Not If but WhenAD
Category Archives: Web3, Decentralization, DAOs
A16Z Launches 6 New NFT Licenses Under ‘Can’t Be Evil’ Principle
The Defiant | Owen Fernau | Sep 2, 2022
Who owns what when someone owns an NFT? The answer is not always clear.
- When Actor Seth Green’s Bored Ape was stolen, for instance, it brought plans for a show with the animated character into question.
- There’s the ambiguity of whether the metadata, the code that creates NFT images, is actually stored in a way owners can rely on. And then there is the more general mystery of how someone can “own” digital images or characters that are only a right-click away from duplication.
a16z delves into the world of IP rights and royalties (unusual for a VC company for sure)
- In a post published on Aug. 31, a16z partners Miles Jennings and Chris Dixon said traditional copyright approaches are too restrictive for creators and cannot keep pace with technological change.
See: Strategies for Protecting NFT Brand/product IP in the Metaverse
- On Aug. 31, a16z, as the firm is known, launched six new NFT licenses under the brand “Can’t Be Evil” that purport to help artists monetize the new technology. The licenses have been released to the public gratis.
- pplying the 'Can't Be Evil' principle to NFT licenses
- “Can’t Be Evil” is a guiding principle in web3 (and a riff on the “don’t be evil” slogan popularized by Google) arising from a new computational paradigm: blockchains are computers that can make strong commitments and that are not controlled by people. In other words, blockchains enable a new “trustless” version of the internet where users don’t need to trust one another or rely on centralized services and corporations to transact.
- According to the VC firm, the licenses aim to accomplish three goals:
- First, the licenses are meant to help NFT creators protect and distribute their intellectual property.
- They are also designed to grant NFT holders a set of ironclad rights.
- And third the instruments are supposed to help creators, holders, and the community at large leverage the licenses to “unleash the creative and economic potential of their projects.”
See:
What do you mean NFTs can now by cloned by ‘Mimics’?
Intellectual Property and NFTs: What you need to know
Miles Jennings and Chris Dixon said:
Now that web3 innovations are testing the limits of traditional legal frameworks, it’s time for a new set of licenses designed specifically for non-fungible tokens, or NFTs.
Not everyone is excited about the license: Andrew Hutchinson, head of content at Social Media Today, which provides analysis about the social media industry, didn’t see anything new in the development.
Web3 bros keep coming up with ‘new’ systems, which essentially replicate existing regulatory frameworks,” he tweeted, “but then pretend like they’ve come up with some revolutionary concept.
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The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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(Expected) Life After the Merge
Protocol | Tomio Geron | Sep 6, 2022
Image: Unsplash/DrawKit Illustrations
Ethereum is expecting to make its biggest change ever this month, transforming how transactions are processed and secured on the blockchain. But the Merge, as the switch from proof of work to proof of stake is known, is more than just technical. It’s expected to bring major changes to the security and economics of the network, and ultimately its structure of control.
Significantly Reduce energy consumption
The most visible and popular aspect of the upgrade is reducing Ethereum’s environmental impact, with the Merge cutting energy consumption by about 99%. But proof of stake, advocates believe, will also make the network more resistant to a hostile takeover or government interference.
Increased security
One major change will be increased security, which should bring more confidence in Ethereum, developers say.
See: Post-Merge Will Ether Be Closer to a Security?
The move to proof of stake for verifying transactions will make it much harder for anyone to make a 51% attack, which is a way hostile parties try to take over a network and steal tokens by cornering its processing power, according to Ben Edgington, ConsenSys product lead for Teku and a core developer involved in the Merge.
More resistant to government pressure
Proof of stake, however, doesn’t require hardware, just holdings of ether. While there’s a minimum contribution of 32 ether, worth about $50,000 at present, to become a validator, individuals can contribute ether to a pool to join up. That could open up the network to a much wider range of people to operate it, which in turn would make it more resistant to government pressure in specific locales. The goal is to make Ethereum more “censorship”-resistant — meaning less subject to the actions of particular governments.
“If you've got a lot of operators in a single jurisdiction, then you become vulnerable to regulatory capture,” Edgington said. “And so by having the network so that no one jurisdiction is dominant or can single-handedly take down the network, then everything is much more robust.”
See: Post-Merge, PoW Die-Hards Plan to Fork Their Own Ethereum Chains
Impact to upstart blockchains
The Merge shouldn’t hurt newer Layer 1 blockchains much in the short term, said Urvashi Barooah, a crypto investor at Redpoint Ventures. “Many of these alt Layer 1s have vibrant communities and DApp ecosystems which won't move away overnight,” she said. However, if Ethereum rolls out further improvements to speed and cost next year, it could increase Ethereum’s sway over other networks, Barooah said.
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The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Rune Christensen: MakerDAO Founder’s ‘Endgame’ Proposal
Decrypt | Liam J. Kelly | Sep 3, 2022
Not If but When
- It described the continued effects of the Tornado Cash sanctions, said the industry has “failed to show any kind of value to society,” and outlined two potential paths forward for Maker.
Plan to Free-float Maker's DAI stablecoin
See: Vitalik: Designing Principles-based Stablecoins that (may not) collapse
“The path of decentralization means limiting our attack surface to physical threats, and specifically our RWA collateral as a percentage of the total portfolio. In the Endgame Plan, I put this limit at 25%,” he writes.
- Christensen also argued for the introduction of a “negative target rate,” essentially Maker’s version of negative interest rates, to drop demand for DAI and increase its supply “as it becomes cheaper to generate [more DAI] with decentralized vaults such as Ethereum.”
See:
ECB Publishes Macroprudential Bulletin on Stablecoins, Climate Risk, and DeFi
CPMI and IOSCO publish final guidance for stablecoins
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The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Google’s Fusing Street View with AI to Create Metaverse like ‘Immersive View’
TechXplore | Glenn CHAPMAN | Sep 2, 2022
Google at I/O 2022
Google will start rolling out immersive view later this year, starting in Los Angeles, London, New York, San Francisco and Tokyo.
- Fifteen years after its launch, a Google Maps feature that lets people explore faraway places as though standing right there is providing a glimpse of the metaverse being heralded as the future of the internet.
See: Nvidia: Universal Scene Description (USD) as the Language of the Metaverse
- There was not yet talk of online life moving to virtual worlds when a "far-fetched" musing by Google co-founder Larry Page prompted Street View, which lets users of the company's free navigation service see imagery of map locations from the perspective of being there.
- Now, the internet behemoth is introducing an "immersive view" that fuses Street View images with artificial intelligence to create "a rich, digital model of the world," Miriam Daniel, Google Maps Experiences vice president, said in a post:
You'll be able to experience what a neighborhood, landmark, restaurant or popular venue is like—and even feel like you're right there before you ever set foot inside. With a quick search, you can virtually soar over Westminster to see the neighborhood and stunning architecture of places, like Big Ben, up close.
From maps to metaverse
Years spent capturing the real world in 360-degree imagery bodes well for Google when it comes to a future in which internet life shifts to immersive digital worlds, said Creative Strategies tech analyst Carolina Milanesi.
Silverman reasoned that, in a sense, Street View has been giving users a virtual experience for more than a decade, and the imagery naturally lends itself to depicting the real world in virtual settings.
See: Meta Begins Metaverse ID System Rollout
The idea of a digital twin of the world is certainly one aspect of it that Google will solve. Ideally, that metaverse, that world that we move into, we're going to be there.
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The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Blockdata: State of Crypto Banks in 2022
Blockdata | Aug 28, 2022
Current market overview
- The global number of people who own crypto skyrocketed 178% in 2021, from 106M in 2020 to 295M in 2021.
- Despite the increase in the number of users, cryptocurrencies suffered a steep decline this year after the industry market cap plunged to $1.6T on January 24, 2022, from $2.3T at the start of 2022 — a decline of 30% in about 3 weeks.
- Then, the collapse of the terraUSD stablecoin in May 2022, followed by the liquidation of hedge fund Three Arrows Capital in June, impacted the market as Bitcoin lost about 58% of value in the 2Q22, reporting its worst quarterly performance since 2011.
What are crypto banks?
Crypto banks (also referred to as digital asset institutions) allow users to buy, sell, and hold digital assets and offer financial tools such as prepaid debit cards and access to cryptocurrency wallets.
See: The OCC is Facing Calls to Pull Guidance That Allows Banks to Do Some Crypto Business
- Crypto banks can offer higher yields than traditional banks because they do not have the same reserve requirements.
- These platforms may be easier to access than traditional banks because there is less paperwork , fewer regulatory requirements, and credit checks involved in lending and borrowing crypto.
- Unlike traditional regulated banks, crypto lenders are not limited by restrictions on the capital they must retain or rules regarding transparency of reserves.
- These customers face additional risks due to volatility in the market, tech failure, and hacks that can impact the value of their savings.
What's next for crypto banks?
- Crypto banks such as Nexo are partnering with incumbent investment banks to acquire startups in the industry. This can be a good opportunity because consolidation will help these banks improve their operational efficiencies.
- Following the Celsius bankruptcy, these banks are expected to be more cautious and transparent. Taking steps in this direction will further help investors to start believing in their services and offerings.
See: Warren Buffett invests $1 billion in a crypto-friendly bank – maybe not ‘rat poison’ after all?
- Regulators are now admitting that banking in all forms should cover the same protection regime as traditional finance.
- Some of the prominent agencies in the US are defining frameworks to regulate cryptocurrencies, using their own set of methodologies and data.
- However, a global regulatory framework is required to manage risks and threats across countries' jurisdictions.
- Crypto banks will likely see continued growth as the uncertainty clears and a more conducive regulatory environment is developed.
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The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Solana’s Summer Shandy Beer just Dropped
Decrypt | Andrew Hayward | Aug 26, 2022
There’s a Solana smartphone, and a Solana IRL store—and now a Solana beer.
Solana Summer Shandy just dropped today, but unlike the recently-opened store and upcoming smartphone project, this alcoholic lemonade shandy beverage doesn’t hail from the Solana Foundation or its core network contributors, Solana Labs.
Instead, the beer is the creation of barrelDAO, a brewery and distillery that is governed by users. Solana Summer Shandy is being released in limited quantities: just 333 total 16-packs of beer, each represented by a Solana NFT that can be purchased today and then redeemed starting Monday to receive the beer.
BarrelDAO intended to launch the sale earlier this afternoon on the top Solana NFT marketplace, Magic Eden, but as of publication was apparently still sorting through issues with the drop. Each 16-pack sells for 1.35 SOL, or nearly $45 at present, and that price includes shipping to the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia.
See:
First Crypto Store of Its Kind: Solana Opens in New York City
Osom partners with Solana to launch OV1, a blockchain-focused smartphone
And the beer represents Solana in more than just name and redemption tokens: the cans are also plastered with original artwork by Mark Lauthier, featuring references to a wide array of Solana-based NFT projects, along with specific avatars within those collections.
Dave Goldman, co-founder and CEO of Barrel Labs, told Decrypt that barrelDAO itself owns about 20 of the individual NFTs that are referenced on the cans, while 23 of them appear via licensing agreements reached with the holders of the individual NFTs.
"Over the past three days, we painstakingly went through and licensed every single NFT used in this can design,” Goldman said Thursday. “We knew that this could kick off a big conversation about IP in the NFT space, and wanted to be sure that we set a standard for other [consumer packaged goods] brands to follow.”
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The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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Nvidia: Universal Scene Description (USD) as the Language of the Metaverse
NVIDIA Blog | Rev Lebaredian and Michael Kass | Aug 9, 2022
The web has evolved from static documents to dynamic applications involving rich interactive media. Yet despite the fact that we live in a 3D world, the web remains overwhelmingly two-dimensional. Now we find ourselves at the threshold of the web’s next major advancement: the advent of the 3D Internet or metaverse.
Instead of linking together 2D pages, the metaverse will link together virtual worlds. Websites will become interconnected 3D spaces akin to the world we live in and experience every day.
- Many of these virtual worlds will be digital twins reflecting the real world, linked and synchronized in real time. Others will be designed for entertainment, socializing, gaming, learning, collaboration, or commerce.
- No matter what the purpose of any individual site, what will make the entire metaverse a success will be the same thing that has made the 2D web so successful: universal interoperability based on open standards and protocols.
See: Highlights from McKinsey’s “Value Creation In The Metaverse” Report + Web3 for Skeptics by Brainsy’s CIO
- The most fundamental standard needed to create the metaverse is the description of a virtual world. At NVIDIA, we believe the first version of that standard already exists. It is Universal Scene Description (USD)—an open and extensible ecosystem for describing, composing, simulating, and collaborating within 3D worlds, originally invented by Pixar Animation Studios.
USD potential to serve as the HTML of the metaverse
- USD is a scene description: a set of data structures and APIs to create, represent, and modify virtual worlds.
- The representation is rich. It supports not only the basics of virtual worlds like geometry, cameras, lights, and materials, but also a wide variety of relationships among them, including property inheritance, instancing and specialization.
- It includes features necessary for scaling to large data sets like lazy loading and efficient retrieval of time-sampled data.
- It is tremendously extensible, allowing users to customize data schemas, input and output formats, and methods for finding assets.
- USD covers the very broad range of requirements that Pixar found necessary to make its feature films.
- Layers are probably the single most innovative feature of USD. Conceptually, they have some similarities to layers in Adobe Photoshop: but instead of modifying the pixels of an image, USD layers modify the properties of the composed scene and provide a powerful mechanism for collaboration.
See:
Understanding The New V2P and P2V Metaverse Commerce Models
7 Essential Ingredients of an (Open) Metaverse Framework
NVIDIA believes that USD should serve as the HTML of the metaverse: the declarative specification of the contents of a web site. But just as HTML evolved from the limited static documents of HTML 1 to the dynamic applications of HTML 5, it is clear that USD will need to evolve to meet the needs of the metaverse.
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The National Crowdfunding & Fintech Association (NCFA Canada) is a financial innovation ecosystem that provides education, market intelligence, industry stewardship, networking and funding opportunities and services to thousands of community members and works closely with industry, government, partners and affiliates to create a vibrant and innovative fintech and funding industry in Canada. Decentralized and distributed, NCFA is engaged with global stakeholders and helps incubate projects and investment in fintech, alternative finance, crowdfunding, peer-to-peer finance, payments, digital assets and tokens, blockchain, cryptocurrency, regtech, and insurtech sectors. Join Canada's Fintech & Funding Community today FREE! Or become a contributing member and get perks. For more information, please visit: www.ncfacanada.org
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