Welcome to another edition of The Scoop, the newsletter that is always there for you. Even when major banks and crypto projects are getting knocked down and out. 

The Big Scoop

It’s time for the big idea that drives this whole newsletter a.k.a. The Big Scoop.

It’s obvious that the lines between Web2 and Web3 are becoming blurry. That’s good for adoption, not so good for one’s eyesight.👀

How do we know this? Elon Musk is officially the owner of Twitter. He’s already proposing that everybody with a blue verification checkmark on their profile pay a monthly fee to keep it.

Musk will undoubtedly make many changes like that to try to make the platform profitable. He’ll also have to play a tricky balancing act with it because he wants to empower the user with the ability to speak freely on the platform which makes it more of a utility.

The real question within the context of The Scoop of course is, what is this takeover going to do for crypto and Web3?

In case you’re wondering, it’s already having an impact on Dogecoin, which is up more than 90% in the last seven days.

It also affects Binance and FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried. Binance invested $500 million to make the deal happen. SBF maintains a 0.1%-0.2% stake in the platform.

Just because Elon is thriving it doesn’t mean that every Web2 leader is. Mark Zuckerberg’s company Meta it is getting crushed right now. The share price is hitting lows not seen since 2016.

Perhaps Zuck’s big metaverse move doesn’t have legs? (get it? Because Zuck’s first Avatar had no legs?)

He’s losing billions right now trying to build out his virtual world and there are very few people living in that world despite the fact Facebook has billions of users.

Lines are also blurring in the world of NFT marketplaces and royalties. LooksRare stole the hearts of the NFT community when the project offered staking rewards that made people rich during its launch in a good ol’ fashioned vampire attack on OpenSea.

Now the platform is giving some of its protocol earnings back to creators while making royalty payments optional for buyers.

Doesn’t it seem like NFT platforms are now in a race to the royalty-free bottom?

The News

Elon Musk Officially Takes Over Takes Twitter Over; What It Means for Crypto

After a lot of back and forth, Elon Musk finally became the owner of Twitter, and he’s already making big moves.

Following the $44 billion deal, Musk revealed one of the first changes to the platform–charging $20 monthly for blue checkmarks indicating verified users. Accounts already equipped with the checkmark will have to pay the monthly fee, or it will be removed within 90 days after the product launch.

Though this move is seen as controversial, many in the crypto world are anxiously awaiting to see what changes are implemented to make Twitter a more Web3-friendly platform.

Some anticipated crypto features Musk could implement are the use of on-chain identification to solve the bots problem. Binance is reportedly creating a team to help solve Twitter’s bots issue.

Binance has also confirmed that it’s an equity investor in the Twitter acquisition and plans to “play a role in bringing social media and Web3 together.” The company has committed $500 million for the takeover to help bring social media and news sites into the world of Web3. 

Twitter could also have its own NFT marketplace and allow more cryptocurrencies for tipping. 

The move has already had a significant impact in the crypto world as Musk’s beloved meme coin DOGE rose meteorically, jumping 91% over the past week. 

Though integrating crypto and Web3 features in the platform will be both complex and closely watched, Musk buying the platform opens up the potential for them and make Twitter a Web3 platform in the process. 

NFT Marketplace LooksRare Becomes First to Share Protocol Fees with Creators in Bid to Follow Royalty-Free Trend

NFT marketplace LooksRare has eliminated creator royalties to encourage NFT sales. 

The decision was made by the third largest NFT marketplace on Ethereum in response to the downward trajectory seen over the last few months due to the bear market. 

The decision also came from the “growth of zero-royalty marketplaces, which has eroded the general willingness to pay royalties throughout the NFT space.” 

LooksRare’s new structure will share 25% of the protocol fees with creators and collection owners to support them. In turn, the protocol hopes to facilitate better conditions for NFT sellers while supporting creators and collection owners.

The NFT marketplace has already shown its willingness to get ahead of the competition, as back during its launch in January 2022, the platform carried out a vampire attack on the industry’s leading platform with an airdrop for OpenSea users. LooksRare offered to stake rewards to users as long as they were willing to sell their NFTs on its platform.

With this in mind, it is no surprise that the platform would implement a royalty-free protocol as it is what most other marketplaces are doing, and they are known to try to one-up other platforms by giving away some of their protocol fees.

All of this indicates a war on fees.

This could also lead to NFT marketplaces consolidating and getting swallowed up by larger companies, similar to what is being seen with exchanges right now. When creators realize their options are limited regarding marketplaces that allow them to earn royalties, the intellectual property will naturally move to those platforms and away from the royalty-free ones.

While this is excellent news for individuals involved in NFT trading, it is overall bad for creators, as royalties served as a source of passive income for them.

Chart.

Did you hear that Facebook (aka Meta Platforms) stock went down a whopping 22% this past week? That’s right! The company missed earnings last week by a wide margin and lost over $700 billion in the last quarter.

 The company’s metaverse play clearly isn’t a good short-term investment. There are only 200,000 monthly users in “Horizon Worlds” and the company has lost $9.4 billion on the metaverse project this year alone.

You’ll be glad to know that Mark Zuckerberg still wants to pump at least $10 billion a year into the metaverse. That’s good news, right?

 Perhaps Meta should have taken a page out of Reddit’s book and started selling profile picture NFTs first rather than starting with a huge splash like building an entire metaverse. Time will tell⏲

Fundraising In Web3.

Around $58 million~ in venture capital funding made its way into the coffers of startup crypto and Web3 companies this week. Let’s see how the skrill was dished out by big money VCs in the past seven days 💲💸💰🧀:

• Origami raises $6.2 million led by Beta Bloomberg. The project aims to help DAOs go from community to early-stage growth company. 

• Exclusible raises $5 million to build a luxury brand-focused NFT platform. The company is already partnered with big brands like Bugatti and Formula 1.

• Decentralized ride sharing app Teleport raises $9 million as it aims to compete with Uber

Education.

It’s time to get you to learn on once again!

The Study Space is here. It’s a safe place to learn all about fundamental Web3 principles that will get you another step further in your journey as you grow your presence in the digital ownership economy.

DAOs are often attached to NFT and metaverse projects as a way to decentralize decision-making and the management of money that a given project has to access to, but what is a DAO? It’s a Decentralized Autonomous Organization. Let’s dive deeper into that.

• What is a DAO?

Scoop Meme

It’s meme time!😁

The Final Scoop

The winds of change are blowing.💨 

Change is going to be a constant in Web3. It’s how innovation happens. The question is, who is going to lead that change? Right now it appears to be influential figures with giant centralized businesses behind them like Musk and Zuckerberg.

In the long run however, creators and owners need to lead the change. Web3 platforms, whether we’re talking about the Metaverse or NFT platforms etc., need to stay decentralized, maintain their sense of community, and continue to suck value away from Web2 leaders, and make you, the individual, the leader by moving that value over to Web3.

Share The Scoop

If we could get DogeFather Elon to share The Scoop, we’d have a billion readers.

Since we don’t have that kind of pull, you’re the driving force behind our growing COMMUNITY.

Please share this link with friends and family: https://cirusfoundation.com/thescoop/ 

 Keep it Web3 friend, because every Web3 avatar should stand on its own legs🦵