The 6 Most Important Web3 Trends for 2023

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Tune into the podcast to listen to all 8 trends from the report 👇

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GM web3 explorers! 

We’re interrupting your regularly scheduled broadcast with an extra special edition of the Weekly Rollup. 

In this week’s episode, we’re breaking down a web3 trend report from Gary Vaynerchuk’s web3 consultancy, Vayner3. 

The web3 trends we’ll touch on include: 

1. Big brands are taking web3 seriously 💪
2. Tech giants investing billions and onboarding millions 💰
3. Crypto payment is a marketing stunt for real 💯
4. Token ticketing introduces new experiential models 🤯
5. The metaverse is… not quite here yet 🐢
6. The future will be multi-chain (or will it?) ⛓️

We’ll also announce who won our 32 USDC World Cup giveaway 🔥

Let’s go!

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#1 Big Brands Are Taking Web3 Seriously

If you’ve been around the space recently, you’d be familiar with some of the major brands experimenting in web3—Nike, Budweiser, and Gucci to name a few. 

While some ventures, such as Warner Bros. re-releasing Lord of the Rings as an NFT collection flopped, others have been much more successful.

What’s the difference between success and failure? Vayner3 believes it comes down to three factors: 

• Offering precise web3 products (an experience that makes sense to use web3 tech)
• Having defined consumer targeting (crypto native vs crypto curious))
• Intentional go-to-market strategies (just because everyone else is launching a 10k collection doesn’t mean it’s right) 

Vayner3 also identified five product archetypes that are useful in categorizing web3 experiences: 

1. Bundles: Digital + Physical + Experiential (think of phygital collections where you get to enjoy a physical item while also gaining access to an online experience)
2. Digital worlds and wearables (think of metaverse wearables or even wearables that have a digital and physical aspect)
3. Token-gated products and experiences (think of access to premium content or events)
4. Token-enabled focus groups (think of communities who help shape an organization’s products)
5. Engagement, loyalty, and rewards (think of Starbucks’ plans for their NFT loyalty program)

Now, it’s important to note that we’re still early and these product archetypes can certainly change or multiply over the next year. But at least we have a simple framework to assess the types of products we want to take to market. 

👉 Tune into the podcast if you want to learn how big brands are using these archetypes. 

#2 Tech Giants Investing Billions and Onboarding Millions

2022 has been a whirlwind year with investment pouring into web3 from all corners of the tech world. 

Up until now, we’ve had: 

• Meta invest around $10 billion
• Microsoft invest around $500 million
• And Google invest around $1.5 billion

And here’s what some of these tech giants have been doing with their investments.

On the podcast, Andrew Saunders (CMO of Arbitrum) pointed out that he loves when web3 tech integrates with what he calls syndicated technologies (tech that’s used by millions of people). 

Because when you integrate web3 into something like Shopify, they have millions of chances to work out the best way to use this technology. In essence, every single Shopify customer becomes an experiment, improving the chances of widespread adoption. 

Many people may feel that these brands joining web3 during a bear market mean they’re missing out on upside potential. While that’s true in the short-term, they’ve only been dipping their toes in with minimal marketing. 

So the real take here is that these brands are already ahead of the curve. They don’t have to figure out web3 from the beginning. 

Instead, they can bide their time until the next bull and onboard billions into web3.

#3 Crypto Payment Is a Marketing Stunt for Real 

Right now, there are only about 15,000 merchants globally that accept crypto payments but that number is steadily growing—and so is consumer demand. 

In Q1 of 2022 alone, consumers spent $2.5 billion through Visa’s crypto-linked cards which is a significant 500% year-over-year growth. 

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Would You Use a Crypto Credit or Debit Card?

A. Yes, I already have.
B. Nah, I’m playing the long game with my crypto.
C. Yes, but I haven’t used it yet.

👉 Let us know by replying with A, B, or C!

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On top of this, we’re seeing more and more crypto payment integrations, more on-ramp services, and more intuitive UX—exactly what we need to onboard mainstream consumers. 

We’ve seen the proliferation of service providers, such as MoonPay, which allow people to buy crypto with their credit or debit card and then deposit it directly into a wallet.

And now we’re seeing companies, such as DePay, integrate with Shopify, WordPress, and WooCommerce (some of the most important eCommerce platforms) to facilitate crypto payments.

Without services like these, we’d be stuck with buying crypto on Coinbase, moving it to a wallet, bridging it to the right ecosystem, and finally paying for something. 

Thankfully, this isn’t the case and web3’s UX is improving significantly every day.

Mainstream people would never get a MetaMask wallet, then create a Coinbase account to buy crypto, then move it to a wallet and then bridge it over to Arbitrum for example. 

It’s not just about the general public, though, businesses also stand to benefit from crypto payments.

It enables you to: 

• Truly reach a global audience since not everyone can access web2 payment services, such as PayPal or Stripe
• Respect the privacy of your customers because you don’t need to capture sensitive information
• Reduce transaction costs by cutting out intermediaries
• And receive payments faster and have instant custody over your funds

It’s a win-win for everyone involved—besides banks, of course 🤫

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Thread of the Week

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#4 Token Ticketing Introduces New Experiential Models

In web2, a ticket is a piece of paper or a pdf that gives you access to a particular event. And once you use it, that’s it there’s nothing else for you to do with it. 

But in web3, an event ticket is something organizations use to drive further engagement, retarget their community, and create deeper bonds.

You can use token ticketing at three stages: 

• Before an event: In this category, tickets become “functional collectibles” that provide access, but can also be easily kept as memorabilia when compared to paper tickets. Here, it also makes secondary sales much easier since you easily verify the authenticity of a token ticket.

• During an event: Universal Studios used this in their theme parks to increase engagement. They created a scavenger hunt where participants have to wander around the whole theme park to find and collect different NFTs. In the end, whoever can collect all the NFTs has a chance to win a prize. 

• After an event: This stage is all about rewarding people for coming to your events and deepening the brand connection. Brands can not only see which wallets bought a ticket but also who showed up (and how many times in the past). This means brands can tailor their marketing and engagement based on a particular wallet’s (consumer’s) actions.

If you plan to use token ticketing in your own business, you must consider the long-term profit potential of an NFT ticket collection. For example, Rolling Loud plan to release their LoudPunx 10k NFT collection soon which gives holders lifetime access to all future festivals. 

In our opinion, you don’t want to give away lifetime access to thousands of people if they never provide you with another cent of revenue—unless it makes sense from a lifetime value perspective. 

#5 The Metaverse Is… Not Quite Here Yet

Metaverses have been one of the hottest topics in mainstream land, likely because virtual worlds are easier to understand than decentralized finance. 

But, since we’re not quite there yet, consumer interest has died down in recent times. The good news is that metaverses are becoming a hot topic for corporations.   

After Q1 2022, we’re sitting just shy of 600 metaverse mentions on quarterly earnings calls. This may not seem like much, but these mentions come from large public companies that are the ones that will ultimately drive mainstream adoption of web3. 

In fact, Roblox, one of the most popular web2 games, boasting around 260 million monthly active users, mentioned that they’re looking at NFTs during their latest earnings call 💯

That’s why that middle graph makes us happy! 

In saying that the reason that metaverses aren’t ready yet is that it takes significant time and effort to create a closed game let alone an interoperable metaverse that can host thousands of people at the same time.  

But we’re seeing more adoption each day. The Sandbox is doing another land sale with numerous high-profile partners. 

Macy’s even hosted their first-ever Virtual Thanksgiving Parade. Not only that but users can vote on their favorite project, and the most popular will have one of its NFTs turned into an IRL float in next year’s parade!

“Within the virtual Parade experience, fans can explore five galleries featuring NFT collections from Boss Beauties, Cool Cats, gmoney, SupDucks, and VeeFriends,” Macy’s explained in its press release. High fives to Macy’s for their web3 entrance with a focus on collaboration and community.

2023 is going to be huge, folks 🚀

#6 The Future Will Be Multi-chain (Or Will It?)

While this statement is questionable from our perspective, the reason Vayner3 is taking this stance is because they’re looking at NFT drops by blockchain used. 

So if you look at early 2022, 50% of NFT drops were on Ethereum. But fast forward to Q3 2022 and only 25% of drops were on Ethereum. 

We’ve seen Polygon grow exponentially with other chains, like Solana, Tezos, and Flow all getting their share of the action.

But one thing to note is that most of the activity shifted away from Ethereum because gas fees made it too expensive to transact directly on the blockchain. 

However, some of these chains are slowly falling to the wayside because they don’t prioritize security and decentralization (the features we need in a blockchain). Imagine we had some of these web2 enterprises building on Luna, it would’ve been so damaging to the industry when the blockchain crumbled. 

And another aspect to note is that Polygon (one of the blockchains getting traction with big companies) plans to become an Ethereum layer 2 in the future. 

That’s why Kyle believes we’ll have a “multi-layer-2 world” rather than a multi-chain world. 

We’ll have just a few base layer blockchains with thousands of blockchains built on top of them so that protocols and dApps can leverage base layer security while optimizing for their specific use case—for example, speed, cost, or UX.

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The Future is Looking Bright, but There Are a Few Things To Be Mindful Of

When it comes to NFTs, don’t drop a collection for the sake of dropping one. Look for opportunities to engage in a meaningful way and use the technology to build an ecosystem that matters.

Gone are the days of the NFT mania where you could drop a random 10k collection and mint out in minutes. Now, you need to build real products with NFTs if you want to succeed. 

And no, you don’t need to drop a 10k community collection. You can experiment with a small collection of, say 100 NFTs to get some web3 experience under your belt—and they can just be simple token tickets if that makes sense for your organization. 

Another aspect to be aware of is greediness and a zero-sum mentality. There’s plenty of money and consumer attention to go around so don’t focus on competing with other organizations, focus on how you can win together. 

Other than this, your goal right now should be locking in strong partnerships within your niche.

This may seem impossible from a web2 perspective, but in web3, all it takes is a few Twitter DMs or Discord conversations to connect with the biggest builders in the space. 

Try it out. You’d be surprised how welcoming web3 is 🤗

But regardless of what you plan to do in web3, you now have these fantastic initial frameworks to follow as you begin experimenting in web3. 

The money side of crypto and web3 obviously isn’t looking great right now but the technology is thriving and that’s what we’re here for!

Finally, shout out to Vayner3 for creating one of the best web3 reports we’ve ever seen. You can check out the full report here: What To Watch in Web3.

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130,000

That’s how much many monthly active users the web3 social app, Diamond, has after its recent launch. Source

32 USDC

That’s how much Diana O’Neal won for participating in our World Cup giveaway!

$1,000,000

That’s how much Lido Protocol makes from fees each day. Source

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Other Web3 News

• ARTISANT launches web3 fashion to celebrate Art Basel. Source
• Apple wants the rights to Michael Lewis’ story on SBF and FTX. Source
• Gym franchises Anytime Fitness and F45 plan to release NFT memberships. Source
• Infura, the company behind Consensys’ MetaMask APIs plans to use them to collect user data. Source
• Disney brings back Bob Iger as CEO and it’s bullish for web3. Source
• Binance launches $1 billion raise for “crypto recovery fund”. Source
• El Salvador is doubling down on crypto during the bear market. Source

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