π Weekly Journal: Tokenising Elvis ποΈπΊπ»π
[8 min read] Your guide to getting ahead on the digital frontier (& the weekend!). Today, the usual market news & treats as well as how the Elvis estate is taking his legacy into new digital spaces.
Welcome to this weekβs Weekly Journal π, your guide to the latest news & innovation in emerging technology, digital assets, and our exciting path to the Metaverse. This is week 37 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.
Enjoy your weekend! π
Ryan
Hereβs what youβre getting today:
π Market update: Curve finance exploit causes a market sell-off with contagion fears.
ποΈ Interesting news: Lots of news about Stellar Lumens (XLM), including potentially partnering with Elon Muskβs X platform.
π Read of the week: Bernard Marr gives us five compelling reasons to still care about the Metaverse.
π₯ Video of the week: A TEDx talk exploring the potential of clothing worn in virtual environments as a positive disruptor in the fashion industry.
π€ This weekβs AI showcase: The short film that premiered in Tauranga yesterday, featuring AI-enhanced animation to recount the history of Tauranga Moana.
β Weekly poll: Help choose the emerging tech topic for Wednesdayβs showcase.
π€ DCA with me: Follow my regular $50 weekly investing in an emerging asset class.
Market Update
The DeFi ecosystem faced a tough week as a security incident led to over $61 million being stolen from Curve Finance's pools. This exploit exposed vulnerabilities across DeFi projects and prompted efforts to recover stolen funds. The attack targeted stable pools on Curve Finance using the Vyper programming language, affecting several DeFi projects. The incident prompted stress tests on DeFi protocols and raised concerns about the impact on the ecosystem.
The broader contagion risks is the potential for the security breach to spread and impact other protocols and projects within the DeFi space. When a significant vulnerability or exploit is discovered in one protocol, it can expose weaknesses in the broader ecosystem, making other similar protocols vulnerable as well. This can create a domino effect where vulnerabilities in one project lead to attacks or instability in others, causing a wider-ranging problem across the DeFi landscape.
π₯πΊοΈ The 7-day heatmap shows another red week with the market nervous about DeFi stability with the Curve exploit.
π Sentiment levels still on mild greed.
Interesting news ποΈ
Digital Assets News ππ±
Lots of eyes are on what Elon is building in his vision of βX, the Everything Appβ, and his promise to offer an βentire financial worldβ on X the platform in the coming months. A burning question is which crypto platform will be chosen to be the βrailsβ for it all to run on? Stellar Lumens (XLM) may be a straightforward choice for Elon Musk due to its primary purpose of facilitating swift and dependable movement of financial resources at a minimal expense. Each cross-border payment platform transaction requires only 0.00001 XLM around $0.000014), and Stellarβs network can handle up to 4,000 transactions per second with settlements occurring within 5 seconds. More on this network in the βDCA with meβ section below.
π‘ In other news, Soroban is a soon-to-launch smart contract platform enhancing the Stellar network's DeFi capabilities. It integrates Rust programming for secure smart contracts and utilizes WebAssembly for fast execution. It addresses scalability with multi-core scaling and tackles state bloat through a state expiration plan. The Soroban Adoption Fund incentivizes development. With Stellar's anchor network, Soroban bridges traditional finance and DeFi, promoting global financial access. Developers can explore Soroban's test network, Futurenet, as it prepares for a mainnet launch. Soroban's introduction revolutionizes DeFi through developer-friendly tools, scalability solutions, and integration with existing financial systems.
π³ Another win for Stellar was its work with WisdomTree Prime which launched a few weeks ago, a mobile app for digital assets in 21 U.S. states. The app offers Bitcoin, Ether, tokenized gold, and digital funds. These digital funds are tokenized on the Stellar and Ethereum blockchains and are accessible only through the app. The funds are managed by WisdomTree and are backed by conventional assets. The app plans to introduce a payment card for using gold tokens and other digital assets for payments. WisdomTree's move into blockchain reflects a broader trend among traditional asset managers. This differs from crypto startups as established asset managers like WisdomTree are well-regulated and attract mainstream investors, providing a different avenue for blockchain's integration into finance.
XR & Virtual Worlds News
ποΈπΊπ» The Ethereum metaverse game, The Sandbox, is launching 3,000 officially licensed Elvis Presley NFT avatars to celebrate his legacy. These avatars, minted on the Ethereum scaling network Polygon, will feature outfits and dance moves from different stages of Presley's career. They will be playable in future Sandbox multiplayer experiences (in the upcoming digital version of Graceland) and offer access to upcoming metaverse content. The public sale starts on August 9, with avatars split into four rarity levels, each priced at 100 SAND ($41).
Avatar holders will also have governance rights for the Elvis Legacy Council DAO, which shapes Presley's digital expansion. Interesting to see a strategy for essentially βtokenisingβ the cultural capital/brand equity of Elvis. Watch this space!
πThe race for XR Headset market dominance is heating up! Meta has unveiled two new VR prototypes: Butterscotch Varifocal and Flamera. Butterscotch Varifocal combines varifocal technology with a retina display, aiming to replicate natural eye focusing in VR. The prototype offers a pixel density of around 60 PPD (pixels per degree). However, it's larger and less portable than devices like Meta Quest. Despite being proofs of concept, Meta is showcasing extreme VR capabilities and advancements in hardware and software integration. The company aims to provide an experience similar to real-world vision and enhance the quality of VR experiences.
πRead of the Week
This great article discusses five compelling reasons to care about the metaverse, the immersive digital space that redefines online experiences. It highlights the concept of the metaverse, emphasising its persistent virtual worlds that merge various activities like work, socializing, shopping, and more. The reasons to care about the metaverse include the potential for more immersive online experiences through extended reality (XR) technologies, the shift of everyday activities to the metaverse, its potential to surpass the real world in size, its influence on the physical world, and its transformative impact on businesses. Bernard draws parallels to the early skepticism surrounding social media's relevance, suggesting that the metaverse is poised for a similar transformation in shaping the future of digital interactions. A great read and not too long for all you busy people.
Video of the week
I really enjoyed this TEDx talk, Taylor Ball explores the potential of digital fashion, clothing worn in virtual environments, as a positive disruptor in the fashion industry. She envisions digital fashion enabling trend adoption and self-expression without environmental and social drawbacks. With a background in business strategy and technology, she transitioned to sustainability, earning degrees from Harvard and the University of Toronto. Taylor Ball's work includes a focus on sustainable fashion and experience at Aritzia and learning from climate change experts.
This weekβs AI showcaseπ¨π€π΅βπΌ
AI is disruptive, challenging industries and driving innovation. Each week I showcase something amazing generated by AI-based tools. My vision of the emerging Metaverse predicts the use of many AI tools to enhance how we work, learn, play and socialise.
This week the spotlight is on AI in film production. The short film "Happy Hikoi" premiered in Tauranga yesterday, featuring AI-enhanced animation to recount the history of Tauranga Moana. The film collaborated with TΔ Tuinga WhΔnau Support Services Trust, German film director Robert Morgenstern, and local MΔori historian Reon Tuanau. It portrayed MΔori chiefs, PΔkehΔ colonists, and settlers using unique storytelling and humor. The project aims to offer an educational tool for classrooms and is the first stage of a larger vision. The film's positive narratives encourage engagement with the historical topic. The project also included a guided tour and holds tourism potential. I love the film's ability to make history tangible and engaging.
Weekly Poll β
Help choose what you would like to learn about on Wednesday for my weekly emerging tech showcase:
Thatβs 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 π€
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 price. 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 donβt 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. Letβs dive into this weekβs pick:
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