📔 Weekly Journal: Is Ethereum the Base layer for an Open Metaverse? 🔷
[6 min read] Your weekend guide to getting ahead on the digital frontier. Today, the usual market news and my case for Ethereum being vital to a decentralised metaverse
Welcome to this week’s Weekly Journal 📔, your guide to the latest news & innovation in emerging technology, digital assets, and our exciting path to the Metaverse. This is week 86 of the 520 weeks of newsletters I have committed to, a decade of documenting our physical and digital lives converge.
New subscribers are encouraged to check out the history & purpose of this newsletter as well as the archive.
- Ryan
🌐 Digital Assets Market Update
To me, the Metaverse is the convergence of physical & virtual lives. As we work, play and socialise in virtual worlds, we need virtual currencies & assets. These have now reached mainstream finance as a defined asset class:
🔥🗺️ 7-day heatmap below, showing the current share of the market for the top cryptocurrencies, and their change in price over the last week.
🎭 Crypto Fear and Greed Index is based on volatility, social media sentiments, surveys, market momentum, and a few other bits and pieces.
🗞️ Interesting news from this week
Ethereum ETFs launched with a bang this week, achieving $361 million in trading volume within the first 90 minutes. The surge reflects strong investor interest and confidence in Ethereum’s future, underscoring the growing acceptance of cryptocurrency-based financial products. The ETFs provide easier access to Ethereum investments, potentially attracting a broader range of investors. Despite this initial surge, Ethereum's price dropped 10% in the days following, a classic a "sell-the-news" reaction. (as well as overall market corrections, and broader economic pressures, including poor performances in the U.S. tech sector like Alphabet and Tesla).
It was interesting to see the marketing efforts from major financial institutions. It was only 2 years again that these firms were outwardly scathing of cryptoassets, meanwhile they were quietly preparing.
This ad from VanEck, using a Pudgy Penguin (a popular NFT community) was my favourite.
“Let there be an open-source network where money flows more transparently. Let there be transactions without resource-intensive mining activities. Let there be technology that can unchain. Your code is the key. Let Ether be. Enter the Ether with ETHV.”
In other news, The Pacific island nation of Palau, in partnership with RNS.ID, has launched digital residency IDs on the Solana blockchain. These digital IDs, priced at $248, are the first legal identities issued by a sovereign nation on Solana. Palau's digital residency program, initiated in 2022, provides global citizens with residency status without requiring physical presence. Previously, the first decentralized ID was minted on Ethereum in September 2023, with Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin in attendance. The RNS.ID platform has issued 7,338 digital residencies since then. The Palau government enforces a strict vetting process, including anti-money laundering and identity verification checks. These digital IDs allow for visa extensions up to 180 days and provide anonymity for cryptocurrency exchange access.
👓 Read of the Week
This week's standout read is “Investing in the Metaverse – Top 10 Reasons Ethereum is the Underlying Play for the Future” which delves into why Ethereum is positioned as the backbone of the burgeoning metaverse.
TL;DR: here are the top 10 reasons:
Security and Transparency: Ethereum's robust blockchain ensures secure and transparent transactions, crucial for metaverse interactions.
Smart Contracts: These automate and enforce agreements without intermediaries, facilitating seamless transactions and governance within the metaverse.
Decentralisation: Ethereum's decentralised nature promotes fairness and reduces the risk of single points of failure.
Interoperability: Ethereum supports interoperability with various digital assets, making it versatile for different metaverse applications.
Scalability Solutions: Ongoing upgrades aim to enhance scalability, ensuring it can handle increasing demand.
Developer Support: A vast developer community continuously innovates and improves Ethereum's ecosystem.
NFT Integration: Ethereum is the leading platform for NFTs, which are vital for metaverse ownership and transactions.
Financial Services: Decentralised finance (DeFi) on Ethereum offers a range of financial services, enhancing economic activities in the metaverse.
User Adoption: High user adoption rates and widespread recognition bolster Ethereum's credibility and utility.
Future Potential: Continuous development and strong foundational principles position Ethereum as a key player in the metaverse's future.
For a deeper dive into these compelling reasons, check out the full article.
🎥 Watch of the week
Sticking with this week theme, I chose a video on Ethereum! I think it will be vital to a decentralised metaverse because it provides a secure and flexible platform for creating and managing digital assets. Its smart contracts enable trustless, direct transactions, giving users control over their digital identities and assets. The extensive Ethereum community fosters innovation, supporting applications like virtual real estate, NFTs, and decentralised finance. With ongoing upgrades, Ethereum ensures scalability and security, making it the ideal foundation for a dynamic and user-driven metaverse.
This weeks video is a good 10min overview of Ethereum, enjoy!
AI 🎨🤖🎵✍🏼
In the Metaverse, AI will be critical for creating intelligent virtual environments and avatars that can understand and respond to users with human-like cognition and natural interactions:
Artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionising the film industry, with generative AI creating images, videos, and text, yet raising ethical and practical concerns. Rachel Antell, an archival producer, formed the Archival Producers Alliance to develop guidelines for AI use in documentaries to avoid misleading audiences. AI's impact varies across the industry, from quietly integrated machine learning in studios to the launch of AI film festivals. While some embrace AI's potential, others, like director Justine Bateman, resist its influence, fearing job loss and ethical breaches.
AI's use in the documentary "Welcome to Chechnya" showcases its transformative potential in film-making. The film follows the harrowing experiences of LGBTQ+ individuals facing persecution in Chechnya, using AI to anonymise and protect these vulnerable subjects. By mapping actors' faces over the real individuals, the documentary preserves the emotional authenticity of their testimonies while ensuring their safety. This innovative approach allows powerful, personal stories to be told without risking the subjects' lives. AI's ability to maintain emotional truth through subtle facial expressions enhances the documentary's impact, creating a compelling narrative that might have been impossible otherwise. This technique exemplifies AI's positive role in empowering filmmakers to tackle sensitive topics, protect participants, and deliver poignant, truthful storytelling.
The future of the human touch in film-making remains uncertain. A recent Deloitte study revealed that a surprising 22% of Americans believe generative AI could produce more engaging TV shows and movies than human creators.
That’s all for the free version this week! If you have any organisations in mind that could benefit from learning about emerging technology, be sure to reach out. Educational workshops are one of many consulting services I offer.
DCA With Me 🤑
Dollar Cost Averaging is an investment strategy in which an investor regularly invests a fixed amount of money into a particular asset/asset class at regular intervals, regardless of its current market cycle. By doing so, the investor can reduce the impact of market volatility and potentially earn a better return over time. Motto = time IN the market beats trying to time the market
To experiment with this, I invest $50 NZD into a Digital Asset every week. Each week I will choose an asset that seems underpriced in the short term and has positive long-term potential. My timeframe is 3-5 years. I don’t give financial advice but if you want to follow along with me you can use my easycrypto.co.nz referral link to support this newsletter. Let’s dive into this week’s pick:
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