After the Second World War, a financial-economic agreement was concluded between the economic giants in the American Bretton Woods. The American plan won (tying the dollar to gold) against the plan of one of the most influential economists we’ve ever known, Keynes. Keynes wanted a global bank with a global currency, the Bancor. This system would be used to settle international payments and to keep trade surpluses in check. More than 75 years later, Keynes’ idea seems to flourish again with the launch of the Worldcoin. In this article everything about this new coin.

There are currently 180 recognized currencies in the world and many thousands of other monetary systems. From bottle caps in Cameroon and space coins at NASA, to many local initiatives such as Berkshares in the United States, Fureai kippu in Japan, Bus Tokens in Brazil and the BijlmerEuro in the Netherlands.

Every designer of a system will say that his system works best, but which system really is? A study (pdf) of 599 different types of “failed” monetary systems found that one third failed because of the dissolution of the monetary union in which the system was used and one third because of wars. Due to the Second World War alone, 95 money systems disappeared. The average age of a money system, according to the study, is 39 years, almost exactly the age of today’s Dollar, after Bretton Woods ended in 1971.

One coin to rule them all

Since I have been active in the web3 ecosystem (everything related to blockchain, crypto, DAOs, etc.) in 2015, I have seen continuous skepticism from the media. But that has always been the case with new technologies. Every new technology is used by criminals, every new technology in principle makes mistakes and, in addition to a positive, also has a negative impact on our society.

That’s how I look at the Worldcoin, with a sober look at what positive and negative sides there are. If we look at the two main solutions — a world currency and a world identity — I see advantages that we as Westerners do not easily see, because we are simply too good. Almost every Dutch person has an almost free payment system with Tikkie and iDeal, just like an identity number and accompanying ID card.

But according to the World Bank, there are still 1.5 billion people worldwide who have no access to the financial system. These are often people who easily pay 20% transaction costs for money that they want to send to their family in the home country, for example. Indeed, it costs a lot of money to be poor. In addition, access to the financial system is the most important factor to develop a country.

A subject that Queen Maxima is busy with.

In addition, according to the same World Bank, there are still more than a billion people who do not have a formal identity. No identification number, no paperwork or proof that you are who you say you are. Now you would say, if you don’t pee wildly or never fly outside Europe, then you don’t have to show your identity. But secretly there are a lot of things for which you have to be able to provide an identity. Voting, opening a bank account, in healthcare and countless other elementary processes in our society.

Proof of human

I also think it’s an interesting idea to prove you’re not an AI-generated fake persona. A recent study by DuckDuckGoose from Delft showed that when applying for a bank account at Rabobank, deepfakes passed the face check in 80% of the applications.

That the very person who introduced AI’s “killer app” (ChatGPT) to the global public now comes up with a new solution to distinguish between humans and machines, because he believes that sooner or later AI will pose a great danger will shape for society, is of course special.

Free money for everyone

One of the higher goals of the Worldcoin is to establish a global system for the issuance of a Universal Basic Income. We already saw a kind of this during corona, when paper checks were still sent in America and in the Netherlands we could apply for all kinds of different surcharges.

It’s an idea that appeals to a lot of people. If we have a society rich enough to end poverty, then we have a moral obligation to find out how to do that. — Sam Altman, Founder Worldcoin

Rutger Bregman spoke about this at TEDxMaastricht years ago. In his TED talk he gave many interesting studies and ideas why such a UBI would be a very good idea:

iris scan

To verify yourself as a real human being, you must have your iris scanned by a so-called orb. A chrome bowling ball, with all kinds of infrared cameras, sensors and AI-controlled neural networks that regulates this within 2–3 seconds. The ball was designed by the first designer hired at Apple by chief designer Jony Ive, Thomas Meyerhoffer.

I often use Privium at Schiphol myself. With an eye scan I get through customs within half a minute. That’s where I see the benefits of using biometric data. Nevertheless, there are many critical voices from experts, especially about the fact that all this data is stored centrally. A ‘honey pot’ for hackers.

Don’t catalog eyeballs. Don’t use biometrics for anti-fraud. In fact, don’t use biometrics for anything. — Edward Snowden

On the other hand, such a system already exists within the country with the most inhabitants in the world: India. This is where 99.9% of adults have stored their biometric data, for the ID system Adhaar. In Worldcoin’s privacy statement you can also see that the default setting for users is that no data is stored.

I think the marketing campaign that immediately rewards activated users with a number of Worldcoins is brilliant. Paypal also did this in the beginning and according to the founders this was the breakthrough for mass adoption. I still find the name for the scanning device special: orb is a super criminal from the Marvel comic books. But perhaps this is a nod to traditional financial institutions and governments, because of the disruptive nature of the project.

The system itself was praised by one of the most important people in blockchain technology, Ethereum founder Vitalik Butherin, for the many cryptographic elements it contains to ensure security, such as “Zero Knowldege Proofs”, which I wrote about here earlier. In addition, also the cyberpunk elements, such as cutting out traditional financial institutions from the whole and also making governments virtually superfluous.

Big tech is expanding

All these security measures mean that the data must be stored centrally. Not, as is always intended with blockchain technology, decentralized. Critics therefore expressed their concerns about yet another Silicon Valley company, which will have global power, under a so-called inclusive banner. For example, Meta’s products are “built to better bring people together and form stronger relationships”, something that we can sometimes question with all the experience in recent years.

We are seeing more of these kinds of major shifts from tasks that you normally expect in a government to ‘big tech’. Parties such as Amazon, Apple and Google are investing en masse in healthcare and education. You may find this scary, because of ever-increasing power. On the other hand, these parties can offer very effective solutions with their data.

The first integrations have already been launched. For example, you can already log in to Twitter and ChatGPT with your Worldcoin ID. In addition, it has announced an integration with Okta, one of the largest global players in online identity. The first two million users have been onboarded and with the offering of the ‘orb’ in 35 cities in 20 countries, this number will continue to rise considerably in the coming period.

A new revolution in the field of global financial inclusivity or yet another well-tried one-hit wonder? We’ll see in the near future!

Jan Scheele is active in the web3 (blockchain, crypto, NFTs, DeFi) industry since 2013. Besides (former) CEO of a web3 scaleup and founder of an advisory boutique (working for governments, family offices and several multinationals), he is Digital Leader at the World Economic Forum and Board Member at the Blockchain Netherlands Foundation (BCNL). He is writing, consulting, speaking and training regularly about everything web3, all over the world. Furthermore, he is currently finalizing his book about the rise and global impact of blockchain technology.

It’s the calm before the storm, but what kind of storm? I can’t predict that yet. As a ‘finance’ graduate, I mainly foresee a ‘perfect storm’: severe economic weather with all kinds of knock-on effects on the economy. On the other hand, there are numerous predictions and expectations surrounding cryptocurrency, pointing to a stormy growth of the market in the coming months. In this article, I will therefore discuss the latest trends and my expectations.

The crypto industry is largely defined by extremes. From the frenzied DeFi summer to the lingering cold of the crypto winter. And from simple Dogecoin investors to builders of a super-advanced Dutch algorithmic stablecoin. But also the prices of the cryptocurrency. Earlier I wrote about consumers, businesses, and investors around the world who lost nearly $2 trillion in the cryptocurrency market last year after it reached $3 trillion in total value at its peak.

The cryptocurrency sector is now growing rapidly again after this difficult year. There are now more than 350 million users. They traded more than $100 billion in the past month. The largest investors worldwide announce that they will invest in the sector or that they will enable this for customers. Microsoft is working on its own crypto wallet in Edge and it was recently discovered that a copy of Bitcoin’s “whitepaper” (business plan) is hidden on every Macbook.

Cryptocurrency: the practical use

Something I often see passing by with new technologies: a solution that is looking for a problem. Something that should of course be the other way around. Nice, this technology, but is it the best solution for an existing problem? That is a question that has long been asked about cryptocurrencies. What is the practical use?

In 2023, I don’t see that practical use so quickly in Western countries. Our financial system is too good for that with almost free banking services, IDeal and Tikkie. But in Ukraine, for example, they think differently, because hundreds of millions of euros in donations have already entered the country via cryptocurrency. Easy and very fast, from all over the world. From helmets to medicines; everything necessary for the war is bought with it.

Financial structure worldwide

I see that real impact emerging in more and more developing countries. For example, last year I was allowed to implement cryptocurrency in the Central African Republic. A country where 5% of the adult population has a bank account and the rest have to make do with cash or other forms of money. Because the government is going to give everyone a mobile phone with a cryptowallet, everyone will soon be able to store, send and trade their own landcoin in it. In addition, you can also vote with the same crypto wallet and, for example, store your land rights (which we have centrally located at the Kadaster in the Netherlands).

With the recent (near) collapse of banks and the pain that has not yet been resolved after the previous financial crisis around 2008/2009, it is also about restoring confidence. Confidence in perhaps the most important (infra)structure we have in the world, namely the financial one. And there’s a lot wrong with that. Coinbase research shows that 80% of Americans think the current financial system is mostly good for the top 1%, and 67% think the entire system needs to be overhauled.

In addition to El Salvador and the Central African Republic, news came out last week that Bitcoin will become legal tender in the Principality of Liechtenstein.

Central exchange or own wallet?

Cryptocurrency originated with a decentralized thought. You are in charge of your own money and have control over your own virtual wallet. This is therefore not with a central party, for example, a bank. Yet 80% of cryptocurrency owners have their coins on a central exchange. Often because they find this easier, because having your own wallet can be technically complex, and if you forget the access key, you will really lose your cryptocurrency. Not your keys, not your coins.

But given last year’s events, many owners have lost faith in central exchanges and are taking back control of their crypto by storing everything in their own wallets. That exodus from central exchanges to decentralized wallets went by hundreds of thousands of Bitcoins per month in the past quarter. A trend that will certainly continue in the coming years.

Fraud and mistrust

It was grist to the mill for many legislators, but above all, it was also a reason to come up with suitable legislation for cryptocurrencies even more quickly. The fall of one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges, FTX. Billions of dollars were missing and the temporary receiver, who had also handled the bankruptcy of the largest accounting fraud in American history (Enron), were clear:

Because of its scale, this fraud even exceeded Enron’s and the largest in American history. Just like with Enron, the same thing is happening now in terms of reactions: the industry is waking up and regulators are accelerating with the right laws and regulations.

Crusade Against Cryptocurrency

Two camps have arisen here worldwide, namely the American and European. In America, the Biden administration focused extensively on cryptocurrencies in its annual Economic Report of the President. The report included an entire chapter on “digital assets,” describing how the crypto industry is causing problems for consumers, the financial system, and the environment.

In recent weeks it has also become clear that the American regulator SEC (the AFM in the Netherlands) has started a crusade against everything that has to do with cryptocurrencies. Several major trade exchanges have been sued, as have influencers, business people, and companies inside and outside the industry. The head of the SEC, Gary Gensler, wrote earlier that the rules he has for all these individuals and organizations are crystal clear, but unfortunately, they are not. Something that was made painfully clear even during a hearing in the US parliament during an interrogation of Gensler.

Operation Choke Point

But an even worse development is “Operation Chokepoint 2.0”. An apparent follow-up to an Operation Chokepoint campaign launched by President Obama. This is to deny legal, but politically undesirable companies, such as arms manufacturers and payday loan providers, access to banking services. Something that is necessary to run a normal business.

These measures not only seem to circumvent due process of law but also seem to repeat violations for which previous US government agencies have already been severely punished by both legislators and the legal system. The collapse of Silvergate Bank, Silicon Valley Bank, and Signature Bank has led many to believe that the US government is closing access to crypto services simply by allowing crypto-friendly banks to collapse.

New York regulators and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) jumped on board to indicate that the shutdown had nothing to do with crypto. However, when Signature’s assets and bank branches were acquired, the new owner Flagstar Bank chose not to acquire Signature’s cryptocurrency business.

The Brussels Effect

The European Parliament does many things that do not make me happy. Still, I think it’s great that the institute is always positively in the news for setting up, developing, and launching groundbreaking legislation and regulations. The ‘Brussels effect’. This legislation often inspires other governments worldwide and is sometimes even literally copied. We saw this before with regard to privacy and in the coming year it will be the turn of cryptocurrencies around the ‘MICAR’ legislation.

Lawmakers in the European Union voted 517 to 38 in favor of the MICAR last week. This makes it the first major jurisdiction in the world to introduce a comprehensive crypto law. The legislation extensively addresses the obligation for all industry service providers to identify customers. As well as stablecoins and crypto trading exchange balances.

The Netherlands wants to be the best boy in the class again. Moreover, The head of the AFM, Laura van Geest, wrote in the FD that she wants to maintain a “tough attitude” towards the Dutch cryptocurrency sector. Whether companies leave abroad because of this, the top woman leaves cold.

Dangers and success stories

Recently I spoke extensively with Bas Lemmens, the worldwide General Manager of Chainalysis. The analysis company for the cryptocurrency sector. The services of these are used by almost all investigative services worldwide, such as the Dutch Police and AIVD. He indicated that their analyzes showed that crime within the cryptocurrency sector has not decreased and will continue to grow in the coming years.

A new trend, for example, is the ‘pig butchering scams’. In this, the hacker slowly builds a relationship of trust with ignorant consumers, especially Western millennials and the elderly. The hackers create fake social media accounts via WhatsApp and even profiles on LinkedIn and dating sites. Here they show a lavish lifestyle and send random messages to get in touch with victims. After a brief but powerful relationship, they drain the victim’s cryptocurrency account in a flash.

Fortunately, there are also stories where the investigative authorities are successful in catching the crooks. The best recent example, which received worldwide attention, is that of the operation ‘Deadbolt’ by the Dutch Police.

Price of cryptocurrency

The price of Bitcoin has now doubled from its lowest price at the beginning of this year. Technology is developing rapidly and with it, major challenges are also being tackled, such as energy consumption. The second largest blockchain, Ethereum, already got an amazing upgrade last year and decreased its energy consumption by 99.98%. To maintain the largest blockchain, Bitcoin, more than half of the energy now comes from natural sources. Such as hydropower (24%) and wind (14%).

Challenges will continue to come. The Ethereum blockchain got completely stuck years ago due to the success of the first NFT; Cryptokitties. The same happened last week with the Bitcoin blockchain due to the new token standard BRC-20. This will add NFTs to this blockchain. As a result, even the largest cryptocurrency exchange (Binance) had to pause Bitcoin withdrawals twice. This is due to a crashing network. The transaction costs on the network even increased from $1 to $20.

Easy to make and buy

We also suddenly saw the meme coin Pepe rise by 5,000,000% last week. An investor who bought for $263 made a profit of $9 million. It caused unprecedented growth in the number of crypto investors in a short period of time. We will see this type of coin much more often because it is becoming easier to make them. So easy that you can make one yourself within 23 seconds.

It is also becoming easier to buy cryptocurrencies. For example, you can easily buy cryptocurrency via Twitter’s ‘Superapp’, which is still being developed. Also, the largest cryptowallet MetaMask now offers an option to do this, with ‘fiat’ (Euros / Dollars) money. Where China makes it very difficult and has also banned the purchase of cryptocurrencies, the floodgates will open in Hong Kong in June. Looser regulation will allow companies operating in the cryptocurrency sector to easily establish themselves there.

Final weather forecast

Whether we will see a giant leap in cryptocurrency prices in the coming months remains to be seen. As I wrote earlier, many technical analyzes show that this is very much possible. But it is also the first time that cryptocurrencies have experienced a recession whose effects are not yet clear.

Jan Scheele is active in the web3 (blockchain, crypto, NFTs, DeFi) industry since 2013. Besides (former) CEO of a web3 scaleup and founder of an advisory boutique (working for governments, family offices and several multinationals), he is Digital Leader at the World Economic Forum and Board Member at the Blockchain Netherlands Foundation (BCNL). He is writing, consulting, speaking and training regularly about everything web3, all over the world. Furthermore, he is currently finalizing his book about the rise and global impact of blockchain technology.

Games for money have been played since time immemorial. Something that adults usually stop doing when they have to earn serious money for a living. Getting rich through play was previously only reserved for the top 1% esports athletes. But, in the past year, this has rapidly become possible for a much larger group of people, thanks to GameFi. I think this will be the biggest trend in cryptocurrency and blockchain in the coming year.

The global game industry is now more than 4 times the size of the global film industry and music industry combined. The gaming industry has an annual revenue of more than $267 billion, compared to the movie industry with $42.5 billion and the music industry with $19 billion in 2018, including streaming. About 3 billion people now play online games, even though many don’t consider themselves “gamers” (yes, Candy Crush counts too).

Big tech & big box

Let’s take a look at the in-game purchases. These are the upgrades that you can buy within a game, such as a beautiful virtual piece of clothing or sword. Last year, $145 billion was spent on this. Critics who don’t believe people spend money on digital art (NFTs) and digital clothing should jokingly look at the magnitude of this within the gaming sector alone.

Even though Google recently announced that it would stop its own gaming platform Stadia, the other big tech companies such as Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Microsoft are investing heavily in their own games and platforms. They also see how much money can be made in this sector. A sector that continues to grow in terms of users and turnover. A bizarre example is Apple. Apple, alone, does not make its own games. This while 80% of the money is made by games in the App Store. Over 1 billion people play games on the iPhone or iPad, making iOS by far the most popular video game platform in the world.

Due to the amount of money invested in gaming by big tech, an insane amount of games are coming onto the market. But the influence of big tech also has disadvantages. Just like in the field of AI (between Google and Microsoft), there is a major battle going on between the titans for the user. Recently, even governments have called a halt to this. They have blocked the acquisition of one of the largest game developers (ActivisionBlizzard) by Microsoft, worth almost $70 billion.

The emergence of transparent gardens

But the ‘walled gardens’ are also becoming increasingly visible. Apple has been in a lot of trouble with this lately. For example, because it kept its own ecosystem so closed that all payments within the App Store must go through the company and it charges a 30% commission for this. This alone has brought in $85 billion in the past year. You also have these kinds of closed ecosystems within the gaming industry. This makes it impossible, for example, to take a beautiful virtual piece of clothing or sword from one game to another.

Since the emergence of blockchain technology, we have seen several applications that change the way we exchange and store value. What started with an open and more transparent way of storing and sending money (Bitcoin) developed into an open and more transparent way of storing title deeds of assets (Tokenization, which also includes NFTs). In my opinion, one of the most interesting new applications in the blockchain field is GameFi. A concept that combines traditional gaming with blockchain technology. This creates a wealth of new opportunities for players and developers alike.

Play to earn

This completely turns the business model of traditional games that are currently offered on its head. Instead of extracting as much money as possible from players (for example, through licenses and in-game purchases), GameFi offers players the opportunity to earn money in the form of cryptocurrencies or other digital assets. Here the emphasis is really on the development of the economy within the game. Rewards are automatically distributed by so-called ‘smart contracts’. This makes human error and fraud impossible. In addition, these rewards can also be traded or used outside of the game.

However, the concept is not new. You already saw elements of GameFi emerging in Second Life. There was a real in-game currency (the Linden dollar) and transactions of virtual items. Back then, people were already making millions of dollars selling virtual in-game items. The real breakthrough of this came through the World of Warcraft game, where tens of thousands of euros were paid for the virtual blue eggs on eBay. The biggest game platforms of the moment, such as Activation Blizzard and Roblox, already have their own digital currency with which players can pay.

In October 2017, blockchain technology also came into play in games. This happened when the Canadian company Axiom Zen released the Cryptokitties. Cute cats that users could breed based on their genetic traits. Over 1 million virtual cats were bred, with the most expensive selling for over $1 million. It was also the first successful NFT project, a few years before it became a hype at all.

A new economy

GameFi goes beyond just earning rewards. It’s also about creating a community of players who can collaborate, trade, and invest in the game’s economy. The possibilities of this came to light during corona, when people looked for alternative sources of income. Some players in Southeast Asia managed to earn more than an average monthly income playing blockchain games like Axie Infinity.

All expectations surrounding the transaction volume of the most popular games were soon crushed. The transaction volume within Axie Infinity and DeFi Kingdoms alone was $400 million per day. Meanwhile, the total of GameFi games has already risen to $ 10 billion. I myself really blame this on the fact that the traditional game builders simply had no trading function in the virtual assets that you could buy in the game.

By using cryptocurrencies, this can suddenly be done very quickly and cheaply within blockchain games. NFTs also ensure that you can also record property rights. The smart contracts ensure automatic, direct, and efficient handling. All this strengthens, simplifies, and accelerates the trading of virtual properties within the games.

For example, there were full-time gamers in the Philippines who bred “Axies” and resold them to Western collectors. In addition, they could earn Axie Infinity’s in-game token (AXS) by winning battles and completing quests. They could then sell these AXS tokens for dollars, for example, to pay for their daily living.

The next level

Of course, the $ 10 billion that has been spent on GameFi so far is little. Especially if you compare it to the total size of the traditional gaming sector. The players from this are slowly warming up to the idea of also making their games with blockchain technology.

Epic Games is already experimenting with the Blankos Block Party, and Apple allows the sale of NFTs in apps within the App Store. I think traditional players are also increasingly being forced to build and release games in this way. More and more users experience both the convenience and the great possibilities of all kinds of new options that blockchain technology offers. Blockchain technology is still in its infancy in many areas, so it will be some time before it is widely adopted.

Legislators have also woken up.

They are not only concerned with laws and regulations but also with new types of taxes for these new economies and activities. The quality of many games is not yet at the level of the range of traditional games. But the past year has shown how fast developments can go. With the large sums of money currently being invested in GameFi, the fact that you can earn money through play and the current size of the gaming industry alone, I think GameFi could become very big in the near future.

Jan Scheele is active in the web3 (blockchain, crypto, NFTs, DeFi) industry since 2013. Besides (former) CEO of a web3 scaleup and founder of an advisory boutique (working for governments, family offices and several multinationals), he is Digital Leader at the World Economic Forum and Board Member at the Blockchain Netherlands Foundation (BCNL). He is writing, consulting, speaking and training regularly about everything web3, all over the world. Furthermore, he is currently finalizing his book about the rise and global impact of blockchain technology.

It fell hard and fast: the photo tweeted by the new owner of Twitter, Elon Musk, of him walking into the headquarters of the social media channel with a sink under the heading ‘let that sink in’. The share price went through the hole and many users left the channel for the decentralized alternative Mastodon. Decentralized social media are on the rise, but why exactly? How can you get started with it yourself and what does the future look like?

Since its emergence in the mid-1990s, social media has become an important and integral part of the daily life of our society. Half of the world’s population now has access and we spend an average of 2.5 hours a day on it. Regardless of the distance, friends, families, and communities can connect and communicate. It makes the exchange of information and ideas very easy and it has given people the opportunity to create and share their own content. Companies have a wealth of new marketing options and the bulk of politicians’ campaign budgets now go to social media advertisements.

Negative effects

The benefits have had a positive impact on our society. But unfortunately, we are also increasingly seeing the negative effects. From fake news and hate speech, to manipulated elections and increased anorexia and suicide among teenage girls. The centralization of current social media platforms (web2.0) ensures that users (be they consumers, creators or brands) do not own their profiles, content, target groups or data. You have no control whatsoever.

The ad-based business model of these platforms also relies on the sale of this data to companies that serve targeted ads based on it. If you don’t like that, you can leave. But you can’t take your content, data, and followers with you. In addition, the code used to develop the platform is closed-source. So you cannot make any adjustments to this.

The decentralized alternative

The decentralized (web3.0, which I wrote about earlier) social media platforms have numerous advantages over their central competitors due to their technical build. Especially since they often use blockchain technology. The data from the platforms is stored decentralized, cryptographically, and transparently, making surveillance or hacks virtually impossible. Smart contracts automatically control the platforms and there is no central authority that can influence this.

But what is also really interesting is the operability. This is virtually non-existent with the existing central social media platforms. Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn… they all have so-called ‘walled gardens’. For example, you cannot send a message from Twitter to Instagram or from LinkedIn to WhatsApp. This is much easier with the decentralized socials, due to the decentralized set-up, where you manage your identity and data yourself. It gives users more control over their own data and online interactions. For example, they can choose which servers and networks they want to join and easily switch to another server.

Contributors are rewarded

You can share insanely good content every day and get millions of likes, but most of the central platforms won’t give you a penny for this as a reward. Only YouTube and TikTok, but that is so marginal that 99.99% of content creators cannot live on this. The decentralized social media channels are built on blockchain technology. This is the same technology that cryptocurrencies and NFTs are built on. You can see a great ‘token economy’ emerging here at the various decentralized social media channels: makers who receive a fair reward for their contribution to the platforms.

A good example is the Dutch DeSocialWorld, where advertisers pay makers under the name ‘Post2Earn’. There are already 2 million users active on this ‘Twitter on blockchain’. The content is open and moderated by all users. It is therefore no longer the case that a central army of moderators in San Francisco determines what we see for content in the Netherlands or India. This content is posted to feeds such as “Sports” and “Politics” and tagged as “NSFW” and “Opinion”.

Censorless

For me, one of the most beautiful features of these ‘web3’ platforms is that there is no censorship. In 2023, almost 4 billion people live in a country with censorship. Countries like Russia, Iran, China, and Turkey, where governments can ban a “web2” channel like Facebook or Twitter overnight. Something that is virtually impossible with the decentralized alternatives.

In addition, innovation is really stimulated again because users and developers are free to experiment with new ideas, without being restricted by the rules and policies of a central authority. Many web3.0 platforms, such as DeSocialWorld, reward not only the content creators but also the builders for their contribution to the platform.

Decentralized mushrooming

Due to the Twitter vicissitudes in recent times, the decentralized alternative Mastodon has quickly become popular. Peepeth offers the same functionalities but is built on a different ‘blockchain’, Ethereum, on which, for example, all NFT activity also takes place. Diaspora is the oldest decentralized social network, which was launched in 2010 as a decentralized alternative to Facebook.

Personally, I think Pixelfed is cool, which is a decentralized alternative to Instagram and was launched back in 2018. And YouTube competitor DTube. Chingari is a mobile video-sharing app and already has more than 5 million daily active users and 40 million monthly active users. The app is in the top 20 most downloaded apps in the world on Google Play. Also a number of veterans, such as Steemit (2014) that offers a decentralized Medium, and Aether who take on the decentralized attack with Reddit.

Going a step further is the Lens Protocol, which gives users the opportunity to create their own decentralized social media platforms. Mirror is a decentralized, user-owned publishing platform that allows users to easily crowdfund other users’ ideas with cryptocurrencies.

Are we all going decentralized?

Personally, I do not see the current central ‘2.0’ social media platforms becoming more decentralized any time soon, in order to compete with their ‘3.0’ competitors. This really requires significant changes in server architecture. So that all data can be placed decentrally on a blockchain, without a central authority checking the platform or the data stored on it. A lot of data, with which the current platforms earn a lot of money, can no longer be collected within a new set-up. And so a completely different business model has to be developed.

Nevertheless, the central social media are already taking steps towards web3.0 and decentralization. For example, Meta is experimenting with NFTs on Instagram. Reddit goes further and has introduced so-called community points. These are proprietary digital tokens that users can earn by posting high-quality content and contributing to the platform. The platform does this together with the decentralized platform Arbitrum.

Twitter has rolled out support for NFTs, allowing users to connect their wallets and display NFTs as profile pictures. In addition, the former CEO and founder Jack Dorsey is working on his decentralized Twitter variant Damus, to which more than half a million users are already connected.

Decentral difficulties

There are not only decentralized dreams but also a number of significant challenges. While Elon Musk is currently being criticized for making it too easy again to publish hate speech on Twitter, the decentralized alternatives have no central authority at all to moderate content and enforce rules. This can lead to a Wild West-esque atmosphere, where users are free to post whatever they want without fear of being banned or punished. There are more and more decentralized moderation models, but they are still in their infancy.

But the ‘network effect’, which shows that a network becomes increasingly stronger as the number of users increases, is not yet great with decentralized social media. The platforms struggle to attract a large user base, as most people are used to using central social networks such as Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. They find switching too complex or they simply experience little inconvenience from the current disadvantages.

Big move

Switching and using the decentralized platforms sometimes leaves much to be desired. Unfortunately, the interfaces are still often too complex,
the number of interesting functions (compared to the central variants) is small, and the links with cryptocurrencies and digital wallets also scare people off, with the negative reports about plummeting crypto prices and large-scale fraud.

In principle, you manage cryptocurrencies and NFTs yourself, in your own digital wallet. But what if you lost the cryptographic key of that wallet? Then you can lose all the money you earned on a decentralized platform like Steemit in one go.

As with decentralized money (cryptocurrency) and decentralized property rights (NFTs), many consumers are still waiting for clear laws and regulations in this area, which are also not in force in any country with regard to decentralized social media.

Baby steps in infancy

Everything is still in its infancy. But I am convinced that decentralized social media has the great potential to significantly change the way we think about social media and how it affects our daily lives. The rise of decentralized social media is likely to lead to even more platforms popping up and gaining traction in the market as more people become aware of the benefits.

Despite the number of challenges, the following points are driving the adoption and acceptance of web3.0 technologies:

• The ever-increasing desire of users to gain more control over their data and privacy.
• Being able to earn money by posting your own content.
• Being able to resist censorship.
• According to the Talkwalker report, it will therefore have a major impact on the central alternatives in the coming year:

There is still too much friction

According to the founder of the Dutch DeSocialWorld Edo Koevoet, it will take at least 2 to 5 years before this will really make a difference. According to him, it is: “A combination of human and technological factors. There is still a lot of “friction” when it comes to creating a digital identity and earning and using cryptocurrencies. There are only hundreds of millions of users of decentralized money (crypto) vs. billions of social media users. The threshold for switching is still too high. After all, your ‘friends’ and your content are still on the traditional platforms through a platform lock-in.”

Whether it takes 2 or 5 years, I already think the current developments are great. If only for the positive impact we are already seeing on users, innovation, and fair payment from makers.

Jan Scheele is active in the web3 (blockchain, crypto, NFTs, DeFi) industry since 2013. Besides (former) CEO of a web3 scaleup and founder of an advisory boutique (working for governments, family offices and several multinationals), he is Digital Leader at the World Economic Forum and Board Member at the Blockchain Netherlands Foundation (BCNL). He is writing, consulting, speaking and training regularly about everything web3, all over the world. Furthermore, he is currently finalizing his book about the rise and global impact of blockchain technology.

It is fascinating to see how quickly technology can develop in such a short time. When I started with blockchain in 2015, there was really only Bitcoin as a use case. Today there are countless other cool developments. From NFTs and Metaverse to Decentralized Financing (DeFi) and Organizations (DAOs). Also stablecoins, smart contracts and much more. However, the news has only recently been about crashes in cryptoland. That is why I share the 5 coolest developments in the field of blockchain in this article.

Crash after crash after crash. For those who think blockchain technology is all about Bitcoin, last month’s news probably felt like the end of the technology. Cryptocurrency prices collapsing, companies going out of business, and lawmakers cracking down. These are tough times for crypto enthusiasts. But even though the confidence in digital currencies among small and large investors is disappearing, developers and companies are working hard on the underlying technology in the background.

1. Bubbles, keep building and wider adoption

The State of Crypto Report from one of the largest blockchain and crypto investors, Andreessen Horowitz, shows this beautifully. The research they conducted shows that cyclical price increases lead to interest in the ecosystem. This attracts new entrepreneurs who set up new startups and projects, which then lead the next cycle.

They call this the ‘Crypto Price-Innovation Cycle’. In each cycle, even after prices fell, more developers and startups remained in the ecosystem than there were before the cycle started, according to their research. These entrepreneurs are building a better infrastructure and new applications. And they turn potential use cases into real ones.

I, therefore, see recent developments in the field of cryptocurrencies mainly as positive for the entire ecosystem. Errors come to light: from errors in code to wrong companies. The nearly 19,000 developers who develop the technology on a daily basis can pick up and address these flaws.

Legislators can prepare regulations to make the ecosystem more stable and secure. Where in the beginning I only saw negativity among lawmakers around the technology, in 2022, I see not only a much more constructive attitude, but also a lot of positive recognition of the potential of the technology. In the broadest sense of the word.

Developments users

I also see great developments in the field of users. In 2015, I was mainly involved with ‘magic internet money’ Bitcoin with a collection of other nerds. Today 15% of Dutch people own cryptocurrencies, and more and more organisations, governments, and consumers are using the technology in the broadest sense of the word. From NFTs to supply chains and play2earn games to smart contracts.

According to recent research by Deloitte, as many as 75% of retailers want to enable payments in crypto within the next 12 months. And not just companies. Banks also continue to expand their interest in the technology. Meanwhile, 55% of the top 100 banks worldwide have invested in blockchain companies, which is already in the billions of euros.

Disruptive and innovative

Services and solutions that already exist and work, but are sometimes not quite perfect. According to Clayton Christensens’ theory of disruptive innovation, that makes no difference. On several levels and for many users, these new solutions are worse than their existing counterparts. For an ignored segment of the market, this newcomer’s offering is ‘good enough’.

Companies in the blockchain ecosystem that prove disruptive, according to Christensen, find a foothold with a small group of those overserved, ignored users and then expand the market. We see this, for example, in the use of cryptocurrencies in developing countries, where banks refuse to provide their services to many consumers. And when using NFTs in the creative industries, because a way has finally been found to capture the ownership of digital art.

Many of the solutions that come up are not yet perfect. But they are “good enough” for a certain group of users. They often meet certain needs that centralized and more secure products do not. According to Chainalysis’s State of Web3 report, this is also one of the reasons for the NFT hype. It attracted a lot of people who sometimes cared little about cryptocurrencies but cared a lot about art and entertainment. After crypto and NFTs, the wait is for the next killer app (which I wrote about earlier) for the technology.

2. NFTs of your life, in space and on Instagram

Non Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are for me a really great use case that shows the multifaceted potential of blockchain and also has a really profound impact on our society. What started as “overpriced monkey pictures” for many critics has now expanded into a great tool for many industries and even countries. Earlier I wrote about the African country of Central African Republic, which wants to ‘tocanize’ $600 billion in raw materials. Before that, I wrote about the many possibilities of NFTs for companies and communities.

Meanwhile, Instagram’s parent company, Meta, has announced that they will be testing NFTs on Instagram Stories using their augmented reality platform Spark AR. Makers and collectors can share their digital collectibles on Facebook and Instagram. First for a smaller group of US users, then worldwide.

There are also cool NFT developments within the music industry. In addition to merchandise and tickets, Spotify now also makes it possible for artists to promote NFTs. In addition, fans of a well-known female Dutch DJ can invest in the DJ’s career after the summer by buying NFTs. The name of the DJ has not yet been announced, but I also think this is a very cool development: the tokenization of a career.

The soul wallet

Not just careers, by the way. The co-founder (Vitalik Buterin) of one of the largest and most influential blockchain companies, Ethereum (on which most blockchain applications are also built), has submitted a proposal for so-called “Soulbound Tokens” (SBTs). Moreover, The DUO (and at the European level) is currently experimenting with creating NFTs for diplomas from educational institutions, for example, to combat fraud. The idea of ​​SBTs is to establish a powerful identity and reputation system.

The idea is still fairly futuristic and is part of the ‘decentralized society’ (DeSoc) idea. Including Decentralized Autonomous Organizations. These are not only the diplomas and certificates that you obtain by successfully completing education but also medical data, for example.

According to Buterin, they are “non-transferable tokens that represent commitments, credentials and preferences that are part of the social relationships on Web3 networks”. They should already be available to users by the end of the year. By 2024, they should go mainstream and become the next big blockchain hype after NFTs, according to the Ethereum co-founder.

Aircraft manufacturer Lockheed Martin and the Filecoin Foundation also came up with extraterrestrial plans. Both organizations have launched plans to launch a satellite or other space platform, which will contain the technology to become a so-called InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) node. The IPFS is a decentralized version of Dropbox, which now also stores most NFTs.

3. We’re going to make it all

For many people, Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs) are still fairly futuristic, but there are already 20,000 worldwide. There are also the first three companies in the Netherlands that will convert their organizational structure to a DAO model.

Recently, a very unique new DAO has been added. The English football club Crawley Town Football Club, which has been renamed We’re All Gonna Make It (WAGMI) United. Fans of the club can buy NFTs, with the NFT serving as a kind of stock. NFT holders receive exclusive merchandise, voting rights, and many other benefits. With this, the club is suddenly very decentralized and democratically managed, because fans get a direct say.

Major partners have already been connected to further expand the possibilities in the blockchain field. Like Adidas and Gary Vaynerchuck.

4. Metaverse is here to stay

If you’ve never worn Virtual Reality glasses or don’t game, I understand that you can’t imagine much with the metaverse. Recently, when giving keynotes on the subject, I often received the comment ‘that it is a hype that would soon blow over’. But recent announcements from Dubai and Shanghai show otherwise. Shanghai aims to develop a $52 billion metaverse industry by the end of 2025 with more than 100 metaverse companies. Dubai aims to have created more than 40,000 metaverse-related jobs by 2030.

Steps are also being made on a technological level. Facebook owner Meta has launched a digital clothing store in the metaverse. There, users can purchase designer outfits for their avatars from brands such as Balenciaga and Prada. For prices between $2.99 ​​and $8.99. The company has also revised its vision for the Metaverse. They think the metaverse experience will likely be more focused on flat 2D displays for many users in the beginning. Instead of using virtual reality or augmented reality technology, such as headsets and lenses.

To immediately set standards for metaverse developments worldwide, the Metaverse Standards Consortium was founded by giants Alibaba, Epic Games, Meta, Microsoft and Sony. The organization strives to develop interoperability standards for an open metaverse. That means if different companies want to build their own versions of the metaverse, they do so in such a way that users and applications can move freely between different metaverses.

Inspiring Metaverse Solutions

Every day, inspiring examples of organizations and individuals launching special metaverse solutions and environments. Spotify has launched Spotify Island. A ‘paradise’ of its own where fans and artists from all over the world come together, listen to music, do scavenger hunts and obtain exclusive merchandise.

Those plans were probably too thin for singer Snoop Dogg because he wants to start his own metaverse ‘Snoopverse.’ In his latest video clip, you get a good idea of what this should look like. All Snoop Dogg style: a large villa that is a 1-to-1 copy of his California home, luxury cars, and statues of the artist. Previously, a piece of virtual land next to Snoop Dogg’s was sold for $450,000. The ‘Decentral Eyes Dogg’-NFT, a digital portrait of the rapper, also fetched almost €700,000 at an auction in November.

5. Slavecoins

After the various crypto crashes in recent months, US and European governments have been rushing to announce laws and regulations to better regulate stablecoins. I personally find the developments in the field of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDSs) even more interesting.

According to the ‘bank of banks’, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), not crypto, but CBDCs will become the cornerstone of the future monetary system. The institute is not that enthusiastic about crypto. In its latest report, they indicate that they only find the technical functionality of a handful of crypto interesting. They are not impressed by the size of crypto and stablecoins. Still, the institute recommends that banks be allowed to hold 1% of their reserves in Bitcoin or another crypto. So a bit contradictory.

Opaque process

The European Central Bank has released a new report on the digital euro, with a comprehensive technical analysis of a possible European CBDC and its position in the existing financial system. During the Dutch Blockchain Days I spoke to the Dutch rapporteur of the House of Representatives about this. Member of Parliament for the SP, Mahir Alkaya. We have now arrived at the most difficult phase of the process, where many choices have to be made about the design.

According to Alkaya, the process is currently extremely opaque. Very little is published about the process, which causes a great deal of misunderstanding among the Dutch parliament as well as among citizens and consumer organisations. Even though the Dutch government has very recently presented its own vision of the digital euro, more and more commentators are calling the ECB’s future CBDC a ‘slavecoin’.

The plans that are now in place would not be in line with the current protection of privacy and data in the EU. If complete anonymity is not guaranteed, governments would suddenly gain a lot more control over all privacy-sensitive payment data of European consumers and companies.

Phygital

Further developments in the wonderful world of blockchain are piling up. I personally find the development of ‘phygital’ interesting: companies from the ecosystem that only worked digitally and now come up with physical ‘touch points.’ Like Solana, who plans to release her own ‘Saga’ web3 mobile phone next year. All kinds of blockchain applications can be used on it. And the first physical feast for Bored Ape NFT owners; APEFest.

web5

While many people, organizations and developers are still working on the switch from web2 to web3, the founder of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, is already working on web5. According to him, this brings decentralized identity and data storage to individuals’ applications.

He has often expressed his displeasure with the current evolution of the internet. He thinks that web3 is already completely in the hands of big investors and eventually will be centralized again in the hands of a handful of large companies, as is now the case with web2. In his pitch deck he explains his plans extensively.

Cool developments keep coming

It is wonderful to see how many new ideas, projects and initiatives keep coming within the ecosystem. Some as an update of existing things and sometimes really completely new, revolutionary technologies. With the multitude of developers and the speed with which things are being built now, I think we will see and hear many more cool developments within the blockchain ecosystem in the coming months.

Jan Scheele is active in the web3 (blockchain, crypto, NFTs, DeFi) industry since 2013. Besides (former) CEO of a web3 scaleup and founder of an advisory boutique (working for governments, family offices and several multinationals), he is Digital Leader at the World Economic Forum and Board Member at the Blockchain Netherlands Foundation (BCNL). He is writing, consulting, speaking and training regularly about everything web3, all over the world. Furthermore, he is currently finalizing his book about the rise and global impact of blockchain technology.

Who would have expected that when the first iPhone hit the market, years later we’d be navigating more with Google Maps, listening to music on Spotify, and editing and sharing photos on Instagram? Let alone that we spend an average of 4 hours a day on it? I now have the same with cryptocurrencies. When I started with it in 2015, everyone was mainly focused on Bitcoin. There are now countless developments such as NFTs, stablecoins and CBDCs. In this article I look ahead at the 5 most important developments.

1. Not so stable after all

Last week, many cryptocurrency traders and owners watched with concern as the market suddenly collapsed completely. If you zoom out, you will see that this does not only concern cryptocurrencies. The war, high inflation, interest rate hikes and shattered supply chains have left all financial markets in limbo. During the recent salami crash, established tech companies also lost $1 trillion in value in 3 days.

In addition to the volatile crypto, there are also all kinds of so-called ‘stablecoins’, which I wrote about in 2019. This is a cryptocurrency that always retains its value. For example, the most widely used stablecoin, Tether, always equals $1. A safe haven for cryptocurrency traders, but nowadays also for residents of countries where their own currency is far from stable, such as Venezuela, Turkey and Nigeria.

Most stablecoins always have a 1–1 cover with “fiat” money, such as dollars and euros. For example, for every Tether, USDC, PAX dollar, etcetera, the issuing party has one dollar in a safe account, if you want to exchange it. Stablecoins also continue to develop, and so-called ‘algorithmic stablecoins’ have been working for years, which automatically adapt to supply and demand on the basis of algorithms.

Shockwave among cryptocurrencies

One of the most bizarre and extraordinary events in the crypto world happened last week when one of those algorithmic stablecoins Luna lost its peg (1–1 peg) against the dollar. At that time, this coin was no longer worth $1 dollars, but in the end it was only worth 10 cents. The project was one of the top 10 cryptocurrencies in the world, and the shock wave generated by this flaw caused $1.25 trillion of cryptocurrency market cap to evaporate.

This is not only because the organization behind Luna dumped 80,000 Bitcoin on the market, but also the reactions that follow standard with this kind of violent price swings. The beauty of the underlying blockchain technology is that you can analyze all transactions worldwide. This shows that often the youngest crypto investors (the people who have been in it the shortest) are already selling their crypto. Buy high, sell low. In addition, you see that traders who ‘short’ (anticipate a fall in a price) further amplify this falling effect.

Governments such as the American and European were quick to announce laws and regulations to regulate stablecoins much better. Something they announced much earlier and, for example, will already be addressed in the upcoming European ‘MICAR’ (crypto) legislation that will come into effect next year. Yet the ECB indicated that there is now much faster action on stablecoins should be undertaken because of fears of the major impact of cryptocurrencies on the mainstream financial system.

2. Making money dancing, playing sports and walking

Instead of buying cryptocurrencies, you can also ‘mine’ them. This is validating transactions on the blockchain. But instead of using regular power for the computer to mine, the most special other models have been developed to generate energy, for example. For example, there are: people who try to do this with pen and paper, companies that make it possible to mine Bitcoins by sweating enough, and the Dutch startup Institute of Human Obsolescence does this with excess body heat.

Indeed, get rich while sleeping.

But in the meantime countless other models have also been developed ‘to earn’. The best known is ‘Play to Earn’, with which you earn cryptocurrencies by playing games. This is already billions of dollars worldwide.

But you can also earn cryptocurrency by walking. STEPN is a good example of this. By buying a pair of sneakers from STEPN (they are already worth $7500 per pair on marketplaces) and running, your activity is tracked in an app via GPS and you earn GST tokens. You can then use these tokens to buy new sneakers and exchange them for ‘fiat’ money such as euros. I myself am involved in a project to earn cryptocurrencies by partying in clubs: party to earn. Make your steps count and cash!

3. More and more adoption

Both large companies and governments are developing their own digital currency or implementing an existing one in all kinds of ways. Writing off Meta’s Libra project hasn’t stopped the Telegram chat app from introducing its own TON coin. This coin can be used by users within the app without transaction costs. Something that the other chat app Signal did before with a privacy-friendly crypto and Meta wants to do again.

In addition to many platforms introducing their own token to use within their own platform, there are also more and more large companies that accept cryptocurrencies, such as Gucci, Emirates and Starbucks. I personally find the different discussions within countries interesting. More than 90% of central banks worldwide are working on their own ‘Central Bank Digital Currency’, which I wrote about earlier.

But there are also many countries that are looking at a possible adoption of existing cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin. The most famous example is El Salvador. This country has turned crypto into legal tender, is mining Bitcoin using geothermal energy from volcanoes and even wants to set up an entire Bitcoin city. Recently, the Central African Republic was also added. Here too, Bitcoin is now legal tender. And many more countries may be added soon. Last week, 44 developing countries had coffee with the president of El Salvador to explore the possibilities of Bitcoin adoption. While they were in the country for a conference.

4. Are monkeys going to take over the world?

It started with a collection of 10,000 monkey pictures created by artificial intelligence. This collection of ‘Bored Apes’ has become so popular that they sell for an average of $400,000 each. Much more interesting is the whole economy that has developed around it. From the Bored Ape Yacht Club (an exclusive online community, only accessible to owners of a Bored Ape) to the Apecoin (the own currency) and Otherside: a metaverse under construction, where 55,000 lots were sold as ‘Apeland’.

Often when I talk about this, people think I’m crazy. I personally find these developments incredibly interesting, because all kinds of developments come together. From the rapid rise of NFTs, to the building of powerful online communities, the reward for your efforts within this community, new ways of contact between companies and consumers and of course the metaverse developments, which are happening at lightning speed.

5. There is no end to new coins

Every week new digital coins come onto the market. Sometimes with very special, new functions. I was a bit shocked by the company’s ‘black mirror’ idea, which is researching ‘reputation tokens’. Earn coins with “meaningful contributions” on Facebook or Instagram.

No shortage of tokens. No shortage of cool developments. It promises to be an interesting summer for cryptocurrencies, which I will follow with enthusiasm.

Jan Scheele is active in the web3 (blockchain, crypto, NFTs, DeFi) industry since 2013. Besides (former) CEO of a web3 scaleup and founder of an advisory boutique (working for governments, family offices and several multinationals), he is Digital Leader at the World Economic Forum and Board Member at the Blockchain Netherlands Foundation (BCNL). He is writing, consulting, speaking and training regularly about everything web3, all over the world. Furthermore, he is currently finalizing his book about the rise and global impact of blockchain technology.

Heineken just opened a virtual brewery there, Tommy Hilfiger now holds his fashion shows and according to Marc Zuckerberg, the metaverse economy will be just as big as the physical economy as we know it today. Not a day goes by without another organization reporting that they have joined the metaverse. Many trendsetters say that 2022 is the year of the metaverse, but what can you concretely do with it as an organization? This article provides an overview of the latest options.

If you’ve never worn virtual reality goggles, you probably don’t understand much of all the commotion surrounding the metaverse. Immersing yourself and really feeling part of the virtual environment is what sets it apart from the current virtual environments we see on our flat screens. Today, the gaming industry is worth more than the global movie and sports industry combined. Where the internet is built by web developers, the metaverse will be built by game developers.

High hopes for the metaverse

According to the researchers at Ark Invest (pdf), in 2021 we spent 38% of our free time digitally and this is expected to be 52% by 2030. By 2026, according to Gartner, a quarter of people and a third of organizations will be active in the metaverse. According to Grayscale, the number of users has already increased tenfold in the past year. By 2030, the metaverse economy could reach $13 trillion in size, according to investment bank Citi. According to research by Accenture, 71% of executives believe the metaverse will have a positive impact on organizations. 42% even think it will bring about a major transformation.

We spent 38% of our free time digitally in 2021 and that is expected to be 52% by 2030

There are no physical constraints — such as real estate, supply chains, and geographic reach — in the metaverse. This opens up many opportunities for companies of all sizes to earn money and get in touch with (potential) customers. We see the lines blurring between the physical and virtual worlds and companies are increasingly committed to creating experiences that engage consumers on a personal, deeper level. As humans, we are born and raised in a 3D environment. Because of this, it is also very logical that we will find the metaverse more interesting than the ‘flat’ internet on which we now spend a lot of time.

But the metaverse is not new. Every day there are still 1 million people walking around in Second Life, a virtual world in which $500 million was spent last year. More money than in the economies of many countries. But the game Fortnite is even bigger, with 350 million users, of which 15 million are logged in on average in a day. A concert in Fortnite by Ariana Grande has already attracted 78 million visitors. No wonder that all kinds of artists are suddenly queuing up to perform virtually. Manchester City and Sony are building a metaverse stadium and the Dutch Beyond Sports processes real-time data from events in all kinds of VR products. It won’t be long before you can walk around in a match live in the metaverse.

Marketing in the metaverse: experience is central

You can already experience Heineken’s Pixel beer, McDonalds’ McRib and Fantafonteinen at restaurant Wendy’s in the metaverse, but of course not taste it. They are especially funny examples of new ways of marketing. The key word here is real experience. Creating a virtual item does not mean that it will immediately stand out and customers will buy it. If you want to build something like this, think carefully about a user’s involvement in this experience and how it aligns with the fully immersed digital experiences in the metaverse.

Restaurant Wendy’s, for example, has a Buck BiscuitDome basketball court, where visitors can play and buy a real burger for just $1 as a thank you for visiting. Gucci opened her vault: a shop in the metaverse with all kinds of unique digital vintage clothing items. The company has more plans: “It will be a time machine, an archive, a library, a laboratory, and a meeting place.”

But it is not just about the flat ‘selling’ of products and services. A good example is Nikeland, a mega complex of the sportswear manufacturer in the metaverse. Not only can all kinds of sports be practiced virtually here, but you can also design your own Nike sneakers here. You can virtually put them on as you walk through the metaverse. But you can also have them printed physically and sent to your home.

Co-creation, innovation & customer contact

You see more and more companies experimenting with the possibilities that the metaverse offers. Sharing ideas and concepts, discussing prototypes or even co-designing, or even letting people make something themselves. As a company, you can not only test beautiful prototypes and new innovations faster and more effectively.

In the metaverse you can also improve customer contact in all kinds of unique ways. A good example is car manufacturer Hyundai, which recently opened a ‘mobility adventure’ in the metaverse. Visitors can not only try new cars and participate in all kinds of cool activities and experiences, but also put together a custom physical car, try it out and order it right away.

Recently, the first Fashion Week was also organized in the metaverse. For five days, famous fashion houses showed their latest fashion in a unique way. Visitors could also try on Estée Lauder virtual make-up and free gold glitter was provided for each visitor, which made the virtual visitors sparkle.

Content and advertising

It will also usher in a new era for content creators. More than 50 million people call themselves “content creators”. A market of just under 100 billion euros, in which 41% of the makers actually earn a good income. With the new possibilities to not only create 3D content but also bring it to life, for example, by letting visitors experience and absorb it, this industry could even double in the next 5 years.

And what will the possibilities for advertising in the metaverse be? Meta has already applied for several patents for this, which show that it will be an important part of their metaverse strategy.

Events and training in the metaverse

I have now organized the first events and training sessions in the metaverse and the reactions have been positive. People go to events for a bit of experience. With a good setup you can also facilitate this beautifully in the metaverse. Everyone can participate from their own favorite location. But the metaverse has no restrictions, as I wrote before, you can build and color the event space yourself. The Sims goes events!

Research shows that training in a metaverse can offer many advantages over regular physical training. Not only can you visualize things much easier, but you can also make training much more interactive. It would be much nicer for introverted and autistic people to participate, which in turn reinforces the success of the training.

Not only meeting, but also in the field of collaboration I see great opportunities.

Learning and Collaborating in the Metaverse

Many elements that are now becoming popular in the metaverse have been used by companies for years. In the field of digital twins in particular, major manufacturers are leading the way with the deployment of virtual reality by their staff.

Aircraft manufacturer Boeing, for example, turns its aircraft into a digital twin, which mechanics can virtually walk through. This way they can test and practice certain things. That alone has saved 75% of the time required to train its technicians. Hong Kong airport trains employees in a virtual reality twin of the airport. Car manufacturer Ford is now also training all its technicians with VR environments, and care providers in England are trained in this way. Chipmaker Nvidia has therefore invested heavily in its software Omniverse, with which it offers a platform to more than 500 parties such as Adobe, Lockeed Martin and reportedly also Apple to develop metaverse applications.

Earlier I wrote about Salesforce, which has built an office in the metaverse for its 30,000 employees worldwide. And Microsoft wants to launch a metaverse variant of Teams: Mesh. In the past 2 years we have become accustomed to virtual working, meeting and meeting at breakneck speed, but only on the flat screen. Gartner also predicts that employers will be able to better engage and collaborate with their employees through immersive workspaces in virtual offices.

Working together and strengthening each other

Some tasks and business problems can be a much better approach for you visually, but in the real world, that’s just not always possible. For example, architects may want to design and draft several detailed mock-ups before setting a direction for further design. But there are time and cost limitations. Often mistakes are overlooked due to the lack of precision.

The metaverse gives all the space here, where almost anything can be modelled. For example, NextMeet offers such a metaverse platform aimed at interactive working, collaboration and learning. Pixelmax even offers the possibility to create workplaces designed to improve team cohesion, employee wellbeing and collaboration among employees. Employees can even meditate virtually, walk into the forest or even fly to the moon. But also to stimulate ‘coffee corner conversations’, which according to research accounts for 90% of communication in organizations. Gather gives employees the opportunity to design their own office. Are you going for the pirate office or a spaceship? This kind of technology has been used in healthcare for some time, by software from companies such as Medivis, which allows students to work with 3D anatomy models.

AI Solutions

Are you talking to a standard doll? No, the New Zealand SoulMachines has already developed an AI solution for the metaverse. Based on your own emotions, it returns a modified emotion in the virtual person in front of you. Whether that is a broker, dermatologist or a healthcare provider, you will receive a tailor-made response, which fits your own emotional state at that moment.

These AI bots can be used wonderfully as assistants or advisors for basic tasks, so that you can deal with more fun, more complex tasks. An example is Daniel, the virtual financial advisor of bank UBS. So in principle you can design your virtual colleagues and have them take place in your virtual office to take over certain activities from you. Not a bad idea, now that the sun is breaking through again and the terraces are open again!

More than just marketing & measuring

I haven’t seen a single option that doesn’t have a cool use case for it. From an educational institute to a gym, from a manufacturer to a service provider, from a museum to a fashion store. You can already see cool examples emerging all over the world, of the most diverse activities, which are now also offered in the metaverse.

When the gyms closed, online sports classes shot up like mushrooms. According to research, you seem to participate much better in the virtual sports classes in the metaverse, so that you ultimately burn more calories. Will it still be okay with the summer body!

But also a wedding, which partly took place in a real temple in India and partly, for a large group of people who did not fit in that temple, in the metaverse. Yes, you can already reserve your own spot at the first metaverse cemetery.

Governments are also looking at the possibilities of building their activities in the metaverse. For the military, the possibilities are endless: preparing missions, viewing scenarios and training soldiers. Combined with the rise of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), free online courses and education, great metaverse educational institutions can be set up for children from all over the world to attend virtually. The first metaverse university is a fact and the first existing universities are exploring the possibilities.

Metaverse, not Meta!

When I talk about metaverse at events, I hear a lot of people say that they assumed that Meta builds the (only) metaverse. But several metaverses are already active: the major game builders of Fortnite, for example, claim that their game is actually already a kind of metaverse and there are all kinds of open solutions, such as Decentraland and The Sandbox.

Here is another interesting development. I’m not a big fan of Meta due to the endless stream of scandals surrounding the misuse of user data. According to research from Stanford, being active in the metaverse for 20 minutes provides 20 million data points. With VR headsets, companies can collect all kinds of new data: how people’s legs, hands and bodies move, when the pupils of their eyes contract and dilate, and how their minds react. I don’t know if I want to put all that data in the hands of a company known for exploiting the data commercially.

But what if Meta develops a similar model for retailers to easily create a place in the metaverse? Just like they did with Instagram Shopping? This will ensure that many more companies can join the metaverse. Such a model seems to be already being developed in China by Alibaba. Apple is now also investing in the metaverse.

Metaverse Innovations

The innovations are actually not possible without the involvement of large companies with a lot of money. The development itself alone costs a lot of money. Meta estimates it will cost $10 billion this year already. I also see cool, decentralized and open-source metaverses emerging, managed and built by the users themselves. They do this with the structure of a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO). The rules are designed by the users. Fully democratic. Since the rules are programmed on the blockchain, misconduct is prevented. Doing evil is automatically made impossible.

According to Meta, it will still take a few years before we really use the metaverse en masse. VR experts also predict that the hype cycle will not just continue to spiral upwards at the moment. There are now all kinds of flourishing discussions about the necessary legal frameworks and, of course, studies are also being conducted into the effects of, for example, the long-term use of metaverse on the body. I will continue to follow developments closely!

Jan Scheele is active in the web3 (blockchain, crypto, NFTs, DeFi) industry since 2013. Besides (former) CEO of a web3 scaleup and founder of an advisory boutique (working for governments, family offices and several multinationals), he is Digital Leader at the World Economic Forum and Board Member at the Blockchain Netherlands Foundation (BCNL). He is writing, consulting, speaking and training regularly about everything web3, all over the world. Furthermore, he is currently finalizing his book about the rise and global impact of blockchain technology.

Easy ‘money grab’ or an endless new stream of possibilities for organizations? Even though the first NFT was already made in 2014, developments have gone through the roof in the past year. More and more organizations are making full use of the many new possibilities that technology offers, in addition to simply making money selling items. In this article I share 4 possibilities to use NFTs for your organization.

NFTs have opened up a whole new type of economy in the past year. It allows digital creators, artists, brands and others to offer unique digital assets that only have one owner at a time. They have also opened up a whole new field of marketing for organizations in my view. Which opens up new ways to engage customers and fans, offer new types of experiences, increase brand awareness and loyalty, and create new revenue streams.

1. Get rid of flippos and frequent flyer miles

Not only sports clubs, but all types of organizations use NFTs to get fans more involved. For example, by giving certain benefits and extras to every person who sells an NFT, or by giving away NFTs for free to a group of fans (a so-called ‘airdrop’). An American newspaper gave away special tours of NASA for its loyal readers. Tequila brand Patrón gave away virtual bottles of tequila. And Paris Hilton gave the audience of ‘The Tonight Show’ all an NFT as a thank you for coming.

Previously, the American basketball organization NBA has been very successful by selling $350 million in NFTs of all “top shots” made in the competition. Many football clubs such as FC Barcelona and PSV are now also issuing NFTs and the purchase of a club in England is even financed by the sale of NFTs.

A wide variety of models are used here, from reward to decision, to get fans more involved. Reward by giving something extra when loyal fans buy an NFT or by giving a group of fans a free NFT. To be involved, for example by allowing everyone who has bought a certain (group of) NFTs to participate in the decision-making process. For example, the football clubs Fortuna Sittard and Juventus allow owners of their NFTs to participate in the decision-making process about the design and furnishing of the new players’ bus.

2. The mycelium

Setting up a community through NFTs can also be incredibly powerful. A nice recent example of this is VeeFriends, which was founded by marketing guru Gary Vaynerchuk. He spent just over 10,000 NFTs, all of which give access to his online community and events. In addition, they also have different properties and the rarest of them gives the opportunity for a one-on-one conversation with Gary.

The NFT communities are springing up like mushrooms and NFTs are therefore also referred to as ‘social currencies’ within communities. Many organizations are also cleverly responding to this. For example, you only enter the virtual Playboy community (“the mansion”) if you have one of the 12,000 “Rabbitar” NFTs. One of the most famous and best clubs worldwide, the Amnesia in Ibiza (where I am a consultant), has since recreated its club in the Metaverse, where you only enter certain VIP decks if you have a certain type of NFT.

A successful NFT project starts with looking at your community.

The power of a community

In my view, a successful NFT project starts with looking at your community. Looking at what’s going on and what people really care about. They start from the bottom up, not from the top. If we look at the way organizations get in touch and stay in touch with their customers, you see that this is actually no longer about the organization itself, but really about the ideas, stories and shared passion(s) that bring people together. A good example of this is the ‘DinnerDAO’.

The community aspect and story is, in my opinion, just as important as the NFT itself. Recently I heard the wonderful comparison of an NFT community with a mycelium. The interconnected fungal network that forms a community, much like tree roots are interconnected.

I previously wrote about Decentralized Automone Organizations (DAOs) that are basically programmed organizations on the blockchain, where the ‘rules’ are laid down in so-called ‘smart contracts’. DAOs are also usually the technical foundation for NFT communities. A good example here is the DinnerDAO. You can join here by purchasing a particular NFT and then gain access to the community, where the restaurants are discussed for the next dinner party. Voting is decentralized via Snapshot and payments for food are automatically arranged via cryptocurrencies.

3. Digital twins

Juices, nutmeg and talapia fillet were the first consumer products where, with blockchain technology, consumers could view the entire supply chain with an app, see who was paid what at each step of the process and whether claims such as ‘sustainable’ were correct. An infinite number of consumer goods are now being put on the blockchain, from medicines to vegetables. When I speak about this, I often hear mostly jeers and questions why this is necessary. But an average of 500,000 people still die each year from wrong food and hundreds of thousands of people from fake medicines, according to the World Health Organization.

When you buy an expensive branded bag or shoes, you want them to be genuine and not to take home a copy. That’s why you see more and more brands, such as Prada, Cartier and Louis Vuitton, turning their physical items into an NFT as well. So that you, as the owner, can see if the item is genuine by scanning a QR code.

Nike goes a step further with its ‘cryptokicks’ and even lets users customize and resell the digital shoes in the app. In addition, the company recently set up the platform Cryptokickers, with which you can design your own virtual Nikes, make them an NFT and sell them immediately.

A ‘clone’ of your physical product

It is not only the well-known clothing brands that turn physical products into an NFT. From winegrowers to bank producers, countless companies are creating a ‘digital twin’ of existing physical products. This is fairly easy to do and not only can be interesting as a new way to reward loyal customers, more and more companies are also making good money selling NFTs. Adidas sold more than $20 million worth of NFT sportswear last year.

Are these ‘digital twins’ only useful to have? No, they’re going to play a big part in the metaverse, which I wrote about earlier. Even though it is still a ‘far from my bed show’ for many people, it is coming closer faster than we think. Microsoft is already working on Mesh, the Metaverse version of Microsoft Teams. When you’re 3D in a meeting or in the previously described metaverse version of the Amnesia club, do you want to be a standard 3D pawn, or wear cool Nike and GAP NFTs?

4. NFTs: good for charities

Not only commercial companies, but also charities can use NFTs in a new, unique way. I was sad that the World Wildlife Fund’s “Non-Fungible Animals” project was eventually cancelled. They wanted to start selling beautiful NFTs for the conservation of 10 endangered species.

Several charities have already used NFTs strategically for awareness-raising and fundraising, such as: ocean conservation and land conservation,
education for women in Afghanistan, Taco Bell sold NFT wraps to fund scholarships for underprivileged children, and Charmin sold NFT toilet rolls to people in extreme poverty. Charities are finding it increasingly difficult to raise money, especially among the younger generations. NFTs can be a wonderful way to let this target group contribute to the goal in an innovative way and also to become more aware of the necessity.

Developments are accelerating in the field of NFT:

Samsung has already announced that it will support NFTs in both its new TVs and mobile phones, in Asia there is already more searches on Google for ‘NFTs’ than for ‘crypto’, and As I wrote in my previous blog, the technology is developing so insanely fast that all kinds of new possibilities are being added at a rapid pace, such as POABs and PFPs. WWF rejected the NFT project because of the energy consumption involved in making NFTs. According to the most current and reliable estimates, NFTs cost as much energy as the city of Singapore consumes.

Now there are now NFT platforms that are so energy efficient that they even use 5 times less energy than a transaction with the VISA card. But the transition to these platforms is difficult. I am getting more excited every day about the possibilities of NFTs as a foundation for a new digital economy. A day in NFT land now seems like a year in a person’s life. Developments go so fast. I will continue to follow them closely.

Jan Scheele is active in the web3 (blockchain, crypto, NFTs, DeFi) industry since 2013. Besides (former) CEO of a web3 scaleup and founder of an advisory boutique (working for governments, family offices and several multinationals), he is Digital Leader at the World Economic Forum and Board Member at the Blockchain Netherlands Foundation (BCNL). He is writing, consulting, speaking and training regularly about everything web3, all over the world. Furthermore, he is currently finalizing his book about the rise and global impact of blockchain technology.