In this issue:

• This Week in Neo Tokyo: How Time Flies (by PhoenixxDown)

• Review of The Next Crypto Gem TV Show (by ZeHI)

• The Bullish Case for the Next NFT Cycle (by Flower83)

How time flies!

For many of us, this time 2 years ago we were gonads-deep in the riddles, mentally broken and hanging on by a thread. Good times! Since then, what seems like a lifetime's worth of emotions and events has unfolded, with plenty of solid friendships formed amidst the turmoil and triumphs.

This past week bore witness to new alliances coming together during Neo Tokyo’s first ever Asian based meetup at TOKEN2049 in Singapore. Kindly sponsored by the guardians of The Citadel, Metro and Danor of MintDefense, citizens congregated from all over the globe to further cement NT's position as the premier networking group in Web3.

Fear not, if Singapore was a bit too far for you to make on this occasion. As we approach the two-year anniversary, there will no doubt be more opportunities to meet fellow Neo Tokyians coming up.

A reminder that MintDefense are offering free trials and yearly a licence for $99. Sign up at https://mintdefense.com/

Two-year anniversary preparations are already beginning to take place in other departments. The Video Team has begun work on the “2 Year Recap” video, where all the projects that have been developed by our gigantic brains will be celebrated in all of their shining glory.

If you’d like to be featured in this upcoming highlight reel, please head to ⁠the Video channel inside our Discord and tag LeBoomington, fractialians, or Shreddit.

As NT continues to grow, we anticipate welcoming new members into our hallowed halls. To get ahead of this, there’s been some new channels created to help with onboarding. If you see an Outlander in need of some guidance, a good place to direct them is the Team and Channel Breakdown channels to get them started.

A special shoutout is in order for Mimisbrunnr for “doing the lord's work and absolutely SLAYING in the Public Chat channel, day in and day out, helping and onboarding new folks, one meatbag at a time!” as BadFuture astutely remarked.

While we’re dishing out the appreciation, let’s all take a moment to show some love to the wonderful Tee who’s been tirelessly dropping the daily mint schedule in the Record Keeper channel for as long as any of us can remember. Thank you both for what you do!

Who’s that with Tom Bilyeu? It’s none other than Neo Tokyo Elites, Crasher, Blockchain Buck and Via Vita, who attended the Legendary Dinner in LA this past Saturday! Crasher tells us they got the chance to test Phase 3 of Project Kyzen during the event. Just another perk of being a Neo Tokyo Citizen.

To finish up, NT dropped a fire thread on the Citizen Directory, so give that a read and a like if you missed it.

Also, CitCap have posted an update on the mining opportunity coming our way, so make sure you're up to date by checking it out here.

This past week saw the long-awaited debut of the first show attempting to bring Web3 to mainstream TV audiences. The Next Crypto Gem is billed as “the Shark Tank of crypto” and combines a gamified format similar to The Apprentice or The Voice.

We’ll be hosting the team behind the show on our next NFT Market Monday X Space (5pm ET, 18 Sep).

Here are some initial reactions/reviews after the first two episodes:

Recap of Episodes 1 & 2

Episode One introduced the judges and provided a brief glimpse into the 16 Web3 teams vying for the title. The contestants were slimmed down to three, with the judges still deliberating the last entrant into the final four as the episode concluded.

Neo Tokyo was represented well with citizen Brian D Evans stationed as one of the three judges and a couple of other citizens, including Beaver0, showing up among the contestants.

The final four teams: Vulcan Forged, DeFi Kingdoms, Tsuka, and WAGMI Games.

Episode 2 featured the first challenge for the teams. The “No-coiner Challenge,” required the contestants to explain basic blockchain technology concepts to clueless or biased crypto skeptics. WAGMI came out on top

The Strong Points

• The show looks good and the production quality is similar to a show you might see on the Food Network.

• Among the judges, Layah Heilpern stands out. She’s a natural under the bright lights of the studio setting.

• For those of us who have been around the crypto gaming space for a few years, it’s pretty cool to see some characters and founders we’ve watched and worked with. The show confirms the thesis of Neo Tokyo, as three of the four teams selected are blockchain gaming projects that many of us citizens have researched, and played for some time already.

• The show did a great job demonstrating the chasm between crypto enthusiasts and “no-coiners,” while providing a genuine ethnographic view of the crypto scene.

The Weak Points

• The show aims to provide a gamified educational experience to educate people about Web3 tech. It remains to be seen if they can find a way to both effectively educate and entertain. In most of these types of shows, the viewers already understand, and are interested in, the subject matter and just enjoy the contest. If I really like baking cupcakes, I’ll probably go watch Cupcake Wars, and the show won’t need to teach me what a cupcake is.

• We’re all George, and most of us Georges would also probably look awkward and uncomfortable in a studio setting.

• There’s been a fierce debate about the comedy on the show. Many feel it is cheesy, while others argue it is corny.

• With blockchain tech, and crypto gaming / metaverse projects in particular, there are plenty of cool places that the show could go to be engaging and fun. The show instead chose to yell “Don’t be boring!” at the contestants before sending them on a battle of two-minute white board battles. Here’s to hoping the next contests are a bit more riveting.

Final thoughts

The show has had a bit of a slow start, yet it has demonstrated great potential. The producers and judges have chosen some great projects and personalities to elucidate the best aspects of Web3. Hopefully, it gets some effective distribution and a chance to refine its product, expand its reach and give a boost to some deserving gems in the crypto space.

There has never been a bear market with so many objectively bullish developments going on behind the scenes. 

The previous bear markets have been saturated with doubts about the future, but this time it looks like many big web2-native brands are not fading the digital evolution that is occurring with NFTs.

Lately there have been many exciting news and developments in the web3 space and a lot of well established web2 brands are getting involved with NFTs in some way or another.

Let's take a closer look at some of the brands entering:

LimeWire

LimeWire is about to revolutionize the creative landscape by teaming up with Polygon to introduce their groundbreaking AI Creator Studio on the Polygon network. They aim to democratize content creation, allowing everyone to become creators, from images to music tracks, all while ensuring fair revenue sharing.

The Creator Studio will be powered by AI, optimizing the creative process, starting with AI image generation in Q3 2023. This venture embodies a shared vision of inclusivity and creativity in the blockchain-driven digital world, all facilitated by Polygon network's efficiency and Ethereum's security.

Michelin

Michelin announced that they will be launching an NFT collection on September 27th. They have been hosting a lot of AMA’s on Twitter and have secured partnerships with many other NFT collections that have been around for months in the space. With the upcoming collection, they aim to “create unique experiences around mobility, motorsport, travel and gastronomy with digital collectibles.”

Krafton’s Settlus

The gaming studio behind PUBG - Krafton is getting involved as well. One of Krafton’s subsidiaries announced they will be launching Settlus during Korea Blockchain Week. Settlus will be a blockchain designed to provide transparent settlement system for the creator economy. With it they aim to connect the web2 products with web3 realms. Their own metaverse platform “Migaloo” and the Settlus testnet is scheduled to release in 2024.

Music NFTs

There have also been developments in the music NFT landscape recently. After Rihanna’s “B**** Better Have My Money” sold out a few months ago, Anotherblock is expanding its collection of songs that are minted as NFTs on their platform.

The producers of the song “Company” by Justin Bieber sold out 2000 NFTs for $28 each. Holders of these tokens will earn a share of royalties generated by song purchases.

Ducati

Ducati is about to launch a free-mint NFT collection called “Ducati Legacy.” They partnered with XRP Ledger to carry out this venture into web3 and have stated that they will announce utility for their NFTs shortly.

Read the full announcement on Ducati’s website if you want to know more.

Casio

On September 23th, Casio will be launching Virtual G-Shock - an NFT that grants holders access to the exclusive Discord community, and a platform to co-create and design virtual G-Shocks. They will be distributing 15,000 Creator Passes on Polygon.

Lufthansa Airlines’ Uptrip

Polygon seems to be the go-to destination for many brands that wish to integrate blockchain technology into their business. Uptrip secured a partnership with Polygon for their new loyalty program.

All content from Neo Tokyo News is for entertainment purposes only, and not financial advice.

That’s it for our 14th edition of the Neo Tokyo Newsletter. Be sure to subscribe and share with your friends so you don’t miss out on future content.

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