This week saw major integrations in the NFT space, chains announcing their move into a multichain future and yett another big bridge exploit. Furthermore Web3 Social and decentralized identy seem to be amongst the hottest narratives right now which attracts interest from both Web3 veterans and newbies alike. And while markets seem to be picking up speed again the future of Web3 looks brighter than ever.

Opensea adding Solana

OpenSea, the biggest marketplace for non-fungible tokens, has begun going live with its long-anticipated integration of Solana. 

“Data from the marketplace indicates Solana-centric collections are being listed and denominated in SOL, such as Solana Monkey Business. Following the publication of this report, those functionalities became unavailable -- a reflection of a launch characterized as a beta process”, The Block has learned. 

The move enables a wide crop of NFTs on the platform, which prior to today catered largely to Ethereum-based NFTs along with integrations with the Polygon and Klatyn blockchains. Still, the Solana news represents a significant expansion for OpenSea. The firm raised $300 million at a $13 billion valuation in January. 

Axie Infinities Ronin Bridge Exploited

Crypto news seeped back into mainstream headlines last week with the disclosure of a $624 million heist from Axie Infinity’s Ronin Network. The attack targeted the Ronin Bridge, which enables users to pass funds between the Ronin network and Ethereum.

To some in the crypto world, the Ronin attack was evidence that the future of crypto, even if it is to be “multichain,” is unlikely to be “cross-chain.” With teams fleeing Ethereum for more centralized blockchains that are faster and cheaper, the Ronin attack also served as a reminder of decentralization’s importance.

Ronin was not the first, nor is it likely to be the last, crypto bridge looted for vast sums of cryptocurrency. Joining Ronin in the second and third slots of Rekt’s leaderboard are two more attacks on crypto bridges. In third place is February’s $311 million exploit of the Wormhole bridge. And in second place is the August 2021 attack on the Poly Network bridge, where a hacker famously stole $611 million only to give it all back.

(Source: Coindesk)

Helium Network now Nova

Helium Inc., the company behind the fast-growing Helium blockchain, has rebranded as Nova Labs.

Nova Labs also confirmed earlier reports of a $200 million Series D funding round led by Tiger Global, with participation from Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Deutsche Telekom (DTEGY) and others. The latest funding round brings the California-based company’s valuation to $1.2 billion.

The so-called “People’s Network” – a decentralized telecommunications network powered by crypto incentives – is growing fast. Over 680,000 mining “hotspots” are online, with approximately 75,000 new hotspots being added monthly, according to Nova Labs Chief Operating Officer Frank Mong. Hotspot owners provide spare bandwidth in exchange for HNT tokens, which currently trade at $24.68 a pop.

Mong said there are hotspots in over 50,000 cities around the world, with another 5,000 cities being added to the map each month.

Apple Pay coming to Metamask

https://twitter.com/MetaMask/status/1508580273868353537?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1508580273868353537%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fcointelegraph.com%2Fnews%2Fmetamask-rolls-out-apple-pay-integration-and-other-ios-updates

MetaMask uses two payment gateways Wyre and Transak to support debit card and credit card transactions. Users can now use their Visas and Mastercards stored in Apple Pay to buy ETH and deposit a daily maximum of $400 into their wallets, thanks to the Wyre API. Gas fees are reportedly lower, and according to MetaMask‘s tweets, some transactions may even be gasless if done on a private blockchain or if a project pays for the gas on the user‘s behalf. When completing an ETH purchase, MetaMask discloses that it does not profit from gas fess.

Polygon Identity Service

Polygon ID is a blockchain-native identity system with programmable privacy that empowers people and enables the creation of trusted interactions with web3 services.

WHAT IS POLYGON ID?

Scalable blockchain ID with ZK-based privacy

A new class of technological solutions for a censorship resistant digital identity. Prove access rights and reputation on-chain while keeping user privacy, boost dApps, and DeFi. Open to existing standards and ecosystem development.

Privacy by default is achieved using protocols designed natively for zero-knowledge zkSNARK technology, a battle-tested cryptography, and the most efficient for proof verifications on-chain.

Guiding Principles

Polygon ID is a future-proof tech stack for self-sovereign identity

Decentralised

Users are in control of their identity and personal data to enable social coordination and take back power from third parties.

Private by default

The user’s identity and data are natively protected by zero-knowledge protocols.

Trust and reputation

Identity attributes can be expressed as claims which can be combined to create compound proofs.

Open and permissionless

Identities are not passive, issuance of claims from one identity to another without passing through a third party.

Complete solution and easy integration to enable new generation of applications

Universal identity

• Scalable model for permissionless identity and low cost claims

• Expressible claim format based on the extended Verifiable Credentials data model

• Relayer as a L2 trustless agent to sponsor user identities claim issuance

Prove access rights, not identity

• Circom 2.0 zero-knowledge based privacy of identity and user information

• Unique zkProof Request Language to specify private requirements from apps

• Onboarding developers and partners via Polygon ID toolkit and examples

Advanced on-chain verification

• Private verification of user rights can be done from a Smart Contract

• zkSNARKs is the protocol with the smaller proof size for optimal on-chain verification

• The zkProof composability enables reputation models for people-powered networks

ARCHITECTURE

Polygon ID Architecture

Polygon has introduced a new identity platform called Polygon ID that aims to bolster zero-knowledge identity for Web3 applications. In the vast world of cryptography, a zero-knowledge (ZK) proof allows a user to leverage a cryptographic verifier that enables the user (the prover) to prove something is true without revealing unnecessary information. During the announcement concerning Polygon ID this week, Polygon said the team has made ZK tech a “centerpiece of its strategic vision and has committed $1 billion to related projects.”

“Polygon ID is private by default, offers on-chain verification and permissionless attestation. There is nothing in the digital identity space now that ticks all these boxes.”

Binance Smartchain to launch sidechains

BNB Chain, a Layer 1 blockchain founded by crypto exchange Binance, plans to introduce sidechains to cut the cost and increase the speed of transactions for resource intense applications such as gaming. 

The BNB Chain Application Sidechain (BAS) will let developers port data and assets from BNB Chain, reducing strain on the network’s limited transactional resources, a Binance spokesperson told The Block in a statement, without specifying when the sidechains will launch. These sidechains will also be application-specific, meaning individual sidechains will focus on specific use cases.

Raises

135Million Dollar Layer Zero Investment round led by A16Z, FTX and Sequoia

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220330005301/en/LayerZero-Labs-Raises-135-Million-to-Create-Omnichain-Crypto-Networks

Avalanche launches another $100 million USD fund

https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/139265/avalanche-launches-100-million-creator-fund-with-grimes-and-web3-platform-op3n

$5 Million USD Seed Round for Zklend led by Delphi Digital

https://cointelegraph.com/press-releases/money-market-zklend-raises-5m-in-seed-round-led-by-delphi-digital

This past week has been filled with big announcements of Web2 giants making an entry into Web3 and experimenting with different hybrid methods to bring tokens into their existing products. In the media and entertainment industry companies are playing catchup while fighting each other for access to the most popular brands, communities, and tastemakers. And while the markets are still bouncing based on high volatility and continuing geopolitical tension and uncertainty big VCs and Angles are continuing to pour billions into new and old ventures trying to get a share of the evergrowing money machine.

Instagram NFT intergration

Mark Zuckerberg said that Meta would add NFTs to Instagram, according to Engadget and The Daily Beast. While he didn't describe exactly what that would look like, he said during a session at South By Southwest that "over the next several months, the ability to bring some of your NFTs in, hopefully over time be able to mint things within that environment."

There have been rumblings that this was coming. Last year, Instagram lead Adam Mosseri said the team was "actively exploring NFTs" but didn't have any actual announcements. In January, we heard a report that teams at Facebook and Instagram were working on NFT integrations. The report mentioned that there was progress on features to let you use an NFT as a profile and mint NFTs on the platform and discussions around creating a marketplace.

Those first two features gel well with what Zuckerberg mentioned onstage, but it's still not exactly clear what minting an NFT on Instagram would mean. Could you sell a popular post as an NFT, perhaps? Or mint NFTs that act as passes to let people see specific stories? Meta isn't saying yet, though it does seem that minting capabilities won't be coming until further down the line.

Stripe crypto payments API

Global payments giant Stripe has announced that it now supports crypto businesses including exchanges, wallet providers, and NFT marketplaces, among others.

According to a statement on its website on Thursday, Stripe now offers fiat payments API integration for crypto businesses to process crypto-to-fiat currency payments

As part of the toolkit for crypto firms, Stripe says it is also offering flexible on-ramps for exchanges. These on-ramps, as co-founder John Collison put it on Twitter, will enable both fiat deposits and withdrawals for crypto exchanges.

Stripe’s crypto business toolkit also includes protocols for user identification and fraud prevention. Crypto exchange FTX and its US affiliate, FTX.US, have partnered with Stripe to improve their know your customer (KYC) protocols.

Aave V3

Aave, one of the largest decentralized finance protocols with over $11 billion in total value locked, has launched its V3 upgrade.

What’s new in V3? 

🌐Portals: Facilitates cross-chain transactions  

⬆️High efficiency mode: Unlocks higher borrowing power 

💢Isolation Mode: Allows for new assets to be listed while protecting the protocol  

📉Gas Optimization: Gas costs for all functions reduced by ~20-25%

https://twitter.com/i/status/1504137636105043971

Perhaps most importantly, the update will let users move assets across different networks. In other words, someone with a position on Aave V3 on Arbitrum could decide to move their liquidity over to Optimism with little friction. Aave V3 also offers gas fee savings, improved efficiency for borrowers, and other features designed to limit risk (they include risk caps and exposure limits to newly listed assets). The update also adds features specifically designed to optimize the user experience on Ethereum’s Layer 2.

Alchemix V2

Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Alchemix revealed plans for the second version (v2) of its platform on Friday.

The forthcoming v2 represents a significant protocol upgrade that will make a vertical that already appears far-fetched to traditional finance wonks – “self-repaying” loans – even more exotic.

“So for the credit delegation, imagine you have $100k principal deposited in Alchemix, making 10% annually,” wrote pseudonymous Alchemix core contributor Scoopy Trooples in an interview with CoinDesk. “That would be $10k in income, or ~$850 a month. That $850 could be delegated to paying for subscription services, payments to others in the space, payments to other dapps.” The protocol overhaul is also enabling user-determined collateral via “credit applications” and “credit auctions.” This will allow users to submit a basket of collateral assets, possibly including non-fungible tokens (NFTs), in exchange for users’ spare credit.

Coachella NFTs

Coachella is starting to experiment with how to integrate NFTs, Poaps and Music NFTs into their lineup and how to create a whole new set of experiences leveraging the power of Web3.

2022 will see the return of the Coachella Music and Arts Festival, following the cancellation of the last two events due to the coronavirus pandemic. To mark its comeback, organizers are creating a range of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). While NFTs have so far generally been used to record ownership of digital collectibles, the aim is to connect the Coachella NFTs to tangible real-world benefits such as lifetime passes to the event and access to exclusive areas and attractions.

Lollapalooza NFTs

Lollapalooza has been working to bring new and exciting NFT experiences to their festivals. Their first collaboration seems to be with Yuga Labs Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC).

https://twitter.com/lollapalooza/status/1506420461462245377?s=20&t=sn7aYyFIPtZomyLIXV8NxQ

Notable Fundraises

StarkWare raises $75 million in Series B funding round led by Paradigm

https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/99211/starkware-funding-round-ethereum-paradigm

Bored Apes creator Yuga Labs raises $450 million in round led by a16z

https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/138834/bored-apes-creator-yuga-labs-raises-450-million-in-round-led-by-a16z-report

Solana-based NFT marketplace Magic Eden raises $27 million led by Paradigm and Sequoia

https://www.theblockcrypto.com/linked/137702/solana-magic-eden-raises-nft-marketplace-funding

ConsenSys Raises $450M Series D Funding as Leading Self-Custodial Wallet MetaMask Reaches Over 30 Million MAUs

https://consensys.net/blog/press-release/consensys-raises-450m-series-d-funding/

The first week of March was shaped by general uncertainty around markets, volatility, and the state of the conflict in Ukraine. The gradual rise of Web3 in 2022 seems steady nevertheless, with new Web2 partnerships and integrations being announced almost daily. We are seeing token gating and access tokens bridging the gap between Web2 and Web3 in everything from collaboration to eCommerce. And amidst geopolitical uncertainties, the crypto community came together and managed to raise more funds than the United Nations.

Shopify x Manifold

“Today we’re making yet another free tool for creators available to everyone: Manifold Merch Bridge. The tool can be used to easily set up and configure a token gated experience for any Ethereum NFT (ERC721 or ERC1155). We’ve launched with Shopify integration via our official Manifold x Shopify App enabling the ability for creators to specify products that can only be purchased or claimed by verified hodlers of an NFT. We’ve also built support enabling the ability to token gate custom forms for the flexibility and creativity of collecting any data imaginable.” (Manifold Substack)

A number of prominent artists, brands, and independent creators have already built unique experiences for collectors and communities with Merch Bridge. Steve Aoki launched a custom claim page inviting all hodlers of the Nyan Aoki token to claim a free custom Nyan Aoki Letterman Jacket. The team at 1/n have been building experiences directly inside of Shopify, creating branded claim flows for their dead drippers and series 69 projects with custom merch to raise money for awesome causes. Interested buidlers can get started immediately by creating a free Manifold Developer Portal account and installing the official Manifold x Shopify Application. Full documentation for widget installation and campaign configuration can be found in our Manifold for Developers documentation.

https://www.manifold.xyz/

eBay reveals plans for targeting Crypto

eBay which aims to be the marketplace for Gen-Z and millennials, is studying the possibility of adding cryptocurrencies as possible means of payment. The firm could make an announcement on March 10 during its day dedicated to investors, its CEO Jamie Iannone told TheStreet.

With sneakers, "we're appealing to the younger generation, where they're coming in selling their sneakers, becoming a collectible collector on the platform, and they're building new marketing capabilities," Iannone argued. "We're not accepting crypto currently," Iannone replied. But "on March 10, we're going to go deeper on all of these things, payments, advertising, our focus categories."

He added that he observed that transactions related to non-fungible tokens (NFTs) were taking place on eBay while the company had not made any particular announcement.

"We did change our policies last year so that you could trade NFT on the platform and essentially, you know, eBay is a place where people have something to sell and people have something by show up."

IPFS Submarine

Submarining is a new feature in the Pinata app that allows users to make an IPFS file they upload private from the public IPFS network. This capability allows people to attach data to an NFT and control who can view it based on ownership of the NFT.

For developers, submarining provides the security to store files for apps and marketplaces, without the risk of their data being exposed. Similarly, creators who use NFTs to monetize their creative work can now share content with their customers without leaving their data on public IPFS, which reduces the risk of stolen content and NFT media. While these are just two examples of users who will benefit from Pinata’s submarining feature, there are bound to be more as new users join the NFT space daily and need this kind of protection.

https://www.pinata.cloud/blog/introducing-submarining-what-it-is-why-you-need-it

RMRK Singular 2.0

We are pleased to announce a relaunch of Singular on http://Singular.app as an RMRK2-compatible marketplace, available immediately with:

• royalties

• Dutch auctions for select launches

• multi-resource NFTs

• tainted NFTs (soon)

https://app.subsocial.network/@rmrkapp/introducing-rmrk-2-on-singular-app-31668

Our core pillars at Centuries are Collaborating, Educating, and Investing. We want to be a melting pot where creatives can come together to build in Web3.

Providing Resources

Designers, Musicians, Shadowy Super Coders, and marketing wizards are at the forefront of innovation in Web3 and we want to provide these people with the resources they need to succeed. Whether it’s capital, human resources, or information we want to encourage each and every one of you to venture out and build something.

Education is our second pillar and has been our strong foundation since day one. We want to continue to build out educational resources for our community. The VCs will be transformed into a podcast which will be available on all your favorite streaming platforms (and as music NFTs) all while DAO members will be able to enjoy the podcast both live and recorded ahead of the public release. The Watchlist and educational channels will be combined and reimagined. Providing more accessible and comprehensive information about emerging markets (L2s, Music, NFT 2.0, Multichain, Social, …) and core infrastructure pieces (Oracles, Bridges, LPs, …). This will be one of the major changes coming with our move to Notion.

Last but not least we will leverage collective Investing through our Syndicate. The Syndicate which is already set up will invest in selective seed-stage projects and protocols maximizing our impact in the industry by helping innovative projects get off the ground.

Long-term value can only come through products

We have discussed the lack of understanding regarding utility a lot of times in our community. And its clear to us that long-term value creation can only come from strong products being built for the DAO. We believe that building for our community will enable us to get ahead of the rest of the space and create instant value directly for our holders.

This is why we are happy to announce that we have been working hard in the background to enable us to build data analytics Dashboards based on real-time on-chain data. This real-time data will help you to get ahead of the market by unveiling opportunities that are hidden from the naked eye. It will also help us make more data-driven investment decisions and to do forensics to prevent scams and rugs. More on what we are building will be announced soon but we are very excited to be building this in partnership with Mnemonic. Mnemonic is an early-stage NFT Intelligence platform offering its API to developers wanting to build on top of their data lake. They are completely under the radar but their architecture and product is the most sophisticated one out there.

Every product we build in the future will be available for free to any token holder providing them with incredible value right off the bat. On top of that our community will be heavily involved in shaping these products through their feedback and requirements.

The big unbundling - Discord to Notion

In another sector of the Centuries community, we are working on using Discord Analytics to focus and align all our efforts towards a set of core metrics. These conversations have happened publicly on our discord throughout a variety of conversations. Nevertheless, this will be one of the first changes that will be voted on through the DAO.

One of the first actions we are taking to improve is the member experience by redefining how we organize people and information. The activity in our discord can be broken down into three main principles: communication, storing information and organization. Discord is only optimized for one of the three: communication. Because of this issue, our server has become very overloaded and crowded. We have many valuable nuggets of information that are lost in the sheer mass of available messages. This prevents our members from accessing some of the most important parts of our community and also makes the onboarding journey complicated and messy.

We are in the process of migrating the majority of our channels to Notion. This will allow us to make our resources more accessible and transparent for everyone. All our efforts will go through Notion: the resources, watchlist, podcasts, investment proposals, DAO proposals, and more. To make the notion feel like a home for each and everyone of us WE NEED YOU. We want you to get involved to help us set up the Notion and to provide feedback as well as go in the Notion and start writing yourself.

What is Notion? - If Link doesnt load: www.notion.so

https://www.notion.so/

We are also looking to use LIT protocol to make both our Notion as well as our discord Token Gated allowing for more exclusivity and safety when it comes to the value provided to our community.

The Day 1 mindset

It has always been our mission at Centuries to create an open environment for crypto enthusiasts to come together to learn, build and collaborate. Now almost 5 months after our launch we are far into that process and have managed to build up a foundation to push forward.

As we embark on this new journey I want to remind you to keep the Day one mindset. This is still a new frontier with infinite opportunities and we are only scratching the surface of what’s possible for Web3 and for Centuries. Centuries is an empty canvas that needs you to fill it with color. Stay open-minded and think about something that you are interested in that could be awesome for the community.

We want to become a place for innovation helping a new generation of builders, creatives, and visionaries to build the future. This is still Day 1 and we haven’t even seen where we are going to go. The best thing we can do is to look forward and skate where the puck is going to be. But most importantly we need to fight for our identity for our values as we scale to maintain our Day 1 approach. Trends might pass but the level of innovation in the space is only going to increase over the coming years as the space matures. This is a trend that we can capitalize on by always focusing on what lies ahead.

Metamask merge with MyCrypto

After lots of speculation, the NY-based Ethereum Titan ConsenSys is looking to acquire the Ethereum Wallet MyCrypto. The 12 people team behind MyCrypto will be integrated into ConsenSys and will work alongside the Metamask team to scale the biggest Crypto Wallet.

User safety and product security are hallmarks to both MetaMask and MyCrypto, said Taylor Monahan, founder and CEO of MyCrypto, speaking with CoinDesk. Security, she said, is of increasing importance as the ecosystem grows and a more diverse range of people enter the crypto space. “We want to make sure that everyone has a good experience with cryptocurrency. Namely, not losing all of their crypto."

Led by Ethereum co-founder Joseph Lubin, Brooklyn, N.Y.-based ConsenSys is a titan in the Ethereum ecosystem, having developed a blockchain product suite that includes Diligence for smart contract audits and security, blockchain for business protocol Quorum and developer toolkit Truffle.

Credit:

https://www.coindesk.com/business/2022/02/01/consensys-acquires-ethereum-wallet-mycrypto-plans-to-merge-it-with-metamask/

$4.5 Billion Bitfinex hackers caught

The breaking news of the week was most definitely the capture of two hackers who were supposedly involved with the notorious 2016 Bitfinex, in which the hackers managed to steal the equivalent to $4.5 Billion USD (today) from the Exchange. Apparently, the hackers made no sophisticated efforts to hide or secure the stolen Bitcoin and used a CEX under their real name to store them. Authorities were able to retrieve 3.6 of the 4.5 billion USD from the hackers.

Two individuals were arrested this morning in Manhattan for an alleged conspiracy to launder cryptocurrency that was stolen during the 2016 hack of Bitfinex, a virtual currency exchange, presently valued at approximately $4.5 billion. Thus far, law enforcement has seized over $3.6 billion in cryptocurrency linked to that hack.

According to court documents, Lichtenstein and Morgan allegedly conspired to launder the proceeds of 119,754 bitcoin that were stolen from Bitfinex’s platform after a hacker breached Bitfinex’s systems and initiated more than 2,000 unauthorized transactions. Those unauthorized transactions sent the stolen bitcoin to a digital wallet under Lichtenstein’s control. Over the last five years, approximately 25,000 of those stolen bitcoin were transferred out of Lichtenstein’s wallet via a complicated money laundering process that ended with some of the stolen funds being deposited into financial accounts controlled by Lichtenstein and Morgan. The remainder of the stolen funds, comprising more than 94,000 bitcoin, remained in the wallet used to receive and store the illegal proceeds from the hack. After the execution of court-authorized search warrants of online accounts controlled by Lichtenstein and Morgan, special agents obtained access to files within an online account controlled by Lichtenstein. Those files contained the private keys required to access the digital wallet that directly received the funds stolen from Bitfinex, and allowed special agents to lawfully seize and recover more than 94,000 bitcoin that had been stolen from Bitfinex. The recovered bitcoin was valued at over $3.6 billion at the time of seizure.

Credit:

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/two-arrested-alleged-conspiracy-launder-45-billion-stolen-cryptocurrency

Aave’s Lens Protocol

Decentralised Finance (DeFi) project Aave has announced the launch of Lens Protocol, a decentralized social media (DeSo) platform on Polygon in a bid to expand its operations and explore new opportunities. The company aims to create a self-sustaining economy that has an equitable relationship with its users. The open-source "Web3, smart contracts-based social graph" is based on an ecosystem of dynamic non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and is named after 'lens culinaris', a plant that has a symbiotic interaction with soil microorganisms.

Users can create NFT-based profiles, which will have a history of all posts and comments as well as other content that you will generate while following on the platform and being represented by NFTs. The users will own their own data on Lens while other applications can plug into the open social graph.

Lens Protocol will also explore ideas that include DAO profiles and social-based verification as per the website. AAVE's move into social media has been planned for a while now and the founder and CEO Stani Kulechov revealed that the DeFi giant is planning an alternative to Twitter. The initial plan was for the platform to launch on Ethereum, but the launch shows that Lens protocol was built on Layer 2 scaling solution Polygon.

Punk #5822 sold for 8000 ETH

To close this week’s Weekly up we wanna talk about the record-breaking sale of Punk #5822 for 8.000 Ether. The Punk was acquired by Deepak Thapliyal CEO of Chain Protocol, who made waves yesterday with the purchase of this beautiful CryptoPunk shattering records and buying the rare NFT for 8,000 ETH (or ~$23m USD).

This marks a new high for CryptoPunks and the NFT space in general. And while this is really exciting and crazy it should also remind everyone that the NFT market is experiencing volatility and mania as we’ve never seen before. Trades like these should remind investors that we are nearing peak NFT mania and that prices won’t stay as they are forever. So make sure you have conviction in all your projects, derisk if you need to, and don’t wait to take profits. The dip will come it’s as inevitable as the next mania cycle or the next record-breaking Punks sale.

And while markets seem to be consolidating under mounting pressure and no one really seems to know where to go next, NFTs and private rounds are going into a frenzy once again. Seemingly unbothered by the glooming fear of further corrections and impeding regulatory hearings in the United States and Europe, private investors are continuing to make their bets on the future of value transactions on the internet and beyond. All while more and more players from the traditional sectors in technology, media, and finance are looking at crypto as their next big bet.

Wormhole Exploit

On Tuesday, February 2nd an exploit of massive scale quickly spread through the Crypto Twitter community describing what some call the second biggest DeFi exploit in history. An unknown hacker managed to exploit a weakness in the code of Wormhole a bridge protocol on the Solana blockchain. By bypassing their validation for '“Guardian” accounts the hacker managed to mint 120.000 (yes thousand) wrapped Ethereum on the Solana Blockchain of which 93.750 he/she successfully transferred back to the Ethereum Blockchain. The 120.000 ETH has a value equivalent to around $325 Million, which would make it one of the biggest crypto hacks in history.

Wormhole quickly stepped up and ensured their community that the stolen ETH would be replaced to ensure 1:1 backing in the protocol. They also offered the hacker a $10 million USD bounty if he were to return the stolen ETH. Nevertheless, this once again opens up questions about the security of cross-chain bridges and the vulnerability that both the protocols and the users are exposed to. Just a few weeks earlier Ethereum Co-Founder Vitalik Buterin questioned the integrity and security model that comes with a cross-chain future because of the vulnerability and weakness that comes with protocols transferring assets across multiple different blockchains with different security and verification models.

If you want to learn how the hacker was able to exploit the weakness in Wormholes contracts read here:

https://research.kudelskisecurity.com/2022/02/03/quick-analysis-of-the-wormhole-attack/

Dune Analytics raises $69.420 million in Series B

The blockchain data analytics company Dune successfully raised $69.420.000 USD (No joke) in their Series B while being valued at over 1 Billion USD.

The round was led by hedge fund Coatue and brings Dune Analytics' valuation to $1 billion, confirming The Block's reporting from last month. Existing investors, including Multicoin Capital and Dragonfly Capital, also participated in the round.

Dune has big plans in place with fresh capital in hand. It looks to build a community of up to 1 million analysts, support more blockchains, build an API, and massively expand its team, the firm's co-founder and CEO Fredrik Haga told The Block.

Founded in 2018, Dune lets users create data charts and dashboards on metrics such as DEX and NFT trading volumes. The platform currently has 10,000 analysts and 100,000 pieces of analysis. Dune is accessible to the public for free, but it also has a paid product for customized data, for which it charges $390 per month per user.

Dune calls its community of analysts "Dune Wizards" and pays many of them for creating dashboards, said Haga. The firm plans to bring more analysts to the platform and reward them as there is an ocean of blockchain data still largely underutilized, according to Haga. "We think this open data opportunity will enable a new generation of analysts to find work in and add value in crypto communities," he said.

Credit:

https://www.theblockcrypto.com/post/132759/dune-analytics-crypto-series-b-valuation-1-billion

This marks yet another chapter for the data analytics space in Web3 that is picking up steam as investors and developers are competing for the best companies, products in place to use the treasure trove that is Blockchain on-chain data.

Gamestop x IMX

On Thursday morning the NFT Layer 2 Startup ImmutableX announced yet another major new partnership with the gaming powerhouse and industry veteran Gamestop. Gamestop NFTs will be a marketplace and platform for developers and creatives to build on and will be powered by IMX and their ZK Rollups (which are built by Starkware). This will enable projects to leverage the platform and reach that a name like Gamestop brings while also benefitting from gas-free minting of assets (both fungible and non-fungible). In addition to their partnership IMX and Gamestop also announced a $100 million USD grants program for developers and projects building on top of IMX. Applications are open right now: $100 million IMX Grant Program

ImmutableX has managed to build an impressive portfolio of partners over the last few months including VeVe, Illuvium, Gary Vee, Superfarm but Gamestop is surely their biggest partnership and it seems like they are just getting started. Nevertheless, it is going to be interesting to see whether they can cement themselves as the dominant player in the Crypto Gaming Ecosystem and attract developers to their platform.

Loot moving to Starknet

The Loot team announced that they plan to release their Loot-Verse in Q2 2022 with most of the computation for in-game actions and data being on Starknet. They believe that the next 1M Players will need a cheap and secure transaction network. After experimentation with various L2 solutions, they decided that Starknet had superior data compression and composability.

Loot plans to build a Lootverse where you can use your items, bags, and characters and interact with a vibrant world and with your follow Loot community members while also ensuring that a huge new cohort of people can come into the Lootverse and experience the magic of NFTs without being restricted through paywalls, gas or complicated user flows.

Loot has always been pushing the boundaries of how to open community-focused development can look and they are continuing to push the boundaries by being one of the first projects to realize the opportunities that come with building on Starknet.

The fourth week of January was shaped by general uncertainty around markets, volatility, and the state of the global economy. Nevertheless, the world of crypto and NFTs saw a lot of big events and news that kept everyone glued to their chairs. From a raging NFT bull market that saw floor prices soar to scandals about Opensea and secretly crawled IPs and a Defi dream turning into a feverish nightmare, January ended with a bang.

Wonderland turning into a nightmare for Frog Nation

This week started off with an almost overnight rug of Time Wonderland which was started by FTX pulling out liquidity sending the price plummeting. This caused a mass wave of liquidations which raised some serious concerns and questions by Frog Nation into Daniele Esesta the mastermind behind Time, ICE, and MIM. As if this was not enough the community was rocked again just shortly later when insider messages exposed that 0xSifu, one of Daniele’s partners, was the infamous QuadrigaCX scammer Michael Patryn. Patryn who is convicted of multiple financial crimes including fraud was one of the co-founders of QuadrigaCX a Canadian Crypto-Exchange that went bankrupt in 2018 after one of the other Co-founders mysteriously passed causing over 130 million USD in losses for 70.000 Investors.

This revelation saw the price of Time further plummet which had a rippling effect far past the Time ecosystem. Next to Time both Ice, Abracadabra, and MIM saw tremendous selloffs which eventually even hit the Terra Luna Ecosystem. Terra is still down more than 30% since the beginning of the week.

Opensea IP scandal

On Thursday VICE published an article in collaboration with Convex Labs, in which Nick Bax head of research at Convex Labs explained how they found out that they could load HTTPS pages as NFTs on Opensea which could be used for a variety of cross-site scripting attacks.

“Some new NFTs are being used to harvest viewers’ IP addresses, though, in a demonstration of how NFT marketplaces like OpenSea allow vendors, or attackers, to load custom code when someone simply views an NFT listing.

“We've been researching a lot of problems in the NFT space (with more of a focus on fraud) and one of the things we were playing around with was different XSS attacks on websites that display NFTs which is when I realized we could get OpenSea to load HTML pages,” Nick Bax, head of research at NFT organization Convex Labs, told Motherboard in an online chat. XSS refers to cross site scripting attacks, one of several different kinds of attack that someone could use an NFT for.

Bax and a team of engineers and contributors are working on multiple NFTs that harvest peoples’ IP addresses. One, which includes a Simpsons and South Park crossover image, surreptitiously collects the viewer’s IP address and stores it in a panel for Bax to view later.”

https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgdvaz/nft-steal-ip-address-opensea

The implications of this discovery are far more wide-reaching than just NFTs harvesting people’s IP addresses. It also entails that Opensea themselves have probably been harvesting IP addresses and other browser-related cookies opening up further questions about the site’s security and data collection methods.

Launch of SyndicateDAO

After many months SyndicateDAO has finally launched their highly awaited protocol which lets anyone create an Investment Syndicate with just a few clicks. The protocol allows users to pool funds, display investments, set different kinds of access for members as well as legal resources, and support to help facilitate venture investments and equity.

The Syndicate team has made clear that this is just the beginning and they plan to make investing and syndicates accessible to everyone.

https://syndicate.mirror.xyz/4p6a0nKpBYMSxoAfN6KpjcUwJSD2t68Dq7zgoliB4pk

Fractal Scaling - Starknets L3

This week Starknet, the developers of Starknet the turing ready ZK-Rollup, published an article on Fractal Scaling and privacy focus ZK Rollups that sit on top of L2-Scaling Solutions like Starknet. In their, article Starkware describes the concept as a privacy-preserving and/or use case-specific L3s that could enable:

Hyper-scalability: leveraging the multiplicative effect of recursive proving. Better control by the app designer of the technology stack: a. More deterministic performance and cost, b. Customized data availability models (e.g., Validium-based or app-specific compression of on-chain data), c. Faster feature and technological velocity (e.g., introducing new functionality not yet ready for general availability). 3. Privacy: e.g., Zero Knowledge Proofs applied to privacy-preserving transactions over a public L2. 4. Cheaper/simpler L2-L3 interoperability: On/off-ramping flows currently used between L1 and L2 are notoriously expensive. In contrast, due to the cost effectiveness of L2, these flows, when applied to L3, become not only extremely attractive, but also straightforward to implement. While the latency of moving assets between L2 and L3 may be longer than between applications deployed on the same L2, the cost and throughput is comparable. 5. Cheaper/simpler L3-L3 interoperability: Independent L3s will interoperate via L2, not L1. L2 is obviously expected to be cheaper than its L1. Absent L3, these would all function as L2s, and as such, would have to interoperate via the considerably more expensive L1. 6. L3 as a “Canary” network for L2: New innovations may be put to test on L3 prior to being made available to the general public on L2 or L3 (much like the role Kusama plays for Polkadot).

(Credit:

https://medium.com/starkware/fractal-scaling-from-l2-to-l3-7fe238ecfb4f

The third week of January saw a lot of high-profile announcements shaking up the world of Web3. From Brands paving the way towards a non-fungible future to real products and features being shipped by some of Web2s biggest companies, 2022 starts off strong.

StockX Tokenized Assets:

The Week started off with a big announcement by no other than the king of real-world collectibles. StockX the sneaker, fashion, and collectibles marketplace that originated in the sneaker hype that started in 2016 just announced that they are working on a marketplace for tokenized assets (NFTs). Tokenizing the real world is a trend that has been building up for a long time. Tokenizing real-world collectibles might be the first step to bridging the real world to the blockchain world and giving NFTs an IoT (Internet of Things) type of utility. StockX has been a master in capitalizing on hype and unlocking liquidity for high-demand assets since culture and commerce first converged in Sneakers and streetwear. It is gonna be interesting to see how tokenized sneakers, clothes, and other real-world collectibles will shake up the non-fungible market.

Microsoft acquiring Activision Blizzard:

The second big news of the Week would be the recently announced 69 Billion Dollar acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft. The hit Game Maker of titles like World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, and Overwatch has announced that Microsoft is going to acquire them. Microsoft who has been steadily growing its Portfolio of gaming studios, Dev teams, and hardware has announced in a joined press release that they believe in the future of Gaming and digital Worlds, also possibly hinting at the rumors of Blizzard experimenting with in-game Tokens.

While Microsoft’s focus on the future of gaming shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, this still marks the biggest game studio acquisition in the history of video games and further confirms big techs’ focus on building the next generation of digital worlds and brands across platforms. And if the rumors are true, Activision Blizzard might be one of the first household names to enter the crypto gaming space this year.

Twitter NFT Profile Pic Verification:

This has been a long time in the making with the earliest reports about the crypto team at Twitter emerging in the third quarter of 2021. Yet there was still a lot of uncertainty whether the leadership change and the absence of Jack Dorsey (EX CEO and Co-Founder of Twitter) would affect the direction of the endeavor. Yet out of the blue (pun intended), Twitter rolled out the feature on Thursday, January 20th to all Twitter Blue members allowing people to verify their NFT holdings by connecting to the Wallet of their choice. The feature is powered by Openseas API and Twitter announced that the feature is a joined Collaboration between multiple big Crypto Companies (OS, MetaMask, Rainbow to name a few).

This marks the first official Web3 integration on Social Media and Twitter has finally taken action to acknowledge the importance of the Web3 community on their platform. This begs the question of who will follow their lead and whether Discord will come back to act on their Problems.

Meta working on integrating NFTs into FB and Instagram:

On January 20th various Newspapers broke the news that Meta (ex: Facebook) is experimenting with integrating NFTs into their services like Instagram. The articles discuss how Meta is experimenting with minting and trading NFTs on their platform which could possibly bring their billions of users into the NFT space. That connection between culture and blockchain could very well be used by the platforms that already have universal access to the global population.

To get you thinking about a way more interesting question when it comes to Meta integrating tokens into their platforms and that is in regards to infrastructure. Mark Zuckerberg has been careful about not repeating the mistakes of the past when it comes to being in control of platforms. So the big question is whether they will build their own blockchain to remain in control of their narrative.

But what are networks exactly? The classical definition for a network is a collective of two or more nodes (people, computers, objects) who are connected to each other in some form, and who do or do not share a variety of edges (attributes, relationships, etc.). But how does that translate to the networks we have in the real world? For example, in a computer network, you have the nodes (computers) and they are connected via a wireless or a wired/cable connection. They can also take specific roles in the network — like being a server that holds data or a PC that allows a user to connect to the network — these roles or features are called edges.

Networks can either be small — a two-person peer-to-peer network — or very large. Think of the global financial network which is made up of billions of people, institutions, and middlemen. Depending on the size and the role that these networks play, they can become a powerful force in our society.

But why do these networks matter so much? This is a very important question to understand; it gives us a wider view on how our society functions. We all are part of networks. We are part of social networks, big and small, that make up our families, friends, and acquaintances. Most of us are part of one or more financial networks, by having a bank account or by being part of the cryptocurrency industry. We are also part of bigger institutional networks like nation-states, or supranational networks like the EU or the UN.

These networks are vast and many people that are part of those networks might not necessarily understand that they are. Most of these networks have distinct features and play some kind of societal role in our lives. Unfortunately, they often come with a hierarchy. In a financial network, high net worth individuals have more control than low net worth individuals. In a social network, people with a high amount of edges (connections, followers, etc.) have a greater influence than others.

Take a second and think about the variety of networks that you are naturally a part of, and how much they influence your life and your role in society.

Now that you understand what networks are and why they matter, we can come to the interesting part. Around the early 2000s, a business innovation gradually emerged. It was fueled by the PC and internet revolution that was taking over the world. Many people that worked in this new industry were fascinated by the incredible growth in adoption of these products that had not been seen before the rise of the internet. On their quest to find out what fueled this rapid growth, they coined a new term that would soon become the new buzzword for the start-up space: Network Effects.

To avoid any confusion, we are going to start by defining what Network Effects are. A product or service is subject to positive network effects when increased usage by any user increases the value of the product or service for other users.

But Network Effects are not equal and there is no single Network Effect. You can have User Network Effects, Business Network Effects, Sales Network Effects, and more. Generally, Network Effects are divided into 5 subcategories: Direct Network Effects, Indirect Network Effects, Two-sided Network Effects, Local Network Effects, and Compatibility and Standards. Instead of making this section lengthy by explaining each of them separately, we will refer you to an article which was written by one of the most prominent Network Effect researchers: http://oz.stern.nyu.edu/io/network.html.

So why are Network Effects so powerful? Well as the definition explains, increased usage of the network increases the value for every other node in the network. This usually leads to the hockey stick style growth that you can observe with some of the biggest technological innovations of our time: from Google to Facebook and from Uber to Ethereum. All of them share one important factor that fueled their incredible growth: Network Effects.

Let us take Ethereum as an example — Ethereum started off as the first Layer 1 Blockchain to support Smart Contracts. In the beginning, it had very few users and very few developers. But as more and more people got into crypto, the user and developer base for Ethereum exploded — this growth was fueled by both direct and indirect Network Effects. The Network Effects can be observed by the appreciation of Ether’s price. The more users that joined, the more the value of Eth increased — which rewarded early users and created more value for the entire Network. However, there is an even more important indirect Network Effect that Ethereum is benefitting from: the more users that joined, more developers that got interested in building dApps (decentralized applications) on Ethereum and vice versa; the more dApps that were built on Ethereum, the more users joined the Network. As you can see, these effects have powerful implications.

Even though there are many Layer 1 alternatives to Ethereum today (with better functionality and lower cost…) Ethereum still remains the premier Layer 1 in the Blockchain Ecosystem. This is because Ethereum has incredibly strong Network Effects. The interesting thing about Network Effects is that they have two causal effects. They lower the barrier of entry for new users but they also increase the barrier of exit for existing users. The latter is the reason why superior Layer 1's have such a hard time keeping up with Ethereum.

Another great Example for adverse Network Effects is Facebook. Online Social Networks have some of the most powerful Network Effects that exist. Not only does the network become more valuable to you when more of your friends join in, it adversely makes it a lot harder for you to leave said network. This is the reason why 2.3 Billion people still use Facebook even though the company itself is generally scrutinized. Facebook benefits from the incredibly high barrier of exit that prevents their users to switch to a competitor.

Network Effects as a business innovation has been one of the most powerful tools in Silicon Valley’s repertoire to build giants of the industry. They usually lead to “Winner takes most industries;” which is why Facebook is still the most dominant Social Network, Google has a monopoly in Search, and Netflix dominates the streaming market.

In order for Web3 to succeed, we need to build strategic Network Effects into our products. They are the most powerful tool to build incredibly successful products. There is just one problem: Network Effects only work at scale. You need to reach a certain network size to reap the benefits of Network Effects. But in order to to use them at all, we need to engineer them into the product long before we actually reach that scale. This is often overlooked by many projects. Knowing which network effects your product can leverage, can make or break your business in the long term.

To build a powerful Network that can deliver value to our community, we need to think about how we can build around Network Effects before we build our products. This will help us once we get into the Blitzscaling phase. If we as the Web3 community do not realize how to build those networks, then we will have no chance against the Web2 Giants — they know and they have known for decades. They have built their businesses on Network Effects and they will attempt to do it again. But if we educate our communities about Networks and leverage the power of community, we can beat them at their own game. If specific industries are Winner takes most, which they will be, we need to make sure that the Winner is someone who shares our values and who is part of the community itself. Otherwise, we will lose one fight after another to the Incumbents of Web2.

Communities are the building blocks for Web3. They can empower the individual and they can achieve things that were thought to be impossible not too long ago. Where Web2 focused on products and users, Web3 returns to the roots of the Internet movement by focusing on Humans and how they come together as collectives to form communities. But communities are not all the same, and they don’t necessarily translate to strong social ties or movements.

Communities can be made up of weak ties, people that come together for a shared goal but do not share any meaningful social connections, rarely interacting with the community unless its for their own gain. In sociology, we call these communities secondary social groups. Primary social groups on the other hand, are communities that share common characteristics (for example, a common goal or social categories like age, preferences, etc.) but even more importantly, they interact with the community and work together to achieve their shared goal.

As the story of Web3 unfolds, we see only the latter kind of communities will have a long lasting impact on the overall direction of the Blockchain Space. Communities with a shared vision and a strong alignment towards executing on this vision are making incredible things happen. They are the living proof of why Web3 will eventually succeed over the incumbents of Web2. Since these communities can work together and get all of their members involved, both in the creative and the development process, as well as the process of growth through word of mouth; what makes these communities special is the shared ownership and shared responsibility that each and every member of the community has. It does not end with a formal team or a company building a product or service, it really only starts with them.

This brings us to the topic of today, which as you might have guessed is: Community. Community stands at the center of all our efforts in building both the Centuries Collective as a force of change for the industry, as well as for the organizations and platforms that will be seeded by Centuries.

To leverage the power of our Community we need to come together to find ways to make our community members an active part instead of a passive part of the development process. We will have thousands of members waiting for every new update and every new product we release. But that is an approach of the past. Our community is not going to just stand by and wait, they will be an active force in the process itself.

How will that play out? As we have seen over the recent weeks, there is an incredible amount of people that are already trying to participate in some capacity and that want to contribute their skills to make the community stronger and make the projects we work on better. This contribution can come in a variety of ways and capacities. For example, an independent artist using their creativity to help us connect with our community through music, visual art, cinematography, or by other means. Through their efforts, they can create value for the community and in return, the community gives them exposure and a place to share their creative efforts.

But art is not the only way to contribute. We have been approached by programmers and developers with all kinds of experiences, skills, and backgrounds. From web and front-end development to back-end, distributed ledger, and database development. No matter if you have experience in creating beautiful user experiences, or are a data genius that builds efficient databases or that collects unique insights by doing data analysis and data engineering — all of those are skills that can improve our products and bring value to our community.

However, it does not end there. You might be wondering: I am neither an artist nor do I have any skills or experience in programming, but I still want to contribute and help the community, what can I do? There really is an endless amount of things that need to be done and that will bring value to the community. From translating our products into a language you are fluent in to help others get easier access, or to being an active part in the community itself by helping new members find the information they need by sharing knowledge with others. In the end, you are playing an important part in our community.

Take a second to think about what you could do for others and how your unique set of skills could benefit the community. Because if the community gets stronger, so do you as an individual. The magic about Web3 is that we can all benefit from each other if we pull on the same string. It is not about maximizing individual gains — one person could never create as much value as a community of people that are aligned behind a powerful vision.

Going into our post-launch we will know exactly who our community members are. They are going to be the holders of our collection, as well as individual contributors from the outside that are doing their best to become part of the community. We are open for everyone to participate, and everyone who participates will reap the rewards that will come from making our vision a reality.

To our team, which will lead the efforts on making this reality come true, it was always clear that we will not be able to do everything alone. Only with a strong community we can leverage the true power of Web3. Which is why we will have a mix of individual volunteers from inside the community as well as people from the outside that might initially join for monetary rewards but will slowly become part of the bigger community.

The funds we raise through our first Centuries Collection will be the catalyst that will help us get off the ground and that will allows us to maintain community ownership, without having to give substantial control to outside investors whose goals might not be aligned with those of the community. It will allow us to hire specialists from the outside that will bring the necessary expertise and engineering experience to build our vision of a more connected Web3 space where the community themselves own the means of production and stays in control of their connections, relationships, and assets.

But we will not just hire specialists from the outside. We will also hire from within our community. Those who make the biggest contribution and show the biggest commitment will become an official part of our team. All the other smaller contributors will be rewarded for their help and time as well.

We hope this demonstrates to everyone both the opportunities, as well as the responsibility that each and every member of the community has in making a difference. Alone, we are weak and small, but together, we can achieve incredible things. That is the true power of community. It is what will allow us to make a real impact and to show everyone else that our passion and commitment are more powerful than even the biggest Giants of Web2. They might have unlimited capital, and armies of employees and talent, but they lack shared ownership and meaningful connections. Their power comes from control. They never asked for permission, they just took that control as their sacred right. The reality is most of them do not deserve that control — they are not building for communities but for shareholders, these two groups rarely align. It is time to take that control back and show them that we have a voice, and that we are not happy with how they have been using their power.

It is in our hands to make the future better than the past — but we can only do it together.

It all started out with the first NFT Mania and the meteoric rise of AXIE Infinity that seemingly validated the crypto gaming wave as “the next big thing.” To no surprise, hungry apes and big crypto influencers soon jumped on the train in hopes of getting a piece of the pie. Just a few months later crypto gaming is no longer the underdog, but the accepted narrative for Web3's future for venture capitalists and small-time investors alike. But as always, inflationary hype masks the underlying reality by painting a picture of a perfect future.

“Everything will get gamified, games will eat the internet, and the future of Web3 will be a huge party of memes, games, and unlimited gains.” That is a summary of what you will hear left and right on Crypto Twitter these days. But what is actually beneath all the hype? Will the Internet really become all games and fun? And what role will games and NFTs play in the future of this emerging industry?

Let us start with the basics, by going back to the first principles and by looking at some real facts. Games have existed since the dawn of humanity. Play is a natural behavior pattern in most animals starting at an early age. Over the millennia, our games have evolved from simple gambling and sports to complex strategic games that challenge our brains while stimulating our rewards system by utilizing mechanisms like cooperation and competition in combination with variable rewards. Good games are engaging and fun, they challenge you just the right amount, and they require the player to make strategic investments based on risk calculation that might come with big rewards.

With the emergence of the early video game industry in the 1980s, the way we constructed games changed dramatically. Since then, video games have slowly become an integral part of entertainment in our everyday lives. Fueled through the innovations of the computer age, we were able to build more sophisticated and engaging games than ever before. Especially the developments in chip and rendering technologies have made games more immersive than ever.

By moving from special purpose machines like consoles to PC and mobile devices, we have opened the gates for mass adoption and player bases have soared as a result. Game studios like EA, Blizzard, and Ubisoft have managed to become huge multi-billion dollar corporations that produce multiple AAA titles every year, increasing the supply of new games in the process. But AAA is no longer the only segment of games that experiences mass adoption. Since the early days of Farmville (which heavily experiment with the findings in behavioral psychology from the Stanford Persuasive Design lab), to billion-dollar franchises like Supercells Clash of Clans or Candy Crush, the mobile and indie market has carved its own segment into the video game industry.

Now in 2021, there are over 1.9 billion gamers worldwide. This makes the gaming industry one of the fastest-growing industries since social networking.

Knowing all of that, it might be an obvious conclusion to say games are eating the internet, and crypto gaming will be the most dominant sector that emerges in Web3. But do not jump to conclusions yet.

The big two value propositions that the blockchain is bringing into the gaming industries are obvious: digital asset ownership (NFTs) as well as real decentralized digital asset economies connecting games across platforms, studios, and gamers. This sounds like a big deal and it really is.

But wait a second. In-game economies are nothing new, World of Warcraft had a thriving item economy almost two decades ago, and through the emergence of in-game purchases from mobile to big free-to-play AAA titles like Fortnite the monetization of video games seemed inevitable long before Crypto Gaming was even a term. What really makes blockchain games interesting is the interoperability element that can allow people to own their assets not just in-game, but across platforms.

So yes, Crypto will disrupt the gaming industry in the coming years by allowing for new forms of interoperability and item economies. But that is just half of the equation right? When you go on Twitter you read that Crypto Gaming will be a lot more than just Gaming. It will be the future of social networking and it will gamify the entire internet. This is where it gets tricky, because as impressive as crypto gaming is, it is not enough for some people. Those people start making up wild narratives about how gaming is about so much more than just games.

Let us start with the first narrative: Crypto Gaming is the future of social networking. This is something we have seen a lot and it usually shows that the person who pushes this narrative has little understanding of the mechanics of social interactions. Good games are inherently social. They leverage cooperation and competition, which as we know triggers our reward system to produce serotonin and dopamine. As we discussed in our article about social connections, human interaction is a natural need for every one of us. But social interaction is not all the same. The types of interactions you have while playing a game differ dramatically from the types of interactions that can be observed in social networks.

What we see a lot in the early versions of crypto native games is simple chat rooms. People walk around in their NFT avatar of choice (which they minted) and they can chat with others through cartoonish bubbles over their heads. This thing really is not new. Gamers of the early 2000s might remember similar experiments with Habbo Hotel or Club Penguin. These so-called social games had a massive wave of hype but died down eventually due to one major reason: inefficiency. They were terrible for communication and usually terrible games as well. Their focus on creating the perfect mix led them to be mediocre at both.

Other games like Minecraft or WoW had simple chats as well but made sure to focus on the game rather than social connections. Nowadays, games have much more sophisticated tools for communication. Driven by the explosive adoption of Discord by the gaming community, most team-based games from COD to Overwatch have in-game voice channels, and consoles like PS and Xbox have built-in voice chats on their operating systems.

Nevertheless, they did not replace Social Networks like Facebook or messengers like WhatsApp for one simple reason. Games are Games, not tools for broad, population-wide communication and information exchange. In-game communication serves a very different purpose than social networks. Over-engineering combinations of the two like Club Penguin did, might make for a fun distraction in the short term but cannot and will not replace direct communication tools. This is where it gets tricky with crypto, crypto is great at a lot of things and has brought many innovations, but there is nothing about crypto that will inherently change the way we communicate.

What many might refer to in terms of crypto gaming becoming the new social network, is probably in regards to the biggest Buzzword in Web3: the Metaverse. To learn more about why it is completely ridiculous to talk about the Metaverse and crypto gaming in the context of the next few years can be read about here: https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2021/10/9/metaverse-metaverse-metaverse.

To understand the implications of the narrative that Crypto Gaming will “eat the internet,” take a second to think that statement through.

Around half of the internet is work/business-related applications, from Wikipedia to Dropbox to Uber and Airbnb. Do you want to play games while ordering an Uber or booking your next Vacation? No, you want to get your Uber and book your next trip as fast as possible! Do you want to play games or hunt for tokens while needing to work on Dropbox, finish that report on Word, or shop on Amazon? No, you want to concentrate on getting the work done so you can finally go home and then play your favorite game.

The same goes for entertainment which gaming is a part of. There is a reason we have different forms of entertainment, from watching videos on YouTube to shows on Netflix to reading your favorite Manga online. These are applications that do not require a lot of thinking, whereas gaming needs you to be active. Games have been around for a long time now, if they would be eating the internet, they would have done so years ago. And while games will grow more important in 5–10 years once we itch closer to a virtual, mixed-reality Metaverse, they will still not disrupt the very industries mentioned above.

So let us conclude our findings, gaming is a huge and rapidly growing industry with incredible appeal due to inherent social reward mechanisms embedded into good game design. Blockchain technologies will disrupt the gaming industry in a variety of ways and help grow the market until it has saturated across the 8 billion people that live on this planet. This will come with huge opportunities for everyone who focuses on building the most engaging and rewarding games on top of Web3. Crypto Gaming will not disrupt the social networking space, at least not in the next 5+ years. It will also not “eat the internet,” but rather increase its market share through growing adoption.

Crypto Games that focus on first principles: making great games will ultimately succeed, while all the metaverse games and social games will be forgotten as distractions of the early days. If you are investing in this space, be aware of these mechanics. Understand that the biggest brands and names that will emerge are not even being built yet. Do not fall for all the hype and noise. Focus on fundamentals. Make investments based on first principles by figuring out if the teams focus on the things that matter or if they have been caught up in the hype, which will lead them to a pump, stagnation because of lacking game mechanics (Club Penguin laughs from its grave), and ultimate doom.

With the emergence of the Web, humanity has developed new tools for information transmission which resulted in new ways to form organizations with almost infinite possible applications. Web3 takes this development even further by allowing rules, conditions, and ownership/control to be programmed into digital smart contracts. This development has profound implications for the way we can (and will) organize ourselves in the future.

One of the ways this development is materializing is through Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs). DAOs were first created and coined by a group of Developers in 2016. The DAO, which was the first of its kind, was an organization created by developers to automate decisions and facilitate cryptocurrency transactions. The DAO was an organization that was designed to be autonomous and decentralized. It acted as a form of venture capital fund, based on open-source code, and without a typical management structure or board of directors. Shortly after its creation, the DAO raised over 150 million dollars. This made it the biggest crowd sale at the time. However, due to a bug in the program, hackers were able to extract money from the DAO which ultimately led to its downfall.

The concept of a DAO however continued to fascinate both intellectuals and developers alike. Since 2016, we have seen a lot happening in the space of decentralized organizations. Today in 2021, we have DAOS, DACs, DOs and many more. All these vary in their degrees of decentralization, autonomy, capital structure, and focus.

Now, going over the pros and cons of DAOs. The benefits of DAOs are very obvious to most people in the Web3 space. You have a high level of decentralization when it comes to both ownership and control. All members of a DAO benefit from the collective capital and in an ideal situation, the distribution of governance tokens is even, which means that all decisions become truly democratic and fair. The members of a DAO get to vote on how the internal capital gets used as well as on which goals and functions the DAO should have. This works great for all communities that follow the model of the original DAO from 2016. A community raises funds and then the community decides on how to invest/use the funds towards a common goal like investing, collecting, or funding.

Another area where DAOs have been very popular is fundraising. Whether it is through traditional ways like Venture Capital/Angel Investments or through new ways in which a communities comes together to raise funds for a shared goal. After the fundraising, the DAO gets formed and injected with the capital that was raised. Lots of start-ups have embraced this new way of fundraising and changes in regulation have paved the way for DAOs as official legal entities in many states. Yet this is also the area where we have seen the most problems when it comes to DAOs.

DAOs work great for projects/communities that only have to make big decisions, especially regarding capital allocation, infrequently. But in the last few years, more and more people have tried to create hybrid models in which DAOs or DOs resemble traditional companies or start-ups more and more. We believe this is where it gets tricky.

While DAOs are a great way to raise money, they are terribly inefficient for decision-making. This has always been the case for organizational models that have a high amount of individual voters. A good example is traditional democracies as a model for nation-states. While they have a high degree of fairness and power distribution, which allows for a more justifiable way of governing large populations, they are also among the most inefficient governing systems we have ever seen. The polar opposite would be a dictatorship/regime in which you have barely any fair/even distribution of power but very high efficiency. And while democracies are no doubt the best choice for governing nation-states, that does not mean that an equivalent is the best choice for businesses.

Companies especially start-ups are highly dependent on a high rate of decision making. The faster a start-up can make decisions, the higher its chance of success. The reason why the innovator’s dilemma (new companies replacing incumbents) exists is because small teams are 100x more flexible and efficient in their decision-making. And even for big transnational cooperations, some degree of hierarchical decision-making is necessary to stay aligned towards a shared vision/mission. The last decade has shown that horizontal organizations are a lot more successful than the vertical hierarchical organizations. Vertical organizations is how companies were led throughout the 19th and 20th century.

The philosophy of vertical hierarchical organizations has long been preached to be the most efficient way of running large organizations by business schools across the globe. Yet companies like Netflix, Google, and Airbnb have debunked these models and shown that horizontal organizations with more individual freedom are a lot more efficient. Nevertheless, there needs to be different levels of organizational structure to ensure that the whole organization is aligned towards the bigger picture. This is especially true for large organizations where each member has a high degree of individual freedom, otherwise, everyone does what they want and the organization moves in a million different directions.

If you apply this knowledge to the concepts of DAOs, you will see that they inherently clash with the way companies work. Not only do DAOs (at least in the way they exist today) require validation for every major decision from a large group of individuals, but due to its decentralized nature decision, making itself is inherently flawed because of varying interests and misalignment. These facts do not really matter that much if you only make one or two decisions a year because your DAO resembles an investment fund of some sort. For a start-up or company, however, where you have to make multiple time-sensitive decisions every day, it can be fatal.

Now you might argue that there are other ways to structure DAOs, for example, structuring them more like our governments where we have elected officials and institutions that get to make decisions for a certain period of time. And you are right, this works (mostly) fine for governments, and the regular change which comes through election cycles provides a much-needed inflow of new ideas and people. Yet this cannot be applied to companies. If you change out half of the executive staff every few years, you will create so much chaos and organizational debt that it will yet again turn out to be fatal for the company.

As we see it is hard to apply certain frameworks that work for one type of organization to another. Companies have not flourished since the dawn of global capitalism for nothing. The shareholder model, while not perfect (mostly due to the investment structures that are in place) has demonstrated to be ultimately superior to any state-owned or mass-controlled alternative. Which is why we need to think about ways we can expand the shareholder model using the blockchain without changing the actual decision-making mechanisms.

How can we get more average people to be owners and shareholders? How can we implement checks and balances without leaving decision-making up to the will of the masses? In times of social media and misinformation, it rarely turns out to be a good choice to let the masses decide. Rather, we need to implement more mechanisms to hold the decision-makers responsible and to make sure that company values are aligned with those of the community. But DAOs, at least in the form they exist today, are not the answer in our opinion.

We are sure that these problems will be solved and that new hybrid models will emerge and ultimately succeed. There are many use-cases where the DAO makes a lot of sense and will lead to change and disruption. They present a novel way to organize ourselves and to leverage the power of communities. But as of right now, they do not work for companies. They are slower and more inefficient than even the biggest cooperations. Because more people = less efficiency in decision making, that is just the way it has always been.

It might come as a surprise to some, but Mark Zuckerberg and his army of engineers are not sitting in front of their screens all day monitoring the messages you send on WhatsApp or the pictures you post on Instagram. Instead, every piece of information gets queried and fed into training the various algorithms that Facebook employs to make their platforms work. Generally, these algorithms can be divided into three categories: Recommendation Engines, Content Screening Algorithms, and A/B User Testing.

Let us start with recommendation engines that make up the core of Facebook’s proprietary IP and which made it the tech behemoth it is today. Facebook collects data, that is something most people know, but for recommendation engines, they collect specific kinds of data. They track your interactions: what content you like, how long you view a specific type of content, what type of content you view, which accounts you follow, what types of posts you engage with (comments, likes, views), and how long each session you spend on the app is. They feed this information into their machine learning training models which will then decide what accounts to recommend to you, how your newsfeed is structured, and what content to show to keep you engaged as long as possible.

Even more important for Facebook, is the data about how you interact with their ads. If you view them, how long you view them if you click on them and what kinds of interests you demonstrate on the platform. They then assign you to different segments and sell their valuable newsfeed real estate (around every fourth post you see) in real-time via their incredibly sophisticated auction platform to advertisers. All of that happens constantly, millions of times a day in real-time, without you noticing. It has made them the second biggest player in the ads industry after Google.

The second big application is content screening. They are using complex image recognition algorithms and natural language processing to filter out as much illegal content as possible before it even gets uploaded. Back in the early days before they had algorithms, they needed to manually go through every flagged post to find the bad fruits. An impossible task as you might imagine. Today they employ over 15,000 people to help out with content moderation because, as we all know, even the most sophisticated algorithms have difficulties analyzing all the nuances of human interaction.

Despite what some people might say about political biases and freedom of speech, this is actually a good thing. The moderation team has had an incredible churn and the average working time there is less than 2 years due to PTSD and other effects on mental health. They remove everything from videos of executions, rape, hate speech, misinformation, and propaganda. They are basically doing the best they can to keep our platforms safe, friendly, and to keep out as much negativity as they can. And while they are far from perfect and do not catch 100% of all bad content, it has long been proven that Facebook has been doing the best job in content screening and moderation out of all the big social networks by a high margin. Just to give you perspective: in Q1 2018, Facebook removed over 821 million posts that contained violence, nudity, and other offensive material.

This is an important factor to understand when it comes to data screening and collection**. Our world is not black and white, and the platforms we use are not as nice and friendly by nature as some people think they are**. The internet has the tendency to bring out more deviant behavior in Humans, and it is an incredibly hard job to keep these platforms safe to use.

How will we approach things at Solomon? Well at the beginning, we will mostly rely on our users reporting inappropriate content which we will then evaluate and remove from the platform. Later on, it will be necessary to use content screening algorithms to ensure the safety of the platform. There is simply no other way to filter content once you reach a certain user base.

We will never collect or store any personal data or information about our users. As you have learned, the main reason why Web2 social networks collect data is because they rely on it for their core business: advertisements. The more accurately they can match ads with users, the higher the amount that advertisers are willing to pay the platform. At Solomon however, we will not have advertisements as our business model. Instead, we will rely on micro-transactions and transaction fees. This will allow us to give you full control over your data and will mean that there is no need for us to collect any personal data about you.

We will track app usage patterns to allow for A/B testing to further optimize our features and our platform. But to do that, it is not necessary to collect any personal data, instead, we can anonymize user-profiles and put them in cohorts depending on how they use certain features. We will not collect any content or personal data. Instead, we will analyze the general usage patterns of the cohort you will be assigned to. For example: how many people fail to connect their wallet, how many people use a certain feature, or how long and how often people are using the platform.

Later on, we will also enable you to choose whether or not you want to turn on content recommendations. This is important because they help with increasing engagement and from our experience, non-algorithmic feeds tend to get boring easily. You will end up missing a lot of the content that comes from accounts/people that matter the most to you. Nevertheless, those features will be optional and always opt-in required instead of opt-out later. This means we will actively ask every user if they want personal recommendations or not.

Today we only discussed in-app data collection but there is another big side to the picture which is third-party, cross-platform data collection using cookies, WebCrawlers, data mining, and retail data. If you are interested in learning more about the topic, we can do part two of this article.

While this model has worked great for the first decade of crypto to lure in investors, retail traders, and technology enthusiasts; it has come with a variety of negative side effects. Financial incentives do not lead to intrinsic motivation instead they lead to greed.

Financial incentives have resulted in a variety of unpleasant cultural norms. It creates an everyone for themselves mentality. Either you are here to make money or here to lose money. Next, it has attracted an incredible amount of scammers, Ponzi schemes and cut-throat mechanics. These do not only rob simple people of their hard earned money (no one said investing/trading was easy or fair), but it has also created a wave of negative first impressions that result in a high amount of new user churn.

If you have read our article about Solomon, you understand why first impressions are crucial to build intrinsic motivation that ultimately leads to unconditional support. Financial incentives result not only in negative individual behavior, but (similar to all collective behaviors) it translates into culture as well.

Additionally, while we have a culture of innovation, community, and compassion on one side of the spectrum; we also have the flippers, the fomo-ers (fear of missing out) and the get rich quick schemers. Even more unfortunate is the fact that crypto role models, our influencers, have adapted this culture which results in more social proof and more people adapting said culture.

This is incredibly damaging to the the crypto space is general. It emphasizes gains over value creation, manipulation over transparency, and old money versus new money. This brings us to a tricky situation: we all want more adoption, more new people coming in, and more recognition as a better alternative to the incumbents. However, our whole culture is beginner-unfriendly, survival of the fittest, and made up of scams, meme coins, and rug pulls.

Do you really think that this culture will convince the mainstream that we are better than the established institutions?

Financial incentives can only be part of the answer to our problems, they cannot be the sole answer. This is why the next phase of Web3 will be incredibly important. We need value propositions, usability, and use cases. After a decade of luring people in with financial incentives, we need to start focusing on getting people in through the only way that is healthy and sustainable; by solving problems. Web3 is special because the economic layer is integrated into applications through ownership and token economies. They will help to keep the users engaged and give them a voice in moving forward. Nevertheless, financial incentives alone will not cut it anymore. We are still giving them out, but it is not enough.

This brings us to our own project. How is Solomon going to approach user acquisition and how will we integrate the economic layer into our network?

Our approach: get people in with usability and functionality, keep them engaged by making them part-owners, and reward behavior that benefits the network/community.

How will that look like? We are thinking about how to engineer viral growth loops into our product. Usually, these loops take one of two forms. Users create content and share that content with their broader network using third-party services (from email to social media or messengers). Other people then interact with the shared content and a percentage of them sign up. Or people get incentivized to invite their friends and family which ends up making the product more valuable to them and creates more value for the entire network.

But the reality is that through manipulative tactics and invite spam mechanisms in Web2, most people have gotten numb to invites even if they are financially incentivized. However, we have developed an approach that might improve the conversion/invite rate. This approach comes down to two solutions.

First variable rewards, we will not just reward our users for inviting, we will make the size of the rewards dependent on how engaged the new user becomes within the first 14 days. Why 14 days? Because a rule of thumb for network businesses is that if the new user does not show engagement within the first 5–14 Days, then they will most likely not come back to the service at all. If the new user gets activated/signs up, then the old user will be entitled to a base rate of tokens. If the user gets engaged and logs in twice within the first week, then the old user gets a multiple of the base rate. If the new user is active more than 5 times in the first 14 days, then the multiple will be even higher.

Secondly, we will make the sign-up process for the invited person as easy as possible. No email needed, no personal information needed. We will give the person that invites their friend the option to fill out a temporary username for their friend and their friend will only need to choose a password. Or additionally, they can opt to change the pre-chosen username. That is two clicks before you are signed in. Furthermore, we will make login APIs like Google, Facebook, Apple, etc, available to make the sign-up for new users as easy as in Web2. Wallet addresses will be found within the profile. Seed phrases will be shown to the new users 3 times within the first week to give them enough time to write them down.

Today, invite mechanisms are a lot less powerful than viral loops through sharing. This is why we will focus heavily on getting, “ how to share your content across other platforms,” properly. Additionally, if new users sign-up through a shared link, the same reward system detailed above will apply.

One metric that was found to be incredibly important in almost every social network that exists today is the number of connections a new user makes within the first days/weeks after signup. We will provide recommendations based on friends, region, and interests to make this process easier. The golden rule at Facebook and Instagram is that a user that makes 7 or more friends within the first 10 days will have dramatically higher chances of coming back than without them. This is the key to achieving high retention.

What does that mean for our community? Especially at the beginning of Solomon it is crucial to connect with new users on the platform. We need to help them find profiles, people to follow, and get their friends on the platform as soon as possible. We might even require new people to get two or more invites before they will be able to join. This will increase the rate of retention dramatically.

For our community members, it will be easy. You will have many people you know on the platform right from the beginning. But new people will not have that existing network. To achieve strong growth we need high retention. We can only achieve high retention by connecting new users with like-minded people as soon as possible. Homophily (the principle that contact between similar people occurs at a higher rate than among dissimilar people) is an important factor in that equation. Therefore it is not just important to connect people in general but to connect them with like-minded individuals. For example, newbies with newbies, degens with degens, artists with other artists, and so on.

Financial incentives alone will not result in growth. Neither with Solomon nor with Web3. Moving forward, it is all going to come down to delivering value to the user. Our value proposition comes from the network we create, therefore our focus needs to be to connect new users with as many other users in the network as fast as possible, to deliver as much value as possible.

We will expand on the importance of friends, social proof, and homophily in tomorrow’s article.

With the technological evolution that took place over the millennia, the way we make social connections has evolved as well. In a hunter-gatherer society, the distance and quantity of social connections were limited to your tribe and your immediate environment. Through inventions like written text, books, and modern forms of transportation, new forms of social connections emerged. This transformation was rapidly accelerated in the 20th Century through new mediums of communication like the telegraph, telephone, and eventually the computer. Since then the rate of transformation has exponentially increased with the dawn of the internet, and new forms of mass communication like email, direct messengers, and social media.

Nowadays, our social connections reach far and wide across the globe, creating millions of interconnected networks along the way. It is easier than ever to communicate both with your immediate social circles, as well as distant ties around the world. Since the emergence of online social media, we have also observed the phenomenon of online social connections that may never lead to in-person connections and that have a very different nature than the types of social connections humans had throughout history.

On a psychological level, all of these connections can be broken down to three kinds of social rewards that result in the release of neurotransmitters like dopamine or oxytocin. The three rewards are: Rewards of the Tribe, Rewards of the Hunt, and Rewards of the Self.

Rewards of the Tribe are most prominently found in social media nowadays. They include empathic joy from others for achievements and looks or general content you post (think: likes and comments). We are meant to be part of a tribe so our brains seek out rewards that make us feel accepted, important, attractive, and included. Social networks have found clever ways to stimulate these quests for rewards through likes and comments.

Rewards of the Hunt refer to our desire to acquire things. The need to acquire physical things, such as food and supplies, is part of the brain’s operating system and we would not have survived the millennia without this impulse. But where we once hunted for food, today we hunt for deals and information. Or in the case of crypto, for the next rare NFT or the next high potential altcoin. In social media, this mechanism is used in combination with the powerful effect of variable rewards. When you find yourself scrolling through the Twitter feed, your brain is hoping to find the next piece of engaging content which will trigger a reward of the hunt. That is why social networks like TikTok and Instagram are often quite addictive. They engineer their products to trigger these rewards as often as possible until your brain builds a habit around rewards of the hunt.

Finally, there are the Rewards of the Self which we seek for personal gratification. For example, from birth, things that stimulate our senses mesmerize us. Babies put everything in their mouths for the same reason there are flashing neon lights in Las Vegas. We love novel sensory stimulation. This includes game mechanics in video games, being productive by going through all your emails or replying to messages we get from family and friends. We have a natural drive for both sensory stimulations as well as the feeling of being productive or doing something meaningful.

Ask yourself, why are you doing what you are doing every day? Almost every action you take falls under one of the three categories. Why are you reading this article right now?

It is important to understand the core motivation behind social connections to build and optimize for them. What we are seeing with a lot of Web3 social companies right now is that they very much optimize for the tokenization aspect of Web3. They integrate NFTs and token rewards for interaction or engagement as well as tools for monetization of content for creators. While all of these approaches are interesting in a Web3 setting, they often undermine the social connections and the natural rewards that come from human interaction.

At Solomon, we want to integrate social connections into Web3 without changing the fundamental nature of how we interact. We want to use NFTs as a further extension of Rewards of the Hunt. We want to enable you to proudly show off your newest NFT instead of building a marketplace to sell them. It is also about optimizing for Rewards of the Tribe. How can you interact with the communities and individuals that you care about? How can you share your thoughts, your NFTs, and your personal life in a way that feels rewarding and fun? Not how you can find yet another way to make a quick flip. The difference is our emphasis on the social aspect, otherwise, we would just be another bad copy of Opensea.

The next important question is how can we build a network that delivers value to all of its members? Some value will come through variable rewards of the hunt in the form of engaging content and NFTs. Some through rewards of the self in the form of colorful visual art and discussions that broaden your horizon. As well as rewards of the tribe, by connecting you with the communities and topics that matter to you. Every individual is different and Web3 lives off the communities as well as the crypto-related and real-life experiences and opinions of its members.

Unlike other industries, many segments in Web3 — like Gaming, Defi or NFTs — are closely connected. Both technologically and through the communities that build this space. It is our mission to create even more meaningful connections between communities and individuals to maximize the impact that we can have together.

But without the right tools to find the communities that resonate with you, it is going to be hard to build meaningful connections. Connecting means sharing what matters to you, viewing what matters to others, and having the tools that enable direct communication to discuss these topics, events, and differences.

Web2 has been pretty successful in optimizing for social connections. But due to their centralized nature, they, unfortunately, have some major flaws within their networks. The first one is the control they impose as the intermediary/platform that facilitates the transaction. If you do not agree with their values, or if you simply want to switch platforms, you stand in front of a big barrier. They do not allow you to take your network with you. There is no button to take your network and leave their platform.

The second problem lies within the algorithmic nature of their newsfeeds. The main business model for social networks in Web2 is an advertisement, which results in two major problems: first, they need to collect tons of personal data about you to feed their recommendation engines for both content and advertisements. This is necessary to optimize for higher engagement which will result in their customers (the advertiser) spending more money. The second problem is that while you might use their network to grow organically for a while, they will slow down your exposure at some point in order to get you to spend on ads.

This violates the very nature of social connections by preventing the natural flow of information. It is the big weak spot in their otherwise perfected machinery of connecting people. Their dependence on ads limits their possibilities and limits us in our expressions and ability to connect with like-minded individuals.

At Solomon we want to take the opposite approach. Instead of relying on Advertisements, we will explore the possibilities of micro-transactions and transaction fees. While micro-transactions are hardly profitable in a small network, they will be superior in profitability in economies of scale. And these profits can then be redistributed in parts to the community itself. By making our platform open for other developers to build on top of our network and build their own communities, we allow for more decentralized control. Our network will neither be closed off nor very hard to leave. In fact, you will never need to leave our network because it will never be our network. The communities that form will be in full control of their network and its members, and they can take them wherever they want, whenever they want.

We are only the platform to provide the visual structure and tools needed for communities to connect. We are not in control of the network itself. Nor will we control the flow of information. Over time we will provide communities with tools like recommendation engines, monetization, ephemerality and more. But it will always be the choice of the individual and the community on whether to adopt these tools or not. You will finally be in control of your social connections, your social networks, and your content and data.

Connections usually materialize through relationships and vice versa. There are a huge variety of relationships and connections that each individual has at any given point in our post-modern society. We have social relationships (that make up our immediate and distant social networks), business relationships (that influence the way we participate in the global economy), and we have material and non-material relationships with brands, objects, and ideas that influence our passions and beliefs. All of these relationships are highly subjective, they require care and maintenance, and they constantly change and evolve.

Relationships and the connections that they create have a big impact on our personal lives. They shape our culture, our norms, and our values — all while we try to find our place in the complicated construct we call society. When analyzing connections, we can both look at them on a micro-scale (when observing their effects between individuals or small collectives) or we can analyze them on a macro-scale (when we look at different networks and their causal effects and inner workings).

The Blockchain Distributed Ledger (BDL) space was born out of the idea of one man. He thought that the decentralization of our society would solve many of the most pressing issues of our time. His ideas were radical and created in a time when uncertainty and distrust in our institutions lead many to believe that we were living in a failed system. And while the financial system never regained the same level of power it had before 2008, there was a new class of institutions emerging — fueled through the unstoppable force of the Internet.

The giants of Web2 have unthinkable amounts of control over the connections we encounter in everyday life. From the social connections, we have online on social media, to the connections we make while browsing the web on search engines, to the brands and products we connect with when we shop at the “Everything Store.”

It is hard to remember nowadays that the Internet itself was once created as this free open network which aimed to democratize access to information and was meant to be free from centralized institutions. Yet the reality in 2021 looks very different. A handful of giant corporations control the majority of the internet’s traffic, and while the achievements of the Web shall not be dismissed, it nevertheless failed to deliver on its original promise.

Born out of the utopian ideas of Satoshi Nakamoto the Web3 movement has long been dominated by the demand for more decentralized control and ownership. Yet decentralization is often hard to quantify outside of blocks, ledgers, and consensus mechanisms. Over the years, many prominent figures in the industry have brought forward their ideas of how decentralization should look like. They usually include some form of decentralized ownership, control, and transparency.

We at Centuries strongly believe that shared ownership benefits everyone, both the team, as well as, the community, and the userbase. It allows for a fair distribution of capital and ownership to share the rewards of growth and engagement with the very people who make it possible. Decentralization of control however is a more difficult concept. Through novel approaches like DAOs and DOs, we have seen a variety of possible solutions — many of which have severe downsides. We believe that simply automating control is not the right way to build successful products. An organization must remain semi-independent to stay agile and to be able to make quick decisions which are crucial for success early on. Too many layers of control through decentralization create huge amounts of organizational debt and inefficiency. Nevertheless, the community that shares ownership should have a voice in the way the organization operates. There should be mechanisms in place to ensure that the goals of the organization and the community align.

Let us get back to connections. Over the years, the BLD space has gradually increased decentralization more and more in all kinds of areas. One area where we see a huge problem with decentralization is in social connections. As we explained in our first article, Communities are the foundation of Web3. Yet the communities in the crypto industry are more decentralized than ever. They spread out on multiple platforms, from Twitter to Discord and Telegram, and from Ethereum to Cardano and Solana, which leaves little room for connections between these communities.

Instead of leveraging the power of the whole crypto industry, we are struggling to find a common identity and a place to get together. Crypto is made up of thousands of small scattered communities with little to no ties between each other. This makes our overall network weak and prevents collaboration and shared empowerment. Instead of using the power of decentralization to work together, we have created many small communities which centralize and homogenize the space slowly. What we are missing is a shared space where communities can get together and interact to build new relationships and new connections that transcend one project or one community.

This has been a trend we have observed for a while now, and people are starting to notice the lack of organization and the problems that arrive because of the lack of social connections. The first community that managed to partially overcome this issue is the NFT space. NFTs as the underlying concept, has created a new form of enthusiasm and has managed to unite people under the shared umbrella of promise and the opportunities that lie ahead of us. Through events like NFT-NYC, and platforms like Crypto Twitter, we have found ways to interact and build meaningful connections that bring together individuals and communities without regard to specific projects or ideas. We are seeing a renaissance in the way collectives form in the crypto space, which has fueled the passion and excitement surrounding NFTs.

Yet many of the underlying problems remain. Social connections make up the fabric for our interactions and communities. And with communities being the foundation of Web3, we need find new ways to connect these communities to leverage their power on an even larger scale.

But it is not just about communities, creators and their audiences have had a troubled relationship for a long time. Often times it is not the creators nor the consumers who are in control of their connections. It is the platforms that connects them. The platform decides how we connect, who we connect with, and in terms of the creator: how he can interact and engage with his audience. In Web3 however, we see a shift from audiences to communities and (from creators as a separate entity) to creators as leaders who are equally part of the community. To make our connections more meaningful and more impactful, all we needed was to level out the vacuum that was created by the platforms that control our relationships.

If we want to continue to leverage the power of communities, we need to find new ways to connect them. We believe this starts by giving people control over their own connections and by building new tools that are adapted to the needs and values of the BDL space.

When thinking of Decentralization, we need to find a delicate balance between sharing ownership and responsibility without decentralizing the connections and Humans that make up our communities. Collaboration and Interaction are the best way to achieve healthy decentralization. This can be achieved by opening up for a more diverse set of ideas and values from a bigger and more diverse community. Scattered independent projects that are competing against each other will never be as successful as communities that work together to build a better and more inclusive future.

The whole crypto space must have a space to get together to have discussions, to share what they care about, and to make more meaningful connections across blockchains, across ecosystems, and across different industries. Without those connections, we will always be dispersed and scattered, and our network will never unfold its true potential. Decentralization is good in many aspects and is something we should strive for in many areas such as ownership and control, but it can also be counterproductive when we apply it to our communities and our connections.

Humans thrive on social interaction. It brings out the best and the worst in us. We need connections to broaden our horizons, to learn and evolve, and to get a glimpse of the shared future we are trying to build. But without collaboration and connections, we will forever be limited in our efforts, values, and ideas.

Trillions of Dollars in market cap and more than a decade later, the BDL (Blockchain Distributed Ledger) Industry has become more vibrant and diverse than ever. We have DEFI, CEDEFI, NFTs, Gaming, Art, and many more segments that have their own unique communities, cultures, and innovations. What connects them all is their vision of a different future — maybe even a different society and world order, depending on who you talk to. And while these industries have enjoyed rapid and explosive growth over recent years, the overall impact of these technologies is still incredibly small.

As we see Mainstream Brands and Big Tech jump onto the hype train fueled by buzzwords like the Metaverse and the Creator Economy, we need to ask ourselves a serious question. Why has Crypto still not developed a single application to enjoy true mass adoption? Why has this industry, which is fueled by a sheer endless amount of capital and an incredibly high density of talent and intelligence, not yet been able to recreate the success that equivalents in the Web2 era achieved with fewer resources, less talent, and less time?

Have you ever asked yourself why it is so hard to convince your friends and family to try out all the amazing products that crypto has to offer?

These questions are painfully important yet, as with most things, only a contrarian approach can expose the underlying problems. The problem with big successful movements like Crypto is that the masses validate mainstream opinions and their apparent success stops people from questioning the narrative itself.

We, on the other hand, have always seen things quite clearly. Do not get me wrong, I am highly bullish on BDL technology. I have been in the industry in 2018 and every day, my fascination and commitment to this space grow stronger. But when the masses tend to agree, I tend to look the other way to uncover the hidden truths that lie beneath. In BDL, there are two problems that are very apparent and yet most people do not realize or recognize them.

The first is the big elephant in the room. It is the year 2021, it has been more than a decade since the iPhone was originally previewed, we have long realized that our world runs mobile-first. To give you some hard facts: in 2020, more than 68% of all websites were visited on mobile while only 28% were visited on desktop. This has been a gradual trend and it is long from over, yet 98% of all Dapps and Crypto applications are built for desktop. Do you see the problem?

One argument that we often hear from Developers is that mobile platforms centralize control and that desktop Dapps are easier to build. The first one is utter nonsense especially if you regard the fact that this opinion mostly comes from people that had the privilege to grow up in western nations. The majority of the developing world runs on mobile. These countries and their population skipped the costly PC revolution and entered the market mobile-first, and often mobile-only. Therefore by building for desktop, you are actually preventing the developing world once again from participating in yet another technological revolution. And not just that, you are once again ensuring that the next wave of applications gets built and designed around the culture and the needs of the western countries, making it just as bad as the big tech monopolies that always get criticized. This is a different type of centralization. It is cultural centralization, and we have experienced the effects of these western-oriented platforms over the last few decades. If we want to make crypto more diverse — more inclusive — then we need to approach things differently than Web2. Not just in terms of privacy or platform control, but in terms of culture and target audience as well.

The second statement is partially true, “desktop dApps are easier to build.” Yes, it is not as easy to build dApps on mobile — there are more regulations with App Stores, less documentation in terms of how to implement certain features, and generally, the demand for desktop applications outweighs the one for the mobile market. Yet, all these statements are the things we tell ourselves to validate an opinion that, as you can see above, goes against anything we know to be true when it comes to mainstream applications. People that do not realize that they are building on a ship that started sinking in the early 2000s, simply will not make it beyond a certain threshold.

Which brings me to the second big elephant in the room — one that might even be more prominent, that people constantly complain about but never really improve upon: Usability.

Using dApps and interacting with smart contracts is hard. It is complicated. Making mistakes is not just bad — it can cost you significant amounts of money. UI/UX is generally horrible in crypto, interoperability is basically non-existent, and the few innovations we have seen in this space (Bridges, Layer 2s, Rollups) are usually even harder to use than the base protocols. Crypto right now requires significant effort and motivation for the average user to get started. Why is that a problem?

Since the mainstream is impatient, their technological skills (beyond swiping, liking, and sharing) are basically non-existent, their motivation to invest their most valuable resource: attention, is also non-existent. We live in the attention economy where millions of services compete for users’ attention. And the research shows most people only use around 3–5 apps on a daily basis. While everyone else understands and optimizes accordingly, the crypto space seems to get more rather than less complicated by the day.

This brings us to an important point. There is a simple model for how people adapt behaviors such as a new application or a new technology. This model was created by a renowned Psychologist from Stanford University who goes by the name of Dr. BJ Fogg. His work has been influential in the rise of Instagram (one of the co-founders who worked at Fogg’s Behavior Design lab) and other consumer start-ups around the world.

His formula goes as following: Ability + Motivation + Trigger = Behavior. One of the key findings of his research is that the motivation part can rarely be affected by developers, therefore the easiest way to create new behaviors is to increase the user’s ability.

The crypto community on the other hand, as we have discussed above, has two very fundamental flaws in their approach to building new products. Knowing what we know, it allows us to take a new perspective on why there has not been any dApp that has achieved mass adoption beyond the circles of Crypto Twitter and Discord.

A compelling use case and a solid value proposition are indeed very important things. But they are not what Crypto is lacking. Crypto is lacking Ability, which comes down to usability and accessibility. While the focus in Crypto right now is on building grand visions and the most innovative new technologies, we often forget that while these products might be easy to use and understand for the hardcore Crypto Nerd, they are unapproachable and unusable for the average global citizen.

Netflix did not succeed until they went online and made their User Experience as simple as possible. Instagram only succeeded because the iPhone just came out which made it incredibly simple to take photos on the go and share them. On top of that, the Founders understood the importance of Ability and focused their efforts on making features as simplistic and easy to use as possible.

Great Utility can lead to motivation — but increasing motivation is hard while increasing Ability is not. Without Ability, there will be no Mainstream Crypto. Without a hard shift to Mobile dApps, there will be no Mainstream. Without easy simple user experiences, there will be no Mainstream. Without low/non-existent gas and a more forgiving environment (no gas for failed transactions, alternatives for seed phrases, etc.), there will be no Mainstream.

The Mainstream does not care about Crypto right now because Crypto does not care about them. We need to stop building for the white, wealthy, and technically-experienced elite, and start building for a diverse global userbase. Otherwise, our Grand Visions will stay exactly that; Visions.