In fact, the blockchain industry is much more environment-friendly today, inflation is predicted to slow down, and the sun is still shining. There are a lot of reasons to smile today đ
Whatâs buzzinâ in marketing?
Blockchain is much more climate-friendly today
Croissants, red wine, and crypto
Big step for the video gaming industry
Canadiansâ dispute on the future of web3
We encourage you to read it all and take part in a poll at the very end đ
đ Whatâs buzzinâ in marketing?
Patagonia is âgoing purposeâ. The company announced its plans to distribute the money as a dividend to help fight the crisis. Moreover, 100% of the companyâs voting stock has been transferred to the Patagonia Purpose Trust, and 100% of the nonvoting stock had been given to an NGO dedicated to fighting the environmental crisis and defending nature đđź đ
Although Mark Zuckerberg has put a lot of trust in Reels, data shows that users still prefer the Chinese platform over its US-based rival. Instagram users spend less than one-tenth (17.6 million hours) of the 197.8 million hours TikTok users spend each day on that platform.Â
Starbucks enters into the web3 world by building an NFT-based loyalty program for its employees and Starbucks Rewards members in the USA. The worldâs largest coffeehouse chain will partner with Polygon. You can join the waitlist here!
Based on the data from US respondents, 55% of people on Twitter get their news from Twitter, and 75% of them follow news about politics and current events on Twitter.
GroupM reports that revenues from out-of-home ad campaigns in the US will surpass 2019âs record. OOH is benefitting from two strategic shifts - more locally executed (national) campaigns and a constantly growing share of digital ad placements. As noted by GroupMâs Global Director of BI, only 7% of major suppliersâ display inventory is digital, yet it generates 40% of total revenue.
If you are a Figma user but canât stop dreaming of Adobe, it will soon not matter anymore. Adobe announced that it would acquire Figma, its biggest rival in the area of digital design, for $20 billion. đ¸
After the merge, the second-biggest blockchain, Ethereum, is way more energy-efficient. It is said that the future transactions verified with PoS (Proof of Stake) will produce 99% less energy than with PoW (Proof of Work). As per Ethereumâs founder, Vitalik Buterin, the merge has been completed:
And we finalized!
Happy merge all. This is a big moment for the Ethereum ecosystem. Everyone who helped make the merge happen should feel very proud today.
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin)
Sep 15, 2022
The preparation started back in 2020 when the PoS network called Beacon Chain was founded. It served as a staging area for validators until this week, when it was merged with Ethereumâs main network.
The main advantage of the new validation mechanism is that not the amount of energy one expends but the amount of ETH one stakes dictates control over the network. With PoS, the cost of running transactions is comparable to launching Slack on oneâs Mac. What was the marketâs reaction & what to expect in the future?
The price of ETH slumped by 10% on that day, and it seems that investors have taken the merge into account much earlier, which is why there was no spectacular bump on September 15.
In terms of the next milestones, you could realize Ethereumâs sore spots - high fees and slow speeds - to find out the direction of further development. The next phase, called "The Surgeâ, includes âshardingâ which would split the Ethereum network into smaller pieces to increase its scalability. The other part of this phase is rollups operating on layer-2, such as Optimism or Zero-Knowledge (ZK). Both types perform transactions outside of Ethereumâs base layer (layer 1) and then post the transaction data onto the layer 1 blockchain.
The merge proved that blockchain can be adjusted and improved over time, which goes along with Vitalikâs attitude expressed during Thursdayâs live stream- âlet's go build out all of the other parts of this ecosystem and turn Ethereum into what we want it to beâ.
2ď¸âŁ Croissants, red wine and crypto
During the âBinance Blockchain Weekâ in Paris, Changpeng "CZ" Zhao, the founder and CEO of the worldâs most recognized crypto exchange, shared his thoughts on the latest European Union regulations and poured some hope into the French hearts.
MiCA (Market in Crypt Assets), the new regulations in the EU, allow crypto companies to operate in the bloc's 27 member states under a single license. Binanceâs CEO said itâs âfantasticâ and expects it to be considered âthe global standardâ in other jurisdictions.
On the other hand, he also referred to the regulations applicable to USD-based stablecoins by calling them âa little bit strictâ. Fears are being raised that the introduced limits will restrict the market, especially for assets not priced in euros.
Not everyone knows that the capital of France has been that much into the web3 world. Binance's CEO predicts the French crypto market to take off within the next 5 years. The first 150 people were hired in Paris with plans to hire "a couple of hundred more" by the end of the year. Moreover, the head of Binance named France "the financial hub for crypto in Europe and the larger part of the world".
You might know Fortnite, which is one of the most popular games among the younger generation, produced by Epic Games. Now, the video game developer moved further toward the web3 world by publishing the first NFT game on its gaming marketplace - Epic Games Store. It is a big shift given the last yearâs Tweets from the companyâs CEO, Tim Sweeney:
@EliBenSasson Replied:
We arenât touching NFTs as the whole field is currently tangled up with an intractable mix of scams, interesting decentralized tech foundations, and scams.
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic)
Sep 27, 2021
âBlankos Block Partyâ was produced by Mythical Games in collaboration with Third Kind Games. This free-to-play game attracts players with distinctive digital vinyl toys known as Blankos. NFTs are obtainable during the game and can be bought, improved, and exchanged. Since the launch of the limited-edition version, the game has attracted many well-known brands and artists partners, including Burberry, Atari, and musician Deadmau5.
While Valve, its closest rival, still refuses to publish any games involving NFTs or cryptocurrencies on Steam, the CEO of Epic Games would allow other artists to use web3 technologies as long as they adhered to legal regulations and market standards.
@DicklessRichard @EpicGames Developers should be free to decide how to build their games, and you are free to decide whether to play them. I believe stores and operating system makers shouldnât interfere by forcing their views onto others. We definitely wonât.
— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic)
Jul 21, 2022
4ď¸âŁ Canadiansâ dispute on the future of web3
Regarding blockchain and cryptocurrencies, Canada seems to be torn into two factions. Prime Minister doesnât share the hurra-optimistic attitude towards crypto represented by Conservative Party's new leader, Pierre Poilievre.
The mentioned pro-crypto and anti-Trudeau politician has been showing great support for the blockchain industry in recent years. Once elected as Prime Minister, he would make Canada âthe blockchain capital of the worldâ, stop the proposed Canadian CBDC project, and use the unleashed power from crypto to fight inflation. Many took his side and share the same view on the future of the USAâs neighbor.
However, Poilievreâs point of view was met with very radical disapproval from Candianâs PM, Justin Trudeau, who criticized and called out his âquestionable, reckless economic ideasâ in a series of Tweets:
Telling people they can opt out of inflation by investing in cryptocurrencies is not responsible leadership. Fighting against life-saving vaccines is not responsible leadership. Opposing the pandemic supports that saved jobs and helped families is not responsible leadership.
— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau)
Sep 13, 2022
It is evident that these two gentlemen do not get along very well. As of the August data, Canada ranks 20th out of 26 countries for crypto adoption, while the crypto ownership rate in Canada is 10%, which is lower than the global average of 15%.
While the dispute in the Country of the Maple Leaf continues, it is worth keeping an eye on politics to understand how new regulations may affect crypto adoption in the future.
đĽ OTHER RELEVANT NEWS
Google will partner with Binanceâs blockchain by giving access to Google Cloud to all projects running on BNB Chain. In January, Google launched a dedicated Digital Asset Team, and in February published Virtual Machine Threat Detection to help detect threats like crypto mining malware.
The USA released âComprehensive Framework for Responsible Development of Digital Assetsâ. It doesnât lay down any new legislation but provides a clearer vision of U.S. crypto regulation.
Norway shared on Github the open source code of the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) sandbox. It is developed by Norges Bank in partnership with Nahmii - an Ethereum layer-2 scaling platform.
A court in South Korea has issued an arrest warrant for Do Kwon, the founder of Terraform Labs, whose tokens LUNA and UST lost $40 billion after the spectacular market crash đľđźââď¸
Binance USD (BUSD) market cap surpassed $20 billion. The upcoming conversion of TUSD, USDC, and USDP to Binanceâs proprietary token on September 29 apparently gave it a boost đ
A pseudonymous bitcoiner, Hodlonaut, filed a lawsuit against Craig Wright, who claims to be Satoshi Nakamoto. The court case began in Norway this week.
Coinbase has implemented a new feature - American customers can check crypto sentiment scores for members of Congress based on their past statements đ
Human beings lose against Jason Allen's AI-generated artwork. The artwork called âThÊâtre D'opĂŠra Spatial" took first place in the digital category at the Colorado State Fair đ¤
đ FUN FACTS & MEME SECTION
đĄ Regardless of the bear market, the exposure of crypto companies in F1 đ is immense. Aside from Crypto.com banners visible everywhere on every single circuit, each team has its own crypto sponsor - it turns out that 8 out of 10 teams have at least one. Would you guess which two teams stand out?
đĽ Meme of The Week:
Top 5 Ways to Use Your GPU After The Merge
1.) Entertain your dog in a field https://t.co/zLpzrUcyUS
— Bankless (@BanklessHQ)
Sep 15, 2022
Thatâs it for this week. Make sure to follow us on Twitter @SMTToken.
Not financial or tax advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell assets or to make financial decisions. This newsletter is not tax advice. Talk to your accountant. Do your own research.