GM! 🌞

August really flew by too fast, didn’t it? And what better way to wrap up the month if not with exciting new developments in the web3 realm?

✨Here are this week’s highlights ✨

🖌️NFT & Metaverse Highlights

✨”Don't Panic” by XCOPY collected by AOI for 500 ETH

XCOPY is a London-based digital artist, whose real identity still remains unknown to this day. His artworks explore the themes of death, dystopia and apathy through distorted, captivating visual loops.

Yesterday his piece “Don’t Panic” (February 2019) was collected by AOI (ArtOnInternet - a foundation for emerging art and technology) for $856,795.00 (500 ETH), entering in CryptoArt’s rank amongst the highest NFT artworks sold to this date.

Congratulations to XCOPY and AOI!

✨MTV Awards 2022 & the “Best Metaverse Performance” Awards

Since it debuted in 1984, the MTV awards show has always been a must-see among the most passionate music followers.

But if on one hand the show used to attract millions of viewers, these numbers have been drastically dropping in the last few years due to cultural changes tied to our new ways of entertainment consumption. Reason for which, in the attempt to attract younger and more-digital first audiences, MTV decided to introduce a whole new reward for the “Best Metaverse Performance.”

This year there are 6 artists to vote for within this category: Ariana Grande, Charli XCX, Justin Bieber, Twenty One Pilots, and K-pop groups BLACKPINK and BTS. A number expected to skyrocket in the near future as metaverse platforms such as Roblox, Fortnite and Minecraft continue to develop and attract more artists and fans.

But the voting is just where the Metaverse experience begins: on top of introducing this whole new award category, MTV also announced an exclusive virtual experience in the Roblox metaverse, accessible only until September 3rd.

Make sure to vote by the end of today!

The winner will be announced on August 28th during the award ceremony.

Best Metaverse Performance - Vote Now – Nominees for 2022 MTV Video Music Awards — www.mtv.com

Vote now for the Best Metaverse Performance. See the complete list of 2022 MTV Video Music Awards nominees and vote for your favorites. Don’t miss the 2022 MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday, August 28 at 8/7c to see who wins.

✨Lyrical Lemonade goes Web3

Speaking of music in the Web3 ecosystem, Lyrical Lemonade goes all in with a debut NFT collection, “The Carton”.

Known for its creative music videos, Lyrical Lemonade is a multimedia company at the forefront of hip-hop media.

“Carton” is its newest web3 initiative — a collection of 500 handcrafted versions of the Lyrical Lemonade logo created by the in-house design team that gives every collector exclusive access to the world of Lyrical Lemonade.

This week the NFTNow team had the chance to speak with Bennett and other members of the Lyrical Lemonade team to learn more about this new Web3 initiative:

Can Lyrical Lemonade Change Hip Hop Forever? — www.youtube.com

Lyrical Lemonade is a multimedia company known for its creative music videos at the forefront of hip-hop media. In this video, we traveled to Chicago to expe...

✨Telegram founder Pavel Durov discusses "NFT-supported smart contracts" for auctioning usernames

Do you remember creating a username only to discover it was already taken? Even worse, from an inactive user.

Right after a successful auction of wallet domain names on The Open Network (TON), a blockchain developed by the Telegram team itself, on Tuesday Telegram founder Pavel Durov mentioned that Telegram could soon potentially include this feature, adding that “This would create a new platform where username holders could transfer them to interested parties in protected deals — with ownership secured on the blockchain via NFT-like smart contracts."

A feature that could also extend itself to other core features of Telegram including channels, stickers and emojis.

We’ll see the outcome in the next few weeks.

✨A new research highlights how the Metaverse is a key factor in long-term NFT success

Juniper Research is a company that specializes in identifying and appraising new high growth market sectors within the digital ecosystem.

Juniper Research has recently focused on web3, resulting in their latest paper on NFTs and the Metaverse that positively highlights how the global number of NFT transactions will rise from 24 million in 2022 to 40 million by 2027.

A boost, that will take place thanks to the development of the Metaverse, a key element when it comes to the long-term success of NFTs — We can already observe the metaverse increasingly being used by brands to boost digital growth, particularly in the fashion industry.

In regard to this point, the report predicts that metaverse-linked NFTs will be the fastest-growing NFT segment over the next 5 years, while also highlighting the rising demand for immersive experiences as what will become one of the key drivers of metaverse mass-adoption.

Ready to seize the opportunities the Metaverse beholds?

✨ A Deepfake CAPTCHA Solution on the rise

It is becoming increasingly difficult to protect oneself from Deepfake scams and frauds across our most-used communication channels.

But luckily, there is a new ongoing development of a “deep fake CAPTCHA” protocol that in the near future will be able to challenge these bad actors: just recently, a paper titled “DF-Captcha: A Deepfake Captcha for Preventing Fake Calls and comes from Dr. Yisroel Mirsky at Ben-Gurion University’s Offensive AI Research Lab” was released, proposing and outlining a variety of solutions to identify deep fakes both via video and audio.

“What makes this technique powerful is that the challenge is easy for a human to perform but extremely hard for a Deepfake model to generate. For example, to expose facial reenactment, the challenge might be to have the caller move his/her head to an oblique angle, press on the nose, or simply turn around” quotes the paper.

“Talk to the hand”, “Duckface”, and “The Pencil Test”: these are just a few of the wide variety of proposed tests that Metaphisic.ai does an excellent job outlining in the following article by Martin Anderson.

Are We Heading For ‘Deepfake CAPTCHA’ Challenges in Video and Voice Calls? - Metaphysic.ai — metaphysic.ai

A new paper from Israel proposes the institution and ongoing development of a 'deepfake CAPTCHA' protocol, to challenge audio or video callers that may be using deepfake technologies to attempt to deceive or defraud.

📈 Blockchain & DeFi Highlights

✨The Merge Countdown begins

With September just around the corner, we can't help but think about Ethereum: the countdown to the Merge has officially begun!

We’ve all been waiting for this for quite some time. This Wednesday the Ethereum Foundation finally disclosed the official parameters for the Merge, Ethereum’s blockchain upgrade to a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism — considered to be more sustainable and energy efficient than the current proof-of-work mechanism.

An upgrade that has been postponed various times: Ropsten, Sepolia, and Goerli have been tested extensively over the last year in order to reach this point and ensure its successful outcome.

Now, there is just one small step before the final merge: the Bellatrix upgrade on the Beacon Chain, set to be activated on September 6th before the final Merge that will occur sometime between September 10th-20th.

More on the Merge here.

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📚Book of the Month

Last week to finish reading this month’s book!

August’s read is “Human Compatible: AI and the Problem of Control” by Stuart Russell.

A book where Stuart Russell explains how AI works, with huge potential to improve our lives but also dangers if we happen to lose control of its power by not reshaping the foundations now.