Hello 👋
Welcome to the 38th edition of Sfermion’s Collider where we highlight the latest & greatest news in the world of web3, gaming & entertainment, AR/VR, AI, macro, and more!
Weekly, we aim to drop a curated list of the most exciting stories & updates that we believe are enabling the emergence of the metaverse.
If you're looking forward to reading this edition of Sfermion’s Collider, please don't forget to subscribe below, share within your network, and follow Sfermion on Twitter to get the latest! Check out our Seam (💰) bio here :)
Web3 Updates
SEC charges NFT project Stoner Cats (Ashton Kutcher & Mila Kunis) with conducting an unregistered offering of NFTs that brought in $8M from investors. Team was fined $1M and forced to delete all tokens (link)
Franklin Templeton files with SEC for spot bitcoin ETF (link)
Visa publishes a deep dive on Solana (link)
Sony Reveals Blockchain Plans to 'Building a Web3 Network that Connect Souls Across Generations' (link and see more here)
Telegram integrates TON-based crypto wallet for its 800 million users (link)
Deutsche Bank partners with Taurus to offer digital asset custody and tokenization services (link)
LayerZero and Google Cloud officially form partnership, with the Google Cloud oracle set to verify all LayerZero messages by default (link)
MetaMask to be usable outside the EVM ecosystem with Snaps launch (link)
Solana is coming to MetaMask thanks to Snaps (link)
Thirdweb launches their Account Abstraction Toolkit - the fastest way to build with Smart Wallets on any EVM (link)
Apple secures rights to book on Sam Bankman-Fried for $5M (link)
HashDex files for a Ethereum Spot ETF (link)
FTX can begin selling its digital assets, bankruptcy court rules (link)
G20 Announces Plan To Impose Digital Currencies And IDs Worldwide (link)
Hong Kong retains top crypto-ready position for two consecutive years (link)
Bitcoin Mining Surpasses 50% Clean Energy Usage - Elon’s return? (link)
Launch of Uranium3o8 ($U), the First Token Physically Backed by Uranium (link)
Italian Luxury Watch Brand Panerai to Include NFT 'Digital Passport' With All Luxury Watches (link)
New DCG plan could see Gemini Earn users get back all their crypto (link)
Polygon releases proposals on 2.0 upgrade and POL token migration (link)
Polygon co-founder: $1B bet on ZK-rollups paying off (link)
Astar Network, leading blockchain of Japan, joins Ethereum and will launch a zkEVM chain using Polygon CDK, an Ethereum L2 secured by ZK (link)
Safe deploys on Polygon zkEVM: L2 Scaling with Smart Accounts (link)
Fireblocks, Crypto Safekeeping Specialist, Introduces Non-Custodial Wallet Service (link)
Synapse Labs goes live with two testnet launches : Synapse Interchain Network (the first Optimistic PoS Interchain Network) and Synapse Chain (L2 built on the Syn OP stack) (link)
Consensys-owned Infura plans to start decentralizing by end of 2023 (link)
Magic Eden Rolls Out Lucky Buy (link)
Polychain-backed Manta launches Pacific Layer 2 on mainnet (link)
Binance Airdrop $3M BNB to Morocco Earthquake Victims (link)
Karl Greenwood, co-founder of the fraudulent OneCoin cryptocurrency, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for $4B crypto fraud scheme (link)
Gaming Updates
Unity adding a fee for each time a game is installed, sees immediate backlash (link)
Ancient8 announces the Ancient8 Chain - a gaming-focused community-driven Ethereum Layer 2, powered by OP Stack, built to onboard the next 100M Web3 citizens (link)
PUBG Creator Krafton Unveils 'Overdare' NFT Game With AI Creation Tools (link)
Tencent Cloud Unveils Blockchain RPC for Developers and Enterprises (link)
Roblox’s chief executive made 10 big predictions about the future of the platform, and one of them involved dating. (link)
Sleepagotchi (💰) launches 2.0 with new features, improved house & room designs, a world map, and much more. Download on IOS now! (link)
Extraction shooter Shrapnel (💰) won’t let US players cash out (link)
Saudi Arabia looks to blockchain gaming and Web3 to diversify economy (link)
NFL Rivals Hits Record Daily Active Users After App Store Game of the Day Feature (link)
Pixels Migrates to Ronin Network from Polygon (link)
AI Updates
Musk Warns Senators About AI Threat, While Gates Says the Technology Could Target World Hunger (link)
Arm prices IPO at $51 per share, valuing company at over $54B (link)
Meta is developing a new, more powerful AI system (link)
Morgan Stanley Introduces AI-Powered Chatbot for Enhanced Services (link)
Stability AI, gunning for a hit, launches an AI-powered music generator (link)
Coke introduces a new mystery flavor, made by AI (link)
How We Chose the TIME100 Most Influential People in AI (link)
Character.ai Surpasses ChatGPT In Mobile App Usage In The US (link)
EY announces launch of AI platform EY.ai, $1.4B invested over 18 months (link)
Nvidia's new cloud business competes with AWS (link)
Other Updates
McCarthy Launches Biden Impeachment Inquiry (link)
Government shutdown would have 'modest impact' on economy (link)
Apple’s cheapest iPhone 15 Pro Max now costs more — but also has double the storage (link)
China Denies iPhone Ban Rumors (link)
$1.5 Trillion Dollars Worth Of 'White Gold' Found In Supervolcano On Nevada-Oregon Border (link)
Russia’s Putin praises Elon Musk as an ‘outstanding person’ and ‘talented businessman’ (link)
Research & Interesting Reads
Pantera Capital | Emerging Catalysts in Crypto
Messari | friend.tech Flips The NFT Market
Real Agency | This is Roblox In 2023
Konvoy | The Future of Handheld Gaming
The Generalist | Modern Meditations: Rebecca Kaden - The Union Square Ventures managing partner on stories, ancient structures, and technological salvation.
Tiny Rebel’s (💰) CEO Susan Cummings on why web3 games should be more fun
Bloomberg | From $1 Billion to Almost Worthless: FaZe Clan Runs Out of Hype
NFT Drops & Updates
Yuga Labs introduces the Made By Apes Bodega - an official directory for all valid and active MBA licenses (link)
Patrick Mahome’s Museum of Mahomes II to launch on September 15th with exclusive access to special edition sports cards, autographed memorabilia, limited edition merch, 1:1 grail cards and so much more (link)
Starbucks Odyssey conducts another drop on Nifty Gateway (link)
Nakamigos expands with a 20K collection of cloak-based NFTs. Free for OG holders (link)
Animoca Brands Subsidiary focused on arcade gaming, GAMEE, launches ‘Beasties’ NFT companions for its popular Arc8 platform (link)
Large web3 influencer, wale.swoosh, joins Animoca Brands as an official ambassador for Mocaverse ecosystem (link)
Notable Raises
Paradigm set to raise $1B crypto fund by the end of the year or early next year (link)
Databricks raises $500M at a $43B valuation in a round led by T. Rowe Price Associates with follow-on from Nvidia and Capital One Ventures (link)
Cendana Capital closes on $470M more to back seed-stage fund managers (link)
Crypto VC Electric Capital aims to raise $300M for new fund (link)
Bitget unveils $100M fund to invest in exchanges, data analytics and media (link)
Indian gaming giant Nazara Technologies raises $49M to make strategic acquisitions and investments in other gaming and sports media companies (link)
Animoca Brands Raises $20M, led by CMCC Global, to Pursue ‘Single Native Web3 Project’ Mocaverse (link)
Google to invest $20M into AI-focused grants for think tanks and academic institutions (link)
Pahdo Labs raises $15M for anime-inspired game world and UGC platform, led by a16z (link)
Usage.AI, a leader in identifying cloud savings, has raised $9M in a round led by Amity Ventures (link)
GamePhilos raises $8M, led by Xterio, Animoca Ventures, SevenX Ventures and Chain Hill Capital, for mobile strategy game Age of Dino (link)
Mythic Protocol Raises $6.5M Seed Round, led by Shima Capital, to Build the World First: Collaborative Entertainment (link)
Layer N’s, an ETH Layer-2, $5M round includes support from Peter Thiel-backed Founders Fund (link)
Parallax, a cross-border payment system, raises a $4.5M seed round led by Dragonfly (link)
Rascal Games, an a16z Games Speedrun company, raises $4.2M to bring to life Project Wayward, a shared world PvE action adventure game (link)
Club3, a web3 community operating platform, raises a $3M seed round (link)
Octav Raises $2.65M to Help Label DeFi Transactions (link)
0xPass raises $1.8M from AllianceDAO, Balaji Srinivasan and others to build secure login systems for web3 (link)
Mo & Andrew's Curated
Macro
US inflation rises to 3.7%, higher than expectations.
8,286
SEC Chair Gary Gensler says crypto is full of fraud, abuse and misconduct.
US Senator Elizabeth Warren calls to investigate Elon Musk. While serving 10 years in Congress with an annual salary of $193,000, she managed to increase her net worth to $73,000,000.
According to JP Morgan, current excess household liquidity stands at $1.4 trillion.
However, they expect that liquidity to be fully depleted by May 2024.
Excess household savings are being depleted at a rate of…
Web3
$SOL $685,000,000
$FTT $529,000,000
$BTC $268,000,000
$ETH $90,000,000
$APT $67,000,000
$DOGE $42,000,000
$MATIC $39,000,000
$BIT $35,000,000
$TON $31,000,000
$XRP $29,000,000
They had $3.4…
Introducing Ailis Voice Generator Beta. Elevate your creative submissions for the Creator Contest with the following attributes:
1. Free to use
2. Available in EN, CH, JP
Voiced by CoeFont.cloud
Detail
NFT
: SEC charges creator of 
Noun #1 sold for 613 ETH in August '21 ($1.9M at the time)
Now Nouns are only going for around 35 ETH ($40k)
Some holders think the $30M treasury is being thrown out the window
Here's what's causing problems:…
If passed (feels likely), a new governance token $DAM will be launched and used "for the selection and…
Gaming
I’m now a CEO of a $100M+ company. Here’s where I’m at on the Unity pricing model change.
First, let’s dig into why they likely did this.
1) per-seat pricing…
This is why the MPH IP will become a staple Battle Royale in gaming.
[1/7]
This puts DraftKing's product ahead of all of the ETH-based NFTs in volume, including Bored Ape Yacht Club.
Reignmakers accounted for 62% of Polygon trading volume on the week.
AI
They just revealed a new AI chatbot called Roblox Assistant, allowing creators build virtual worlds just by typing prompts.
What's even more fascinating, is that over 43% of Roblox users are under the age of 13.
The next-gen…
Random
1: Something that has already been in other phones for years
2: Something that only works with other iPhones (ecosystem)
Full iOS 17 video: youtu.be/5LWDl5qaQbA?si…
CDC advisers back broad rollout out of new COVID boosters
A panel of doctors and scientists advising the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention voted to recommend that people 6 months of age and older get new COVID boosters this fall.
💰 = Sfermion Portfolio Company
Curated by @mopat1214 + @AndrewSteinwold
If you enjoyed reading this edition of Sfermion’s Collider, please subscribe below, share within your network, and follow Sfermion on Twitter to get the latest! Check out our Seam (💰) bio here :)
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Sfermion does not offer investment advice/analysis and makes no recommendations on how to act. Information regarding any company or investment in this Newsletter, including any links to information on our website, should not be viewed as an endorsement or recommendation of that company or investment for any purpose whatsoever. Any person receiving this Newsletter is encouraged to consult with their own financial advisor, or relevant personnel, before making any investment decision.
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