This week in web3—Ukraine crypto donations cross $57M, Metamask restricts access in Venezuela, Weekly web3 wrap + more

GM! We're back with your weekly dose of web3. Let's look at how web3 has been incredibly helpful in raising funds for Ukraine, what major happened this Week In Web3 and how to dodge red flags in this space.

In today’s issue, we cover:

• Remarkable crypto donations and web3 initiatives started for Ukraine

• Web3 Weekly Wrap

• Learn with Kable Recap

• Are you being exploited by your favourite crypto influencers?

The crypto community has contributed over $57.7 million through more than 115,000 crypto asset donations to Ukraine! — Elliptic

Apart from direct crypto donations, the web3 community as a whole has proved that the power of web3 is unmatched when it comes to immediate help in tough times. Here are some of the remarkable donations and initiatives started by web3 builders, artists, and educators that made headlines with their massive success.

• Polkadot co-founder Gavin Wood donated $5.8 million in Polkadot tokens.

• A CryptoPunk NFT worth over $200,000 was donated to Ukraine’s ETH address by an anonymous NFT collector.

• RELI3F, a project by NFT influencer Andrew Wang and a few other people in the web3 community, put out an NFT Collection that sold out in 30 seconds and generated over $1 million in Eth. RELI3F sent the amount to a variety of non-profits, you can see the breakdown of the funds and their thought process in this thread.

• UkraineDAO, created by Pussy Riot’s Nadya Tolokonnikova, Trippy Labs and PleasrDAO members, raised more than $7M in crypto aid. Their Ukrainian flag NFT sale was hosted as a PartyBid auction, allowing people to bid collectively for fractionalised ownership of the NFT. You can still donate directly to ukrainedao.eth

You can also donate crypto directly to Ukraine’s official addresses:

This week in crypto 📈

Tai Lopez finds himself in the middle of a Twitter controversy with his OG collection.

With his OG (Original Garage), Tai Lopez is at the centre of the recent NFT controversy allegedly being a cash grab! The Twitter community has raised questions about the project's reputation and called the self-proclaimed crypto philanthropist a bad name.

The minters bear the lacklustre NFTs’ minting burden to add a cherry on the top. Even a former Coinbase engineer shared screenshots insinuating the project siphons out the funds into the team members’ wallets whenever a user mints an NFT. But the project has some decent numbers despite the controversies.

Major Crypto platforms restrict access in Iran and Venezuela

This week the world saw the biggest names in crypto and NFT space falter under sanctioning woes. OpenSea has reportedly cut off its Iranian users from the platform. Many traders took to Twitter to voice their anger, frustration and confusion. Additionally, Infura and Metamask have restricted their access in Venezuela. MetaMask has indirectly acknowledged that users located in certain sanctioned jurisdictions will receive error messages if they try to access the wallet.

Tencent files for virtual concert patent in the metaverse

Following music studios, the Chinese tech giant Tencent has decided to diver deeper into the metaverse by allegedly filing for a virtual concerts patent with the Chinese National Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA). Despite the Chinese government's warnings and People’s Bank of China’s AML unit seeing virtual assets as a pathway for illegal activities facilitated by the isolated nature of NFTs and metaverse-based items, the conglomerate has decided to go ahead with the patent applications.

After sharing its metaverse vision for the first time later last year, Tencent also hosted TIMELAND, China’s first-ever virtual concert in the metaverse on New Year 2022.

Learn with Kable👩‍🏫

This week, we focused on web3 beginners and dug up some valuable tools and NFT artists to watch in 2022.

This Tools Tuesday, we explored three cool tools for you to make your web3 journey smooth and secure and build your on-chain identity. Check them out here 👇

With the flourishing NFT space, digital artists have used their art to take the world by storm. And their art has become the epitome of creativity & innovation, giving them an unmatched repute. Check out some of the top-selling and popular artists you should know about.

Are you being exploited by your favourite crypto influencers? 👀

DYOR is a term frequently thrown around in the web3 community, but only a few tell you how exactly to do that. People, mostly beginners, often end up following crypto influencers on Youtube and Twitter and land themselves in deep water.

@thedefiedge on Twitter shared a thread on how Crypto Influencers make money from their audience/followers, explaining how affiliate deals and sponsorships work and other areas that can be capitalised on. We highly recommend giving it a read.

TL;DR

While some influencers claim they don’t give out financial advice and only focus on information and education, some abuse their followers’ trust. So, how do you know if an influencer is pulling you into a project for their profit?

According to @thedefiedge, these are the red flags you should look out for:

🚩They ONLY talk about projects that they hold.

🚩Previous projects performed poorly after the influencer shilled them.

🚩They don’t disclose what projects they own.

Also, we’d advise you to DYOR from credible sources. Here are a few:

• Decrypt

• Delphi Digital reports

• Benzinga

Remember, web3 is full of opportunities but beware of someone taking advantage of your curiosity and don't blindly follow someone with 100k followers but zero value addition.

wagmi 🚀

That’s a wrap for This Week In Web3!

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