Estimated Read Time: 6 minutes

Hey friends,

In today’s specially curated edition, we cover the latest blockchain news in our weekly brew-up, alongside some optimistic NFT news from China and Lamborghini, so let's jump into it!

Overall, it was a tumultuous weekend for crypto as we saw Bitcoin fall below $20,000 for the first time in two months. Ethereum shared a similar fate as it danced with weekly lows of $1,400; however, both managed to recover to previous levels leading into Monday.

This downward pressure came after Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), the 16th largest commercial lender in the U.S., underwent a major restructuring while trying to raise $2.2 billion in capital, which led to SVB announcing it had to dispose of its entire securities portfolio at a significant loss. There are no doubt cold feet in the market, but let's check out what's been heating up in the blockchain industry.

This week the Reserve Bank of Australia outlined their retail and wholesale Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) in partnership with the second-largest payment-processing corporation in the world, Mastercard. The current roll-out is just a pilot project and focuses on an interoperable CBDC for trusted Web3 commerce that enables an Australian digital currency on public blockchains.

What's interesting here is the pilot proposal allows a CBDC to pay for an Ethereum NFT, however for the transaction to be successful the buyer, seller, and smart contract must be whitelisted, exemplifying a sneak peek at how public blockchains could be regulated with things like enforcing know-your-customer (KYC) rules. Despite how this pilot goes, the Reserve Bank of Australia partnering with Mastercard for testing out Web3 is a pretty bullish sign for blockchain solutions.

To drive away from monetary uses of the blockchain, the German automaker goliath Audi has announced an ambitious pilot recycling project in partnership with blockchain software platform Circularise in an effort to “operate a highly efficient circular economy concept for end-of-life vehicles, to recover as many materials as possible at a high level of quality and reuse them in production” said Audi CEO Markus Duesmann.

So how does the blockchain get involved in recycling car parts? Well, Circularise Founder Mesbah Sabur best summarizes this by saying “With digital product passports we can support traceability and accounting of the materials, processes, and impacts at each step of the value chain, this makes it easier for automotive suppliers and OEMs to accurately measure the LCA (lifecycle assessment) and carbon footprint of vehicles as well as make more informed decisions regarding the circular vehicle production”.

These digital product passports are an excellent example of the blockchain's ability to improve transparency, traceability, and accountability of products and services as we move to a more sustainable and digital world.

China’s “Two Sessions” is the nation's most important annual political gathering, where thousands of delegates descend on capital Beijing to discuss legislation, personnel changes and the government budget over the next two weeks. At this prestigious event, there is set to be proposed regulatory frameworks for NFTs to establish a clear legal definition of digital collectibles, lay out market access rules for NFT trading platforms and enhance copyright protection for NFTs, according to a local media report. The proposal is headed by parliament member Feng Qiya who has a focus on clamping down the illegal NFT speculation to prevent the “financialization and securitization” of digital collectibles.

China’s governmental authorities have had a positive interest in NFTs that includes our own coverage of their government-regulated NFT platform and court laws to protect NFTs as virtual property. The upcoming discussions on legislation signify another step in the right direction for regulating and legitimizing the new technology. Feng Qiya was quoted saying “While the digital collection industry is developing rapidly, the current supervision is still based on industry self-discipline and local regulations, lacking a top-down supervision system coordinated by multiple departments”.

Despite the question of whether this “decentralized” technology should become heavily regulated, in our current world this clampdown can be seen as an inevitable step as we inch closer to mainstream adoption of Web3s next generation of the internet. A world power like China taking action to get behind and support NFTs rather than outright outlawing them should be seen as a monumental positive step toward this Web3 world.

Last newsletter saw the return of “Back To The Future” DeLorean automaker with NFT production car slots, but they aren’t the only cars traveling to the future —— because since last August, the no-introduction-required Automobili Lamborghini has been dropping limited-edition “The Epic Road Trip” NFTs each month, with the final launch just around the corner on 20th March.

Depending on the NFTs collected throughout the initiative, holders have unlocked various utilities such as access to its exclusive community, unique sketches from Lamborghini's Head of Design, VIP tours of the headquarters, first looks at upcoming cars, and sneak peeks at Lambos Metaverse through GLB files.

Although the 8 drops are coming to an end, Marketing Director Christian Mastro says the company is committed to continually innovating within the space.

Lamborghini has been an early adopter of Web3 and NFTs as they continue to develop innovative engagement platforms that deepen its relationships with customers and fans, exemplifying the new opportunities that this technology has opened up for brands, we can't wait to see what comes next.

If today's news from Audi and Lamborghini fueled up your interest in Web3 automakers, you’ll love our latest in-depth project breakdown which covered Porsche’s NFT collection and how they went from only selling 20% of their 0.911 ETH mint to a few days later having a floor price over 3 ETH.

Check this out, linked below.

Porsche NFTs Shift into High Gear: A Tale of Mint Failure to Revving Success

But until next time, have a great couple of days, and take care!

Wow, what a weekend, huh?

We thought the biggest drama leading into the weekend would be the reveal that Claire Silver’s artwork was not actually going to be shown at the Louvre, courtesy of some tricky wording from Paris Blockchain Week.

Boy, were we wrong about that; Silicon Valley Bank stole the headlines by collapsing in less than 48 hours.

One of the crypto projects affected was Circle, who had 3.3 million USD in Silicon Valley Bank. They are best known for issuance of USDC, which for a while depegged from its $1 price and dropped to as low as $0.86 while holders tried to derisk.

This led to some interesting arbitrage scenarios:

Of course, being a go-to banking option for startups, there were ripple effects in multiple NFT projects, the largest probably being PROOF and Moonbirds.

People didn’t like the vagueness of this announcement which did not specify the amounts lost with Silicon Valley Bank.

It’s been a turbulent market for the ‘MCD’ trio — Moonbirds, CloneX by RTFKT and Doodles have all tumbled down from double-digit floor prices to roughly 4 ETH due to all sorts of bad decisions and holder sentiment.

Only time and delivering on promised executables will tell if these “blue-chip” projects are here to stay.

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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.