In this issue:

• This Week in Neo Tokyo: The Citadel Cannot Be Stopped (by PhoenixxDown)

• What Is An NFT? (No, seriously) (by Flower83_)

• Web3 Fundraising Status (by mhl.eth)

The tumultuous events of the past week have begun to settle, and the up-only feeling is back; everything is pumping! (no offense to our Ethereian maxi brothers.) While Neo Tokyo had a relatively quieter week compared to the recent ones, there's still a lot happening, and prices have stabilized nicely. Ktrap has been consistently providing insightful daily updates on the highest sales of S1s and S2s. Follow one of the most respected OGs in The Citadel for these updates and other fantastic insights he’s well known for.

The standout story of the week, without a doubt, was the massive hack that unfolded across Web3. Hopefully, you weren't affected by it, but regardless, it's a significant wake-up call for all of us to ensure our security practices are top-notch.

Unsurprisingly, MintDefense was the first to identify critical issues and promptly alerted Neo Tokyo and the wider X community shortly after.

Your Neo Tokyo News team acted swiftly, setting up an X Space with Danor and Metro to disseminate information. Our Guardians of the Citadel answered questions from both our regular team and the audience, reassuring minds and urging citizens and meatbags alike to take immediate action to protect themselves from the threat.

Neo Tokyo News is your most reliable friend in The Citadel for a reason—it's not just because we had your back there, but because we'll always keep it straight with you. ZeHI and Shamsi recently tackled an uncomfortable topic that's been circulating in Purg and Angies.

Despite the unsavory subject matter, citizens' responses have been overwhelmingly positive, and it's our duty to bring these important conversations to light. Check out the clip of their conversation about NFA below, and/or watch the full Degen Digest episode over on NTV.

Other notable events this week included an AMA with BloodLoop, and on that note, congratulations to Citizen Capital for securing a seven-figure raise! Citizens poured a massive $1.1 million into the CitCap platform to get a piece of the BloodLoop action, and we hear a very big announcement is imminent from them.

Neo Tokyo now boasts an official X/Twitter Community, designed for situations when Discord isn't functioning, or for citizens who simply don't frequent Discord with us. There's a verification process to go through, which you can read up on here. Additionally, three Platinum Rewards will be raffled to three citizens who join in the first week, so don't miss out. Request to join here.

If you've been missing out on the constant action, we have highly active subthreads in Angies Pub. For the card sharks among us, visit the Bets4Bytes thread and head to the tables at Virtue Poker for some freeroll tournaments.

Or if you’re looking for something a bit more seedy, visit the underground layers of Neo Tokyo in “The Crypt,” a small piece of shitcoin hell built by Neo Tokyo News’ own, ButWouldYa. [Bears need not enter.]

Lastly, this is your periodic reminder to stay abreast of Citizen project developments by visiting the Founders Pings channel. The past week has seen posts from Chris | Moonport App looking for a dev, Ben Humbert launching a charity challenge, Dexioprotocol introducing themselves, along with updates from Mabinc of RPS Labs, MustardSeed Realms, and MHL Solutions.

Not included in that channel but advertised elsewhere in the server is a message from Naffles, which, on good authority, is very close to going live and is currently in search of a marketing manager.

A quick shoutout back to MHL, who co-hosts a weekly podcast with one of our Citizen Council members, Block Editor, on their How I Met Web3 show. Recent guests include Elliot Hill of Veracity, Chief Business Officer of Animoca Brands, Alan Lau, and most prestigiously of all, PhoenixxDown of Neo Tokyo News.

Until next week, citizens. The Citadel cannot be stopped.

I am pretty sure I’ve already seen this clickbaity title somewhere already.

Anyway, I am using it now. It's mine now. I copy-pasted it. You know, like people on Twitter do whenever there is a heated debate between haters and supporters about NFTs.

A while ago I came across a comment I haven't seen in a while. The term “useless images” was used and I couldn't help but chuckle a bit. It reminded me of the good old days, back when people were bickering about how you can just “right-click-save” the “NFT” and then they would “own” it.

Because once you get to know how NFTs work, this whole idea becomes ridiculously preposterous and you cringe when you see someone saying it, just as, you know, I imagine non-NFT people do when they see ape PFPs.

We are in a very interesting era of human evolution. Everything is getting increasingly digitized, people are spending more time on their devices, and most of the monetary exchange is done electronically. There is no reason to assume this will stop; what's more, we can safely assume that ownership of assets will become increasingly digitized as years go on.

NFTs are not (just) pictures. It goes so much deeper than that. The “right-click-save” argument usually ends when you ask a skeptic to claim the tokens your NFT generates. If you own the “NFT” by saving its picture, then why isn't the yield it produces also yours?

It is unclear what NFTs will become in the future, since the true scope of their application could be so vast we have no way of predicting or comprehending at this point. But one thing we can be sure of, is that the “image” of them is just the tip of the iceberg. An NFT can be a sword in a video game, or a land plot in the metaverse, it can be your online identity, a source of passive income in a serious business, it can be your avatar, or an address others can send money to.

Perhaps most importantly, as it is the case with Neo Tokyo, it can be a key that lets you through a door, grants you access to a vast landscape you didn't know existed, a whole digital city where you can connect with others and network.

This is precisely how I would describe an NFT to a child; as a key. These keys have different shapes and sizes, different colors, and do different things. Some are more common and some are more scarce, some are expensive and some are cheap. They are used for different purposes. Certain keys open doors to forbidden playgrounds within games, others to chat rooms or houses in a game. There are those that allow you to go to live events and membership clubs and those that just do nothing but are pretty. The key is yours, but you can transfer it, or sell, to a friend as well.

We are only scratching the surface of this new technology and its applications and all of the potential use cases are still in their infancy. I am sure NFTs will play a pivotal role in the future of our society, since they are a central concept to digital ownership, identity, immutability and decentralization.

I am very excited to be a part of this so early and excited to continue to build the web3 space with you all.

Fundraising has become an integral part of the Web3 industry. Its history predates the term "Web3" and has rapidly evolved over the past year with the introduction of ICOs/IDOs. This allowed both venture capitalists and small investors to participate in blockchain-based projects by purchasing native tokens through private sales.

However, during the recent bear market, the amount of funds allocated to fundraising has drastically decreased. Let me share some numbers with you.

According to recent data, venture funding for Web3 startups has seen a significant decrease. It dropped 82% year over year, from $9.1 billion in Q1 of 2022 to only $1.7 billion. This is also a 30% decline from the final quarter of the previous year and the lowest total since the fourth quarter of 2020, which saw only $1.1 billion.

According to a report by Metaverse Post, in the second quarter of 2023, 78 web3 projects received $367,955,000 in funding. The gaming industry led the quarter, raising 31.24% of the total web3 fundraises. It was followed by social network and payment startups, which received $29 million and $25,750,000, respectively.

However, it’s worth noting that there was a slight decrease in investor interest in the gaming sector compared to the first quarter of the year. In Q1, 23 gaming startups raised $201,720,473, while in Q2, 20 startups raised $115,100,100.

What can we expect next? Will the funds allocated to fundraising increase in 2024 as the crypto market cap continues to rise? The answer is yes, but only if we really are in a bull market. If that's the case, Q4 2023 is expected to outperform the previous quarter for one simple reason: smart money always moves first. Keep a close watch on VC movements, as they are the primary driver of liquidity when it comes to We3 fundraising.

If you're interested in learning more about fundraising and VC activity, I highly recommend taking 40 minutes to listen to my latest podcast with Block_Editor. Our special guest, Alan Lau, Animoca's CBO, reveals the impact of Web3 on our future while tackling some spicy questions along the way. Tune in now:

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

That’s it for our 27th 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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