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Ethereum ETFs & The First Institutional On-Chain Bank 🔥

🎣 w3.catch-of-the-week cw22

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Vicktoria Klich & Quinn Wilhelm
May 24, 2024

GMGM & welcome to the 🎣w3.catch-of-the-week, your two-in-one Web3 package that tells you everything that happened onsite at Berlin Blockchain Week and online on the worldwide web.

Crypto Twitter was shocked late Monday night when Bloomberg ETF Experts reported a 75% chance of approval for Ethereum Spot ETFs on 23rd of May.

Joseph Lubin, CEO of Consensys, also spoke of a political shift among legislators and regulators when I interviewed him this Tuesday.

🚨 Update from this morning: The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved the sale of spot Ether Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) in the United States on May 23, 2024. The SEC combined proposals from the Nasdaq, NYSE, and CBOE exchanges, which requested changes to existing rules to allow the trading of Ethereum Exchange-Rraded Products (ETPs) and ETFs.

Our deep dive and it’s consequences will follow.

Want to see my favorite headline from today 👇🏽

🔥 We have something to announce…
🛍️ Luxury Goods onchain
⚒️ Ironbank & Ironchain
🤖 Super Punk World
💙 Based Use Cases 

Web3 Infrastructure for Everyone: w3.labs

After building Web3 infrastructure for ourselves, we are now opening w3.labs for everyone.

As a collective of Web2 builders, Web3 enthusiasts, TradFi asset managers, we use our unique perspective on the problem and solution spaces around Web3 assets.

Investors in Web3 face numerous challenges: regulatory compliance, tax implications, bankability, and operational hurdles. We will contribute to the ecosystem by building ourselves!

Our solution:

w3.labs embraces the open source nature of the Web3. We are building on bare-metal infrastructure in German data centers, offering non-custodial staking in full legal compliance, enabling confident tax reporting and adherence to German and EU regulations. Our tooling supports the tracking and reporting requirements of authorities and institutions.

With its infrastructure approach, w3.labs perfectly integrates into the flywheel of our Fund, a media house, and Co-Working & community spaces.

Want to learn more?

The Blockchain for Luxury Goods

40 million luxury products have found their way onchain via the Aura Consortium Blockchain.

Ever heard of it? Aura has positioned itself as the Luxury Blockchain 2021 and is used by brands such as Prada, Marni, Jil Sander… (you name it), for digital product passports.

What are Digital Product Passports (DPPs)? 

These are certificates that transparently document the origin and creation of products. This information is often linked to the physical product via an NFC chip.

The need for adopting DPPs is increasing because new EU regulations might require fashion and other industries to have mandatory DPPs for each item starting in 2026, as part of efforts to improve sustainability and transparency.

The World's first institutional On-Chain Bank

Our friends from Unstoppable Finance made a big announcement, after selling Ultimate Wallet to Jupiter.

The team will now fully focus on building the Iron Chain and Iron Bank.

We asked Peter what his team is cooking: “With the bank currently being founded, we want to provide B2B banking services to the heavily underserved MiCAR-regulated digital asset industry consisting of stablecoins, market makers and exchanges.”

In the long term, digital assets are expected to include traditional financial instruments such as securities.
Achieving this will require a unified settlement infrastructure for both money and assets.

Iron Chain aims to develop a technology that can serve as a core banking system, which other banks can also adopt in the future. This system would facilitate the transfer of funds between banks (similar to a next-generation SWIFT) and the settlement of assets on the same platform.

Crypto Punks Second Collection

The legendary crypto punks are in danger of losing value. This week, they have announced a second collection: Super Punk World

The collection includes 500 unique avatars, hand-selected from over 10,000 outputs by Nina Chanel Abney.

Each avatar features 195 unique 3D attributes based on 25 personas. Abney's work addresses issues of race and gender by blending different racial and gender traits in her avatars. The collection aims to reflect on virtual and real-world identities.

The launch faced massive backlash from some collectors and observers, with criticism about the art style and accusations of focusing too much on race and gender.

Greg Solano, co-founder of Yuga Labs, responded to the discussion as follows:

We bought the Punks collection to preserve its legacy and see it as important early NFT art. Instead of auctioning, Nina Chanel's latest collection will be airdropped to SuperCoolWorld holders, and Yuga will keep Punks decentralized on the blockchain, supporting museums in educating about them.

BasedBerlin Hackathon on Farcaster

We kicked off Berlin Blockchain Week with a hackathon organized by Base. The participants had the task of developing a cool onchain experience on the fastest growing decentralized protocol Farcaster.

Here are the three winning use cases:

🎨 Most Creative

Castlatte - uses AI to curate personal feeds into insights tailored to interests, and publishes them to channels where community members can subscribe and receive derived, high-quality content.

✨ Ease of Use

Framefluence - A "frame distribution platform" that connects Farcaster creators with products and services looking to tap into relevant communities.

⛓ Most Onchain

Fundcast - Enabling crowdfunding through a frame. For example, "Pimp your Pitch", which focuses on raising funds for local soccer pitches in Berlin that are in dire need of renovation.

Get to know a few of the builders in our wonderful recap video:

Cosmos Berlin²

​Cosmos Berlin² is set to take place on May 27, 2024. Expect a full-day event packed with keynotes/ panels, an exhibition area, F&B, and much more.

AwesomWasm Hackathon


CosmWasm is a smart contracting platform built for the Cosmos ecosystem. Simply put, it's the Cosmos (Cosm) way of using WebAssembly (Wasm), hence the name.

Open League Summer: Berlin Bootcamp

Come to meet, learn and develop your Open League Hackathon project for a chance to win something from the $5,000 prize pool.

Weavers x Arweave Day: 24hr Hackathon

Join us in celebrating the 6th anniversary of the Arweave Protocol with the Weavers crew at our premier IRL Hackathon! Coinciding with Arweave Day in Berlin, the event will take place June 6-7 in the heart of Europe’s blockchain scene.

w3.hub by night ✨

🏄‍♀️ Recap of Day1 BBW

Vicky & Marvin are Web3-obsessed. That's why they host a weekly podcast featuring updates and cool stuff.

Don't miss out on any news, updates, & vibes anymore. Discord is so yesterday. Let's meet on Telegram.