In crypto’s continued effort to create niche blockchains in competition against Ethereum and Solana, Peer Inc. has launched web3’s first metaverse-inspired distributed ledger. According to the company, this blockchain will “boast” high security and zero fees. These are major claims by Peer, as these are qualities that legacy blockchains have never been able to brag about.

“The sooner we deliver a complete suite of blockchain products, services, and resources to make it easier for builders and creators to contribute to the metaverse and earn from it, the sooner we will have an actual metaverse,” said Heath Abbate, Chief Operating Officer of Peer.

“All the raw materials will be accessible to anyone who wants to participate,” Abbate continued. “The metaverse, like the web before it, needs contributors and collaborators to grow.”

This all begs the question, how exactly will Peer’s blockchain will actually help the metaverse? The company claims that aside from an infrastructure that can support millions of transactions per second, Peer uses “nominated” Proof-of-Stake to deliver cross-chain compatibility in order to promote wide scale transactions.

The company also plans on allowing apps to be built on top of the ledger, a telltale sign of a legitimate blockchain. In the initial stages, the open-source system software company Rust will support the application development process on Peer’s ledger.

“At present, there is no coherent vision of the metaverse, and no foundational technology framework exists to enable its construction. We are building that framework now,”said Tony Tran, Peer’s Founder and CEO.

According to Tran,  the metaverse is a “three-dimensional fabric” that  acts as a digital bridge between the tangible and digital realms. This fabric, which he calls the ‘Orthogonal Fabric’, will be driven by blockchain applications and accessed through the new next-gen infrastructures.

The Peer blockchain is still in its infancy. According to the company, it was deployed on February 22  with a pre-mined total supply of 2.1 billion Peers while using the ticker symbol $PMC. Peer’s tokens will serve as a utility, store of value, and unit of exchange in the metaverse.

This idea of creating niche financial products in an attempt to prevent an overhaul or big tech takeover of an industry is new to web3, but currently a major component in the crypto’s close cousin, fintech. 

“Peer is making it possible for the world to become a super user interface,” said Tran. “Technology is about to change faster than anyone can predict and bigger than anyone can imagine.”

Nervos, a blockchain protocol and ecosystem with an effort to solve the industry’s biggest problems announced the upcoming Web3 World Championship, a global hackathon aimed at highlighting, supporting, and promoting the best talents in Web3.

Prizes up to $75,000 in ‘CKB’, the native token of the Nervos Network and exclusive NFTs will be given to the winning individuals and their teams.

The event is jam packed with events creating digital asset-based projects. With events like a ‘100 meter dash’ and a ‘Relay’, involving porting their Ethereum decentralized app to Nervos and creating a dApp and launching it via Nervos respectively, it is surrounded with the idea of doing different types of software work surrounding the host company’s infrastructure.

“The world of Web3 offers unprecedented opportunities for creativity and innovation powered by blockchain technology, and that’s the inspiration for this hackathon,” said Kevin Wang, co-founder at Nervos Network.

Other events include minting NFTs, and being judged on both time minted and artistic integrity. The teams that create the top 10 NFTs will each win $1,000 in CKB. In the event dubbed ‘Marathon’, teams will battle to build a meaningful decentralized applications and launch it on Godwoken. The winning team will receive $15,000 in CKB, and the second and third place winners will receive $13,000 and $7,500 in CKB, respectively.

“The Web3 World Championship, one of the first events of its kind, will not only showcase how easy it is to port an Ethereum dApp to Nervos but also give developers and team a clear path to contribute to our burgeoning ecosystem.”

The hackathon will launch online March 18 and run through May 2. To join the event or get more details on the prices at stake, click here. 

New York City’s largest NFT-focused event is about three months out, as the the area’s biggest crypto show will begin some of its most intense marketing over the next two months. The show is expected to host one-thousand speakers and five-thousand attendees from over 60 countries. According to the NFT.NYC website, the amount of nations being showcased via ticket holders and speakers is up 50% from 2021’s show. 

At the 99 day mark for last year’s event, 600 attendees from 30 countries were already registered, according to the NFT.NYC website. The latest registration numbers for this year’s event claim to have 3500 attendees from 64 countries. 

We’re excited to put as many speakers on stage as possible,” said Michael Battaglia, Event Coordinator of NFT.NYC. [We’re excited] to provide a forum for the NFT community to share their ideas.”

The event has gained some serious traction since its inception in 2019. At this stage in 2019, NFT.NYC had no registrations. In 2020, the event had 9 registrations 99 days out. 

With all the big names and brands sponsoring the event, NFT.NYC has become an animal of its own on the crypto event scene. As Miami spews with blockchain gatherings, places like Austin and Los Angeles are trying to host similar events. None have branded themselves with an entire city with the amount of success NFT.NYC has. Coinbase called NFT.NYC “the Superbowl of NFTs”.

The event also tops the list in cost for both attendees and sponsors. A general admission ticket is $599 for 2022’s event, with a VIP ticket topping out at $1,400. Sponsorships for the event range from itemized sponsorships in the $2,000 range, all the way up to a $100k VIP platinum sponsorship package. According to the NFT.NYC team, they expect all of their sponsorships to completely sell out throughout the event. 

NFT.NYC will take place June 20-23 at multiple venues across Times Square. 

RE/MAX Broker Chris Durrant has used social media to promote his real estate brand with NFTs

Chad Durrant, a Real Estate broker in Washington state, has taken the headwind of digital assets into his own job’s marketing strategies. In the cutthroat business of real estate, Durrant is attempting to separate himself from the pack by offering those who work with him complementary NFTs as a token of his gratitude.

Durrant placed ads on Instagram that can be seen across the country. The NFTs being gifted are 1155’s on the polygon blockchain.

According to Durrant, the impact digital assets have on the real estate market are not going unnoticed. In a recent conference in Las Vegas, RE/MAX brokers were put through a class about the future of cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology in regards to the real estate industry.

For the most part [the class] was a high level overview of what crypto exactly is,” said Durrant. “After returning from the conference, I realized that most people don’t know what crypto is and have no idea where to start.”

I have a knowledge of NFTs and I know how to create and distribute them, so I thought it would be a fun way for people to get their foot in the door and have a positive experience in this space,” he said when asked about the origins of his marketing campaign. “The digital world isn’t for everyone, and you really need to do your research before buying into projects or into digital currencies. I want to offer a safe, trusted and free way for my clients to own a NFT.”

Durrant spoke highly about the potential of blockchain technology in his industry on a fundamental basis. According to him, this type of tech will serve as the groundwork to the future of record keeping in real estate transactions. “Soon, I believe that NFT’s and the blockchain will start to be a common way for real estate transactions to be recorded,” said Durrant. “NFT’s will be the evolution of a deed of trust.”

“From what I do know about it, they talk about it in passing but this year has been the first that it’s been brought up in their meetings” said Durrant, when asked about if crypto even comes up in conversation either in or out of the office by his coworkers. “There is one [coworker] who buys crypto based on recommendations from his son, and he turned $250 into $10,000 on an NFT of an Ape on the Solana blockchain,” he said. “However, if you asked him to explain what his NFT did and why it was valuable, he wouldn’t have been able to answer you.”

Although the interest is there, the knowledge isn’t when it comes to crypto’s current function in the mortgage world’s water cooler chats. “I’m the only one out of my office that can speak to crypto at a proficient level. At the RE/MAX conference there was a good group of us that are proficient in the area.”

Durrant doesn’t believe that crypto will replace fiat currency, but has confidence they can work hand in hand both in and out of his industry. “I believe that in today’s age, people are scared of anything new or scared of things they don’t know anything about.” Right now, not many people know anything about NFT’s, mining and blockchain. If you ask them about Bitcoin, they’ll probably regret that they didn’t buy into it ten years ago.”

Not only does Durrant believe that knowledge in this space will give him a competitive edge, he also believes that by establishing himself as a crypto-native real estate go-to, he can give himself a tremendous advantage against his competition.

“I believe that in the near future the real estate industry will work alongside crypto. I believe that the real estate brokers that buy into now will end up ahead of those who don’t, and that’s why I want to be the first person running a promotion of this kind.”