Axie Infinity (🤝) / Apple App Store — Axie Infinity launched a 'Lite' version of its game on Apple's App Store. The game, Axie Infinity: Origins, will provide players with free non-NFT "starter characters". While initial characters won't be NFTs, they may be converted into NFTs, and existing NFT holders will also be able to transfer their Axies into the app — more
Pudgy Penguins / Pudgy Toys — NFT collection Pudgy Penguins launched its first run of community-licensed, first-edition Pudgy Toys available on Amazon. A digital experience known as Pudgy World will accompany each new toy purchase and aims to “give the non-NFT public their very first blockchain wallet, Soulbound NFT, and Tradeable NFTs, all in one simple sign up with an email address.” — more
Visa / Experimenting on ETH Testnet — Visa is testing "Paymaster" smart contracts (leveraging ERC-4337) on Ethereum's Goerli testnet, aiming to streamline crypto payments by managing transaction fees. Using account abstraction, the new model eliminates the need for end-users to hold Ether for gas fees, offering a more flexible alternative to Ethereum’s standard fee structure — more
Starbucks / NFT Badging for Employees — Starbucks innovation group, Catalyst Labs, unveiled Project Spark, an initiative using NFTs and blockchain to engage Starbucks employees. The project aims to reinforce learning by awarding NFT digital badges to employees who complete different learning experiences — more
LG Electronics / NFT-enabled TVs — LG Electronics filed a patent for a TV that enables NFT trading by connecting to an NFT marketplace and processing purchases via a linked crypto wallet. The development follows competitor Samsung's launch of an NFT marketplace on three of its TV models earlier in 2022 — more
Mattel / Fast + Furious NFTs — Mattel is launching a new edition of its Hot Wheels NFT Garage Series, featuring cars from the Fast & Furious franchise, to coincide with the latest movie release. The Flow-based NFT collection includes iconic vehicles like Dominic Toretto's 1970 Dodge Charger and Brian O'Conner's 1969 Camero — more
Paradigm / Buys Coinbase Stock — Coinbase co-founder Fred Ehrsam, also co-founder of crypto investment firm Paradigm, recently purchased $48.8M worth of Coinbase stock. The acquisition comprised of 810,000 shares purchased at prices between $59.30 and $63.20 each. Ehrsam now indirectly owns a total of 5.6M COIN shares through three entities — more
Ubisoft x Reality Labs / Assansin’s Creed NFTs — Ubisoft teamed up with Reality Labs to launch Assasin’s Creed NFTs on Polygon, featuring both digital and physical components. Incorporated NFC chips allow owners to visualize a digital version of their character, with varying customization options based on NFT rarity — more
Jia / $4.3M Raised — Jia, a blockchain-based fintech providing loans to micro and small businesses in emerging markets, raises seed round from TCG Crypto, with participation from BlockTower, Hashed Emergent, Saison Capital, and Global Coin Research — more
Together / $20M Raised — Together, a decentralized cloud for AI, raises round led by Lux Capital, with participation from Factory, SV Angel, First Round Capital, Long Journey Ventures, A Capital, Robot Ventures, Common Metal, Definition Capital, Susa Ventures, and others — more
Hourglass / $4.2M Raised — Hourglass, a DeFi startup building Time-Bound Tokens that tokenize a user's staked assets based on its lock-up time period, raises seed round led by Electric Capital, with participation from Coinbase Ventures, Circle Ventures, Tribe Capital, hack.vc, and others — more
Red Beard Ventures / $25M Raised — Red Beard Ventures, a web3 venture firm that aims to launch a tokenomics accelerator called Denarii Labs, raises funds from a16z's Marc Andreessen and Chris Dixon, Animoca Brands, CEO of SuperRare John Crain, and others — more
Airstack / $7M Raised — Airstack, an AI-powered web3 developer platform, raises round led by Superscrypt, with participation from Polygon, Hashed Emergent, NGC, Primal Capital, UOB Ventures, Signum Capital, and others — more
Story Protocol / $29.3M Raised — Story Protocol, a developer of web3 tech designed to “revolutionize how narrative universes are built”, raises round led by a16z, with participation from Hashed, Mirana Corp, DAO5, Samsung Next Fund, Two Small Fish Ventures, Berggruen, and SLVC — more
Anotherblock / $4.3M Raised — Anotherblock, a startup using NFTs as a way to sell streaming royalties to music fans, raises round led by Stride VC and musician Axwell of Swedish House Mafia — more
The Open Metaverse Under Attack; The Fight Back / Outlier Ventures — “Whilst the future of The Open Metaverse is still an open question, we want to offer up a vision for this radical new economic system. A vision whereby Web3 serves as a trust machine for a more Open Metaverse, not only for crypto and digital assets, but the wider consumer internet. This thesis is a continuation of a conversation around the implementation and evolution of The Open Metaverse, originally proposed by Outlier Ventures in 2021.”— more
We need to tell a better story about the metaverse / Tom Ffiske — “I believe a key issue is that we are not telling the story of the metaverse clearly or well enough. The lack of direction confuses media reports time and time again, as people spin it into a more negative incarnation … So what story would work well, with the simplicity and depth of other tales? For me, it would be emphasising how the metaverse is the spatial evolution of the internet, bringing joy by connecting us closer together.” — more
Onchain is the Next Online / Jacob — "Onchain" is a word that’s used widely at Zora. We’ve been using this word for so long and so often that we sometimes forget it’s a new word. It captures the essence of crypto as a powerful expansion of the internet, and makes it easy for anyone to distinguish if something or someone is using a blockchain or not. It has a tangibility that isn’t always there for “crypto” or “web3” … There isn't really a great definition out there for onchain. So I'm going to define it here.” — more
Generative Art Will Be a Multiplayer Exercise in Meaning-Making / Tina Dai + Simon Hudson — “We believe generative art will ultimately be akin to a multiplayer world, where the lines between creator, machine, and ecosystem become dynamic and all parties come together to generate collective meaning in art. The value of generative artwork will be shaped more by human stewardship than by production value alone, and an ecosystem supporting community-driven meaning-making will emerge on crypto rails.” — more
Provenance for Generative AI / Gene Kogan — “A Cambrian explosion in generative AI tools, startups, and communities has released a wellspring of creativity and enthusiasm for AI art in recent years. However, this has also led to contentious debate surrounding issues of copyright, attribution, the implications of this technology for professional artists, and increasingly even existential risk to humans … it’s clear this technology will need some kind of provenance layer.” — more
Soho (🤝) / App Store Launch — Soho, a new mobile platform for NFT collectors and creators, has officially launched on the Apple App Store. The app is designed to help users manage their portfolio and discover new NFTs. Soho has plans for future enhancements including AI-powered recommendations, creator tools, tokenized rewards, and Android support — more
Turning Listeners Into Tastemakers with Sound xyz (🤝) / Seed Club (🤝) Podcast: Building at the Edges — “On this episode of Building at the Edges we sit down with David Greenstein, co-founder of Sound, to talk about how Sound is creating better incentive alignment in the music industry. David shares why he co-founded Sound, how the project has evolved over time and what we can expect to see in their new mobile app.” — more
Moonbirds / Token-gated Spotify Playlist — PROOF (🤝), through its Moonbirds project, partnered with Danny Lee and The Songbirbs to curate an exclusive Spotify playlist, "Sounds of a Digital Renaissance," accessible only to Moonbirds holders in select countries using Android devices. Eligible Moonbirds owners can connect their wallets to access the playlist — more
Ronin Network / NFT Marketplace Launch — Mavis Market is an NFT marketplace launching on the Ronin Network that aims to be a tool and launchpad for game developers and a monetization platform for web3 game studions. Initially adopting a curated approach to NFT listings, the first two NFT collections on Mavis Market are Axie DoLL Sidekicks and AxieChat Premium 2023 NFTs — more
Operator / Art Blocks (🤝): Human Unreadable — Human Unreadable immerses audiences and collectors in a three-act, embodied, generative art experience. The acts weave together code, choreography, blockchain, generative art, cryptography, and performance into an evolving conceptual experience - the slow recovery of the human. The work brings flesh and viscerality into code and vulnerability [as a feature] into long-form on-chain generative art. Each artwork is driven by the motion data of its underlying unique, on-chain choreographic sequence.” Dropping May 24th — more
Norman Harman / Sovrn: Perimeter Town — “…Harman brings a new depth to AI art. Here, he incorporates his masterful fusion of traditional painting and digital interference, as well as the critical lens that cryptoart holds to decadence, distraction and conformity … Perimeter Town is the result of Harman's work in the months following SIGHTSEERS, a boutique set that reveals the emergences on the perimeter of the SIGHTSEERS world.” Dropping May 26th — more
Joel Meyerowitz / Fellowship: Sequels — “We are honored to launch Joel Meyerowitz’s Sequels: one image, every day, for a decade. This new project combines blockchain technology with long-form photographic narratives to build a project that is the first of its kind. Sequels' is a new way of developing photographic stories using blockchain technologies. For the next 10 years, one image will be minted a day, creating a photographic story that stretches Joel's career.” — more
David / Experience the Gallery (🤝) Mobile App — more
Dirt (🤝) / The Dirtyverse is Expanding to Print — more
NFTfi (🤝) / Season One Rewards Go Live — more
Sound xyz (🤝) / Introducing the Sound Mobile App — more
Seed Club (🤝) / Consumer Crypto Accelerator: 200+ Applications — more
Digitized / Featured #03 x Ensemble — more
ripcache / New Drop Powered by Transient Labs (🤝) — more
nftnow / NFT Ownership on the Rise — more
Louissongyz / All Things ZK x Machine Learning — more
Otherside / Updates on Legends of the Mara — more
ChatGPT / Web browsing + Plugins on ChatGPT Plus — more
🤝 = Collab+Currency Portfolio Company
Curated by @Collab_Currency x @_cutbank
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