Whether you are just starting out in crypto or mid-level in crypto/nfts, FREE money via Airdrops is something that’s always welcome.
That’s after JITO ($JTO) airdrop on $Solana chain gave users 15,000 USD just for staking 1 USD which was 10 USD. Hence, with 2024 and 2025 Bull Market around the corner, it’s time to start Airdrop Farming for your next big fat internet magic money.
Please note that tokens airdrop is never guarantee and none of this is financial advice. It’s just how ONE retail folks (me) is trying to help ALL other retail folks.
Please also note that we are LATE to Airdrop Farming: But as the adage goes, it is better to be Late than Never.
This will be a 1st of many series of airdrop farming articles. They will drop both on #binance feed as well as #medium.
I will split my write-up into 2 parts.
First, the knowledge and introduction of the company/network going to do the airdrop. Second, Tangible and Idiot Proof Steps you can take. Don’t be lazy. 30 Minutes of work could get you a few thousand.
So, what is $SCROLL?
Scroll is an Ethereum Layer 2 network that uses zk-rollups technology aimed at scaling Ethereum. They have raised $50 million in a new funding round (Series B)
Scroll has reached a $1.8 billion valuation following this funding round.
Investors in the round included Polychain Capital, Sequoia China, Bain Capital Crypto, Moore Capital Management, Variant Fund, Newman Capital, IOSG Ventures and Qiming Venture Partners.
See breakdown of funding:

Scroll Aim: Scaling Ethereum
Scroll was founded in 2021 with the goal of scaling Ethereum to 1 billion users. As a Layer 2 network, Scroll processes transactions off Ethereum on its own network and then ports the transaction data back to Ethereum — helping increase transaction speed and reduce costs.
Scroll's 3 design principles or core values — community-driven, security first and decentralization at every level — are its competitive edge.
So how we farm $Scroll airdrop?
Airdrop Strategy:
Often, the number of interactions with unique contracts become an airdrop criterion.
Alpha: Many don't know that the cheapest way to get your unique interaction/contract count is to mint NFTs, as each NFT is a unique contract. And this is especially so for $ETH L2 because fees are cheap. SO, the goal is to find Cheap NFTs to mint (like 1 USD).
Step 1: Bridge ETH Main-net to Scroll Main-net (wait for gas to be low)
https://scroll.io/bridge
Note: There are other cheaper ways to bridge but from experience using their official bridge at least ONCE could be the 1st filter for any airdrop.
Step 1 is the ONLY step that require more than 7 USD. The rest are 1 USD or less.
Step 2: Go to Scroll Ecosystem and Interact with Dapps there
Suggestion: Sushiswap Scroll Network: ETH to USDC
https://scroll.io/ecosystem
Look for Sushi Swap, Swap Scroll ETH to USDC say 0.1 USD. Scroll Fees are neligible.
Step 3: Continue on Scroll Ecosystem and Interact with more Dapps there
Scroll ENS Service: Register and Pay for1 Year. I registered: milestones.scroll
This is similar to ENS domains (.eth) but here it is .scroll
Step 4: Mint your 1st Scroll Chain NFT
NFT name: Colors in the dark
a. Go to: https://colors-in-the-dark.nfts2.me
b. Connect your wallet
c. Mint NFT
Cost: 1 USD
Step 5: Mint your 2nd Scroll Chain NFT

NFT name: Singapore
a. Go to: https://neon-singapore.nfts2.me/
b. Connect your wallet
c. Mint NFT
Cost: 1 USD
There you go, you have 5 transactions and ready for the airdrop. You should aim to have 10-20 transactions ideally but I will leave hunting for other NFTs to mint up to you. I have already done the 1st 5 transactions for you.
Conclusion
If you find this useful, please consider following my Binance account, sharing/liking the article as well as following me on Twitter: @milestones_nft
Feel free to share it freely to. Happy Farming.

It’s been 30 months since I joined the NFT space. Here are 10 short observations about the space.

Let me know which you agree/disagree with. Happy to elaborate on any but keeping them short for this article.

1/ Time Test: Passing Fad or “Blue” Chip

Every time there’s a trending & mooning floor price new NFT project, breathe.

Stop declaring it to be the next blue chip.

To be a blue-chip, it needs to pass the time test: 18 to 36 months if floor & volume maintains.

2/ When to Sell

“You can never sell the top” is an adage you hear a lot but what’s more helpful would be giving you an indicator of when to sell a new NFT project (assuming it has gone up significantly).

Rule: “Sell when others are flexing” on social media like crypto twitter

Sure, it may moon after you sell.

But almost always, by the time everyone is flexing on CT, we are near the all-time top.

Like the project? Sell, wait & buy back.

3/ Being right in short windows is better than being right in long windows

I recall thinking that a hyped gaming CEO & project were a joke & grift.

Alpha caller friend thought otherwise & bought. Friend made tons managing to sell as it pumped.

CEO/project turned out to be a joke.

I was right with the meta/overall call but made no $. Friend was wrong about the meta/overall but made tons.

Conclusion: Don’t fixate on the forest so much that you forget the trees.

4/ It’s more of WHO you are than WHAT you post

Having A+ views & content without proper audience/platform loses to a person who posts B content with A+ following/platform.

Harsh but true.

Elon saying view A > random jack saying the same view A.

That said, offer quality even if 1 person reads/benefits. Consistency matters and you never know which of your posts blows up.

5/ It’s not the idea, it’s who does it

Staking and introducing a token for NFTs are not new ideas. But X blue-chip doing it is often seen as WAY better than random projects doing it.

So, team > idea.

But mechanics are important, can’t be the plain vanilla approach.

6/ Aligned interests or bags is the name of the game, sadly

Like it or not, most if not all people in the space are in it mainly for the $.

This means aligned interest/bags > ethics, morality & truths.

Do what you want with this info.

Note though the blockchain does not lie.

7/ Like it or not, there are Kingmakers in Web 3

If these bunch of people want you to succeed to put their weight behind you, you are likely to succeed.

Bad bunch: Influencers cabal

Good bunch: Spirit DAO

8/ The “right” decision is one based on principle than hindsight

Sold something bc principles/metric you stand by were met, but it mooned?

Still the “right” decision.

You will lose more than you gain in the long run if you don’t stand by your principles.

9/ Projects that empower their community over empowering 1–2 individuals

If you think Azuki, BAYC; you would think of at least 10 prominent community members.

Conversely, projects with 1 community face behind the main person often loses out because it’s mostly about that 1 person.

10/ Find your own path & Be Yourself

Spoke to a well-connected friend in the space, the likes who can launch a project now and raise 2000 ETH.

A lot of his peers are doing just that.

I asked why aren’t you doing that?

He: Because it’s not me. I will run my own path.

Hope you find the observations useful, drop a follow Binance Creator. #4 #4low #cryptocurrency

Meme. Four letters, two syllables. And a universal code word. A concept understood by everyone, regardless of realms: Web 1, Web 2, Web 3, Web 6529.

For the uninitiated, so why are memes important? What exactly are Memes?

For starters, I cannot do no better than a quote from the king himself, Elon Musk:

Next, what’s exactly are Memes? Here’s a dictionary definition:

In short, I see memes as something that everyone can identify with, relate to & often laugh at or evoke certain emotional or psychological attachment. Memes are Unifying. Memes are built on Shared Experiences.

Below are some examples of iconic memes you may recognize:

So, what are Meme Cards or The Memes Collection?

As per the official site: “The Memes Collection is focused on the fight for the open metaverse (decentralization, community, self-sovereignty) and spreading this message to many people, many wallets.”

In my opinion, as governments and large corporations like Meta & Apple continue to build up closed permission-ed systems: Building and supporting initiatives/projects that fight for an open decentralized permission-less world is key to securing a free world for us and our progeny.

Next so why cards?

Someone would say they are NOT even PFPs which I can flex on my socials or build my identity around like punk6529’s hoodie punk?

To that I would say, collecting things and in particular cards has been something that has been popular. Look up Pokemon cards especially rare ones at mint condition or for those older: Magic the Gathering cards. Or those much much older, recall the Mickey Mantle baseball card?

The point is there’s something about cards that make it an ultimate collectible.

I think the “OG” of cards in the Web 3 World is the Rare Pepe Cards with the Nakamoto card being the grail (see below).

I think by now, it’s abundantly clear that it cannot just be some random cards. Other factors come into play. What then are such factors?

History is one factor albeit to a lesser extent because Curio Cards was the first “card” to be launched on the ETH blockchain and technically it should be the equivalent of the Pepe Cards on the bitcoin (BTC) blockchain.

But it’s NOT. Why? See the screenshot below and it should be self-explanatory.

Besides history, it has be to Cultural or Meme-able which are imo shorthand for relatable/identifiable/evoking emotion. And that’s where the Meme Cards (mostly) hit the nail with messages like “Don’t let the institutions steal our jpegs” to “GM”s to iconic Web-3 artists and their work. This is why I believe that the Meme Cards will become the Pepe Card equivalent but on the Ethereum blockchain.

That said, history should play a crucial part with Season 1 being the most important especially being the only season in 2022 and that’s written into the blockchain history.

So, what does the Meme Card mean to me as a self-proclaimed meme maxi?

I see the Meme Cards as follows:

a. Version of Pepe Cards BUT on the ETH blockchain

b. Curation service (like a curator at a museum): Meme Cards gives me an opportunity to discover art & artists that I otherwise might not have known and at a low cost

c. Discoverability for lesser-known artist: Supporting & shining light to lesser-known artists & giving them a boost in terms of visibility

d. Meme Power (go back to start of the article)

e. 6529 & What he stands for: the ultimate thread guy (not for engagement or pumps) but for knowledge. Invest in people or put trust in people smarter than you.

f. Community Loyal creative & immensely talented group of meme maxis that spring out ReMemes, DAOs etc

A combination of the above should allow the value of Meme Cards to stand the test of time. NFA though.

Circling back to the official word on meme cards, I would like to share my take on “many people, many wallets” given that meme cards are CC0.

For the uninitiated and in very broad layman terms, CC0 means that you can do anything with the Meme Cards and the art even if you do NOT own them. Not going to cover why the Meme Cards still have value despite it being CC0 and offers little to no IP protection (that perhaps for anothe day).

Instead, I think whilst noble to say that anyone can join 6529’s OM vision/mission even if one does not own a meme card, we are humans after all. Ownership of something and by logical extension financial interest is key in getting people to feel vested and fight harder towards an open metaverse.

Put simply, if one does NOT have direct skin or financial incentives in the game, it is much harder for that one person to go the extra mile.

Ok, as with any pitch or NFA, what are the risks or areas that I dislike?

1. Key Man Risk

Ultimately, I think that 6529 thrives on being the anon, so any doxing might lead to disappointment alongside the fact that missteps especially those that amounts to character might cause an exodus of supporters. None of these are likely to happen and I think 6529 is aware and have built towards not needing 6529 and having a team of solid developers, artists, and smartest brains in the space.

2. Dilution & Cyclical Interest

Note that the Meme Cards are probably going to go on for a very long term akin to an almost unlimited season and uncapped cards per season. That assumes that over the long term, there would be sustained interest in Meme Cards and the quality of curation won’t drop. Given that I am assuming, they will be all on the same OS link, a lower floor as seasons progresses might have a cascading effect.

3. Logical Inconsistency

I call a spade a spade. I think there are at times logical inconsistency in the short term with stated objectives & missions like wanting to onboard more people hence having a very broad & relaxed AL but in fact achieves none of it given you need to be an existing owner of a Meme Card or the artists’ work. Other examples including the advice that it’s better to keep cards in ONE wallet vis splitting them into multiple wallets. So far, that has not come to fruition.

4. Gas Wars & Horrible Minting Experience

Unless something changes, as at the time of writing, if you are a new person joining the Meme Card ecosystem, be prepared for a horrible minting experience of nerves, failed gas as well as unequal playing ground losing to nodes and minting bots.

Be that as it may be, I am still ultra-bullish on the Meme Cards for the many reasons stated earlier in the article. I am going to end the article with some useful links and a positive message.

For those who are interested in finding out more, here are my top 2 starting points.

Ultimate thread on the Meme Cards by punk6529 himself:

https://twitter.com/punk6529/status/1534965126901682181

For those into data (edition size, collector numbers etc), here’s a great link that maps out all the data: https://dune.com/cat/memes-by-6529

My final advice for those on the fence and thinking of jumping in: Only buy the meme cards if you vibe with. Buy for the art, the culture and the message/mission. Expect nothing so that everything given would be a bonus.

Let’s Seize the Memes of Production: Season 4 and Beyond, here we come. And of course a meme to thank you for reading till here:

In brief

In one of the first cases in United States of America in which the court ruled that a cryptocurrency token (XRP specifically) in and of itself is NOT a security, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York has now handed down judgment in the trial of Securities Exchange Commission vs Ripple Labs.

The court held that XRP, as a digital token, is not in and of itself is not a security per se. Instead, the court looks at the totality of circumstance to determine if the sale & distribution of a token in each situation meets the Howey requirements. Most things like gold, silver & even digital tokens like XRP may on certain circumstances be deemed a security that is regulated under Section 5 of the Securities Act.

The court gave a split decision holding that the sale of XRP tokens on exchanges (programmatic sales) were not securities whilst the sale of XRP tokens to institutional investors were securities based on the totality of the circumstance. The Court also rejected the due process & fair notice defenses raised stating that “The law does not require the SEC to warn all potential violators on an individual or industry level.”

Key Takeaways

1. Whilst digital tokens or cryptocurrency on its own is not a security, they may be sold as investment contracts (i.e securities), depending on the circumstances of each sale.

2. The court will look at the totality of circumstance to determine if each of the three prongs of the Howey test is met. To recap the 3-prong of the Howey test is as follows:

a. an investment of money,

b. in a common enterprise,

c. with a reasonable expectation of profits to be derived from the entrepreneurial or managerial efforts of others.

Institutional Sales

3. In holding that Ripple’s Institutional Sales of XRP constituted the unregistered offer and sale of investment contracts in violation of Section 5 of the Securities Act, the court analyzed and found that each of the 3 Howey prongs were met.

a. For the 1st prong “investment of money”, the court found that intent does not matter but rather whether did the investors put up money (capital or cash). In this case, Ripple conceded that they received money from institutional investors.

b. For the 2nd prong “common enterprise”, the court adopted the horizontal commonality test where investors’ assets are pooled and the fortunes of each investor are tied to the fortunes of other investors, as well as to the success of the overall enterprise. In this case, Ripple pooled proceeds of Institutional Sales into a network of bank accounts under the names of its subsidiaries.

Having separate Bank accounts does not absolve Ripple as Ripple controlled all the accounts and used the funds raised from the Institutional Sales to finance its operations. Further, each Institutional Buyer’s ability to profit was tied to Ripple’s fortunes and the fortunes of other Institutional Buyers because all Institutional Buyers received the same fungible XRP. Ripple used funds received from Institutional Sales to promote and increase the value of XRP by developing uses for XRP and protecting the XRP trading market.

And as a result, when the value of XRP rose, all Institutional Buyers profited in proportion to their XRP holdings. On the totality of circumstance, the court held that the 2nd prong of Howey was met.

c. For the 3rd prong “reasonable expectation of profits to be derived from the entrepreneurial or managerial efforts of others”, the court broke down the prong into different parts.

For “profit”, the court held that “income or return, to include, for example, dividends, other periodic payments, or the increased value of the investment” can also be considered profits. For “reasonable expectation of profit”, the court held that expectation of profit need not be the sole reason a purchaser buys the asset. The court mentioned that “an asset may be sold for both consumptive and speculative uses”.

Further, the court held that “the inquiry is an objective one focusing on the promises and offers made to investors; it is not a search for the precise motivation of each individual.” The court held that based on Ripple’s communications, marketing campaign, and nature of the institutional sales, reasonable investors will find that Ripple will use the capital from institutional sales to improve the market for XRP and develop uses for XRP, thereby increasing the value of XRP.

Further the nature of the institutional sales evinced that Ripple sold XRP as an investment rather than for consumptive use. This is because in the sales contracts, some institutional buyers agreed to lockup provisions/resale restrictions based on XRP’s trading volume. The court held that such restrictions are inconsistent with notion that XRP was used as a currency or for consumptive use because “rational economic actor would not agree to freeze millions of dollars . . . if the purchaser’s intent was to obtain a substitute for fiat currency.” Hence, the 3rd prong of Howey was met.

Programmatic Sales

4. In holding that the Programmatic Sale on exchanges were not securities transactions, the court found in favor of Ripple. In finding that the 3rd prong of Howey was not met, the court found that programmatic buyers could not reasonably expect the same expectation of institutional investors that Ripple would use capital it received from sales to improve the XRP ecosystem and thereby increase the price of XRP.

Given the nature of Ripple’s Programmatic Sales being blind bid/ask transactions, and that Programmatic Buyers could not have known if their payments of money went to Ripple, or any other seller of XRP. The court also rejected the SEC’s argument that Ripple “explicitly targeted speculators” and found that a speculative motive “on the part of the purchaser or seller does not evince the existence of an ‘investment contract’ because anyone who buys or sells, for example, a horse or an automobile hopes to realize a profitable ‘investment’ but the expected return is not contingent upon the continuing efforts of another.

In the present case, the court held that whilst people purchased XRP with an expectation of profit, they did not derive that expectation from Ripple’s efforts as opposed to other factors, such as general cryptocurrency market trends. Further, most were unaware they were buying XRP from Ripple. The court repeated that the inquiry is an objective one focusing on the promises and offers made to investors and is not a search for the precise motivation of each individual participant. Unlike Institutional Sales, Programmatic Sales were not made pursuant to contracts that contained lockup provisions, resale restrictions, indemnification clauses, or statements of purpose.

Finally, the court held that no evidence that a reasonable Programmatic Buyer, generally less sophisticated as an investor, shared similar “understandings and expectations” and could parse through the multiple documents SEC suggested. Hence, given that the 3rd Prong of Howey was not met, the court held that Ripple did not violate Section 5 of the Securities Act.

Due process, Fair Notice & Vagueness Defences

5. The court rejected the due process, fair notice & vagueness defences raised by Ripple. The court held that existing caselaw defines an investment contract and provides a person of ordinary intelligence a reasonable opportunity to understand what conduct it covers.

Further, Howey sets forth a clear test for determining what constitutes an investment contract, and Howey’s progeny provides guidance on how to apply that test to a variety of factual scenarios. In addition, caselaw articulates sufficiently clear standards to eliminate the risk of arbitrary enforcement. Howey is an objective test that provides the flexibility necessary for the assessment of a wide range of contracts, transactions, and schemes.

Ripple’s arguments that the SEC failed to issue guidance on digital assets and inconsistent statements and approaches to regulate sale of digital assets as investment contracts were rejected as the court held that at least with respect to the institutional investors, the SEC enforcement as consistent with their past enforcements. Finally, the court held that “the law does not require the SEC to warn all potential violators on an individual or industry level.”

Abetment

6. On abetment charges for Larsen & Garlinghouse (senior executives of Ripple), the court found that the defendants have raised a genuine dispute of material fact as to whether Larsen and Garlinghouse knew or recklessly disregarded the facts that made Ripple’s scheme illegal. Here, the salient point is that relying on external counsel may be one of the factors that may help defendants.

Practical Implications

The practical implications of this case can be summarized as follows:

1. By rejecting the token-as-security argument, the Court landed a blow to the SEC’s stated position that digital assets are always securities in every context. Instead, the totality of circumstances will be examined under each prong of Howey. As such, every transaction or sale of tokens (fungible or non-fungible) will be determined based on its own circumstances. It is easy to overlook that practically speaking the ruling changes nothing much as each transaction or scheme in terms of sales of digital assets will still be assessed on a case-by-case basis.

2. Judge Torres’s detailed analysis and application of the Howey test is illuminating. In particular, intent does not matter with respects to the 1st prong, as long as money or capital is involved, the 1st prong will likely be invoked.

3. With regards to the 2nd prong of “common enterprise”, the fact that one uses separate banks accounts will not be enough to claim that there’s no common enterprise, instead the court looks at who controls the bank accounts and the purpose the money raised was used for.

NFTs given there non-fungibility may be seen differently as the court pointed to that the fact that institutional investors receiving the “same fungible XRP” to tie the fortunes of an institutional investor to Ripple & other investor’s success. Finally, if the raised funds were used to raise the value of the digital assets/tokens be it through marketing or activation of roadmaps, this may add to the fact that a common enterprise exists.

4. With regards to the 3rd prong of Howey, the court took a broad approach to the term “profit”, so it is likely that floor price increase of NFTs or cryptocurrency price increase will likely be seen as profits.

More importantly in terms of “reasonable expectation of profit”, investor’s individual motivation does not matter. Plainly speaking, it is not enough to say I bought the digital asset for consumptive rather than investment purposes. Instead, the court looks at the actions of the seller of the digital assets and makes an objective inquiry whether a reasonable expectation of profit can be made out.

External communications, marketing campaigns/promises as well as the nature of transactions whether it involves a lock-up period for investors all play a vital role. So, projects or teams promising roadmaps, activations, airdrops that may lead to the increase in value of digital assets should be extra careful. Further, pre-sale lockups of tokens or NFTs which have become more popular in recent times, are likely to be seen as a factor pointing towards a reasonable expectation of profit.

5. In what seems like a win for crypto exchange platforms like Binance and Coinbase, the court found that sales based on blind bid/ask transaction of the XRP token was not a securities transaction as buyers did not know who they were buying the tokens from and by extension cannot be said to rely on Ripple or others to generate profits hence the 3rd prong of Howey was not met.

Interestingly, the court also rejected the SEC’s argument that Ripple explicitly targeted speculative investors, the court held that it did not matter as most people invest or buy something with expectation of profits, but the 3rd prong of Howey requires a further step that the profits be contingent on the efforts of others.

Practically speaking, this may be good enough to ensure most purchases of digital tokens via exchanges will not violate securities regulations but pre-sale tokens directly from projects (ICOs, meme coins) and NFT purchases may still violate regulations. Additionally, the court also held that the lack of lock-up provisions and indemnification clauses in programmatic sales helped in adding to the totality of circumstance that the 3rd prong of Howey was not met. Hence, teams may want to avoid providing such provisions generally.

6. Reliance on external counsel advice, taking steps to prevent violating Section 5 of the Securities Act as well as relying on statements by other US regulators and other jurisdictions’ regulators may be viewed positively by the courts.

I read 98 pages of Chinese so you don’t have to.

Quick Summary 

China plans to fully develop Web 3 technology with a whole-of-government approach on their own terms. Concepts like NFTs and metaverse will be embraced/discussed. 

Not much mention of any chains like BTC, ETH. But the Chinese government have a deep understanding of the Web 3 citing all the right tech, famous artists and works. Most of which are coincidentally covered in unicmetaverse course.

China's Claim of Web 3 Origins

Starting in typical Chinese fashion: The white paper alludes that the concept of the metaverse was coined by a Chinese scholar, and NOT American or Western.

They trace the metaverse to Neal’s 1992 Snow Crash novel but casually mentions that in 1990, Chinese scholar Qian Xue Sen labelled VR “灵境” which had all the shades of the metaverse.

China's Claim of Web 3 Idea in 1990

China’s Metaverse Definition per a 1997 scholar

“Metaverse” tech is a new practical tech driven by applications and involves many disciplines. It is a comprehensive integrated tech integrating advanced computer, sensing and measurement, simulation, microelectronics technology.

White Paper Introduction: First Famous Names mention

Somehow, they glossed over Vitalik, choosing to mention Gavin Wood, whilst also mentioning Beeple’s Every Day NFT sale. 

 In another official Chinese government report released in 2022, the Chinese government noted the benefits of Web 3:

a. Greater user freedom in controlling data

b. Endorsing the idea that people find value, identity & community on the internet

c. Web 3 will have a huge impact on the future economy

Potential of Web 3

Chinese government admits that Web 3 has the potential to help the digital world create an economically viable system of rights, information flow & commercial exchanges. There will be a convergence of digital and real world experiences. 

 According to the paper, Internet 3.0 will go through 3 stages: 

a. Preliminary Phase

b. Transition Phase

c. Maturity Phase 

Preliminary Phase

On the consumer side, simple VR experiences and virtual transactions can be done but limited in terms of governmental and industrial application.

Transitional Phase

Blurring of line between real and digital world with greater adoption & application of web 3 tech in government and industries.

Maturity Phase

6G, Neural Link application, Thousands of industries and companies built upon web 3 technologies and platforms. Becomes part of our lives. 

Presently, the Chinese government thinks we are in the Preliminary Phase.

Vending Machine selling NFT box in Shanghai

Web 3 is at the preliminary phase with gaming being the main touchpoint citing 2nd Life game, Roblox and Decentraland.

Besides gaming, Web 3 has ushered a trend of virtual concerts, virtual education & virtual shopping. They cited Travis Scott virtual concert in the game Fornite back in April 2020.

In terms of virtual shopping experiences, RTFKT and fewocious sold 621 sports shoes under 7 minutes with a transacted value of over 3.1 million USD.

Future Web 3 Trend & Direction

With the advancement of Web technology and the focus of institutions injecting capital to the space, more people are likely to join and participate in Web 3. 

With time, virtual experiences will get better and more realistic, and establishment of a Web 3 economy and ecosystems will emerge. 

Eventually, Web 3 will be all-compassing: Web 3 will NOT be limited to gaming, entertainment, social interaction, work or even exchange of goods/services but rather a coming together of ALL industries. 

In the whitepaper, the Chinese government sees Web 3 standing for: Right of Everyone in Web 3 to freely create, display & share their work, and get paid for it. 

 In their opinion, a mature Web 3 must have 4 features:

a. Strong Virtual and Real-World Connection

b. Open-Source Creations

c. Mature Digital Economy system

d. Continuous uninterrupted development 

 Key from Point d is: No one or organization can interrupt or disrupt the stability of Web 3.

 The paper also covered parts on AI, Blockchain Tech, Semiconductor Chips and went into a technical introduction of all of them a lot of which covered unicmetaverse course by University of Nicosia.

NFTs in China

Official Alibaba Winter Olympics NFTs in China

The paper concedes China is late into the development of the NFT market, but Chinese local companies have shown strong desire to participate with Shanghai being the leader in setting up a NFT marketplace.

On the ground, major Chinese Universities have Metaverse Labs to encourage Web 3 ideas and talent. Some examples as follow:

7 April 2022: Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications

16 April 2022: Tsinghua University (China’s Harvard)

*and many more

Overview of Global Web 3 Regulation

a. Covered Biden’s Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets, CBDC

b. EU laws on AI, GDPR

c. Japan and Korea’s regulation

China Regulation on Web 3

A whole-of-government approach to the development of Web 3 in the same modus operandi of how they developed their Web 2 ecosystem and tech unicorns.

China approach: Have mini-giant companies to lead the push & test out the various new technologies. 

Some important China regulation & laws Nov 2021: Data Protection Laws start to discuss metaverse laws

Dec 2021: 十四五 Digital Economy Development Plan committing to metaverse development and rules surrounding it 

China’s Lens/Time Frame: Be Rational, Less Hype 

See things as 5-10 year windows in terms of Opportunities whilst not overlooking 1-2 years of actual happenings/potential changes. Be far-sighted yet nimble. 

Jan 2022: Chinese Govt commits to the development of a group of metaverse, blockchain, AI talents and small-medium enterprises 

AI Newscaster talking about metaverse and Web 3 on television advertisements shown at different Shanghai metro stations

28 Oct 2022: China’s 5-Year Plan on Metaverse 

Cooperation from ALL government agencies including industrial, education, culture, travel, communications department to develop a working model of Web 3 by 2026

1st Media Public Endorsement of Web 3 and NFTs: 1st time was 6 Sep 2021 where govt official news outlet CCTV2 endorsed the opportunities Web 3 presents but cautioned the risks too. 

Current Web 3 Policies in China

As of April 2023, more than 30 provinces in China have pushed out some form of Web 3 development policy and measures. Special mention to Shanghai for taking the lead.

Shanghai advocates launching a NFT or NFT equivalent marketplace alongside covering art goods, intellectual property and Web 3 games.

ZheJiang Province advocates all round development of metaverse laws, systems that are global and encouraging local big companies to incorporate web 3 tech.

Web 3 Business Parks and Incubators:  The white paper goes on to list the major cities in China that have business parks and incubators for Web 3 companies with subsidies on rent, tech & help to register patents. 

Companies leading this country-led “assault” on Web 3 Development

Baidu, Tencent, ByteDance (aka Tik Tok), Huawei will be leading generals in this push for Web 3 development and adoption.

Baidu to lead on AI, Cloud Computing, VR and to launch a metaverse ready platform. 

Tencent to focus on social media platform, digital content services as well as investing in Web 3 gaming companies like Roblox as well XR dev. 

Huawei leads AR, 5G, AI, Quantum Computing charge and developing next-gen digital economy platform called Cyberverse. 

NFT Platform Development on the China blockchain “Chainmaker” 长安链 is in the works and will be pushed out soon. No specifics given.

China AI Newscaster covering Apple Vision PRO & how it interplays with Web 3

My Commentary & Analysis

There’s enough in the paper to suggest the Chinese government “endorses” the ethos of Web 3. That said, it’s unlikely that the Chinese government will yield control so those China is going to un-ban crypto trading is probably not going to happen. 

We may face scary world reality as US cedes/cast away Web 3 (SEC goes after Coinbase, Binance) and its technology whilst China government develops their version and ecosystem of Web 3 incorporating the social credit score system.