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Let's Get Phygital, Phygital

Can we pick a new word, please?

August 05, 2022

Welcome to The Web 2.5 Newsletter featuring news, content, musings, and memes at the intersection of Web 2.0 and Web 3.0.

That’s a Web3-pointer

For anyone looking for IRL utility with bragging rights for life, we found the project for you. 31 holders from Steph Curry’s 2974 NFT Collection were flown in, at zero expense to the holders, for a day of community service, playing basketball, and dining with Curry himself. Here’s a round up of the day. Plus one fan even beat Steph in a shooting contest. Best NFT utility ever.

IRL

Nothing says Web 2.5 more than a blockchain getting phygital at the mall. Solana opened Solana Spaces at The Shops at Hudson Yards in Manhattan, NYC. Leveraging the space to educate the crypto curious and onboard users into web3, Bloomberg shares that about 90% of the store’s visitors are brand new to Solana, and that the USDC and NFTs attendees received are the only things they have in their wallet.

The Web 2.5 Social Network

In a move to continue to help the web3 world go mainstream, Instagram announced that it is expanding support for NFTs to 100 countries, partnering with artist Amber Vittoria to teach us all how to display our collections on the ‘gram. IG also announced that will be accepting Coinbase Wallet and Dapper Wallet, and adding support for the Flow blockchain.

A summer camp counselor at Camp Elmwood discovered a 30 year old baseball card from Mark Zuckerberg, signed by Zuck himself. The card, along with documentation and an NFT, will be made available for sale. The backstory is all here and worth the read.

Bring on the Heat

The City of Miami announced that it will launch 5,000 Ethereum NFTs with TIME, Mastercard, Salesforce. The collection will be designed by 56 different Miami artists “representing the city’s 56 square mile area” and plans to launch in December.

Tokens, but Make it Fashion

Gucci is now accepting ApeCoin as a payment option, adding to a list of 12 other digital assets it accepts for payment.

You can also now buy a TAG Heuer watch with Apecoin and flex your Ape on your wrist.

Tiffany’s reveals its first NFTs for sale, which will will feature 250 limited edition NFTs each priced at 30 ETH ($51,000). Offered exclusively to CryptoPunk holders, the sale includes a series of both digital and physical pendants that resemble the CryptoPunk NFTs that holders already own. The move reinvigorated interest in CryptoPunks, driving a 248% increase in sales volume in the collection in the 24 hours following the announcement.

Food & Wine (and how to burn it off)

Meet a community-driven Web3 Winery and membership club Envico DAO.

Starbucks announced that it will unveil its web3 NFT program next month.

Web2 step-counter app Sweatcoin raises $13M to fund its launch into web3. In the same space as “move-to-earn” community STEPN, this project is leveraging a native token SWEAT to help users start acquiring crypto for their everyday activity.

How to Copy + Paste Yourself into Web3

Pearson, one of the world’s largest textbook publishers, is looking to leverage NFTs and the blockchain to capture more value from secondary ebook sales.

“In the analogue world, a Pearson textbook was resold up to seven times, and we would only participate in the first sale…The move to digital helps diminish the secondary market, and technology like blockchain and NFTs allows us to participate in every sale of that particular item as it goes through its life.”

Legal Eagles

The great trademark debate continues, with Moonbirds announcing it is moving to cc0, making all of their NFTs public domain. While some had already deemed this cc0 Summer, the move has reinvigorated the debate about IP rights for holders. For those looking for a deeper dive, a16z published a new piece this week “Why NFT Creators Are Going cc0”.

Mad Money

$2.7B in NFTs were minted in the first half of 2022 across over 1MM unique wallets.

Otherdeed’s NFT collection becomes the quickest to surpass $1 Billion in all-time sales. Here’s the current rankings:

Deep Dives

Planet of the Bored Apes: Inside the NFT world’s biggest success story

NFTs and Restaurants – A Match Made In Gastronomic Heaven?

Web 2.5 Jobs of the Week

Product Manager, NFT Ticketing Integrations, Ticketmaster. Apply.

Community Lead, Crypto, a16z. Apply.

And there you have it folks. Thanks for tuning in. Stay safe out there.

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