GM. Here's your roundup of Web3 news, tweets and vibes from the last 7 days. Avoid FOMI (fear of missing info) with Layer3 🤝

Your Web3 Briefing 📝

A roundup of the biggest Web3 headlines over the last week

Ethereum’s creator has concerns

In honour of releasing their first ever full magazine as an NFT, TIME Magazine ran a cover story featuring Vitalik Buterin aka the Prince of Cryto aka the creator of Ethereum.

TIME sat down with Vitalik - who they describe as “the most influential person in crypto” - for an 80 minute interview at ETHDenver (the big weeklong crypto conference dedicated to Ethereum).

Here’s our quick TLDR of the full interview:

Vitalik said he’s worried about crypto’s future. Why?

Firstly, because of the “dangers to overeager investors” - and how all too often you see people losing more than they can afford to.

Then there’s the “soaring transaction fees”, largely driven by DeFi and NFTs, which make a lot of the cool and meaningful use cases Vitalik cares about (such as universal basic income) unworkable.

And finally the “shameless displays of wealth... with people buying yachts and lambos” - which Vitalik believes have come to dominate the public perception of Crypto.

How to fix this? Well firstly Vitalik acknowledges that he isn’t Zuck and Ethereum isn’t Meta. Ethereum is decentralised, so Vitalik has only ‘soft power’ to influence change (blogs, and interviews like this one).

But he’s more committed than ever to that change - and to seeing ETH’s legacy be about all the good the ecosystem can do (stuff like fairer voting systems, digital identity and research projects) - rather than become a place overridden by crime, hacks and scams.

Speaking of the Ethereum team... 👇

We’re getting closer to the Merge

The Ethereum foundation announced that the “Merge” successfully took place on the Kiln Testnet.

What’s The Merge? You can read about it here - but basically it’s the point when Ethereum fully transitions over to Proof-of-Stake i.e. it’ll help ETH become faster and more energy efficient.

The Ethereum team just completed the the final public trial-run of the Merge - before they go and do it for real.

This is a pretty big deal - as many believe ETH2.0 (once transitioned to PoS) will have a transformative effect on the whole ecosystem - not least for dealing with the environmental concerns (which has been a regular criticism of the space).

What else you should know

YugaLabs launches the much-hyped ApeCoin as a token airdrop to its NFT holders - gets a mixed reception 

ConsenSys (the maker of MetaMask) raises a $450M Series D valuing them at $7B.

Mark Zuckerberg confirms that Instagram will launch NFTs.

Another bank sets up shop in the metaverse (why do they keep doing this?) - this time it's HSBC.

Malaysia is proposing Crypto becomes legal tender.

Visa will hire college students to be in house crypto interns.

Spotify lists web3 jobs. Speculation ensues. 

Stablecoin adoption soars - just look at this chart showing the total number of addresses holding at least $1 of a major stablecoin:

Tweets of the Week 🐦

We spend time on CT, so you don’t have to. Some of our favourite recent tweets: 

Have to lead with this one.

People were mean to Vitalik after the TIME cover photo - and said he looked like a skinny Tom Brady. But Vitalik had no idea who Tom Brady was... 

Then Tom Brady replied... turns out he's a fan 

A look inside Layer3 HQ. Does your office have a beach?

BRB adding "NFT" to all my tweets

Magic internet marketing

Felt this one

Twitter aka web3 LinkedIn

Web3 101: ENS Domains 💡

Each week we’ll cover an essential web3 concept in simple terms - this week we’re looking at ENS Domains ✨

What are ENS Domains?

Remember how your wallet has a public key? It’s that super long string (0xf6e2b...) - that you wish was easier to remember so people can use it to send you cool stuff, like NFTs and ETH etc.

Well that’s where ENS comes in - they make it easy for people to send crypto assets to your wallet by giving it a human readable address! 🥳

That’s why you see all the people on twitter with .eth names (that’s their ENS name)

How do I set one up?

1. Go to ens.domains and connect your wallet

2. Search for your name, or whatever you want to call your wallet

3. If it’s available, choose the registration period and then request! The transaction will cost you a little ETH - but it’s worth it to claim your web3 identity!

ICYMI

Are you a hexagon on Twitter? Go claim this Instant Bounty if you are! 

Want to get your hands on a Layer3 NFT, merch or even a much coveted hoodie?

PS 👇

Join our Discord to stay up-to-date on the latest DAOs and contests!

Add our **GM bot** to your discord server.

That's all for today! Thoughts on today's email?

• 👍 Great!

• 😐 Meh

• 👎 Nope

Yahya at Layer3