The liquidity crunch facing FTX might have emanated from Sam Bankman-Fried, the crypto exchange’s CEO, secretly transferring at least $4 billion to boost Alameda, with part of the funds being customer deposits, according to Reuters.
Per the report:
“Seeking to prop up Alameda, which held almost $15 billion in assets, Bankman-Fried transferred at least $4 billion in FTX funds, secured by assets including FTT and shares in trading platform Robinhood Markets Inc. Bankman-Fried did not tell other FTX executives about the move to prop up Alameda.”
Lucas Nuzzi, the head of research & development at CoinMetrics, shared similar sentiments and stated:
“I found evidence that FTX might have provided a massive bailout for Alameda in Q2 which now came back to haunt them. 40 days ago, 173 million FTT tokens worth over 4B USD became active on-chain. A rabbit hole appeared.”
Source:LucasNuzzi
FTX’s downfall was also prompted by Bankman-Fried’s decision to save struggling crypto firms as the bear market continued to bite. The report noted:
“Some of those deals involving Bankman-Fried’s trading firm, Alameda Research, led to a series of losses that eventually became his undoing.”
Part of the losses that Alameda Research endured entailed a $500 million loan agreement with collapsed crypto lender Voyager Digital.
FTX’s future is in jeopardy after Binance halted acquisition plans, citing misappropriation of customer funds, Blockchain.News reported.
Binance disclosed that this decision was reached based on corporate due diligence and reports of alleged U.S. agency investigations and mishandled client funds.
Based on a shortfall of up to $8 billion, Bankman-Fried acknowledged that FTX was in need of $4 billion to remain solvent if it was to avoid the bankruptcy route.
The rain started beating FTX after experiencing a “giant withdrawal surge” of $6 billion in cryptocurrencies in just 72 hours. The crypto exchange was accustomed to daily withdrawals that amounted to tens of millions of dollars.
I don’t know about you, but downloading a Web3 wallet and funding it for the first time was a nerve-wracking experience. Sending money without trusting some central authority with a familiar logo left me feeling unmoored; I refreshed my wallet a few times, waiting.
After using it for a few months, I realized that this decentralized wallet was a very different beast from typical payment apps provided by banks or companies like Paypal. These wallets not only carried my crypto assets but also my login credentials and transaction history forming a proto-identity to use across the world of Web3.
It appears that Web3 wallets are more akin to vehicles, which allow people to traverse the new blockchain-based internet and, one day, the brown leather wallet in my back pocket will be as archaic as rotary dial phones. And quite right too: there are so many decentralized finance (DeFi) apps that it would be impossible for a person to create a separate account each time, not to mention the privacy issues.
Web3 wallets will function in novel ways too. They will fulfill the human need to create an identity around certain ideas and cultures by hosting a personal gallery of NFTs. Archeologists have shown that humans have always collected items to augment their social identities, from precious stones to funny hats and tattoos.
It’s very natural, then, that we are already seeing wallets being used as the digital equivalent of an NFT scrapbook containing the same kind of meaningful ephemera that humans have always used to create cultural identities. There are already platforms that let people clip media from around the internet and turn them into NFTs for their wallets. As this trend develops it will be possible to imagine that NFTs will become the metaverse equivalents of piercings, designer outfits, or personalized number plates.
And these new wallet-based identities will allow us to vary our online personas in a way current social media apps can only dream of. Because the wallet ID is just one string of alphanumeric characters, it’s possible to change its outer identity while the core functionality remains the same — like changing clothes on the same body.
This is all great for crypto nerds but what about your average person who sees no reason to swap their faded Red Hot Chilli Peppers tour t-shirt for some NFT collectible? And isn’t the process of learning to use DeFi too esoteric for widespread adoption?
Well, centralized exchanges (CEXs) have a solution: the centralized DeFi wallet. These wallets allow users to explore the fresh world of DeFi in the open and egalitarian way these apps were designed for but with features that mimic the old ways of doing transactions via a trusted third party.
Old habits die hard, as they say. Remember the strange experience of sending money without using a trusted authority? When using CEX wallets, people who are uncomfortable with the idea of self custody, or don’t want to take on the risk of smart contract hacks, can still access the world of Web3 but with their keys locked up in their favorite CEX.
Furthermore, the sheer number of DeFi apps is pretty overwhelming to the neophyte and even crypto enthusiasts can fall prey to a rugpull every now and then. The CEX wallets help mitigate these risks but auditing the apps their wallets can interact with, or providing clear warnings and educational material before allowing access to new or riskier protocols.
The launch of CEX wallets is good for the blockchain space as they provide an easy stepping stone in the onboarding process. Most people are not ready to download an app with a picture of a fox on it and YOLO a portion of their portfolio into an entirely new space.
People worldwide are already using digital wallets connected to their bank accounts. Indeed. A study from Juniper Research has “found that the total number of digital wallet users will exceed 5.2 billion globally in 2026, up from 3.4 billion in 2022.” The research predicts that digital wallet use will continue to thrive in developing countries, which are considered “cash heavy.”
This makes the gap between the current digital wallets and Web3 offerings is already very small. Every day it’s becoming easier for people to make the jump and realize the promises of Web3 for themselves.
Publishers are key to ensuring quality and advancing Web3 gaming along the adoption curve. It’s no secret that Web3 gaming marks the next paradigm shift for the gaming community.
Web3’s concept of an interoperable and decentralized gaming ecosystem with more value for players will eventually overhaul the gaming landscape. But how long will this trend take to go mainstream and ultimately reshape the market? In the same way that mobile gaming became a global phenomenon despite early doubters, new concepts and business models in gaming continually arise and prove themselves over time. It’s just a question of how we can speed up our progress along the adoption curve.
A new wave of talent from Web2 is flooding into the Web3 gaming industry. At the same time, interest is blooming beyond the grassroots level, with mainstream Web2 firms also starting to explore the area in earnest. While the growth in this sector is explosive, without the infrastructure to harness all of the creative energy that’s radiating, the ecosystem will struggle to reach full maturity in the near term or earn the buy-in of gamers themselves.
In these crucial next stages, where studios and developers are jostling for space and market share, the emergence of top-tier game publishers will become equally as important, if not more so. Game publishers play a vital role in ensuring the quality of games coming to market and, thereby, the credibility of the industry as a whole.
Streamlining go-to-market strategies and defining feasible business models will also be key if we want to build a more efficient ecosystem within Web3 gaming. These are also vital services publishers provide.
Game Developers vs Game Publishers
Major firms in the Web2 gaming industry generally belong to two camps: game developers and game publishers. The lines between the two often end up blurred. But generally speaking, developers are responsible for creating and executing a game, while game publishers streamline the end-to-end process of games actually going to market and getting in front of gamers.
We often see large companies, like EA or ActivisionBlizzard, blur the lines between these two roles, as they execute on both fronts. The same goes for mobile gaming giant Tencent, which also publishes its own games with a heavy discount by keeping everything in-house. As for the current state of Web3 gaming, the industry has an abundance of studios and developers creating new opportunities and forging creative new paths.
But so far, we’ve yet to see the same enthusiasm on the publishing side of the industry. For example, SkyMavis is the developer and studio behind major Web3 hit Axie Infinity, but is not a publisher of other games. And Web3 pioneer Animoca Brands, which owns a major stake in SkyMavis, is primarily a venture capital company. Again, not a publisher.
Game publishers enhance quality and scalability
Game publishers’ primary value add to the industry is to be a curator, sifting through the multitudes of projects to find the games that will be successful, thereby cementing the
industry’s credibility. But what we’re seeing with Web3 gaming right now is that more concern is given to novel ideas rather than AAA-quality execution, meaning speculative angels get more attention compared to actually good games. As a result, random shots in the dark are replacing strategic creativity. And that’s not conducive to moving Web3 gaming along the adoption curve.
Then consider the fact that, without publishers tidying up the space, Web3 faces scalability issues. Successful case studies aren’t effectively shared throughout the industry, leading to repetitive innovation that hinders efficient growth and progress. And without channels to provide proven go-to-market strategies, access to the market is, as a result, limited to clout and word of mouth. This again eats into ecosystem efficiency with repetitive and overlapping efforts.
What’s missing here is publishers’ accumulation and dissemination of lessons learnt and market know-how, which will be critical to maturing the industry at scale.
Rather, the Web3 gaming industry’s current focus is on providing content discovery above all else. Many platforms aim to be the Steam of Web3. But we less often hear from firms aiming to be Web3’s biggest publisher, and that’s because it takes extensive expertise and experience to achieve.
Yet Web3 game developers and studios need strategic guidance to zoom out and see what the real market opportunities are. This helps to drive the creation of a wider range of games, thanks to strategic support for smaller developers and studios wanting to enter the field. It also helps studios of all sizes reach more markets and gamers on a global scale efficiently and strategically.
Publishers are vital for the maturity of the Web3 gaming ecosystem
Despite the current crypto bear market, Web3 gaming momentum continues to gather pace. And what the industry needs most is top-tier publishers to speed up the sector’s progress along the adoption curve. Developers require comprehensive solutions to support the designing, launching and scaling of blockchain games. Players want quality games made easily accessible. And publishers provide those vital services to improve efficiency and quality across the ecosystem. Let’s hope we see more Web3 gaming publishers emerging in the near future.
About Joseph Derflinger
Joseph has been in the video game industry for more than 10 years, with senior positions at Perfect World, GREE International, Tencent, and NetEase. With rich experience in developing
many well-known AAA games globally, Joseph aims to transform the Web3 gaming industry with state-of-the-art gaming design and technology. He is CEO and founder of Web3 game studio and publisher Red Door Digital.
Publishers are key to ensuring quality and advancing Web3 gaming along the adoption curve. It’s no secret that Web3 gaming marks the next paradigm shift for the gaming community.
Web3’s concept of an interoperable and decentralized gaming ecosystem with more value for players will eventually overhaul the gaming landscape. But how long will this trend take to go mainstream and ultimately reshape the market? In the same way that mobile gaming became a global phenomenon despite early doubters, new concepts and business models in gaming continually arise and prove themselves over time. It’s just a question of how we can speed up our progress along the adoption curve.
A new wave of talent from Web2 is flooding into the Web3 gaming industry. At the same time, interest is blooming beyond the grassroots level, with mainstream Web2 firms also starting to explore the area in earnest. While the growth in this sector is explosive, without the infrastructure to harness all of the creative energy that’s radiating, the ecosystem will struggle to reach full maturity in the near term or earn the buy-in of gamers themselves.
In these crucial next stages, where studios and developers are jostling for space and market share, the emergence of top-tier game publishers will become equally as important, if not more so. Game publishers play a vital role in ensuring the quality of games coming to market and, thereby, the credibility of the industry as a whole.
Streamlining go-to-market strategies and defining feasible business models will also be key if we want to build a more efficient ecosystem within Web3 gaming. These are also vital services publishers provide.
Game Developers vs Game Publishers
Major firms in the Web2 gaming industry generally belong to two camps: game developers and game publishers. The lines between the two often end up blurred. But generally speaking, developers are responsible for creating and executing a game, while game publishers streamline the end-to-end process of games actually going to market and getting in front of gamers.
We often see large companies, like EA or ActivisionBlizzard, blur the lines between these two roles, as they execute on both fronts. The same goes for mobile gaming giant Tencent, which also publishes its own games with a heavy discount by keeping everything in-house. As for the current state of Web3 gaming, the industry has an abundance of studios and developers creating new opportunities and forging creative new paths.
But so far, we’ve yet to see the same enthusiasm on the publishing side of the industry. For example, SkyMavis is the developer and studio behind major Web3 hit Axie Infinity, but is not a publisher of other games. And Web3 pioneer Animoca Brands, which owns a major stake in SkyMavis, is primarily a venture capital company. Again, not a publisher.
Game publishers enhance quality and scalability
Game publishers’ primary value add to the industry is to be a curator, sifting through the multitudes of projects to find the games that will be successful, thereby cementing the
industry’s credibility. But what we’re seeing with Web3 gaming right now is that more concern is given to novel ideas rather than AAA-quality execution, meaning speculative angels get more attention compared to actually good games. As a result, random shots in the dark are replacing strategic creativity. And that’s not conducive to moving Web3 gaming along the adoption curve.
Then consider the fact that, without publishers tidying up the space, Web3 faces scalability issues. Successful case studies aren’t effectively shared throughout the industry, leading to repetitive innovation that hinders efficient growth and progress. And without channels to provide proven go-to-market strategies, access to the market is, as a result, limited to clout and word of mouth. This again eats into ecosystem efficiency with repetitive and overlapping efforts.
What’s missing here is publishers’ accumulation and dissemination of lessons learnt and market know-how, which will be critical to maturing the industry at scale.
Rather, the Web3 gaming industry’s current focus is on providing content discovery above all else. Many platforms aim to be the Steam of Web3. But we less often hear from firms aiming to be Web3’s biggest publisher, and that’s because it takes extensive expertise and experience to achieve.
Yet Web3 game developers and studios need strategic guidance to zoom out and see what the real market opportunities are. This helps to drive the creation of a wider range of games, thanks to strategic support for smaller developers and studios wanting to enter the field. It also helps studios of all sizes reach more markets and gamers on a global scale efficiently and strategically.
Publishers are vital for the maturity of the Web3 gaming ecosystem
Despite the current crypto bear market, Web3 gaming momentum continues to gather pace. And what the industry needs most is top-tier publishers to speed up the sector’s progress along the adoption curve. Developers require comprehensive solutions to support the designing, launching and scaling of blockchain games. Players want quality games made easily accessible. And publishers provide those vital services to improve efficiency and quality across the ecosystem. Let’s hope we see more Web3 gaming publishers emerging in the near future.
About Joseph Derflinger
Joseph has been in the video game industry for more than 10 years, with senior positions at Perfect World, GREE International, Tencent, and NetEase. With rich experience in developing
many well-known AAA games globally, Joseph aims to transform the Web3 gaming industry with state-of-the-art gaming design and technology. He is CEO and founder of Web3 game studio and publisher Red Door Digital.
The digital currency ecosystem that was once presented as a mystical industry is now one that is being widely spoken about in the media, and everyone is jostling to take a bite of it.
Realistically, the cryptocurrency industry has grown remarkably since Bitcoin (BTC) was first introduced by Satoshi Nakamoto more than 13 years ago.
The industry has passed through unique iterations and evolution, some of which have attracted new users into the ecosystem.
While it will be a major oversight if we fail to highlight how the interest of regulators in the ecosystem has peaked over the past few years, it is definitely worth noting that innovators in the space are introducing new solutions that are not fitting into the current context of extant laws.
This is to show that the industry’s evolution, as presented by proponents, is still in its infancy, irrespective of the milestones that have been covered. Despite the industry taking significant hits by reason of the crypto winter which has led to bouts of bankruptcies, job cuts, and top executive resignations, the market still shows resilience, one that sends new signals for futuristic investors to hinge their bets on.
Amidst the ups and downs the market has experienced in recent times, here are the top three reasons to stay positive as the market journeys onto more maturity.
The influx of Institutional Money
The influx of institutional money has shown how well the industry is maturing. With Venture Capital (VC) firms showing interest in protocols building innovative solutions in the ecosystem with deep capital injections, innovators can be sure that the monetary backing is there to churn out solutions that can help drive massive adoption of blockchain and crypto-related technologies.
The major VCs injecting liquidity into the space include but are not limited to Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Paradigm Capital, Binance Labs, and Tiger Global.
Ongoing Industry Metamorphosis
As it stands, the crypto and blockchain industry is undergoing a very unique metamorphosis as it concerns how innovators are churning out new solutions.
It is worth noting that the industry is still shaping up, and while the world is yet to get the best of Decentralized Finance (DeFi) as a primary financial offshoot of the ecosystem, we have seen the advent of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT) and the broad-based marketplace and use cases that have been ushered in by it.
At this pace, we may see the introduction of more yet-to-be-seen protocols, most of which will be branded as a subsect of the Metaverse or Web3.0. The thought that more innovations that can make internet usage and life easier are major selling points for investors.
Automated Industry Self-Purge
While this may be counter-intuitive, the advent of crypto winters is good for the industry as it helps fish out companies whose business models are hinged on unsustainable practices or bad management.
Since its inception, the crypto industry has undergone a series of crypto winters and at each point, protocols and platforms whose ideals are not consistent with what can make the industry thrive are dropped, and they pave the way for the most resilient protocols to serve users.
For investors, knowing the ecosystem has a way of fishing out the bad projects is a certainty that investments in protocols that survives the crypto winters can turn a massive bet in the near future.
Now that Ethereum’s Merge is upon us, it’s time to delve into some of the issues and answer some of the questions that often come up about crypto’s biggest event of the year.
Will The Merge hasten institutional adoption of Ether?
In crypto lore, there is a great event that has long been foretold: the arrival of “the institutions” — like pension funds, corporate treasures, and dare I say, sovereign funds. There are already a few of these entities that hold some crypto, but there are many more sitting on the sidelines.
Those entities that do hold crypto, which include ETFs in Canada, Fidelity Investments, and the nation of El Salvador, have been focused on Bitcoin (BTC). “BTC, the largest cryptocurrency by market cap, is the gateway — and indeed the only stop — for many institutions that ventured into the cryptocurrency market. As of June 2022, 6.47% of all [B]itcoin that will ever exist is held by institutions,” CoinDesk reports.
After The Merge, will Ether (ETH) also be bought up by institutions? Well, in our August report in partnership with Nansen, Bybit analysts concluded that there was “no consensus” among the smart money and institutional investors surveyed regarding their attitude toward short-term trading around The Merge. Instead, our analysts found that “smart money” wallets (which include institutions and market makers) were more likely to accumulate ETH with the intention of holding long-term.
Note that the wallets we surveyed are already active in the crypto markets. As for the rest of the institutions, if their Bitcoin investments serve them well, then it won’t be long before they examine another crypto asset.
How long will it take for ETH to become deflationary?
Since the implementation of proposal EIP-1559 in August 2021, Ethereum has been burning a portion of its ETH transaction fees. However, due to the large amount of ETH being issued to pay miners for securing and validating the network, even with the burn, ETH supply has still been slightly inflationary over the past 12 months, according to data from ultrasound.money.
The Merge will change that by drastically reducing the amount of ETH issued while keeping the burn rate in a similar range. Ethereum researcher Justin Drake has created a sheet that estimates three different scenarios for the supply of ETH post-Merge.
Taking Drake’s most conservative calculations, the blockchain will need to issue a maximum of 963,000 ETH per year to pay validators who secure and run the network. The annual fee burn amounts to 1.5 million ETH. The result? Well, ultrasound.money suggests the supply of ETH will soon become deflationary by 1.5% per year.
Take these numbers with a pinch of salt as they are based on the average network fees from the last 12 months, which have been significantly higher than they are at present. With macroeconomic headwinds forecast to last a while, it may take some time for Ethereum to manifest these predictions.
Will ETH ever overtake BTC as the largest cryptocurrency by market cap?
This question has been debated for so long in crypto circles that it’s been given its own name: “the flippening”. The Merge is just one of a series of upgrades planned for Ethereum. And if they are all successful, the future network’s power could flip Bitcoin.
But it’s still very much hypothetical at this time, so I’m not betting the family farm on it just yet. To sober up, let’s take a look at some historical data.
If you plot ETH’s market cap against that of BTC, then it’s clear that ETH has been moving strongly against BTC’s dominance as of late. On the other hand, historically, we have seen ETH make very strong moves against BTC but each time it has topped out in the 50-55% range, which is where we find ourselves today.
Whether or not “this time is different” — as they say — is up for debate.
About Author
Nathan Thompson, lead tech writer for Bybit
Disclaimer: Nothing herein should be construed as investment advice, or any offer, or solicitation to offer, or recommendation, of any DeFi product.
The upcoming Ethereum upgrade known as “The Merge” is creating a lot of excitement in the crypto market, and for a good reason. Wei believes it will be looked back on not just as the most important industry event of 2022, but as a major inflection point in the history of the space.
“The Merge refers to the fusion of Ethereum’s Mainnet, the execution layer currently secured by an energy-intensive proof-of-work system, with the Beacon Chain, a separate consensus layer based on a proof-of-stake mechanism. Once complete, blocks of transactions will be added to the Ethereum blockchain exclusively via proof-of-stake verification, eliminating the role of miners and their heavy carbon footprint. There are many different aspects to the Merge which touch on all different parts of the crypto world, and it’s only the first step in a detailed roadmap for the Ethereum described in shorthand as “The Merge, the Surge, the Verge, the Purge and the Splurge”. The upshot is that these changes will massively expand the Ethereum ecosystem’s scalability.”
Like with any big event driving the crypto narrative, there has been significant price action in ETH on many exchanges as the expected mid-September completion date of the Merge approaches. ETH holders need to understand that this is not just a turn-key upgrade, but the beginning of a long-term process. That being said, one important outcome is that there will be greater interest in Ethereum from the financial sector.
The first big reason is ESG. The shift from an energy-consuming asset to an energy-neutral one is a huge deal for institutional investors, who are more focused than ever before on ESG factors, with environmental impact first and foremost. Concerns over the carbon footprint of proof-of-work based cryptocurrencies (which also notably include Bitcoin) have been one of the most important obstacles to large institutions deploying more capital in the space. The Merge means that, at least in the case of Ethereum, that particular objection will be completely neutralized. Second, the nature of the proof-of-stake mechanism will significantly enhance ETH’s attractiveness to large financial investors by introducing a yield-like characteristic to ETH holdings.
“To understand why, you need to know a little bit about how proof-of-stake works, and how it will be implemented on the Ethereum blockchain going forward. Post-Merge, Ethereum transactions will be verified not by miners performing computations, but by validators locking up (staking) their own money (in ETH form) as collateral to ensure that they perform the verification diligently and honestly. In return, validators that successfully add blocks to the blockchain earn monetary rewards for their work. In the Ethereum context, running a validator node will require staking 32 ETH – over US$50,000 at current prices – although the creation of staking pools also allows smaller ETH holders to participate collectively.”
This new system therefore creates the ability to directly and securely earn yield on ETH holdings. This is a big deal for investors, and it could prove attractive to money managers whose main concern is generating stable returns with good upside.
Finally, ETH staking will also provide a boost to the entire decentralized finance (DeFi) space. The size and credibility of the Ethereum network will make it almost like the crypto world’s equivalent of the market for US Treasuries. ETH staking will become a de facto “risk-free” rate for crypto, serving as an underlying rate which all sorts of DeFi yield-generating projects can be benchmarked against.
The Merge and future Ethereum upgrades, coupled with the development of Layer 2 blockchains that enable massive scaling up while inheriting the base layer’s security guarantees, will result in a proliferation of infrastructure being built on top of the new proof-of-stake based Ethereum.
Based on the combination of all these factors, Wei is bullish on Ethereum and its ecosystem, and even more so on the DeFi space.
“ It’s a great time to be building in this space”, said Wei.
The Merge is about long-term value, not short-term price appreciation
A classic Wall Street maxim instructs traders to buy the rumor and sell the news. But investors should be wary of seeking short-term profit around the Merge event in September.
It is worth thinking back to another significant crypto market event, the most recent Bitcoin “halvening”. Every four years, the reward for mining Bitcoin is cut in half. The third instance occurred in May 2020 and was accompanied by lots of discussion about how the price would be affected. As it happened, the price of Bitcoin didn’t change much in the run-up to the halvening. It was several months later that the next Bitcoin bull run got its start, powered by a narrative of Bitcoin as digital gold.
Similar dynamics could be at play with Ethereum. The Merge is not about the chance for a one-time event-driven price spike. Instead, it is about understanding the fact that it is the first in a long line of improvements that are going to upgrade the network and allow players in the ecosystem to unlock huge value by building on top of it. It will take some time for the narrative to catch up with events on the ground, and then for meaningful inflow of capital into this asset to happen. But I am convinced that the future is bright for the ecosystem as a whole.
Since central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) are showing more exposure to the market, taming illegal activities requires a delicate balancing act between data access and user privacy protection, according to HashCash Consultants CEO Raj Chowdhury.
Chowdhury pointed out:
“CBDC projects need to address their drawbacks and act considering the potential side-effects. They may lead to the disintermediation of the nation’s banking sector, and lend the government an upper hand in state-sponsored censorship of a citizen’s spending patterns.”
Even though the CBDC idea is revolutionary, Chowdhury believes caution should not be thrown to the wind because of possible dangers regarding storage.
He noted:
“The working principles of CBDC are converse with the ideals behind Bitcoin and blockchain technology. A centralized storage system has grave security risks, which will likely diminish the anonymity and privacy normally associated with conventional cash or crypto transactions.”
Therefore, extensive research is necessary before launch to iron out possible difficulties.
The issuance of CBDCs seems to be a race against time because, in the eyes of many nations, owning a CBDC is instrumental in having control of the global markets.
For instance, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) recently launched a year-long trial to explore innovative use cases and business models of a CBDC, Blockchain.News reported.
Therefore, the pilot project aimed at getting better insights into the regulatory, legal, and technological aspects of CBDCs.
Meanwhile, CBDCs are expected to drive the financial inclusion of nearly 1.7 billion people left out of the banking system once implemented.
This attribute might be propelled by the fact that CBDCs are digital assets pegged to real-world assets and backed by the central banks. As a result, they represent a claim against the bank exactly the way banknotes work.
Since JP Morgan has purchased virtual land in Decentral Land, more and more financial institutions have gradually entered the Web 3.0 market, such as HSBC has brought land size 3 x3 lands in Sandbox, Hang Seng Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, the Ocean Park and MTR. South China Morning Post has built up its Central Pier metaverse Game.
Why do so many big names have entered the Metaverse?
The answer is Fear of Missing Out. Mr Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan, is not crypto and a digital asset-friendly guy and has said Bitcoin was worthless. The funny thing is that JP Morgan has opened crypto trading to their clients. Advisors in JP Morgan’s USD630 billion wealth management division can now accept orders to buy and sell five crypto products, including Crayscale’s Bitcoin Trust, Bitcoin Cast Trust, Ethereum Trust, Ethereum Classic products and Osprey Funds’ Bitcoin Trust. (quote from Forbes July 22, 2021). In 2022, JP Morgan set up their business in the virtual world.
I joined zoom earlier; guests speaker Ms Cola Mok (Hang Seng Bank) and Mr Henry Chan (South China Morning Post) explained their business model in planning NFT, GameFi and Web 3.0 concepts, how to arouse the public in going into their metaverse games in Sandbox when Alpha 3 has opened to the public soon.
In Web 1.0 and Web 2.0, those big names financial institutions have missed opportunities to participate in the market and missed a huge fortune, for example, Facebook (now called meta), a media platform by Mark Zuckerberg (a billionaire) or Google, Web 2.0 companies have earned more than a thousand million in income from a simple idea as advertising income.
It is straightforward for IT companies to enter financial and insurance markets, such as virtual banks and insurance companies. However, it is hard to see insurance and financial companies entering the internet. Now Metaverse with Web 3.0 will replace the internet in the coming decade. Big financial institutions don’t want to miss this huge business opportunity so that you will see all big names come first and lead the market.
It is not difficult to see JP Morgan running a media platform to replace meta soon as the pie is big enough.
Since JP Morgan has purchased virtual land in Decentral Land, more and more financial institutions have gradually entered the Web 3.0 market, such as HSBC has brought land size 3 x3 lands in Sandbox, Hang Seng Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, the Ocean Park and MTR. South China Morning Post has built up its Central Pier metaverse Game.
Why do so many big names have entered the Metaverse?
The answer is Fear of Missing Out. Mr Jamie Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan, is not crypto and a digital asset-friendly guy and has said Bitcoin was worthless. The funny thing is that JP Morgan has opened crypto trading to their clients. Advisors in JP Morgan’s USD630 billion wealth management division can now accept orders to buy and sell five crypto products, including Crayscale’s Bitcoin Trust, Bitcoin Cast Trust, Ethereum Trust, Ethereum Classic products and Osprey Funds’ Bitcoin Trust. (quote from Forbes July 22, 2021). In 2022, JP Morgan set up their business in the virtual world.
I joined zoom earlier; guests speaker Ms Cola Mok (Hang Seng Bank) and Mr Henry Chan (South China Morning Post) explained their business model in planning NFT, GameFi and Web 3.0 concepts, how to arouse the public in going into their metaverse games in Sandbox when Alpha 3 has opened to the public soon.
In Web 1.0 and Web 2.0, those big names financial institutions have missed opportunities to participate in the market and missed a huge fortune, for example, Facebook (now called meta), a media platform by Mark Zuckerberg (a billionaire) or Google, Web 2.0 companies have earned more than a thousand million in income from a simple idea as advertising income.
It is straightforward for IT companies to enter financial and insurance markets, such as virtual banks and insurance companies. However, it is hard to see insurance and financial companies entering the internet. Now Metaverse with Web 3.0 will replace the internet in the coming decade. Big financial institutions don’t want to miss this huge business opportunity so that you will see all big names come first and lead the market.
It is not difficult to see JP Morgan running a media platform to replace meta soon as the pie is big enough.
