Mytaverse Among Winners at Inaugural American Metaverse Awards
A good week for cryptocurrencies (particularly Bitcoin and Solana). A presidential hopeful hates CBDCs. Crypto execs are still appearing in court, but crypto is getting more exposure on established platforms. News in brief from Pico, Geenee and Inworld, Microsoft, Augmented World Expo and Mytaverse among 19 winners at the inaugural American Metaverse Awards.
An Eye on the Charts
Major coins started the week relatively flat before spiking around the middle of the week. Bitcoin saw a more drastic climb and has since stabilized around $30.5k. That’s big news for the big coin, which hasn’t seen $30k for ten months. Ethereum saw a smaller climb before falling somewhat. It has since recovered most of that loss and is sitting around $2k.
A number of other projects are also in the green this week, though Doge has cooled down from a rally that took place last week after Elon Musk briefly swapped the Twitter logo for the Doge icon. This week is Solana’s time in the sun, up some 20% on the week. Uniswap has had some ups and downs this week, with more modest gains than one might have expected after the launch of their own wallet.
An Eye on the Fed
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is planning on announcing his bid for presidency next week, sent out a lengthy tweet against CBDCs and in favor of cryptocurrencies. While state-level politicians have staked similar claims, Kennedy appears to be the only presidential hopeful in the coming cycle to be so vocal on the position which marks a stark contrast to President Biden’s interest in central bank digital currencies.
Anything could happen in that election and it’s still a ways out. In the meantime, legislators continue what feels like an escalating pursuit of cryptocurrency organizations. This week’s example is a summons reportedly sent to Tron founder Justin Sun by the Securities and Exchange Commission. He is supposed to respond within three weeks, but his whereabouts are currently unknown.
Crypto Ease of Access
Regulatory uncertainty around crypto seems to be doing little to prevent adoption and engagement in the area. In fact, it seems to be getting increasingly simple to buy, sell, and trade cryptocurrencies. There are new reports that Twitter will soon allow cryptocurrency trading on the platform. Further, reports say TikTok users will be able to mint videos as NFTs in the near future.
Meanwhile, an update to MetaMask’s portfolio tool makes it even easier to buy cryptocurrencies, including with PayPal that has been rolling out and building up their cryptocurrency features for quite a while. The difference is that PayPal doesn’t give you keys to your own wallet, while MetaMask does, making the partnership an easy way for users to ease into self-custody.
News in Brief
- There’s a new approach for Bitcoin NFTs
- Pico announced a new headset — but it’s the third iteration of their “G” product line of 3DoF enterprise headsets. (The original “Pico Goblin” was the first stand-alone headset and the G2 was my first ever VR headset. The product line isn’t as fully featured as other headsets, but their ease of use and quality displays make them ideal for some applications all the same.)
- Avatar creation studio Geenee announced an integration with InWorld, a company that specializes in digitally embodied AIs.
- Microsoft Teams introduced AR effects for video calls.
- An un-named tech executive has been arrested in connection with last week’s fatal stabbing of Cash App founder Bob Lee.
- In addition to offering prizes for project proposals that fight climate change, Augmented World Expo is now a “carbon-neutral event.”
- The first ever American Metaverse Awards took place in Miami last week, with winners including the Mytaverse virtual world, virtual fashion group DressX, and Sony for their display technology.