This Week in Web3: Friday, June 10th, 2022
Optimism rules, Rob McElhenney launches Web3 writers room, Gucci says crypto “no longer niche”, Mastercard launches payments for NFTs, and Time's Keith Grossman on why Web3 is here to stay.
Hi Friends,
Apologies for being late in publishing this week’s newsletter, let me explain.
Last week I wrote about the need for optimism and many of you reached out to thank me for providing a small but much-needed boost during what has been a really challenging few weeks for us all.
This week I was reading Packy McCormick’s Not Boring Newsletter literally entitled “Optimism: Why it's worth trying to make the world more optimistic”. Reflecting on this and thinking back over 20+ years of building at the intersection of media, marketing, and technology, my underlying belief is that despite the inevitable challenges we have faced along the way, we have always made progress. Packy delivered this same point in his newsletter, but way more eloquently. In it, he frames his argument for why optimism matters by asking the following question: “What does the world look like if this goes right?”.
In a Tweet, he also offered the following quote from Austrian-British philosopher, academic and social commentator, Karl Popper:
“Optimism is a duty. The future is open. It is not predetermined. No one can predict it, except by chance. We all contribute to determining it by what we do. We are all equally responsible for its success."
This fuels my belief that optimistic people who put optimistic ideas and energy into the world are infinitely more interesting and important to our future. This is especially true as we think about the future of Web3 and the innovations that this next movement will bring to our most pressing problems.
Now, what does any of this have to do with the newsletter being three days late?
On Wednesday I ruptured my Achilles playing tennis. I’m on crutches and will likely need to have surgery, and most of my plans for a summer of fun physical activity are now very much on ice, along with my very swollen and very purple ankle.
Bummer. Yep. I was super bummed, still am, but after allowing myself 24hrs of feeling very sorry for myself, I decided to take a spoonful of my own optimism and zoom out and think about the next few months and the journey to being fully recovered (could be 12 months), and bring into the focus the silver lining scenarios and things to feel grateful for. Injuries like this suck, but they’re just a bump in the road toward me becoming a better tennis player and a stronger and more athletic person in my 40s (At least that’s the plan).
And now a message for all of the Web3 cynics out there. If you believe that Web3 is a scam or a marketing movement propagated by Silicon Valley, that the bear market is evidence that it’s all going to fail, or that Web3 will ruin society, then you are taking a position that is a hindrance to progress. To all the cynics and even those of us with a shaky disposition, especially right now, I would like to remind you that what we’re experiencing today is just a bump in the road, a necessary reset perhaps, and nothing more than a painful (and inconvenient) injury from which we will come back, stronger and better able to face future challenges.
Ok, on to this week’s digest, which I hope includes enough positivity to keep you focused on building and on putting more optimism into the world, which is exactly what we need right now.
Let’s go!
TL;DR
Decrypt: 'Always Sunny' Actor Rob McElhenney Launches Web3 Writers Room With Ethereum NFTs
Vogue: Gucci owner Kering says crypto “no longer niche,” wants to be Web3 “pioneers”
Bitcoin.com: Mastercard to Implement Payments for NFT and Web3 Projects
Optimism: Why it's worth trying to make the world more optimistic
Forbes: The Amazing Ways Nike Is Using The Metaverse, Web3 And NFTs
The Rebooting Podcast: Time's Keith Grossman on why Web3 is here to stay
Bankless Podcast: Crypto's Bull Shark | Kevin O'Leary (Mr. Wonderful)
Web3Auth: Simple self-custodial auth infra for Web3 apps and wallets
Floor announces $8 million in funding to make NFTs understandable and accessible
News we’re following
Decrypt: 'Always Sunny' Actor Rob McElhenney Launches Web3 Writers Room With Ethereum NFTs
The “Always Sunny” star will co-create characters and stories and share in the royalties and revenue with NFT holders.
The Web3 world is built on a decentralized, collaborative ethos—and it’s pulling in creators from traditional media industries who want to try something new. Now, actor and filmmaker Rob McElhenney from hit TV series “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” aims to use the tech to co-create content and share in the potential royalties ahead.
Vogue: Gucci owner Kering says crypto “no longer niche,” wants to be Web3 “pioneers”
Kering chief client and digital officer Grégory Boutté lays out his Web3 strategy for the French luxury group.
Kering, the owner of Gucci, Balenciaga and Saint Laurent, wants to be a “pioneer” in Web3 with plans to accept cryptocurrencies, add NFTs and investment in Web3-dedicated venture capital.
“We think that Web3 and NFTs are a real breakthrough and we want to be pioneers on that,” Kering chief client and digital officer Grégory Boutté said at a press conference in Paris to announce its new mission. “Luxury has a role to play. There’s a real opportunity for us to create digital products that would be ways to express our houses.”
Bitcoin.com: Mastercard to Implement Payments for NFT and Web3 Projects
Payments giant Mastercard has announced it is working to bring direct payment support for a number of NFT and Web3 platforms with its cards. According to the company, this will enable more customers to enter the industry as the barrier to acquiring such digital goods is lowered via more flexible payment products.
Things we’re reading
Optimism: Why it's worth trying to make the world more optimistic
Not Boring’s mission is to make the world more optimistic.
I’ve never written that down before, or even thought it coherently until very recently, but it’s been an undercurrent throughout many of the essays I’ve written: Schumpeter’s Gale, Compounding Crazy, Existential Optimism, The Best is Yet to Come, The Best is Still Yet to Come, The Invisible Swarm, The Laboratory for Complex Problems, Ownership and the American Dream, Newton’s Alchemy, and more. It comes across in the pieces I write on specific companies, too.
Forbes: The Amazing Ways Nike Is Using The Metaverse, Web3 And NFTs
Sports manufacturer Nike has always been at the forefront of digital transformation.
Artificial intelligence (AI), e-commerce, and in-store experiential technology have been integral to the brand’s strategy for many years. More recently, it has moved to capitalize on the excitement around new concepts such as the metaverse, NFTs, and web3. Here's an overview of some of the ways Nike leverages these technologies to remain relevant and on the cultural cutting-edge.
Web3 is a myth, and that’s okay
We live in stories, whether they’re told to us by friends, in TED Talks, come from the Marvel Universe, or exist in open-world games like Cyberpunk 2077.
Each story has mythic inspirations tracing back to parables constructed thousands of years ago. As I’ve been working with brands, startups, and storytellers who are interested in pursuing a Web3 strategy, I’ve been thinking—what’s the story Web3 enthusiasts are avidly trying to tell?
Things we’re listening to
The Rebooting Podcast: Time's Keith Grossman on why Web3 is here to stay
The crypto winter has pitched the giddy excitement over the endless possibilities of Web3. The drumbeat of negativity hasn’t shaken Time president Keith Grossman’s confidence in Web3 providing a new path to sustainable business models. Time, now under the ownership of billionaires Marc and Linda Benioff, has become the most aggressive large publishing brand in exploring the possibilities of Web3. To date, Time has:
Minted iconic covers as NFTs and generated nearly $500,000 in proceeds
Collaborated with artists to reinterpret Time covers as part of the Timepieces Web3 community
Dipped its foot in the metaverse with a Galaxy Digital deal to create a metaverse newsletter and a metaverse category of the Time 100.
“I started to see collaboration. I started to see Web 2.0 is about the audience, but Web3 is really about community,” Keith told me on this week’s episode of The Rebooting Show. “I started to see a different way in which brands could evolve.“
Web3 with a16z: Blockchains / crypto / web3
We set some context, quickly, into the connection between blockchains, crypto, and web3 – and offer some useful analogies, and more mental models, for thinking about a blossoming area of computer science in both theory and practice.
Bankless Podcast: Crypto's Bull Shark | Kevin O'Leary (Mr. Wonderful)
Kevin O’Leary of ABC’s Shark Tank and renowned investor joins us on Bankless to share how he was crypto-pilled.
Just a few years ago, Mr. Wonderful was a crypto bear shark. Fast forward to today, he has investments in over 32 cryptocurrencies and projects. He’s even evangelizing crypto in Washington and all over the world!
What clicked for him? What’s holding the industry back? How is he thinking about the future of the space? Answers to these questions and so much more in the interview!
Project’s we’re following
Web3Auth: Simple self-custodial auth infra for Web3 apps and wallets
Web3Auth’s Mission:
Accessibility for all: Remove technical barriers and reduce the learning curve for digital ownership and identity for all users
Empower digital businesses and individuals: Provide simple and secure access to digital assets and identity across multiple platforms and applications
Human-centric with simplicity and familiarity at its core: A user-friendly and non-custodial approach to managing assets and identity
Floor announces $8 million in funding to make NFTs understandable and accessible
Floor started out as a project to help users track their NFTs, built in public with real-time feedback.
This approach quickly captured the imagination of thousands of NFT enthusiasts who joined & supported the project by minting the Floor NFT. Today, 3,500 token holders contribute to the Floor ecosystem which has in turn driven product development as well as discovery and access to dozens of top NFT projects for our holders.
Floor was the first token-gated iOS app and has championed the model of community development in web3, building a product with a community and for a community.