This Week in DAOs + Web3 - Jul 27, 2023
A roundup of the most exciting developments in DAOs and web3.
Highlights
🪙 Origin Story - Shield3 enforces security, policy, and compliance using built-in AI to flag government-sanctioned wallets and take on known crypto villains. The project was inspired, in part, by long lost Dogecoin.
🌌 Cosmic Growth - Wormhole launched an application-specific blockchain into the Cosmos ecosystem, connecting liquidity and users from over 20 blockchains.
🏍️ High Speed - Motorcycle company Ducati has partnered with payment company Ripple to launch its first NFT collection on XRP Ledger, to nurture the passions of its fans.
🖼️ Trading Place - OpenSea has introduced a new feature called “Deals” which enables peer-to-peer NFT swaps and allows traders to acquire new NFTs using their own NFTs in place of cryptocurrency.
🍔 On-chain Anniversary - In honor of the 40th anniversary of Chicken McNuggets, McDonald's has launched a metaverse game called McNuggets Land.
👩🎓 Open Education - Recently published research explores how DAOs, blockchain, generative AI, and other technologies can be integrated to create an open education ecosystem offering a global, seamless, personalized, and democratic education.
🔒 Loss Mitigation - The Connext blockchain interoperability protocol announced a new token standard, xERC-20, to improve token bridging security.
🚨 Crypto Forensics - Professional services giant Deloitte is set to boost its clients’ blockchain-tracking capabilities following a strategic alliance with crypto analytics firm Chainalysis.
🪙 Asset Tokenization - Avalanche Foundation announced a $50M initiative, dubbed Avalanche Vista, to purchase tokenized assets minted on its blockchain with the goal of highlighting the value of tokenization in different sectors.
World Wide Web3
🪆 Digital Ruble - Russia's President Vladimir Putin signed the digital ruble bill into law, allowing the country's central bank to issue its digital currency as legal tender.
🇭🇰 Digital Yuan - The Bank of China’s Hong Kong subsidiary has allowed individuals in the Special Administrative Region to utilize the digital yuan central bank digital currency for retail shopping.
🇮🇩 Government Managed Adoption - A national cryptocurrency exchange operated by the government of Indonesia will be the only legal venue for trading digital assets in the Southeast Asian country.
🇯🇵 Call it Capitalism - Japan's Prime Minister reaffirmed the country’s commitment to fostering the Web3 industry, including a focus on user protection, improving the utilization of web3 tokens, and revitalizing the content industry.
🚀 Blockchain in Space - A Chinese satellite has become the first in the world to carry a blockchain imaging and screening system into orbit to obtain rich spectral information for environmental monitoring and resource management.
Show Me the Money
🧑💻 User Focus - Web3 operating protocol dappOS closed a seed funding round led by Sequoia China and IDG Capital to make dApps as user-friendly as mobile apps.
💸 Web3 Infrastructure - Manta Network developer p0x labs raised a $25M Series A round, led by Polychain Capital, to make it easier for developers to deploy Ethereum Virtual Machine-native ZK applications.
↔️ Cross-Chain Tech - Cosmic Wire has become the first cross-chain funded Web3 company, having raised a $30M seed round led by the Solana Foundation and Polygon, to develop a more decentralized, transparent, and secure web3 ecosystem.
🌐 ZK Devs - RISC Zero, creator of infrastructure helping developers build zero-knowledge proof software, has raised a $40M Series A round led by Blockchain Capital.
💵 MEV R&D - Flashbots raised a $60M Series B round, led by Paradigm, to continue tackling the negative effects of Maximum Extractable Value (MEV).
Funding Money
🏗️ Mo’ Money - CoinFund, a New York-based venture capital firm that boasts 105 companies in its portfolio, raised $158M earmarked for developing infrastructure around web3, AI, and cryptocurrency.
💰 Mo’ Funding - Blockchain-focused venture capital firm Polychain Capital has raised $200M, or half of the $400M goal, for its fourth cryptocurrency fund.
Coming Up in DAOs and Web3
👭 August 15-16: ETHWomen Hackathon, Toronto
🇨🇦 August 15-16: Blockchain Futurist Conference
🇭🇷 August 16-18: Metafest, Croatia
🇹🇷 August 21-25: Istanbul Blockchain Week
🇮🇩 August 24-25: Coinfest Asia
🇩🇰 September 6-7: Nordic Blockchain Conference
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