This week in the ➡️ #Metaverse - Issue #12

A weekly roundup of what’s happening in the digital land(scape). Metaverse ethics, governance and interesting trends from crypto, gaming, AI and regulation.

What's going on:

Technologists like Nadim Kobeissi are scrambling to rescue their projects and decentralization's brand from the larger Web3 bust.

A McKinsey report sees the Metaverse becoming a $5 trillion market by 2030.

WASHINGTON – Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned virtual currency mixer Tornado Cash, which has been used to launder more than $7 billion worth of virtual currency since its creation in 2019.

“Someone is out dusting a bunch of wallets from Tornado with 0.1 ETH lmaaaaooooo https://t.co/3NfLuz9qYF”

Gaming news:

Microsoft has claimed Sony pays for "blocking rights" to keep developers from bringing some content to Xbox Game Pass. The explosive claims were made in legal filings to a Brazilian regulator this week.

Blizzard will stop selling Overwatch loot boxes on August 30th..

I Am Not A Robot: AI news

DALL-E 2 is a powerful tool -- and businesses see the potential in it for asset creation and more.

NFTLand:

It may be impossible to remove the games from the Internet.

Regulators have their hands full as more crypto tools like RenBridge are being used by criminals to launder money.

Bloomberg analyst Mike McGlone says Bitcoin is well posed to invert the current bearish trend and rally together with U.S. bonds and gold.

For Science!!!

Researchers from Stanford University and Nvidia have teamed up to help develop VR glasses that look a lot more like regular spectacles. Okay, they are rather silly looking due to the ribbons extended

On key metrics, a VR experience elicited a response indistinguishable from subjects who took medium doses of LSD or magic mushrooms.

Meme corner:

Content portability party y'all!

Ending nugget:

3/ The default gut reaction is to protect what you’ve created. Historically, you do this by enforcing and protecting patents/trademarks/copyright. Before, I defended these old structures, and in certain circumstances, they still make sense, but...

“4/ web3 is a chance to reboot and reexamine everything back to first principles. A chance to say that others don’t have to fail for us to win. A chance to be more inclusive and open to all..”

8/ To that end, @JustinMezzell (my co-founder), @joshcook (our president), and I have decided to set Moonbirds and Oddities free and embrace the CC0 movement that allows any and all modifications to what we’ve built.

9/ In this new future, true ownership is dictated by what is recorded on-chain, the way it should be, not by a record housed by a government or corporate entity.

10/ The authenticity of Moonbirds will not come from lawyers enforcing trademarks but rather from the proven provenance and single source of truth of smart contracts.

KΞVIN R◎SE (T,h) @kevinrose Aug 4

Go ask Alice, when she is ten feet tall