Web3 on Fire: Tokenization could reach trillions by 2030 🔝🔝🔝

Good morning, frens! Ambire here with our weekly newsletter. Today we'll talk about Amazon getting into the NFT game, Citi predicting asset tokenization could reach trillions by 2030, the ETH Shapella upgrade coming on April 12, UK abandoning the Royal NFTs, UNICEF experimenting with DAOs and Trader Joe's recent successes on Arbitrum. As always with crypto, it's been a busy week, and there have been plenty of newsworthy tidbits from around the world that we'd like to share with you.

Let's dive right in!

Leaked email suggests Amazon is getting into the NFT game

Amazon has reportedly crossed over to the crypto side by jumping on the NFT bandwagon. According to an email obtained by one of the coin news websites' editors, Amazon has launched some type of “digital token” which can apparently be stored in a “gallery.” In addition to being able to buy and sell these tokens on the platform, Amazon also has the ability to lock and unlock them for trading. The email in question even requires users to “register as a reseller” before they can list any of the tokens for sale.

Amazon is yet to confirm this but if the rumors are true, then we guess their CEO was right when he said that Amazon will be “placing more investments in emerging technologies” last year. It’s certainly an ambitious move from the retail giant and it is definitely going to be interesting to see how this develops.

Citi predicts asset tokenization could reach trillions by 2030

Citigroup, one of the world's leading financial institutions, predicts that the market for tokenized securities could reach $4 trillion by 2030. This is due to blockchain technology's capabilities and its potential to revolutionize the way assets are managed and traded.

The report from Citi states that blockchain technology is nearing an inflection point in terms of adoption, which means that it could be close to a breakthrough. Tokenizing financial and real-world assets is seen as the “killer use-case” for blockchain technology, potentially unlocking trillions of dollars worth of value by the end of this decade.

The potential benefits from tokenization include increased liquidity and transparency, cost savings, faster transaction times, improved accuracy and reduced risk of fraud. In addition, with blockchain technology, no central authority is needed to manage or verify transactions, greatly reducing traditional barriers to entry into the financial services industry. Citi thinks the industry should prepare for this shift, as tokenization could revolutionize the trading of asset classes from stocks and bonds to real estate and commodities.

The world is on the cusp of a new era in digital financial services, with blockchain technology at its forefront, regardless of what the FUDders say.

ETH devs confirm Shapella upgrade is scheduled for April 12

The Shapella upgrade is the latest in a long line of network upgrades that Ethereum dutifully endures, like clockwork. After much deliberation and discussion, the core developers have reached a consensus to initiate the Shapella upgrade on April 12.

The Shapella portmanteau is made up of two upgrades, Shanghai and Capella, which will both be activated simultaneously. Shapella will be activated upon reaching Network epoch 194,048, which is 10:27PM UTC, April 12th.

The upgrade will bring about EIP-4895, which is centered around the withdrawal of staked ether. Shapella also comes with a variety of other network improvements, such as optimizing transaction fees and bettering scalability through on-chain data availability.

The Shapella upgrade has already been tested on multiple testnets before being approved by the Ethereum Core Developers group. Now all that's left to do is wait for the big activation day.

The UK is abandoning the Royal NFT plans

It seems that the UK is no longer going ahead with plans to launch NFTs issued by the Royal Mint. This follows Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt's comments during a Treasury Committee meeting on Wednesday, where he expressed doubt on the demand for such an asset.

The idea was first proposed last April, when then-Finance Minister Rishi Sunak tasked the Mint with creating non-fungible tokens. However, the government has since decided to drop the project. The new finance minister said that this was due to changes in the world since then and a lack of demand for such an asset. A shame for those who were looking forward to the NFTs, but it looks like the UK is no longer pursuing this initiative.

UNICEF experiments with DAOs to improve global operations

UNICEF, a UN agency specializing in relief and humanitarian aid for children, seeks to improve the effectiveness of its operations by experimenting with a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). The goal of the DAO will be to create a more equitable distribution of power and communication in the organization's global operations.

According to UNICEF blockchain lead Arun Maharajan who spoke at Paris Blockchain Week last week, this DAO prototype is intended to help create digital public goods that are open-source, shareable across countries and an alternative to the existing private, proprietary solutions.

Maharajan added that the DAO will help UNICEF monitor their activities more closely and ensure that their actions are transparent. The idea is to create a system of checks and balances in order for UNICEF to better serve its beneficiaries. This DAO concept is part of a larger endeavor in crypto for the organization. In October 2019, UNICEF set up the UNICEF CryptoFund to receive donations in bitcoin and ether and experimented with using blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies to fund projects that benefit children.

This is something that blockchain tech is very capable of, a decentralized system that allows for efficient and secure transactions, while also providing a transparent view of the activities, and it's about time that an organization as influential as UNICEF is making use of the technology. We can hope that their experiment with DAOs will be a successful one and that they implement it across their global operations.

Research corner: Trader Joe is booming on Arb network

Trader Joe, a DEX which originally launched on AVAX (and now is live on Arbitrum) is pumping with traders and depositors driving the total value locked (TVL) up more than 300% to 30 million in just the past seven days. This massive surge has also caused a rally of over 50% in its native token, JOE, over the past week according to CoinGecko.

The growth of the DEX and its token is likely due to multiple factors including trading incentives and the low fees charged by Trader Joe, but most important factor was the recent ARB airdrop mania. Trader Joe launched on Arbitrum in February and since then, traders have been pouring in to take advantage of the liquidity incentives offered.

The incentives program, which ends April 6th, gives users who deposited ARB, ETH and USDC to Trader Joe’s pools a share of 300,000 JOE tokens. The program was so successful in fact that Trader Joe’s trading volume on Arbitrum almost eclipsed the volume on its original home at Avalanche.

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