Animoca Brands, Binance, Sakura Exchange BitCoin, Changpeng Zhao, M+ Museum Hong Kong, Beeple, Serhii Makhno, Huobi, Poloniex, The Morgan Stanley, FTX, Maersk, IBM, TradeLens.
1. Animoca Brands has begun raising $2 billion to invest in the Metaverse. The Hong Kong company intends to create an Animoca Capital fund, which will focus not on supporting new start-ups, but on projects in the middle and late stages of development.
2. Binance has announced the acquisition of the Japanese crypto exchange Sakura Exchange BitCoin. With this acquisition, Changpeng Zhao’s company enters the Japanese market with a license from the local regulator.
3. M+ Museum Hong Kong presents HUMAN ONE, the latest kinetic video sculpture by artist Beeple, also known as Mike Winkelmann. Designed as a continuous digital display that will periodically evolve over time, the artwork introduces the first human born in the Metaverse, a 3D virtual world accessible only through the Internet. The piece depicts a human figure in an astronaut suit endlessly wandering the ever-changing virtual landscape.
4. Ukrainian architect and interior designer Serhii Makhno from MAKHNO Studio rolled out ‘META DIDO’, his first NFT collection of ceramic art.
5. Huobi has announced a strategic partnership with Poloniex. The two crypto exchanges will collaborate on various aspects of the business, including sharing liquidity.
6. The Morgan Stanley report showed the expectation of new bankruptcies in the crypto industry. Despite the premonitions of a long crypto winter and the consequences of the FTX collapse, financiers believe that in the future, cryptography and blockchain will be increasingly used to trade financial assets.
7. Maersk and IBM will terminate their TradeLens blockchain project. The logistics giant will close the platform due to the fact that it has not reached the level of commercial viability in the 4 years since its inception.