This week, Google made a major shift in their policy on NFTs, giving apps on the Google Play Store the ability to buy, sell, or earn tokenized assets. Meanwhile, Starbucks Odyssey, the brand’s Web3 loyalty program, announced that their next stamp would be “designed by Aku,” the NFT character launched by former LA Dodgers player turned artist, Micah Johnson.
In other news: Snoop Doog and 16z-backed decentralized music company Sound announced a $20 million round of funding, and we got another “phygital” sneaker drop.
This week’s alpha
Google lets you play with Web3: Google made a big announcement this week, with a 180 on in-game tokenized assets like NFTs and allowing Play Store apps to buy, sell, and earn digital assets. Developers using blockchain-based elements should make this clear on their Play Store page and ensure they are not in violation of Google’s Betting and Contest Policies.
Good game: Immutable Labs co-founder Robbie Ferguson called it a “huge step for clarity for mobile developers and adoption by the general public,” in a Twitter thread.
Mining apps still banned: On a less glossy note, crypto mining apps will continue to be banned for the foreseeable future.
Starbucks preps next NFT journey: Coffee giant Odyssey’s Web3 loyalty program revealed its next digital collectible would be “designed by Aku,” a character created by former Major League Baseball player Micah Johnson. The Aku collection is all about encouraging young children to dream big. As part of the release, Starbucks will donate $100,000 to Blessings in a Backpack, a non-profit organization that addresses childhood food insecurity.
Turn up the volume: In June, tweets from Beats by Dre and AkuDreams teased a partnership with Aku-themed headphones, but no details have been revealed about when those Beats will be released.
From Home Plate to Space: Micah Johnson spoke to CoinDesk last year about his journey from the LA Dodgers to a successful career as an NFT artist and creator and how he’s trying to “blend the physical and digital worlds” with Aku.
$20 million sounds good: Can creators earn a sustainable income selling their creations to fans through decentralized platforms? Snoop Dogg and a16z are betting yes and backing a $20 million funding round for Sound, a platform that allows artists to hit their songs on-chain as NFTs and has already helped music makers generate $5.5 million.Hip-hop drops make noise: Celebrations of hip-hop’s 50th anniversary are ramping up, with a collaboration between Puma, Roc Nation and Legitimate to release today a “Mixtape” of “Phygital” sneakers that unlock exclusive digital music content.
Project in the news
Chrome SquigglesWho: Snowfro aka Erick CalderonWhat: The iconic, colorful Chromie Squiggle NFTs formed the genesis collection for generative art NFT platform Art Blocks in November 2020. The original release of the NFTs that resemble rainbow scribbles cost just 0.035 ETH (about $23 at the time) and as of writing have a bottom price of just over 10 ETH, or nearly $20,000. After the initial issue of 9,040 NFTs, the remaining NFTs in the 10,000 collection will be minted by Calderon at its discretion.Why: This week, Calderon revealed he’d be hitting 81 more NFTs on Twitter, but then disappointed hopeful buyers by informing readers that none would be for sale. Instead, Calderon explained that he had earmarked all of the valuable NFTs for people and organizations who had supported him and Art Blocks over the years. We spoke to Calderon to find out more about the reasons behind his latest coin and who got a Squiggle.
In other news
Enter the Slurpeeverse: Convenience store 7-Eleven extended their annual celebration of the date it shares its name with Web3 with free Slurpee NFTs. Now fans of the super sweet frozen drink can get brain freeze in the metaverse I guess?Seedphrase signs with WME: The self-described “No. 1 CryptoPunk” announced that he would be represented by powerful talent agency WME to “expand the Seedphrase brand through partnerships in luxury fashion, music and digital art.”Get a Banksy Loan: NFT Project Particle, which fractionates art in the form of NFTs, is lending his Banksy painting “Love is in the Air” to museums around the world. The piece’s co-owners voted to approve the move.
Non-fungible toolkit
What is ActivityPub?
On July 6, Meta released their Twitter alternative, Threads, and it has already handily passed 100 million downloads. One of the interesting promises of the new app is that it will support ActivityPub, a decentralized social media protocol, meaning users can interact with other platforms in the so-called fediverse like Mastodon and vice versa.
So what is the ActivityPub protocol and what is the fediverse? Here’s what you need to know.