#103 | The Debut of NFT-Gated Video Calls

Estimated Read Time: 6 minutes

Hey friends,

Wonderful to have you join us today! In today’s specially curated edition we have some great stories from the first-ever Web3 version of Zoom, Reddit’s insane onboarding success and SONY’s NFT incubator program. Let’s just jump into it!

The idea of a video calling platform is pretty unanimous with the internet these days and not something people tend to get excited for, but back in the day when the likes of Skype first came on the scene, it was a pretty revolutionary experience that helped found the digital world we know of today. Well, with the transition of the web to Web3 maybe video platforms are something worth talking about again especially when it's a first of its kind like Brave's new privacy-focused NFT-integrated video service.

Brave is home to a Web3-integrated browser and they have just announced “the first-ever fully integrated Web3 live event platform, combining browser, wallet and video” all facilitated by NFTs. The recently-introduced tools hold high hopes for NFT projects wanting to privately converse with other holders in their community with Brave facilitating efficient, secure and tailored digital interactions. The concept is pretty simple with the new Brave Talk tool allowing hosts to use NFTs and POAPs to manage access to online calls and conferences instead of simple Web2 passwords that led to those Zoom meeting party crashers I’m sure we all saw during covid.

Although it may be hard to imagine everyday NFT-gated calling, The privacy-focused browser and search engine have surpassed 50 million monthly active users, and in February the company introduced additional support for Solana dapps on iOS and Android versions of Brave alongside its existing Ethereum support. When it comes to Web3 a common saying that goes around is “were early”, but when considering stories that show the first ever NFT gated access to video calling, it’s hard to deny how early we really are.

Over the last year, we have seen increasing adoption of NFTs on social media platforms, whether that was Instagram releasing an in-app NFT marketplace or Facebook adding an NFT section to your profile. However, one of the biggest success stories was last July when we covered Reddit’s partnership with Polygon to integrate NFT “Collectible Avatars”. According to Dune Analytics, in the last 11 months, these NFT avatars have continued to grow in popularity and have just surpassed 9,909,465 million unique holders.

To put the scale of Reddit's success in perspective, the end of 2021 saw a total of only 28 million unique wallets that held all NFTs in total, so Reddit is no doubt playing an important role in helping the space move toward future mainstream adoption. Since the beginning of 2023, the number of Reddit avatar holders has increased by 80% with more than 13.7 million NFT avatars floating out there. But, as this story shows it's not just some people hoarding multiple avatar designs for their profile picture wardrobe, because from the 9.9 million holders around 7.7 million of them are identified as single collective avatar holders.

Whether you're a keen Redditor or not, nearly 10 million people onboarded into Web3 with 13.7 million mints is no small feat. That cements Reddit as a key player in our space, and in a positive way too where this is likely people's first interactions with NFTs and in a form that gives them not only ownership over their digital identity, but involves finite collectibles and community building, precisely what newcomers need in the space as we continue trotting on towards mainstream adoption.

When it comes to Web2 conglomerates making a splash in Web3, it’s hard to look past PlayStation parent company Sony who in March of this year released plans titled ‘NFT Framework For Transferring And Using Digital Assets Between Game Platforms’ that hinted at a major disruption to the $300 billion gaming industry with the idea of cross-platform NFT-enabled digital assets truly paving the way for a Metaverse. Well, it seems Sony is doubling down on Web3 because now they are looking to branch out even more and this time through an incubator program.

The company has teamed up with Astar, a Japanese smart contract platform and blockchain developer in an effort to support innovative projects within the emerging NFT and Web3 space. Sony is looking to progress Web3 by providing financial and technical support to selected firms at the various stages of development, and since the process started in February, 19 projects have been selected with a newly announced “demo day” scheduled for mid-June where Sony will pull in potential investors and industry experts to help foster potential collaborations between established players and promising startups.

Last edition we covered Formula 1 and PFL adopting NFT tickets showing the promise of Web3-backed digital ticketing, and it’s a concept that’s not slowing down with one of the incubator programs participants Snickerdoodle Labs issuing NFT tickets to the “demo day” event to really make this an event of the future for companies looking to pioneer the future. With the adoption of any new emerging technology, it can be pretty hard to get a foothold for these start-ups that truly are pushing the boundaries, but with players like Sony embracing the technology and supporting the next generation of the internet, the future looks bright.

There’s been a lot of discussion this week comparing Moonbirds and Bored Ape Yacht Club… stemming from comparisons Moonbirds founder Kevin Rose has made.

In case you can’t listen to the audio in that tweet, what he says is that Moonbirds has dropped in ETH less than that of BAYC, so they’re doing better in that regards!

That’s not how basic economics works.

Even Franklin came out to tweet about Moonbirds…

It does seem like birds are popular with the NFT crowd, because the other big news of the week was with Pixel Penguins, a project “to support a cancer patient” which quickly turned into a rug once it minted out.

It preyed on well-known collector Andrew Wang’s kindness and lured other kind collectors into the same trap.

Oh well, at least they aren’t sending influencers ETH for new iPhones.

Oh wait…

Thanks for joining us today, we hope you enjoyed this specially curated edition. We will see you soon on the next Morning NFTea!

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DISCLAIMER:

None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.