Judith BannermanQuist
On Sept. 29, global music and entertainment company Warner Music Group (WMG) announced a partnership with nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea to provide a platform for select musical artists to build and extend their fanbase into the Web3 community.
According to the release, the collaboration between these two entities will allow select WMG artists to get early access to OpenSea’s newly rolled-out feature, which enables artists to launch their NFT collections and limited-edition projects on their own customizable and dedicated drop pages.
These WMG artists will have access to personalized storytelling on customized landing pages, as well as to OpenSea’s industry-leading safety and security features. The partnership, aimed at helping WMG artists build new Web3 communities, intends to introduce existing fan communities on OpenSea to new forms of connection and creativity through NFTs — and open up new opportunities for fans to engage with music and artists within the Web3 community.
Shiva Rajaraman, OpenSea’s vice president of product, shared:
“For artists and musicians, NFTs represent a new creative medium and a mechanism to build community, engage directly with fans, and express themselves across borders and languages.”
Oana Ruxandra, chief digital officer and executive vice president of business development at WMG, also stated, “Fundamental to music’s DNA, is community – it's artists and fans coming together to celebrate the music that they love. Our collaboration with OpenSea helps to facilitate these communities by unlocking Web3 tools and resources to build opportunities for artists to establish deeper engagement, access, and ownership.”
The first collection of music NFTs is currently in development with Warner Records UK in collaboration with Web3 company Probably Nothing. According to WMG, this collaboration marks the latest in a series of efforts to build out the music company’s expertise in the Web3 space.
Earlier this year, Cointelegraph shared that Warner Music Group had announced a partnership with fantasy-themed collectible card game developer Splinterlands to create and develop play-to-earn, arcade-style blockchain games.
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Ezra Reguerra
With crypto adoption moving forward in various parts of the world, Spain continues to encounter major developments in its local blockchain space as its largest telecom services provider dives deeper into Web3 technologies.
Telefónica, the multinational telecom company based in Madrid, Spain, has enabled payments with cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), USD Coin (USDC) and many others on its online tech marketplace called Tu. The firm integrated a crypto payment feature provided by the Spanish crypto exchange Bit2Me to receive crypto in exchange for their tech products. The exchange teased the integration during its Telefónica Metaverse Day event.
Apart from integrating crypto in its online store, the telecom firm has also recently announced its collaboration with the software company Qualcomm Technologies to advance its extended reality (XR) ecosystem and bring the Metaverse to life.
According to Daniel Hernández, an executive at Telefónica, their firm collaborated with Qualcomm to prepare for the future and build its infrastructure. This is to stay on top of developments so that they are able to provide innovative services to their customers.
Apart from its efforts in integrating crypto and building the Metaverse, the company has also dabbled in nonfungible tokens (NFTs). The firm has built and released its own NFT marketplace integrated with the crypto wallet Metamask.
This is not Telefónica's first encounter with blockchain technology. As previously reported by Cointelegraph, the firm announced an initiative that supported blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI) startups in 2019. The move aimed to enhance traditional ecosystems with emerging technologies.
In 2020, Telefónica collaborated with Deutsche Telekom and British provider Vodafone to test a blockchain solution to settle roaming discount agreements. The blockchain-based solution was expected to reduce the costs for the telcos and create more efficient settlement workflows for inter-company deals.
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David Attlee
Not only Elon Musk thought of buying Twitter — crypto billionaire and CEO of FTX exchange Sam Bankman-Fried “was interested” in acquiring the social network back in March 2022, according to a report from Business Insider.
In the piece, published on Sept. 29, journalists are referring to the private texts released amid the court battle between Musk and Twitter, which had been unwinding after the businessman had suspended the acquisition negotiations in July.
According to the report, in March, a philosopher and Bankman-Fried’s close advisor Will MacAskill texted Musk and mentioned the possibility of a joint effort to buy the social network:
“I'm not sure if this is what's on your mind, but my collaborator Sam Bankman-Fried has for a while been potentially interested in purchasing it and then making it better for the world. If you want to talk with him about a possible joint effort in that direction."
In response, Musk inquired whether Bankman-Fried had “huge amounts of money,” and MacAskill claimed that SBF was worth $24 billion and ready to spend $8 billion to $15 billion on the acquisition. Later, in April, MacAskill discussed the financing with a head of global technology investment banking at Morgan Stanley, Michael Grimes. The latter told Musk that the crypto entrepreneur could provide $5 billion to seal the deal, calling him “ultra genius and doer builder.” But Musk didn’t show any significant interest and noted that he didn't want to "have a laborious blockchain debate" with SBF.
These private negotiations seemingly ended in nothing, as neither Bankman-Fried personally nor FTX appeared in a list of potential co-investors of the acquisition, which included such entities as Binance, Andreessen Horowitz, Fidelity and Sequoia Capital. In the last known text message between Musk and Bankman-Fried on May 5, the former was asking, "Sorry, who is sending this message?"
Justifying his decision to exit the deal, Musk accused Twitter of concealing the actual number of fake/bot accounts, which in his estimate exceeds 5% of monetizable daily active users (mDAUs) — the mark claimed by social network management. The first hearing on Twitter’s suit will be held on Oct.17. The company intends to force Musk into completing the acquisition judicially.
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This Daily Dose was brought to you by Cointelegraph.
