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Author: Tim Copeland
McDonald’s and Panera Bread, two major US-based food chains, have filed trademark registrations to build virtual restaurants and sell other digital assets in the metaverse.
McDonald’s filed a total of ten trademark applications, one of which is for “operating a virtual restaurant featuring actual and virtual goods, operating a virtual restaurant online featuring home delivery.”
Panera Bread’s trademark registration concerns non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to facilitate commercial transactions of virtual food and beverages, as well as computer programs to access such tokens in the metaverse. Under the brand name “Paneraverse,” the restaurant also intends to build out virtual restaurants and delivery features.
Trademark attorney Josh Gerben first tweeted about the filings.
Many companies such as adidas Originals, Prada and Gap have expressed interest in selling their goods in the metaverse. But food companies have been slower to enter the space, mainly because it’s not yet clear how users can enjoy a virtual dining experience. McDonald’s and Panera did not respond to comment requests in time before publication.
As for why these restaurants must file trademarks for their own intellectual property use in the metaverse, Gerben told The Block:
“Any trademark registration is limited to the goods and/or services a company has applied for in the past. With the emergence of a new technology, it is common for companies to file new trademarks to ensure protection is clear as it relates to new goods and/or services they plan to offer. That said, from a practical perspective, McDonald’s existing trademarks would prevent someone from opening a McDonald’s in the metaverse. The new filings they are making are just a ‘best practice’ to ensure they have all the tools available to enforce their trademarks if it becomes necessary.”
© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
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Author: MK Manoylov
A bill introduced in Tennessee’s legislature would, if approved, allow the state and other municipalities to invest in cryptocurrency and non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
House Bill 2644, according to public records, was introduced on February 2 and, per its summary, “authorizes a county, municipality, or the state to invest in cryptocurrency, blockchains, and non-fungible tokens.” It does so by amending parts of state law pertaining to permissible investments and, in the case of counties, the allowed use of “idle funds.”
Per LegiScan, the measure has been referred to a subcommittee within the House Finance, Ways, and Means Committee for future consideration. It is unclear at this time as to how much support this measure will attract.
The bill was filed by state representative Jason Powell. Powell has also introduced a separate measure that, if approved, would create a study commission focused on cryptocurrency and blockchain.
Public records indicate that 2022 could be a notable year for state-level, crypto-focused legislation, with recent attention being drawn to an effort in Arizona to declare bitcoin as legal tender, though that effort is unlikely to succeed given the US Constitution’s provisions on legal tender.
© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
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Author: Michael McSweeney
The decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) underpinning the Terra ecosystem has struck a sponsorship deal with the Washington Nationals, a professional baseball team in the US.
According to Wednesday’s announcement, the deal features “title sponsorship of the premier club space behind home plate at Nationals Park and establishes a foundation for future blockchain and cryptocurrency applications for fans.”
“Terra will also be featured on in-stadium signage and will sponsor a five-part digital series that airs on Nationals social platforms,” a press release explained.
The deal with a then-unnamed professional baseball team was first floated to Terra token-voters earlier this month, and the $40 million pitch (denominated in the stablecoin UST) from Terra Labs co-founder and CEO Do Kwon overwhelmingly passed on February 8. CoinDesk first floated the baseball team’s identity in a report Tuesday.
“We are excited to partner with Terra to name our most exclusive club and explore bringing powerful new fan experiences to Nationals Park, including the use of UST cryptocurrency to make purchases,” Mark Lerner, the team’s principal owner, said in a statement.
Part of the deal includes the potential use of UST at the team’s home stadium, with the press release stating: “As part of the agreement, UST could be accepted as a payment method at Nationals Park as early as next season.”
Image via Washington Nationals/Twitter
© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
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Author: Michael McSweeney
OpenNode, a crypto startup that helps merchants accept bitcoin payments from customers, has raised $20 million in a Series A funding round and is now valued at $220 million.
UK-based Kingsway Capital led OpenNode’s funding, with Twitter, Tim Draper, and Avon Ventures, a venture capital fund affiliated with the parent company of Fidelity Investments, also participating.
With fresh capital in hand, OpenNode plans to announce new product features, including a payment wallet and an account-linked debit card. The firm also plans to expand its current team to around 50 to meet the growing demand for its services, said Josh Held, head of strategy at OpenNode.
“Our customers are growing their businesses with our solutions and we are seeing unprecedented demand,” said Held. OpenNode supports both on-chain and the Lightning Network bitcoin payments.
Held declined to comment on OpenNode’s transaction volume to date but said the firm expects to cross the 25,000+ BTC mark soon. In dollar terms, that is over $1 billion at current prices.
The Series A round brings OpenNode’s total funding to date to $25 million, said Held.
© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
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Author: Yogita Khatri
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission wants to bring spot markets for cryptocurrencies into its regulatory regime, in what would potentially be its biggest expansion since the 2010 Dodd-Frank legislation.
On February 9, CFTC Chairman Rostin Behnam testified before the Senate Agriculture Committee on cryptocurrencies. Central to his appearance was his push to bring crypto “into the regulatory fold.”
In other words, that means bringing crypto spot markets under the CFTC’s oversight. The CFTC’s current oversight is largely limited to futures and derivatives markets. Within spot markets, the CFTC can prosecute fraud and manipulation, which Behnam says that the commission has done remarkably well.
However, Behnam lamented the lack of information available to the CFTC. “In essence, this is an unregulated market,” he said to Ag Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow (D-MI). “There is so much we are not able to see because of this limited authority.”
During his confirmation hearing, Behnam made a similar appeal, but at the time would not confirm to The Block that he was asking for a true regulatory regime. However, today, he clearly compared the proposed shift to the expansion of CFTC over swap markets as a result of Dodd-Frank.
Stabenow asked, “does the CFTC have the resources necessary to take on this additional responsibility with respect to the digital asset market?”
“The short answer is no,” answered Behnam, proposing a massive expansion. While saying he didn’t have an exact dollar amount, he referenced the boost in the CFTC’s operating budget from roughly $200 million to $300 million following Dodd-Frank, noting that a similar $100 million boost would be a rough ballpark.
$100 million would represent a 30% increase compared to the CFTC’s requested operating budget of $332 million for 2022.
Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) drove the point home further, asking “Are there parallels with Dodd-Frank?”
“It’s a perfect example and a perfect analogy,” said Behnam.
John Boozman (R-AR), the committee’s leading Republican, also seemed comfortable with the CFTC expanding into crypto spot markets. His primary concern was in limiting that expansion to crypto, without fueling “mission creep” into other cash commodities.
“I couldn’t agree with you more. I don’t mean to suggest at all that this should be the start of the CFTC’s role in other cash commodities,” said Behnam. “This particular market is so unique because of the retail-facing element.”
With the Ag Committee confirming him in December, this is the first time Behnam has testified since, illustrating that digital assets “are at the front and center of our thinking at the Commission,” as he put it.
Potentially limiting this expansion is the CFTC’s relative authority over the Securities and Exchange Commission, which answers to separate congressional committees.
SEC Chair Gensler has similarly talked of bringing crypto exchanges “into the public policy framework.” Gensler has also indicated that cryptocurrency exchanges may already be securities exchanges, though the SEC has been hesitant to act on that proposition.
© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
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Author: Kollen Post
AssangeDAO, a collective of cypherpunks formed last week in an attempt to free WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, has won the bid for an NFT created by Julian Assange and digital artist Pak — essentially making a large donation to his cause.
AssangeDAO ended up raising 17,422 ether ($56 million) from its community to bid on the NFT dubbed Clock and has now won the NFT by putting in the highest offer worth 16,593 ether ($53 million).
“This is an important moment in DAO history,” Rachel Rose O’Leary, a core contributor of AssangeDAO — who is also co-founder and developer of DarkFi and a former CoinDesk journalist — told The Block. “AssangeDAO has executed its final bid: a max bid of its entire treasury on the Clock NFT.”
AssangeDAO offered the maximum bid it could for the NFT. On Tuesday, Gabriel Shipton, Julian Assange’s brother and a core contributor of AssangeDAO, submitted a proposal on the DAO’s governance forum that AssangeDAO must put its max bid on the Clock NFT. “We believe that this is the best outcome for AssangeDAO to assist Julian Assange’s liberation,” he wrote in the proposal at the time.
While many within the AssangeDAO community were against the max bid, Assange’s family expressed their support, and the key players signed off on the transaction, said O’Leary, who has partial control over the funds held by AssangeDAO.
The Clock NFT won by AssangeDAO is part of Pak x Julian Assange’s NFT collection called Censored.
Clock is a single NFT. It is a muted timer counting the number of days Assange has spent in prison. Assange was arrested in 2019 in London and faces potential extradition to the US. Proceeds raised from the NFT sale will go toward Assange’s legal fees.
The second part of the Censored NFT collection was an open edition, exhibiting buyers’ tokenized messages. Anyone could choose to pay whatever they want for a tokenized message. Over 28,000 tokenized messages were created in the edition. They can be viewed on OpenSea here.
AssangeDAO’s governance token Justice is also liquid now, meaning contributors can claim it and trade it on decentralized exchanges such as Uniswap and SushiSwap.
One Justice token is currently trading at around $0.0038 on Uniswap, up 20% from the initial price during the fundraising period.
© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
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Author: Yogita Khatri
Everlens is pleased to announce that it has successfully launched its groundbreaking NFT platform for Instagram. Over 1.4 billion Instagrammers can now seamlessly connect to the Everlens NFT marketplace and turn their posts into tradable NFTs.
The Everlens marketplace aims to be the premier platform for social media users to mint, buy, sell and showcase their NFTs. From exclusive content to digital art, perpetual royalties, transferable VIP access, and more, NFTs allow communities to bond and create real-world value in previously unimaginable ways.
We are equally proud to share that we have partnered with multiple wildly successful Instagram Celebrity influencers -as part of- our Everlens Ambassador program. Our team will release more exciting details as we roll out our marketing plans.
Everlens as a first-mover & disrupter in a nascent NFT-market
In stark contrast to the current crypto native NFT marketplaces, Everlens differentiates itself by tapping into the massive and already thriving communities of established social media giants like Instagram.
We believe that bridging the brave new world of NFTs with traditional social media -directly- is key to achieving mass adoption for NFTs.
Through our platform – all kinds of Instagram celebrity influencers, content creators, and artists are now empowered to monetize their content and build their communities in just a few simple steps.
How does the NFT marketplace for Instagrammers work?
With the popularity of NFTs going mainstream, Everlens is providing Instagram users the holy grail of use cases!
Create your Instagram posts as you have done in the past, but now immortalize them on the blockchain and allow your creative work to receive actual market value from your followers. Your creativity and your community can now be rewarded and monetized simultaneously!
To get started, you simply connect your Instagram account to the Everlens NFT marketplace, choose the post you want to mint as an NFT and create it.
With the ELEN cryptocurrency as the ‘main’ token to fuel the marketplace, the platform allows users to seamlessly mint, buy, sell, swap, and showcase a whole variety of NFTs.
Be a first-mover yourself and connect your Instagram account to Everlens.io today. The NFT adoption wave is only getting started!
Roadmap & Partnerships – The next horizon
Now that our marketplace on the BSC chain is released, Everlens.io will be pursuing an aggressive roadmap in the first half of 2022. With the mobile app and marketplace V2 already in the works, our developers will also be integrating Tiktok, Tumblr, Pinterest APIs to expand our reach. Additionally, we expect to also deploy on the Solana and Cardano blockchains.
From a business development perspective, we will be eyeing the potential to discuss and create structural partnerships with the social media platforms we are building for, like Instagram (Meta), TikTok, Tumblr, and Pinterest. With this in mind, we are looking forward to solidifying our first-mover advantage as the premier NFT Marketplace purposefully built to bridge with existing social networks.
Our team will also continue to reach out and onboard new talented influencers as brand ambassadors!
For partnership inquiries, please contact: jules@everlens.io
Follow Everlens social channels to stay updated with project developments.
Medium https://everlensio.medium.com
© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
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Author: Sponsored
Revolut is hiring senior engineers to lead the development of blockchain technology at the startup.
The job adverts, posted in recent weeks, call for applicants who will “design and deliver quality blockchain solutions” and work with other teams “on product development and integration of blockchain solutions” into existing systems.
They specify that candidates should be familiar with Solidity, the programming language for writing smart contracts.
The news comes after CoinDesk reported in September last year that Revolut is planning to launch its own token, subject to regulatory approval. A subsequent report revealed that the $33 billion startup was also seeking a tech lead to build an in-house crypto exchange.
The London-headquartered Revolut — which began as a currency conversion app and has morphed into a neobank offering a broad range of services — has been offering a ‘walled garden’ crypto trading product since 2017. In May 2021, however, the startup began allowing customers to withdraw bitcoin from the app to transfer it to personal wallets — phase one of a plan to significantly broaden its crypto offering.
Two sources close to Revolut confirmed CoinDesk’s report that the company is actively working on a token, and one said that its former head of retail Phuc To is spearheading the effort. To’s LinkedIn profile suggests he moved from head of retail to a “special project” role focused on crypto in May 2021.
© 2022 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
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Author: Ryan Weeks
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