This week in the ➡️ #Metaverse — Issue #12
A weekly roundup of what’s happening in the digital land(scape). Metaverse ethics, governance and interesting trends from crypto, gaming, AI and regulation.
What’s going on:
After crypto’s crash and NFTs’ collapse, Web3 idealists race to prove that the dream of decentralization isn’t dead — fortune.com
Technologists like Nadim Kobeissi are scrambling to rescue their projects and decentralization’s brand from the larger Web3 bust.
Metaverse housing bubble bursting? Virtual land prices crash 85% amid waning interest — cointelegraph.com
A McKinsey report sees the Metaverse becoming a $5 trillion market by 2030.
U.S. Treasury Sanctions Notorious Virtual Currency Mixer Tornado Cash | U.S. Department of the Treasury — home.treasury.gov
WASHINGTON — Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned virtual currency mixer Tornado Cash, which has been used to launder more than $7 billion worth of virtual currency since its creation in 2019.
joseph.eth on Twitter: “Someone is out dusting a bunch of wallets from Tornado with 0.1 ETH lmaaaaooooo Twitter — twitter.com
“Someone is out dusting a bunch of wallets from Tornado with 0.1 ETH lmaaaaooooo https://t.co/3NfLuz9qYF”
Gaming news:
Microsoft claims Sony pays for ‘blocking rights’ to keep games off Xbox Game Pass — The Verge — www.theverge.com
Microsoft has claimed Sony pays for “blocking rights” to keep developers from bringing some content to Xbox Game Pass. The explosive claims were made in legal filings to a Brazilian regulator this week.
Blizzard will stop selling ‘Overwatch’ loot boxes on August 30th | Engadget — www.engadget.com
Blizzard will stop selling Overwatch loot boxes on August 30th..
I Am Not A Robot: AI news
Businesses including Stitch Fix are already experimenting with DALL-E 2 — TechCrunch — techcrunch.com
DALL-E 2 is a powerful tool — and businesses see the potential in it for asset creation and more.
NFTLand:
Indie devs outraged by unlicensed game sales on GameStop’s NFT market Ars Technica — arstechnica.com
It may be impossible to remove the games from the Internet.
Crypto criminals laundered $540 million by using a service called RenBridge, new report shows — www.cnbc.com
Regulators have their hands full as more crypto tools like RenBridge are being used by criminals to launder money.
Bitcoin likely to transition to a risk-off asset in H2 2022, says Bloomberg analyst — cointelegraph.com
Bloomberg analyst Mike McGlone says Bitcoin is well posed to invert the current bearish trend and rally together with U.S. bonds and gold.
For Science!!!
Researchers find way to shrink a VR headset down to normal glasses size | PC Gamer — www.pcgamer.com
Researchers from Stanford University and Nvidia have teamed up to help develop VR glasses that look a lot more like regular spectacles. Okay, they are rather silly looking due to the ribbons extended
VR is as good as psychedelics at helping people reach transcendence | MIT Technology Review — www.technologyreview.com
On key metrics, a VR experience elicited a response indistinguishable from subjects who took medium doses of LSD or magic mushrooms.
Meme corner:
Ending nugget:
3/ The default gut reaction is to protect what you’ve created. Historically, you do this by enforcing and protecting patents/trademarks/copyright. Before, I defended these old structures, and in certain circumstances, they still make sense, but…
“4/ web3 is a chance to reboot and reexamine everything back to first principles. A chance to say that others don’t have to fail for us to win. A chance to be more inclusive and open to all..”
8/ To that end, @JustinMezzell (my co-founder), @joshcook (our president), and I have decided to set Moonbirds and Oddities free and embrace the CC0 movement that allows any and all modifications to what we’ve built.
9/ In this new future, true ownership is dictated by what is recorded on-chain, the way it should be, not by a record housed by a government or corporate entity.
10/ The authenticity of Moonbirds will not come from lawyers enforcing trademarks but rather from the proven provenance and single source of truth of smart contracts.
