grow within and alongside the digital economy. Given this, the size of the metaverse opportunity is predicted to be in the range of USD 8–10 trillion, according to global investment bankers, such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.
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🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia ‘doubling down’ on talent to grow industrial metaverse: Minister at WEF
Saudi Arabia is “doubling down” on talent in the country’s industrial metaverse, the Kingdom’s Communications Minister Abdullah Alswaha said during the WEF at Davos on Thursday. The Kingdom is currently using the metaverse to help develop its futuristic city NEOM and in 2022 NEOM Tech & Digital Company subsidiary Tonomus which has invested $1 billion in products including a digital twin metaverse – a 3D virtual space where people involved in the project could see how it looks in the future. With NEOM and the Red Sea Project, the Saudi Crown Prince had reportedly asked for a digital twin of the build, design and optimization phases ahead of the start of development, the minister said during the same panel, signifying the importance of the metaverse.
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📣 BMW Group: Launch of a Supplierthon for the “Metaverse and other Virtual Experiences”
The BMW Group Supplierthon with a focus on the “Metaverse and other Virtual Experiences” is starting today. The aim is to attract researchers, startups and pioneering tech leaders from within the global Metaverse community in order to gain an outside-in perspective. The Metaverse is the next iteration of the internet: a single, shared, persistent, immersive, 3D virtual space where humans experience life in ways they could not in the physical world. The Supplierthon will empower applicants to bring their innovative and visionary ideas for the Metaverse to life. Experts from the BMW Group have identified challenges in three different areas. The BMW Group believes that virtual experiences could make a significant difference by strengthening the entire customer experience.
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💰Hector Network Launches its NFT Marketplace on Fantom
Hector Network has announced the launch of Atlantica, its NFT marketplace, on Fantom’s blockchain. Alongside cross-chain expansion, Hector has turned its attention to the NFT sector. Hector Network has announced the launch of Atlantica, its NFT marketplace, on Fantom’s blockchain. Alongside cross-chain expansion, Hector has turned its attention to the NFT sector. Hector Network noted that the new marketplace will serve serve as a “marketplace for the future.” It will also boast unique features for NFT creators. In addition, Hector also announced that it had begun the development of the necessary infrastructure to expand the NFT market on all fronts.
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⚡️ NFT Steez and Cryptoys CEO discuss the future of toys and entertainment within Web3
This week, NFT Steez met with Cryptoys founder Will Weinraub to discuss the current role of play and toys in regard to their integration with nonfungible tokens and Web3 as a whole. Weinraub believes that the act of play is “not restricted to children” and that as adults, “we still crave the element of play throughout life.” According to him, “play has evolved” through the development of technology. NFTs, especially in gaming, have highlighted this layer of ownership through play. Weinraub and Cryptoys theorize that “adults are just looking for ways to feel like kids again.” Keeping the question of “how play evolves” at the forefront, Weinraub said this is a core tenet of his experience with the evolution of play.
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⚡️ Blueberry and Boy Meets Girl Dress for the Metaverse
Look out, kids! Mission-driven fashion brand Boy Meets Girl has partnered with House of Blueberry to bring socially responsible style to Roblox. Blueberry bills itself as "the leading fashion house" in that evolving space, and has sold over 20 million assets to some 400,000 unique customers. Its collab with Boy Meets Girl follows previous initiatives with Jonathan Simkhai and the Broadway musical Dear Evan Hansen. Boy Meets Girl sells athleisure styles with a clear stake in the ground. Since launching after 9/11, its limited-edition collections have helped fund the Young Survival Coalition, BullyBust, Planned Parenthood, Human Rights Watch and more. Entertainment-wise, it has joined with artists including Justine Skye, Wyclef Jean and Natasha Bedingfield for various promos.
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🪙 The Sandbox Collabs Fist Of The North Star To Launch Game In The Metaverse
The Sandbox announced that it has cooperated with the comic “Fist of the North Star” to launch a new game, “End of the Century LAND” in the metaverse and sell NFTs to further enhance the LAND experience. the agreement will also encompass the creation and sale of NFTs. Fist of the North Star makes its debut appearance in the metaverse in End of the Century LAND. With its attractions and activities, it promises to be a potent and overpowering dystopian experience that will let players from all over the world experience the post-apocalyptic world of Fist of the North Star. To further improve and more immerse the LAND experience, the agreement will also embrace the creation and sale of NFTs. which was authored by Takeru Takemono (original story) and Tetsuo Hara (manga).
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📣 Yves Saint Laurent Files for NFT & Metaverse-related Trademarks
French luxury fashion house Yves Saint Laurent filed NFT and Metaverse-related trademark applications for its name and logo at the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on 12th January 2023. According to the filings, Yves Saint Laurent is intending to launch NFTs featuring perfumery, toiletries, cosmetics, make-up, skin care preparations, and much more for use in the metaverse. The filings also imply that Yves Saint Laurent intends to make direct sales through retail stores established in the metaverse that sell these virtual goods. The files contain artwork, text, audio, and video for these products.
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📣 Davos Day 3 Shows Conflicting Visions for the Metaverse
DAVOS, Switzerland – Conversations about blockchain on day three of Davos show architects of the metaverse are still trying to figure out what exactly it is – and regulators hinting central bank digital currencies (CBDC) could potentially do more harm than good to the global economy. The World Economic Forum (WEF) released two reports on the metaverse on Wednesday. In an effort to encompass the broad – and at times vague – concept of the metaverse, the reports set it up as “an immersive, interoperable and synchronous digital world that will change how we interact, work and play.”. Despite the hype around the metaverse, propelled by Facebook’s transformation into Meta Platforms back in 2021, the world has yet to witness or experience anything concrete.
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💰 Bugatti Group Partners With Shiba Inu Team To Launch NFT Reward Program
The luxury brand manufacturer and supplier of branded luggage, hand, and bags, Bugatti Group, has partnered with the team behind the Shiba Inu token ecosystem to launch a non-fungible token reward program. In a January 17 blog post, Bugatti Group confirmed launching an NFT reward program in partnership with the Shiba Inu team. Launched in August 2020, Shiba Inu is a decentralized crypto from the Ryoshi group. The Bugatti Group and Shiba Inu team announced their official partnership last week ahead of their special “Mint Party “event on January 14. The partnership saw Bugatti Group launching a new NFT collection.
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💰 The Sandbox forms an exclusive partnership with mm2 Group
The Sandbox takes great delight in announcing that it has struck an exclusive partnership with Metaviva. This organization is a Singapore-based Web3 company. It is also the affiliate of mm2 Entertainment, a regional media and entertainment company. The major purpose of this collaboration is to construct a virtual playground within the Sandbox gaming metaverse, which is located near mm2’s IP’s. According to the terms of this newly formed partnership, Metaviva and mm2 will share complete responsibility for a 6×6 voxel plot of LAND. This will allow all connected players to attain interactive exposure, which will showcase real-time content. All of this will contain separate verticals like films, drama series, music, and sports.
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Hong Kong-based Brand New Vision's M3TALOVE NFT collection goes live
Hong Kong-based Brand New Vision (BNV), a fashion-focused and curated NFT platform for digital assets, has announced that the public NFT mint of the M3TALOVE collection is now available for purchase for customers. M3TALOVE NFT collection is a collaboration between BNV; Weinsanto, a Parisian fashion designer; and Lightsum, a K-Pop girl band.The sale marks one of the first NFT collections in collaboration with a K-Pop artist that will be available for anyone to purchase. The utilities, attached to each of the M3TALOVE NFTs purchased, include exclusive digital and real-life benefits from all collaborative parties involved in the project.The six outfits that make up the M3TALOVE collection can be purchased exclusively from BNV’s website via crypto wallets and credit card, as part of BNV’s wider mission to improve the accessibility of wearables in the metaverse.
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🇦🇪 Dubai launches horse racing in the Metaverse
Dubai Verse Cup (a play-to-earn Metaverse-based horse racing platform) has joined forces with Dubai Racing Club — which organises the huge races at Meydan — to create the new game.The Metaverse-based horse racing platform will allow game players to ride around the famous. “Users will gain rewards in the form of $DVCC tokens, based on their racing and breeding performance. “Players can exchange tokens for horses, perks, skins, and avatars, making the game a thriving marketplace and competition space at the heart of the Meydan Racecourse.”. So, trained jockey or not, you will be able to ride around Meydan Racecourse track during the horse races in the Metaverse using your smartphone or AR/VR devices.
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⚡️ Orlando Museum of Art announces new exhibition featuring NFT’s
The Orlando Museum of Art announced the opening of its new exhibition, Twentysomethings: Works and NFTs from the Fabio Sandoval Collection. According to a news release, the works are “primarily figurative and span various mediums: oil on canvas, spray paint on steel, cement, textile, wood, found objects, and digital NFT works.”Artists in the collection are from diverse ethnic backgrounds and include the work of several rising stars in the NFT community, including former baseball player-turned-NFT artist Micah Johnson.This show features the private collection of Fabio Sandoval, a twenty-five-year-old local collector who has been collecting for the past six years.
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📣 The World's First NFT Marketplace for Black and Ethnically Diverse Creators
MNFTM is proud to announce the launch of its new premier Web3 NFT marketplace and platform for Black and ethnically diverse creators & collectors globally - MNFTM. With a vision to create an NFT marketplace and community that thrives in diversity and brings light to creators from all backgrounds, MNFTM is revolutionizing the NFT space with the first-ever platform that represents truly distinctive perspectives in the evolving digital economy. The MNFTM platform will leverage the Metaverse to allow for customer interaction and provide a range of services including minting, marketing, curation, pricing recommendations, and portfolio tracking. The initial focus will be centered around art, music, video, and collectibles from diverse creators.
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