This Week in DAOs - Mar 30, 2023
A roundup of the most exciting developments in the DAOs and web3.
🎙️In the latest episode of DAO or Never we are joined by Ruth Catlow, co-founder and co-director of Furtherfield, and co-PI at the Serpentine Galleries Blockchain Lab. Ruth’s projects include CultureStake for collective cultural decision-making and LARPs for planetary-scale interspecies justice. Web utopians, artists, and anyone wondering what it’s like to LARP as a dog, tune in! Available on Apple and Spotify.
Highlights
🧧 Hot Off the Virtual Press - The 2023 Annual Report on Crypto Philanthropy has been released by The Giving Block. TLDR: 2022 saw a record number of nonprofits fundraising with crypto and the future is even brighter. Understand crypto’s growing popularity as a donation method and how The Giving Block is helping nonprofits modernize fundraising and teaching young donors how to grow their impact.
🪙 #integratingweb3 - Telegram users can now send each other Tether (USDT), the world's largest stablecoin by market cap, as easily as sending a text or photograph. This accomplishes the dual goals of expanding Telegram’s cryptocurrency features while facilitating mainstream adoption of digital asset engagement.
🎮 Web3 Adoption - Web3 gaming firm Immutable and layer-2 platform Polygon have assembled approximately $2B to build a strategic alliance to make the web3-enabled gaming space faster, easier, and less risky for developers both large and small to enter.
🚨 Distributed Vigilantes - HAPI Labs has launched a platform for reporting cryptocurrency wallets related to scams, sanctions violations, terrorism financing, and other crime, currently in beta mode. The project is supported by Ukraine’s cyber police, which will work on freezing such wallets.
🇦🇪 Digital Dirham - The United Arab Emirates will complete the first phase of its Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) strategy in mid-2024 with infrastructure and technology providers G42 Cloud and R3. Phase one includes proof-of-concept work for a wholesale and retail CBDC.
📈 Unconstrained Scalability - Ethereum network’s largest scaling solution, Polygon, launched its Zero-Knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine (zkEVM) mainnet beta. The open source technology is positioned to encourage experimentation by ensuring EVM compatibility and reducing the cost and scaling barriers of Ethereum layer 1.
🧭 Metaverse Migration Team - After experimenting with their own solutions and product offerings, Nvidia and Microsoft are joining forces and technologies to offer services to assist in building realistic virtual worlds in the metaverse.
💰 Entering DeFi - Fujitsu, Japan’s largest IT service provider, filed a trademark application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), revealing its intent to offer brokerage services for cryptocurrency trading, among other cryptocurrency-related financial features.
Show Me the Money
💻 Surveillance-free - The anonymous team behind tomi has secured $40M in funding led by DWF Labs to further develop its DAO-governed internet alternative.
🗣️ Web3Chat - OP3N has secured $28M in funding, led by Animoca Brands, to help bridge the gap between web2 and web3 by integrating e-commerce into its AI-powered web3 social platform. The best thing about OP3N: its commitment to a user-friendly interface and user experience on the decentralized web.
👒 Metafashion - Digital fashion designer DressX secured $15M in seed funding, led by Greenfield Capital, to expand its offerings of virtual and AR wearables. Users will enjoy the most efficient closet ever.
💸 Like LinkedIn for Web3 - Aspecta, which plans to operate as a DAO, has secured $3.5M in seed funding, led by ZhenFund, to launch its AI-powered reputation and profile builder for web3 developers and content creators.
Listen + Learn
🦉 On-chain Transformation - In How Gnosis Has Endured and Evolved, Decrypt’s Dan Roberts and Stacy Elliott speak with co-founder and COO Friederike Ernst about Gnosis’ evolution from decentralized prediction market into a multisignature wallet platform and staking chain managed through a DAO.
Deadlines and Events
💻 April 2023: DAO Global Hackathon
🇯🇵 April 1-9: DAO-A-THON, Tokyo
🎓 April 2-4: DAO Harvard
🇭🇰 April 12-15: Web3 Festival, Hong Kong
🗻 April 13: DAO Tokyo
🖲️ April 14-16: ETHGlobal Tokyo (Apply by April 3)
🇰🇷 April 19-21: SeoulBound, A gathering of DAO East & Rest
🇺🇸 April 21–23: Duke University Web3 Conference
🤠 April 26-28: Consensus 2023
🇲🇪 May 19-23: EDCON
🇵🇪 June 8-10: Blockchaincon Latam
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