This Week in Web3—Ethereum’s Shadow Fork goes live, Why India's crypto trading volume keeps plunging, The NFT art utility debate and more!

On Sunday when the clock hits 11 AM, we say GM!

It’s time for another week in web3 and Kabl3 is ready to show you around the weekly monumental updates.

Here’s what we have for you today:

• Ethereum gets a step closer to The Merge

• Weekly Web3 Wrap

• Learn with Kable Recap

• NFT community split over art and utility

• Interesting reads from this week

This week in crypto 📈

Weekly web3 wrap 🗞

Ethereum Launches Its First Mainnet “Shadow Fork” Ahead of The Merge

As Ethereum continues to work on its transition to the Proof of Stake (PoS) model, its first mainnet, Shadow Fork went live this Monday. This is a stress test on the existing assumptions about the testnets and mainnets to understand how smoothly the shift to a proof-of-stake consensus will occur.

The Proof of Stake consensus algorithm, which is expected to replace the Proof of Work (PoW) model, is primarily validated by nodes operated by “stakers” instead of “miners.” As PoW models require more computational power, they are becoming increasingly impractical, so this is an important step for Ethereum’s anticipated switch.

Ethereum DevOps Engineer, Parathi Jayanathi, shared the purpose and strategy behind Shadow Fork in a recent tweet 👇

What is the Ethereum Shadow Fork?

“Shadow Fork” refers to copying data from the mainnet to a testnet, i.e., from Ethereum’s mainnet to a testnet, to bring a new feature and its consequences to life before large-scale deployment.

• The testnet is being used to mimic the mainnet and create functional simulations of the Ethereum network. Currently, it is processing over a million transactions each day.

• The Shadow Fork is connected to peers on the Ethereum blockchain, and it shares some information with the main Ethereum network. This could cause some transactions to be visible on both chains.

Marius van der Wijden, a developer for the Ethereum Foundation, announced on Twitter that the testnet had processed nearly 1.16 million transactions in an average block time of 14.8 seconds!

Before releasing this testnet, the Kiln merge testnet team conducted a series of tests designed to evaluate the performance of nodes, the infrastructure supporting them, and smart contracts. Ethereum Foundation is projecting that The Merge, its next step, will be released by June or the beginning of the third quarter of 2022, watch out.

More web3 news you should know about:

Coinbase to create an interactive three-part film featuring BAYC

Coinbase teased its partnership with Yuga Labs to make a film series featuring the BAYC community on Twitter this Tuesday.

The team confirmed that the first part of the movie will premiere at this year’s NFT NYC event in June. Bored Ape NFT holders can also help in the creation of this trilogy in these 3 steps:

💡 Get Coinbase Wallet

🎥 Submit your Bored Ape

🎬 Hide an easter egg

For more info, visit Degentrilogy.

Epic Games raises $2B from SONY and Kirkbi to fund Metaverse plans

Epic Games announced a $2 billion round of funding, which would be put towards driving its metaverse plans. The round included investments worth $1 billion from Sony and Kirkbi, the investment company behind the Lego Group.

CEO Tim Sweeney says this investment will go towards expanding the company’s vision of the metaverse: “This investment will accelerate our work to build the metaverse and create spaces where players can have fun with friends, brands can build creative and immersive experiences and creators can build a community and thrive.”

Jack Dorsey’s ‘First Tweet’ NFT Fails To Receive Bids > $280

Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter sold his first Tweet as an NFT last year for $2.9M to crypto entrepreneur Sina Estavi. Sina announced he’d be selling the NFT and donating 50% of the proceeds to charity last Thursday. However, the announcement got little traction for a few days, and he decided to put the NFT up for auction instead.

The auction closed this Thursday with only seven people bidding on the NFT. The highest bid was 0.09 ETH or $277. Seems like the NFT community has moved on from the hype around this NFT, and the road keeps looking tough for Sina.

India's crypto trading volume plunges after 30% crypto tax and Mobikwik’s big decision

Cryptocurrency trading volumes in India have plunged across exchanges after the 30% crypto tax came into effect. In addition, popular payment service provider Mobikwik which was preferred the most by Indian investors has stopped service to exchanges amid unclear regulations, further plunging the volume.

According to crypto research firm Crebaco, cryptocurrency trading volumes have fallen from last week across all major exchanges:

Wazirx 72%, Coindcx 52%, and Zebpay 59%

Learn with Kable 👩‍🏫

This Tools Tuesday, we presented the future of web3 messaging to you. Let's take a look at Dialect, the very first protocol for smart messaging 👇

If you've been on Web3 Twitter the last week, you wouldn't have escaped everyone mentioning Tokenomics & how it is ESSENTIAL if you don't wanna get rekt! We made it easier for you to understand Tokenomics and how it works 👇

To Utility or Not to Utility: NFT Community Split over Art and Utility

Today NFTs hold a unique position at the intersection of the finance, tech, and creative industries. Clearly, they have brought together a remarkable range of communities with vastly different goals and values. But the hype around NFTs isn’t just because of the art, utility plays an important role in the space. And recently, this has sparked a discussion on Twitter.

First Day Out, a recent NFT release from Isaac “Drift” Wright, prominent photographer and crypto-artist, was minted on Drift’s customized Manifold smart contract as an ERC-721. Drift’s previous collectors were able to mint early, and public minting was opened for a period of 24 hours after. The project raised millions and that’s when the problem started.

This entire discussion boils down to one word: utility. The utility of an NFT refers to the usefulness, profitability and benefit that it affords its owner; it’s THE buzzword within the NFT ecosystem.

The utility of an NFT can be a multitude of things, like:

• membership to an exclusive community

• membership to a DAO,

• free airdrops,

• live meet-and-greets,

• a ticket to a virtual or physical event and much more.

In response, some collectors started to ask Drift about what comes next i.e., about what utility he plans to add to reward those who supported him. However, Drift responded by stating he doesn’t owe anyone who buys his work anything.

While many in the community agreed saying art can just be for art’s sake, others are underwhelmed by this ideology.

One side believes that there is no need to have any underlying utility beyond art and the other is of the ideology that NFT creators should support their community by giving back.

It wouldn’t be an overgeneralization to say that art, the actual application of creative skill (drawings, paintings, animations), still runs the NFT market. It’s not all money and profit. Artists have been creating and selling art and that, in and of itself, has value. That said, NFTs have changed things. They provided a way for collectors to both own a piece of art and incentives. They allow artists to make bank from their work and share the wealth with their collectors when their project is successful.

And this is where the debate stems from. Is it right for Drift to make that much money without giving anything back to his collectors? Or does he truly have no obligation because the art itself is the utility and benefit?

Is the value of NFTs inherently tied to the piece of digital art represented within the token? Or is the value the incentives (financial or otherwise) that are offered to those who own the token? Or can there be a middle ground? We’ll leave you with this Tweet and like always, your consensus is for you to decide.

Interesting reads from this week 🤓

Sustainability and the metaverse: 5 considerations for preparing for the next big tech paradigm shift | VentureBeat — venturebeat.com

Making sustainability a priority for businesses in a world that is demanding more data, more storage, and is generating more waste.

noodles on Twitter: "You've seen the overnight success, big volume, and big fees of vAMM perps like @perpprotocol v1 and @DriftProtocol But what if I told you it isn't real? 👇👇👇 👇👇👇👇" — twitter.com

“You've seen the overnight success, big volume, and big fees of vAMM perps like @perpprotocol v1 and @DriftProtocol

But what if I told you it isn't real?

👇👇👇 👇👇👇👇”

That’s a wrap for This Week In Web3!

Liked what you read? Share our issue with your curious peers and spread the web3 word around. For more in-depth analysis and hot drops, follow us on Twitter and Instagram—you won’t miss a thing!

Help us improve and cater to your preferences by giving us feedback by clicking on the thumbs up or down icons below!

If you’re an early-stage Web3 builder or would like to venture out to the Web3 ecosystem, take your first step with our creative-capital studio Spacekayak and let’s walk together on your Web3 journey! Know all about us here.

wagmi 🚀