Latest Web3 Updates from Consensus

Greetings everyone, and welcome to a special Consensus 2023 edition of The Airdrop - our weekly newsletter where we cover the most significant stories in the world of Web3.

This week, we're reporting to you from Austin, Texas, and with so much happening on the ground, we're switching up our usual format to bring you a special edition that focuses solely on the festival highlights.

This Week's Alpha

Entering the World of Web3 Gaming: At Consensus, Yuga Labs' newly-appointed CEO, Daniel Alegre, made his first public appearance and shared insights on his transition from Activision Blizzard, a leading player in the mainstream gaming industry, to the world of Web3. During the interview, Alegre discussed the company's winning formula and revealed exciting plans for their gamified metaverse experience, The Otherside.

“You can actually really bring the Web 2 players and have them realize, OK, this is what Web3 does,” Alegre said. “If the experiences are excellent, people will follow.”
Future plans: "You're gonna be seeing more and more [brand partnerships], those kinds of activations, and we obviously want to stay true to our community, and bring value to the community."

Polygon powered by Google Cloud: Google Cloud has partnered with Polygon Labs to simplify the process of creating Web3 products with the use of its Blockchain Node Engine for brands.

“Today's announcement with Google Cloud aims to increase transaction throughput enabling use cases in gaming, supply chain management, and DeFi," Polygon President Ryan Wyatt said in the statement.

"Initial tests to run Polygon zkEVM’s zero-knowledge proofs on Google Cloud ... resulted in significantly faster and cheaper transactions as compared to the existing setup," Google Cloud said in its statement.

Roadblocks to mass adoption: Clunky and clumsy technology is blocking mass adoption of Web3, said brand leaders from across the Web2 and Web3 space.

“Every click that you need to take in the [onboarding] process, you're going to lose 50% of people,” said Julie Garneau, head of Web3 at beverage giant Anheuser-Busch.
Andy Sack, co-CEO of Forum3, which advises the Starbucks Odyssey project, said that needing to open up a wallet in order to have a branded experience is “an alien one for consumers.”

In Other News

Twitter's mass migration: As Twitter removes legacy blue checkmarks from trusted sources like journalists, brands and public figures, many users are seeking decentralized social media alternatives, and Bluesky has emerged as a top contender.
Proof of community: NFT collective Proof is building a 3D world for holders of its Moonbirds collection via metaverse platform Mona.
OpenSea is open to Web2: The NFT marketplace told TechCrunch+ that more tools need to be available for non-crypto native brands. “It’s too complicated, so if we can be a platform that reduces that friction and makes it easier then a creator can do what they do, which is be creative, and we’ll take care of the rest," said Shiva Rajaraman, OpenSea’s chief business officer.

Source Coindesk