Web3 Financial News

With the 2024 Budget announcement on the horizon, Singapore’s web3 community is voicing a critical need for government support.

A research report published by Spherical Insights & Consulting found that the global Web3 market size was valued at $182 billion in 2022. According to the report, this number is expected to reach $67.92 billion by 2032.

Star Trek’s Jonathan Frakes is set to direct a TV adaptation of the sci-fi book series “Deathlands” for crypto developer Jeff Garzik’s Web3 production studio NextCypher, Deadline reports.

In a landscape where technology reshapes traditional finance, we are witnessing a pivotal change led by web3 and decentralized finance (DeFi) systems. These innovations are setting the stage for revolutionary investment models, while new products like spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) could redefine the industry.

Game software development company Animoca Brands has begun the phased launch of its decentralized chess strategy video game, Anichess, in partnership with Norwegian chess grandmaster, Magnus Carlsen, the company announced today.

In a recent funding round, HashKey Group, the operator of one of Hong Kong’s two licensed crypto exchanges, successfully raised close to $100 million with a valuation of over $1.2 billion.

Non-fungible token (NFT) global sales have seen a lot of green over the past month. The day’s picture has turned red, though.

As Africa‘s Web3 landscape gains momentum, it faces significant regulatory hurdles that threaten to stifle its transformative potential.

Binance Research has found that artificial intelligence (AI) coins in 2023 saw notably larger gains than crypto giants bitcoin and ethereum. At the same time, funding for AI-related Web3 projects has surged.

In a recent blog post titled “Make Ethereum Cypherpunk Again,” Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin expressed concerns about the veering trajectory of Web3 from its original vision.

Web3 activity has increased over the course of 2023. According to a recent report from DappRadar, the decentralized application industry (dApp) achieved a milestone of 3.4 million daily Unique Active Wallets (dUAW) in November. The report notes that this represents a 7 percent increase in growth from October, while also establishing a record high for the year up until that point.

China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has published a document outlining its current and future work on developing Web3 and related technologies, including metaverse, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and decentralized apps (dapps).

The Chinese central government has revealed plans to create a strategic document to guide the development of China’s Web3 ecosystem. 

Ethereum is one of the most widely used blockchain networks globally. Recent findings from CoinMarketCap show that Ethereum has the highest number of total developers, accounting for 16% of all developers in the crypto sector.

Popular NFT project Pudgy Penguins has revealed the upcoming alpha launch of Pudgy World – a Web3 game based on the Ethereum Layer 2 network zkSync Era.

Web3 gaming platform Portal has signed with the top Hollywood-based talent agency WME to enhance distribution in the gaming sector.

Merit Circle DAO and Immutable have announced a strategic partnership to develop the web3 gaming ecosystem, emphasizing blockchain technology and digital asset ownership.

The lower house of the Indian Parliament, Lok Sabha, held a discussion on the importance of web3 and blockchain sector in India on December 6.

Polygon is back with the grants programme for the Web3 ecosystem that will be more focused and work with the founders, offering support they might need. While the company did not reveal details about the programme, speaking at the BUIDL for Web3 Summit in Bengaluru on December 4, Sandeep Nailwal, founder, Polygon, said that the core team of the Polygon Labs will work for the founders and will provide as much support as possible. Polygon had an aggressive grants programme till the end of 2022, he said. However, the programme which was launched to get more developers to build on Polygon and grow the ecosystem, was shut down early this year. Early this year, in its community forum, the company said that this was no longer necessary as it needed to move to more sustainable means of funding. A vouchers programme was launched, wherein startups building on Polygon will get vouchers from their partners, like cloud credits for project support. It also shut down initiatives such as Polygon DAO, which became a part of Polygon Village as an initiative to engage communities across India.

Three out of every four  Web3 games  launched in the past five years have met their demise, presenting a bleak outlook for GameFi industry. 

Digital asset brokerage Fasset FZE has received a Virtual Asset Service Provider (VASP) license from the Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority (VARA) in Dubai, UAE.