#78 | MetaMask x Unity Partnership Set to Reach 3.9 Billion Users

Estimated Read Time: 7 minutes

Hey friends,

On today's edition of Morning NFTea we have a great Blockchain Brew-Up covering the likes of Google, as well as big NFT industry news from MetaMask & Unity to a Korean conglomerate's revolutionary partnership with Polygon. Let's jump into it!

Not the best week for crypto with flat price action taking a turn after Bitcoin and Ethereum saw a sharp 7% decline. Crypto bank Silvergate’s stock price fell over 57% after some book auditing problems, which has now put Bitcoin and Ethereum below their 20-day moving averages. Despite this, Bitcoin and Ethereum are still up 32% and 26% year to date so let’s see if can keep the momentum going.

In some more positive brew-up news, Enterprise blockchain software company Casper Labs has announced a new expanded collaboration with Google Cloud. Yes that Google, who arguably has a monopoly on the current Web2 landscape, but who may be pushing for Web3 as Casper Labs will now help enterprise users of Google's cloud service build and scale blockchain projects and infrastructure on the Casper Protocol.

The press release stated "Google Cloud will provide the needed infrastructure for Casper Labs' professional services team to deploy and manage blockchain solutions that can meet customer's needs from both a private and hybrid perspective". Any blockchain news from the all-mighty Google is all-around good news for the internet's transition to Web3, and so far the signs are looking good.

It would be hard to go a brew-up without mentioning a new country looking to utilize the blockchain for its financial system, and this week we saw the United Kingdom Treasury Committee holding a hearing with officials from the Bank of England (BofE) on using a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).

It was bullish for crypto adoption, where through multiple rounds of questioning Deputy Governor Sir Jon Cunliffe said there's a more than 50% chance that a retail CBDC will launch in the future, and although a CBDC is likely to be needed, the decision on if the BofE should launch one has not yet been taken, “it would be complacent to assume that those new technologies will not develop and that people will not find ways to integrate payment operations much more deeply into digital platforms”. With the Bank of England joining the bandwagon for a positive outlook on the blockchain, it’s easy to start imagining a Web3 world down the road.

MetaMask needs no introduction as one of the most popular crypto wallets out there, with over 30 million active users that help consumers navigate and participate in Web3 through its browser extension and mobile app. The parent company ConsenSys says "A global user base relies on MetaMask to mint and collect NFTs, join DAOs, and participate in DeFi protocols”, and this global user base is about to get a whole lot bigger through a huge partnership with Unity Technologies.

If you haven't heard of Unity, they are the developer of one of the world's most used 3D game engines acting as the foundation for most of the games out in the wild, where according to the company, all the way back in 2021 every month 3.9 billion users played games built on Unity, and their tech underpins 70% of the top 1,000 mobile games and over 50% across all types of platforms. The news here? Unity has recently introduced decentralization as a category in its store for the world's game developers, with Metamask spearheading Web3 gaming mainstream adoption through its new wallet Software Development Kit (SDK), acting as a set of ready-to-go tools and resources for software developers.

What this all means is game developers that already use one of the world's most popular game engines can now seamlessly connect their games to one of the world’s most popular Web3 wallets, bringing easily intractable Web3-enabled features to the world's most popular games. Gaming has received a bunch of attention from Web3, with NFTs creating the opportunity for players to actually own their digital game assets, and alongside MetaMask pushing this transition by putting its self-custodial wallet in the hands of users, they also announced a Web3 early adopter program to help the Web3 transition for developers. When it comes to the prospect of NFT mainstream adoption, the $200+ billion gaming industry starting to look into Web3 shows there is no doubt big stuff coming down the pipeline for this new technology.

Finishing off with more industry news, the fifth largest conglomerate in South Korea called the Lotte Group will be expanding its operations in manufacturing, hotels, and e-commerce to Web3 through a new collaboration with Polygon. Polygon has recently jumped to the third-largest blockchain in NFT sales through its multiple industry partners like Starbucks, Adidas, Disney, and Meta to name a few, and now Lotte is hoping to join the party with actions like migrating its existing “BellyGom NFTs” to the Ethereum side-chain.

Lotte’s marketing hub Daehong Communications recently announced the extension of its NFT business to international markets with the help of Polygon, including its BellyGom NFTs that are used to give holders real-life benefits related to Lotte’s products and services including hotel vouchers and shopping coupons. According to a Polygon representative, “Polygon and Daehong are technical partners and counterparties that give marketing help as needed”, outlining how the partnership is set to help Lotte’s global reach while helping NFT adoption for companies that can create and monetize digital content.

Even if you haven't heard of Lotte, the Korean conglomerate looking at accelerating the global advancement of various NFT projects with leading domestic and foreign companies, while leveraging the Polygon Foundation is a positive sign for Web3 as they join the ever-growing list of legacy companies embracing the potential of this new revolutionary technology.

This weekend has been all about Owls.

No, I’m not talking about Moonbirds, although they did have a Town Hall towards the end of last week giving updates on (mostly canceling) many of their roadmap activations.

No, I’m talking about these adorable ASCII generated Owls.

Owls started as a free mint, but after exploding in floor price to highs of roughly 0.4 ETH in less than 24 hours, the founder has doxxed and announced future plans to build out the project (a precedent famously set earlier this year by Jack Butcher with his Checks project).

As a result, rather than following the patterns of most one-hit wonders, the floor price of Owls has held steady at within the 0.3-0.4 ETH range and has birthed a new meta of ASCII-formed NFTs including Dicks and Cats.

The NFT space never ceases to surprise, does it?

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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.