How Web3 Helps Brands to Reach Gen Z

🎣 w3.catch-of-the-week cw25

GMGM and welcome to 🎣 w3.catch-of-the-week, the newsletter that provides you with the weekly proof of work of Web3.

Who would have thought that Bitcoin, of all things, would become the most important campaign instrument in the 2024 US presidential election?

Well, check this:

Meanwhile, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong continues to fight for more clarity and regulation of cryptocurrencies:


💸 We are hosting an Investing in Web3 Conference!
📊 Web3 Loyalty Top or Flop?
🚀 w3.ecosystem is growing
🔮 The Future of Tokenization
👀 What is a “Smart Wallet”?

Join our Investing in Web3 Online Conference

How do GPs, LPs, Family Offices, angels and other investors look at Web3? What is their investment strategy? What are their best practices?

On June 25th we are hosting an Online Conference to answer these questions and focus on investment trends and opportunities in the Web3 space.

How to receive an invite?

Status check: Web3 Loyalty - Hit or Miss for Brands?

The biggest player in loyalty programs closed its program with Starbucks, but that didn't stop Hugo Boss from launching its own program powered by Web3 last month.

Is the loyalty use case relevant for brands or should they focus on other topics? I went deep into the rabbit hole and decoded the whole story for you.

Loyalty programs have a long history and are a popular marketing tool to achieve customer longevity. In one study, 81% of Gen Z in the US said that loyalty or rewards programs influenced whether they would repurchase from a brand.

Loyalty programs accounted for $431 million of Lufthansa's 2023 revenue.

“1 in 3 businesses without a loyalty program today will establish one by 2027,” according to Gartner.

Okay, but how do Web3 technologies come into play? 🤨

The main difference is that Web3 enables ✨interoperability✨. In other words, the ability to transfer points or rewards to other platforms or from one account to another.

👉 A simple example: Imagine you are taking part in McDonald's Monopoly and you have two out of three green cards. Your best friend has the card you are missing. If the Monopoly cards were NFTs, your friend could simply send you the missing card.

Visa’s Loyalty Solution

Since the beginning of this year, Visa has been offering a Web3 Loyalty Engagement solution that helps brands to build brand loyalty.

Brand benefits:

  • Building first-party data and direct communication with users

  • Improve brand engagement, ROI and customer lifetime value

  • Access to mobile and digital-oriented target groups

  • New revenue opportunities through monetization of brand IP

  • Easy to use drag-and-drop platform

Customer benefits:

  • Gamified loyalty that is fun and rewarding

  • Optimized experiences for mobile devices and the spatial web.

  • New ways to earn and redeem in physical, virtual and digital worlds.

  • Redeem rewards for rare digital collectibles and experiences.

  • Interoperable digital wallet app.

HUGO BOSS XP

Hugo Boss wants its program to appeal to the next generation of customers (mainly Gen Z) and increase customer loyalty. Both through physical and digital experiences. It is implemented through the creation of an omnichannel.

🤓 Omni-channel combines all sales and communication channels (online, offline, in-store, social media) to offer a seamless customer experience.

Hugo Boss continues to focus on its two-brand strategy: BOSS XP (targets older audience) and HUGO XP (targets younger audience). These two programs offer different designs and rewards that are specifically tailored to the respective target groups.

The program uses both fungible tokens (points) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Customers can collect these tokens through purchases and interactions. The fungible tokens work like traditional loyalty points and can be redeemed for discounts or other rewards. The NFTs are unique digital objects that unlock exclusive products and experiences.

“Part of the plan is the future possibility for customers to trade tokens”.

Another benefit of the program is the ability to collect data. Since third-party cookies are eliminated, Hugo Boss can collect valuable data directly from customers through this program.

By involving the community and using gamified elements, it promises to improve the customer experience and increase brand loyalty.

The w3. ecosystem got 2 add-ons

w3.labs - Web3 Infrastructure Secure & Compliant

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

Staking is one of the most exciting principles in the blockchain cosmos, but it faces regulatory compliance, tax implications, bankability, and operational hurdles.

With w3.labs 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.

You will find more details on what we offer here:

w3.wave - Liquid Token Fund

After years of hard work, we are finally launching w3.wave, our fully regulatory-compliant liquid token fund.

Unlike index funds, we employ an actively managed portfolio to achieve significant outperformance compared to Bitcoin. The fund is managed by Julius Nagel and Philipp Beer, both with extensive experience and a strong track record in the crypto investment field.

The fund is targeted at semi-professional and professional investors, if you are interested in participating, get in touch with us.

The Future of Tokenization

Tokenization of real-world assets (RWAs) is a topic that is extremely relevant, also for Blackrock. With “BUIDL”, Blackrock has recently launched its own tokenization fund.

Since then, Larry Fink has often publicly emphasized on TV shows how optimistic he is about the tokenization of RWAs. If the largest asset manager is so clearly in favor of this, the topic is naturally also of interest to all other asset managers, banks, etc.

I am therefore delighted that there will be a conference in Frankfurt next week that will focus exclusively on the topic of tokenization: TOKENFUTURE 2024

Get ready to:

  • Discover how leading banks and asset managers drive new business through tokenization

  • Walk through the entire lifecycle of tokenized assets and discuss remaining challenge

  • Expand your network with key ecosystem players across the stack

For you, my wonderful community, I was able to get my hands on a few free conference passes 👀.

To be one of the lucky participants, I ask anyone who is interested in the conference and works for a bank, asset manager, family office or is an RWA founder to kindly contact me.

The New Era of Wallets

Smart wallets have been around for about a week, but Coinbase's highly praised wallets are not the only ones, as the Fuse team has followed suit and released the first Solana-compatible smart wallet.

Is every chain now getting its own smart wallet and what's the hype about? 🤔

Web3 wallets, such as Metamask, Phantom, Keplr etc., are required to interact with so-called Dapps (decentralized applications). With so many different providers, many people can no longer keep track.

Coinbase wants to remedy this with its smart wallets and make the user experience as simple as possible.

With conventional wallets, a so-called “seed phrase” (the list of 16/24 words) is generated when the wallet is created. This must be stored physically and securely... a principle that ensures security, but represents a significant hurdle to non tech-savvy people.

When creating a smart wallet, a passkey is required instead of a seed phrase, a principle that should be familiar to some of you and especially “normies” (people without crypto experience) 💡.

The result is a simpler, faster wallet creation that also offers “enterprise-grade security”.

Given that Coinbase is considered the most popular exchange, this launch is particularly smart of them, as they are enabling people to get onchain without them likely realizing it, since everything happens in an already familiar environment inside the Coinbase app 🧠.

Fuse: Solana’s First Smart Wallet

Traditional wallets in the Solana ecosystem lack programmability, which can lead to security issues and limited customizability.

Fuse addresses these shortcomings by introducing features such as two-tier security mechanisms and flexible recovery options.

In addition, Fuse's programmability enables advanced functionalities such as spending limits, gas abstraction and progressive security measures.

Here you can see the current status of our lovely community space 🥰🍿

Our ecosystem is growing faster than the queue in front of Berghain.

We founded w3.labs!

soonami Venture­thon

The 10-day startup launchpad is starting on June 17th. Focus is on execution ability of founders in a remote world. They believe in the power of Web3 to service humanity with borderless software.

🎁 Some perks: Bounties of 25k are paid out after 10 day hackathon, then for best teams another 2 months cohort and winners receive investment of 125k USD for 9%

Bitcoin Beginner Workshop

📅 June 17, 2024  7:00 PM

Up-skilling in the age of AI

🗓️ June 18, 2024 6:30 PM

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.