1.Romania is going to introduce NFT instead of regular documents to reduce bureaucracy

The Romanian National Institute for Informatics Research and Development has announced that it is creating NFTs and a decentralized domain name system.
Both services will be built on the Elrond (EGLD) blockchain, which is known for its ability to speed up transactions through sharding.
As Elrond said, the initiatives will be the first of their kind in the EU. One use case for the NFT market could potentially be the digitization, access, transfer and storage of official documents, property documents or various certificates using decentralized blockchain identity.

Adrian Victor Vevera, CEO of ICI Bucharest, commented:
“Web3 technologies have the potential to transform public administration and help its institutions and processes move forward in terms of efficiency and speed while reducing costs, overhead and red tape.”

Elrond claims that its blockchain can process up to 15 transactions per second with a six-second delay, is carbon negative, and has negligible transaction costs. This is not the first Elrond project in Romania. Three months earlier, the National Bank of Romania had approved Elrond's offer to buy Romanian fintech Twispay.

The Romanian initiative is the clearest example of how NFTs enter our lives, changing seemingly centuries-old processes.
Such applications are followed by mass adoption. Once upon a time, one could also talk about the introduction of e-mail or the advent of fax machines.
After how many years will your grandma start getting NFT receipts?

2. Blockchain Solana introduced its own smartphone

They named it Saga. Inside is a 6.67-inch display, 512GB SSD and 12GB RAM. Snapdragon 8+ 1st generation processor. The creators promise increased levels of data protection.

Pre-sale price - $ 1000, you can order on a special Online. Delivery is scheduled for early 2023.
The smartphone will have an open SDK, which will allow ecosystem developers to more easily adapt their applications.
The design of the device has not yet been disclosed, only a mysterious stub with a signature shade of purple hangs on the site.

Solana are struggling to regain their former greatness. Problems with the unreliability of the network dropped the cryptocurrency rate from $260 to $30.
Despite all the disadvantages, Solana can rightfully be put in second place after ETH in terms of its contribution to the cultural components of the blockchain. Sometimes, the volume of NFT sales here exceeds Ethereum, and we should not forget about gaming giants like Star Atlas or Stepn.
The marketing and PR department of the company is working at the highest level, so you can definitely expect a strong increase in capitalization along with the overall recovery of the crypto market.

3. The amount of electricity consumed by the largest cryptocurrency networks decreased by 50%

Due to the fall of the crypto market, mining is no longer profitable.

According to estimates by cryptanalyst Digiconomist, electricity consumption on the bitcoin network alone (excluding other networks) has fallen by a third from its June 11 peak, to 131 terawatt-hours per year. This is still quite a lot and, for example, corresponds to the annual consumption of Argentina. That being said, one normal bitcoin transaction uses the same amount of electricity that a typical US household would use for 50 days.

The decline in electricity consumption for Ethereum was even more dramatic, from a peak level of 94 TWh per year to 46 TWh per year — about the same as Qatar’s annual consumption.

The main reason for the fall is the same for both currencies. The electricity consumption of the cryptocurrency network is related to mining. As the price of cryptocurrencies fell (for example, bitcoin fell from $69 to $20), so did the rewards for miners.

In the case of bitcoin mining, the equipment for this cannot be repurposed for something else. Ethereum, on the other hand, can be mined using a regular computer, but it is most profitable to do this using powerful video cards. The fall in mining revenues has led to the used graphics card market being flooded with graphics cards as miners are now trying to recoup their investment somehow.

4. Crypto investors turn an old English football club into the world's first web3 team. They are going to be fully managed through the DAO and sell NFT tickets.

Founded in 1896, Crawley Town plays in League 2 and plans to be the first to implement blockchain. The team promises to introduce DAO for management. By purchasing special tokens, fans will be able to influence all important club decisions. Crawley Town wants to give both offline and online fans as much power as “no fan in the history of football has ever had.”

The club is already selling a special kit with the help of NFT. Part of the season tickets was also presented in the form of tokens. The owners of the club declare plans to build a full-fledged digital community. Starting with the new season, Adidas will start supplying all kits and collaborating across the metaverse.

Unlike most clubs that have touched the web3 through a banal collaboration with the producers of collectible cards, the British are planning to fully establish themselves in the Cretan space. This will give their NFT utility and value. DAO members, for example, will be able to decide which lanes to buff and which players fit better into the tactic. The exact list of spheres for voting will be decided by… yes, by voting! The coach of the London Arsenal youth team was invited to lead the project.

In April, the club was bought by the crypto company WAGMI United. American investment fund Prest Johnson and Eben Smith are well-known people in the crypto community. The first one is the co-founder of the most successful NFT comics agency Pixel Vault. Their crypto-punk comics alone have generated over 25 Ethereum. The second founded the digital agency DCA. The partners say they have a multi-year budget for the Crawley Town project that will not be affected by market conditions.

5.World of Women and Hasbro to release web3 "Monopoly"

Feminist NFT-collection World of Women and the world's largest toy manufacturer Hasbro united to create the first of its kind Monopoly. To play it, you must own a WoW token (minimum price - 4.1 ETH) or WoWG (World of Women Galaxy (0.46 ETH).

“Collaboration with such a historical brand as Monopoly; this is an amazing opportunity for our team and community. As the WoW franchise continues to evolve, we are proud to be partnering with a leader in the gaming industry,” says WoW co-founder Yam Karkai.

At first, Monopoly can be bought through NFT, then the holders will be able to exchange the digital game for a physical one. There are 30 tokens in total, so don't expect a larger circulation.
Release date unknown.

6. Tax evaders in Argentina have crypto wallets confiscated

In Argentina, it was legally allowed to punish tax evaders by confiscating their cryptocurrency wallets. The country's tax administration is already actively pursuing evaders for innovative technology.
Many citizens, in the conditions of inflation raging in the country, do not have bank accounts or property, but they run an underground business without paying taxes. There is nothing to take from them through the court, because they allegedly have nothing, but many crypto wallets were found.
At the beginning of the year, the regulator got the government to add this savings tool to the list of assets subject to confiscation.
In 4 months, 1 digital wallets of violators of the law were arrested for a total of $269 million.
We recently wrote (https://t.me/BCCulture/378) about the confiscation of NFTs by the Dutch police. Crypto assets are becoming more and more a tasty morsel for collectors and verifiers. If you have something to hide, it is better to use a hardware wallet like Ledger and keep it in a safe place.

7. How do the directors of the world's largest brands see the metaverse?

2 weeks ago, the international technology conference Vivatech took place in Paris. Among co-organizers: LVMH, Google, BNP Paribas bank, among partners: McKinsey, Audi, Microsoft, L'Oreal, Meta and other giants.

It often presents all the latest in the world of marketing and PR. 4 main themes of the event: marketing, the future of work, technology for spectacle and society. Many speakers touched web3 topics in one way or another. We have highlighted the most interesting statements:

CEO L'Oreal sees NFTs and virtual worlds as the most important leverage for customer engagement.

CBO Procter & Gamble stated that he expects the metaverse to help in orienting the business to the real needs of the buyer.

On the VivaTech stated that while brands used to emphasize creating unique experiences, the next stage of the industry development should be a strong sense of empathy after advertising. In this, companies should be helped by the spread of metaverses - platforms with a new level of immersiveness. Experts said that the metaverses add the ability to show brands "beyond the usual reality."

CEO McKinsey & Co noted that people have long been ready for this type of communication: they played games and bought on social networks. The metaverses have just collected a lot of technology in one place.

CMO Qualcomm noted that social media was in many ways dangerous and unfair, and expressed his hope that the metaverses would get better.

News for the category unincluded borrowed and verified from the channel BCC BLOCKCHAIN ​​CULTURE