Hey,

This is The Scoop. That newsletter that charges you 30% less than Apple does (aka nothing) on every NFT sale you make (because your royalties should be YOUR royalties.)

The Big Scoop

The biggest scoop for this week that you will clearly see is that we are working on a new format for our darling newsletter!

We have been hearing your requests and our goal is to keep adding value to your Web 3 journey!

Now that you know, let's get into the main Big Scoop!...

Apple is taking a giant cut of NFT sales through its App Store, and Lebanon’s government is limiting withdrawals. The Big Scoop for this week is, Web2 platforms and banks treat you like a consumer. Crypto and Web3 make you the owner!!!

#Web34ever

The News

Apple Allows NFT Sales in App Store; Charging Devs 30% Commission.

As of Friday last week, everyone’s favourite smartphone creator, Apple, is allowing NFT purchases to take place on the iOS App Store.

While this initially appears like fantastic news for NFT collectors and creators alike–there are two significant caveats:

• Apple will be taking a staggering 30% commission from all NFTs sold through its proprietary store;

• and transactions will all be conducted using USD rather than crypto.

This massive cut is in line with other regular in-app purchases made on the iOS and Android app stores and Google Play. So to Apple and other app stores, this is standard procedure, but when it comes to NFT sales, this decision sticks out.

Most NFT marketplaces, like OpenSea, take a 2.5% commission on all NFT sales–so this juxtaposition is jarring, to say the least.

Florian Mueller, an esteemed tech blogger, made an excellent point when referring to Apple’s “app tax” on NFT sales, calling it “abusive but consistent.”

All transactions being conducted using USD rather than crypto could also make things challenging for marketplaces due to the volatility of the crypto market (especially these days).

This decision will bring down many small NFT businesses as they can’t sustain such a cut in sales. This has also caused other marketplaces, like Solana’s NFT market Magic Eden, to remove their service from Apple’s app store, while others have reported limited functionality due to the hefty commission fees.

However, there is a silver lining.

Apple’s iOS app store has over a billion users worldwide. While Apple’s decision to add NFT purchases to the store does come with a hefty 30% commission fee, the move is still putting NFTs in the hands of an eighth of the world’s population.

Lebanese Citizens Turning to Crypto in Droves as Banks Limit Withdrawals.

As the US laments 8% inflation, the value of the Lebanese pound has been hit by more than 90% inflation, causing the citizens to start taking things into their own hands.

Lebanon is facing one of the worst economic collapses since the 19th century, leading to the Lebanese pound losing over 90% of its value within the last three years. Since the start of the collapse, banks have had discretionary capital control–meaning that they can limit who can withdraw capital and how much.

This leads us to the most recent turn of events:

In response to the government’s discretionary capital control, many citizens began breaking into banks to get their frozen money out–meaning their only option to get their OWN money was to break into banks.

The government retorted by closing down all banks in the country on September 16th and remained closed until September 23rd.

With the Lebanon financial system’s evident lack of care for its citizens, many have turned to crypto for help over the last year.

With some of the cheapest electricity in the world, citizens of Lebanon have also taken up mining, using diesel generators to mine.

Many citizens are turning to stablecoins as they hold value much better than the Lebanese pound.

All of this activity in the digital asset space has amounted to millions of crypto transactions occurring daily in Lebanon.

This is a prime example of why the digital asset space is building a decentralized future–to escape flawed, centralized structures. The anti-inflationary, decentralized, trustless system created by crypto is made for the people by the people. 

Crypto has become the answer to the recent Lebanon crisis and has put the power back into the hands of its citizens rather than the corrupt financial system.

Chart.

In this BRAND SPANKIN’ NEW section of The Scoop we give you a chart.

The chart is great for Scoopers who never learned to read, or at the very least, our followers who consider themselves to be more audiovisual learners rather than readers.

Every week we'll bring you up to speed on the top 10 Crypto Currencies in the space and how they've performed week over week!

Fundraising In Web3.

This is a new section of The Scoop where we talk about all the extensive amounts of money thrown around the industry.💰 Some of these will go into projects that will change the world.

Here are two top fundraising announcements from the past week for projects that look like they are on the up and up!

• Metaverse infrastructure builder Hadean raises $30 million in its Series A round.

• Kwil, a decentralized database infrastructure provider raised $9.6 million in a round backed by wonderboy Sam Bankman-Freid’s company FTX.

The above announcements might not seem like a big deal. But did you know that from April to June of this year alone, venture capitalists poured more than $6.6 billion into Web3 projects?

That’s so crazy we’re dropping the link here so that you don’t call us liars.💸💸💸

Considering that NFT trading volume has seen a 90% drop from its all-time highs, the war in Ukraine is potentially escalating, and battling inflation appears to be a multiyear fight that could impact us for a whole decade, the fundraising Bonanza happening in Web3 is just out of this world!

Education.

Now it’s time to do some studying.

Given what’s happening around the world, and how not nice the weather is outside at the time of this writing (at least where we are), it’s the perfect time for a self-imposed lockdown where you sit in front of a screen and consume the latest and greatest Web3 content until your eyes pop out of your head👀!

Here’s some of the best education content we have. We already put the chart way above and the chart section for all you visual learners out there (you're welcome). Here’s some written content to go with that. At the very least the help, you fall asleep if you find yourself going to bed angry about Apple's 30% commission or worrying about what’s going on in Lebanon or global currencies.

• NFTs for Dummies

• What is DeFi?

Scoop Meme

#hold

The Final Scoop

Remember, Apple and Android are Web2 companies looking to scrape together profits wherever they can. Even if it means taking a cut off the top of Web3 innovators. But also. They could help inadvertently onboard millions upon millions of new ETH wallets.

Either way, you’re already subscribed so you know the value of being the owner of your….well…VALUE!

Thanks for making it this far.

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That’s it for The Scoop this week.