$739M fund for blockchain games in Q1

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The Future, today. In just 3 minutes.

1/ Metaverse games: $739M invested in blockchain games this year

The numbers are in: Metaverse gaming bagged a cool $739M in investments in Q1 2023 alone, reveals a report by DappRadar and Blockchain Games Alliance.

Other stats and figures disclosed:

• Analyzing statistical trends of wallets and transactions since 2023 started, the report shows $434M alone was raised in a single month.

• Roughly 29% was distributed to game and metaverse companies.

• Another 21% is given to web3 infrastructure companies.

• Only $10M has gone into NFT companies.

Blockchain games remain the most dominant among web3 industries (despite predictions that blockchain games will stand alongside DeFi and crypto), comprising 44-45% of total activity.

This suggests their dominance since the bear market as well as persistence through those long winter months - the numbers, after all, don’t lie.

2/ AI fears grow as Germany, France, Sweden, and Canada voice concerns

On the heels of Italy’s outright ban of ChatGPT, several different governments have cited user privacy protection in their latest individual moves regarding advancing AI developments.

• Canada’s privacy commissioner said they are probing ChatGPT, particularly AI technology and its privacy effects as “a priority” for his office.

• Germany, France, and Sweden have also expressed concerns around the chatbot. A German interior ministry spokesperson said there’s no need to ban AI apps, but instead “ensure values such as democracy and transparency.”

• Italy’s ban is rooted in a March 20 incident where OpenAI openly acknowledged a system bug exposing users’ payment details as well as chat history.

Zeroing in on the matter:

• Is banning AI alongside software feasible where VPNs exist? VPNs allow users to securely and privately access the internet via an encrypted connection between their devices and remote servers, effectively masking the user’s home IP address.

• An AI ban may be far removed from reality as AI models continue to proliferate, and perhaps the only way to enforce a ban is to prohibit computer and cloud access - a rather impractical step to take in this increasingly connected world.

3/ Metaverse Fashion Week had big brands but few people

Since we tackle everything metaverse, it would be quite amiss not to discuss the recently wrapped up MFW 2023, which featured virtual clothes, exhibits, and the biggest brands on Decentraland.

In writer Jay Peters’ words: “The world didn’t feel very alive. While walking around, I’d usually only see one or two other people in my vicinity. I caught the tail end of a runway show, and about 10 avatars were standing stock-still, facing the stage as fireworks burst in the air.”

He continued: “Some booths had the types of bumping music you’d expect from a fashion show, but many were totally quiet, and sound would often cut in and out as I crossed a line into one space or another.”

Some key stats on the event:

• Attendance dropped from 108,000 people in 2022 to 26,000 in 2023, a 76% decrease according to Decentraland data itself.

• MFW chief Dr. Giovana Graziosi Casimiro says, though, that they “had tens of thousands of new visitors to the metaverse.”

• Weekly trading volumes for virtual land on the platform has gone from $1M at its peak in late 2021 and early 2022 to about $50K now.

In the wake of big names like Disney and Meta going easy on their metaverse ambitions, is it a sign of the times that people were “shopping in silence” on MFW?

Successful metaverse spaces, Peters argues, usually have something for people to do with their friends: Roblox and Fortnite for playing games, or Horizon Worlds fostering a sense of community. Where did the 2nd MFW go wrong, if at all?

4/ Has Amazon lost the AI race?

Amazon Web Services has just unveiled its entry to the increasingly complex AI race, the AWS Generative AI Accelerator. It’s a 10-week program designed to give its AI efforts a boost, complete with access to AI resources, mentorship, and $300,000 in AWS credits.

Yet with AI developments going into overdrive with ChatGPT, Amazon’s AI assistant Alexa may have lost its bearings, despite being one of the first offering users a taste of natural language-capable AI.

Amazon, according to experts, may be better off focusing on the suite of AWS apps fueling a large part of the internet, or the AI businesses that demand loads of computing power.

Up ahead, it’s expected to invest more and more in user-friendly platforms, enabling developers to come up with increasingly refined and specific models - and eventually unlock billions of $$$ in value.

🏃‍♂️ Quick Hits

🎮 Gaming

• Meta allegedly pays VR developers, capable of building out VR-powered games, salaries of up to $1M. (Link)

• In game dev’t, a sense of community and shared experiences are top draws for some 3.2B gamers - or 40% of the world's population. (Link)

• What gaming firms can do to build trust and fight fraud in the metaverse. (Link)

• GameFi is creating new economic opportunities for gamers, token earning and all. (Link)

• What’s in store with STARL’s on and off-chain gaming metaverse? (Link)

🕶 Fashion

• The World of Women (WoW) teams up with House of Harlow 1960 for a limited-ed release. (Link)

• FUTURE+, from MAD Global founder Ashumi Sanghvi, launches its membership platform to connect fashion, beauty, retail, and luxury execs to immersive tech startups, web3 creators, and more. (Link)

• Designer Harry Nuriev on fusing fashion, furniture, design + “how to land in the metaverse.” (Link)

• Global brands entering web3? Look to their domain names. (Link)

• D&G got into NFTs for a whopping $5.7M and hasn’t stopped exploring the metaverse since, working with the likes of The Fabricant and inBetweeners. (Link)

🏀 Sports

• The Japanese gov’t mulls promoting NFTs in sports. (Link)

• Startup Scrimmage combines sports betting with web3 through a gamified rewards system. (Link)

• Former DraftKings exec Srini Vasan moves to web3 horse racing as CTO of Game of Silks. (Link)

• “You’ve seen leagues scratch the surface with games and events in the metaverse, but as the most accessible and inclusive sport, the Drone Racing League will become the first property to stream an entire season in the metaverse.” (Link)

• Why DWF Labs is expanding its investments in sports crypto. (Link)

🎥 Media & Entertainment

• Pokemon is a bigger attention hog than Meta. (Link)

• AI-generated music + blockchain = massive disruption? (Link)

• Absolut returns to the metaverse for Coachella, with focus on friendship. (Link)

• Brands are leaving their footprint in VR, such as Hyundai Motors’ future mobility initiatives experienced by gamers’ avatars. (Link)

• Rhea Solanki: Storytelling is advancing with innovative content like Netflix's Kaleidoscope, plus the exciting uses of the metaverse and blockchain. (Link)

• South Korean tech giant Kakao breaks into the K-pop industry with a band that exists only in the metaverse - how does this bode for K-pop’s global supremacy bid? (Link)

🖼 Art

• PROOF launches a 10,000 digital art collection featuring Beeple, other sought-after artists. (Link)

• Christie’s 3.0 set to uplift digital artists with Next Wave: The New York Edit auction. (Link)

• Filmmaker David Ayer brings the NFT racing game Lollipop to Polygon. (Link)

• Apparel retail designer Amber Vittoria’s APTHCry drop is “an extension of her work” for those who cannot afford a painting or print to still collect her work. (Link)

• Crypto startup Homebase tokenizes the 1st NFT title deed for Texas home. (Link)

🤖 AI

• The Cassandras are out in force claiming AI will be the end of mankind - and it’s quite a good point. (Link)

• Jailbreaking AI chatbots is tech’s new pastime. (Link)

• Imaging and AI could diagnose endometriosis without surgery. (Link)

• Scary scenarios about malevolent machines are a distraction from problems that AI is creating right now. (Link)

• Fabricating the voices of loved ones, doctors and attorneys requesting money: How AI can financially destroy your business. (Link)

• CHAI's AI blueprint emphasizes care, equity, and ethics for healthcare. (Link)

💸 Funding & Partnerships

• Ava Labs, creator of layer-1 blockchain Avalanche, partners with SK Planet, a SK Square unit, to launch Avalanche Subnet UPTN for web3 infrastructure in South Korea. (Link)

• Teton.ai, a Copenhagen-based health tech startup, raised $5.3M in funding. (Link)

• Web3 Studio Aether Games and Mysten Labs partner to launch the NFT-backed gaming ecosystem. (Link)

• The Sandbox collaborates with Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) and Hong Kong Design Institute (HKDI) to create an educational virtual world. (Link)

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All content on this newsletter is for informational purposes only and does not aim to serve as or replace expert investment advice.

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