GM. This is Layer3's weekly newsletter, helping you stay updated on all things web3. We pay attention to Crypto Twitter so you don't have to.

This week, we cover:

• A sneak first peek at the "Otherside" Metaverse by Yuga Labs

• India's Central Bank wants to regulate (and ban) crypto

• What is maximum extractable value (MEV)? A beginners guide

• Updated leaderboard and XP functionality

Sarah at Layer3

Your Web3 Briefing 📝

A roundup of the biggest Web3 headlines over the last week

4300+ users experience Yuga Labs'"Otherside" Metaverse for the first time

Remember that Otherside trailer released a couple of months ago? Well, looks like Yuga Labs followed through on their promises, and delivered what appears to be a pretty smooth "First Trip" virtual experience for holders of Otherdeed NFTs.

If you're not familiar with Yuga and Otherside, we've summed up a few key details for you:

• Yuga Labs is the parent company that owns Bored Ape Yacht Club, along with MAYC and BAKC. It also acquired CryptoPunks and Meebits in a somewhat controversial move back in March.

• After their Punks/Meebits acquisition, Yuga Labs teased their own Metaverse concept with an action-packed trailer for the Otherside, and airdropped $APE (Apecoin) to all BAYC and MAYC holders.

• On April 30, Yuga Labs released plots of "Otherside" land for sale, represented by dynamic NFTs called "Otherdeeds". All 55k plots sold out almost immediately, and its popularity led to high gas fees where some users reportedly paid up to 5ETH to complete a transaction.

• What does this Otherdeed grant access to? Well, a couple thousand users got an exclusive look at that last week...

No matter what your thoughts are on BAYC, it'll be interesting to watch this experiment in a Metaverse supposedly guided by principles of "genuine ownership and interoperability," and whether the public concept truly matches up to the lofty ideals outlined by Yuga Labs' litepaper.

Even as a BAYC skeptic, I'll have to admit that the results look pretty stunning so far. Perhaps the true GameFi innovation lies in NFTs (or at least, the NFT projects that have enough capital to hire a reputable gaming studio).

The Reserve Bank of India seeks global cooperation to regulate cryptocurrency

In a session with India's parliament earlier today, Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman doubled down on the views of India's Central Bank (RBI), stating that legislation framing crypto regulation was "needed" and that "international collaboration" would be necessary for a ban.

"RBI is of the view that cryptocurrencies should be prohibited," said Sitharaman, in response to a parliament member, "Cryptocurrencies are by definition borderless and require international collaboration to prevent regulatory arbitrage."

India is one of the biggest players in crypto, attracting investments in blockchain and cryptocurrencies totaling $638 million over 48 fundraising rounds in 2021, and already reaching $1bn in 2022. It's also known for ecosystems such as Polygon, an Ethereum scaling solution that is much cheaper and faster than mainnet.

The parliamentary inquiry came after the RBI was suspected of "shadowbanning" crypto, after several payment providers banned crypto exchanges.

What else you should know

• SBF writes a thread on potential use-cases for crypto

• Ethereum devs set a new launch date for the Merge in September

• UK judge allows lawsuit to be delivered via NFTs

• Vitalik writes a review of Balaji's vision for "Network States"

What we've been BUIDLing 🏗️

We've added new leaderboard and XP progression functionality!

You can now track your XP points every time you earn XP on Layer3, and view our famed leaderboard according to 30-day and all-time rankings.

Have you checked your ranking yet? I'm only on Level 5...and have yet to catch up to some of our top contributors:

🛣️ Stay up to speed on what we're building: Take a look at our roadmap to see what we've been cooking at Layer3, and a preview of what’s to come.

🚢 And if you want to help decide what we ship next: You can submit a feature request here and vote on your favorites! Some top community requests have already made it onto our roadmap.

Web3 101: Maximal Extractable Value (MEV)💡

Each week we’ll cover an essential web3 concept in simple terms. This week we’re looking at maximal extractable value, otherwise known as MEV ✨

What is maximal extractable value?

MEV refers to the maximum value (profit) that can be extracted from block production in excess of the standard block reward and gas fees by including, excluding, and changing the order of transactions in a block.

What are some examples of MEV?

There are many ways that people can make profit from MEV. The earliest version of this is front-running, where bots replicated users transactions with a higher gas price so that miners would pick their more expensive transactions over others. Back-running refers to when miners place transactions right after users to take advantage of market conditions, and sandwich attacks are a combination of both. Arbitrage bots on DEXes are another example of MEV.

How can I try out MEV?

MEV isn't available to a typical user, since it requires advanced knowledge of blockchain, programming, and arbitrage. It also adversely affect users, especially when it comes to transaction fees and speed.

While MEV isn't currently on offer at Layer3, make sure to extract some maximum value out of our live Bounties (and perhaps sharpen your skills to do so in the future)!

Disclaimer: Cryptocurrencies are inherently volatile assets. We recommend you do your research into each protocol and platform before proceeding. This newsletter is not sponsored and does not contain financial advice.

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That's all for today!