What’s Possible: 22nd October, 2021

We hope you enjoy this week's hand-picked selection of important and interesting stories from the frontiers of tech.

Examining the Economics of the Metaverse

This week, I want to dive deeper into the economics of Axie. This is important because 1) Axie is probably the most important on-ramp to crypto in the world right now, and 2) because as more workers find work in the metaverse, we often overlook how complex these economies are. Digital economies may be disguised within games—in Axie’s case, within a colorful world of cute, quirky creatures—but they’re deceptively intricate. We can learn a lot from these early digital economies about the future of internet-native work in the post-Covid era.

Australian lawmakers call for sweeping changes to crypto rules

“What we don’t want to do is put a new coat on an old hook,” said Andrew Bragg, senator for New South Wales, who chaired the committee that compiled the report. “There’s a strong anti-competitive element in Australia where the incumbents don’t like innovation and their solution is to push new ideas into old regulatory frameworks that were designed for something else.” “The agenda here is to try and be as good as Singapore or the UK. We want to be a world-leading jurisdiction for cryptocurrency.”

Creandum: Denmark is the B2B (SaaS) capital of Europe

Sweden … became the Fintech hub of the cold north with unicorns like Trustly, Tink, (i)Zettle, and Klarna.

Finland, [is] the gaming capital that has influenced everyone under 30 with games such as Angry Birds and Clash of Clans, alongside hot new startups like Skunkworks getting us hooked on merging tools.

Today, we … focus on Denmark, where we are seeing a new verticalized ecosystem emerge: The B2B(SaaS) ecosystem of Denmark.

A road map for climate investors

The recently released 6th Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report concluded that human-created climate change is taking place faster than we thought, calling it a “code-red alert.” At just 2 degrees warmer than today, one estimate predicts more than 300,000,000 climate-related deaths globally by 2100. And that’s the optimistic estimate. Global warming is overwhelming and feels impossible to fix. What the hell can we do?

Azeem Azhar - The Future of the Car: Electric, Autonomous, and Ownerless

If you go ask [customers], they'll tell you I want 300 miles [range] because that's what they're used to with their ICE vehicles. But if we show you the data and say, on average, last year you drove only 20 miles a day and your longest trip happened two times. We can help you sort of “right-size” your needs.

Mastercard - cryptocurrency cards

As cryptocurrencies have exploded into the mainstream over the last year in particular, payment companies such as Mastercard and Visa have sought to position themselves in this emerging ecosystem. While the idea of a completely decentralised payment network represents an existential threat to these payment providers, in truth, these institutions can still serve as useful bridges between crypto and tradfi.

In June 2021, Mastercard announced that it’s working to provide cards to cryptocurrency institutions to make it easier for users to convert crypto to fiat.

Vertical Oceans aims to grow sustainable shrimp in huge ‘aqua towers’ inside cities

The result was Vertical Oceans, a startup that grows sustainable shrimp in huge “aqua towers”, which can be located inside cities, potentially in facilities that even look like buildings. The towers can incubate shrimp without chemicals or antibiotics, and out of season. And let’s remember, Shrimp is a $50 billion a year market globally.

Another Milestone: LogicBio Successfully Edits Genes in Children

On Monday, LogicBio Therapeutics unveiled clinical trial results demonstrating the first-ever in vivo, nuclease-free genome editing in little humans.

The Lexington, Mass.-based genetic medicine company is developing gene-editing and gene delivery solutions for pediatric patients with rare diseases— beginning with rare liver disorders like Methylmalonic acidemia (MMA), a life-threatening genetic condition affecting approximately 1 in 50,000 newborns in the U.S.

Apple’s privacy changes create windfall for its own advertising business

Apple’s advertising business has more than tripled its market share in the six months after it introduced privacy changes to iPhones that obstructed rivals, including Facebook, from targeting ads at consumers.

Interesting adjacencies

• Why the Hermes Birkin bag is the OG CryptoPunk (thread)
• ICYMI: The rise of synthetic media and digital creators (thread)
• Spotify publishes the coolest research (thread)
• Tesla officially launches its insurance using ‘real-time driving behavior’ (link)
• 🤯 3D models created from a collection of photos + neural tech rendering (thread)
• NFT sci-fi card game Parallel raises at $500M valuation (link)

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