In this issue:

• This Week in Neo Tokyo: Shockwaves Through The Citadel (by PhoenixxDown)

• RWA: The New Hot Crypto Narrative (by Flower83)

• The Quantum Computing Era: Safeguarding Cryptocurrency Security (by VIPER)

• Meet Your Neo Tokyo Council: Ben Gothard (by Block Editor)

Let’s dive straight into the big news of the week: Firestorm unleashed a set of announcements yesterday that sent shockwaves through The Citadel.

As many of you already know, BYTES will soon become multi-chain, a welcomed relief for those weary of the gas fees associated with claiming their BYTES yield. One can only assume these fees will worsen as we progress through the year, but luckily we’re only waiting on Chainlink to finish the work on their side now, and then we’re off to the races.

Next, something that we all probably knew but dare not mention….the competition to determine the 5th Hand will be underway in due course. Wen? No details on that yet, but design and development with several major partners and sponsors is underway.

Another exciting announcement was the return of a fan favorite: Demon’s Den Season 2 will be returning with a new format and a stellar panel. Keep an eye out for applications to pitch your games, as that will be live soon.

On the content front, memecoins once again took center stage in the Degen Digest discussions, including strategies for finding ultra micro caps on Solana using pump.fun. However, on a more sombre note, the trio explored the question as to whether the ENS ecosystem is dead. It's a fair question.

NFT Market Monday welcomed special guests, NodeRunners, to discuss all the latest happenings in Web3, touching base on Base, providing some airdrop updates, and even delving into spicy topics featuring Machi Big Brother and his instance of shithousery. Listen back here.

For those who prefer threads over articles, we dropped a piece filling you in on Castle of Blackwater, released just before their TGE event last week. Discover why so many have been eagerly anticipating this citizen-created game!

"Meet Your Citizens" this week featured BlockChainMeta sitting down for a chat with your host, Block Editor. Block delved into the founder of OnChainMarketer's past and what led him to the realm of web3 marketing today.

This week also once again saw three red hot AMAs take place. The first featured Today, the social simulation game built by former leads from gaming giants such as Nintendo, SEGA, Epic Games, and Unity.

NodeRunners made a return after their NFT Market Monday appearance to chat with Ben and Nick about their guild-based space strategy game set for a Q2 2024 launch. It's not too far away now!

Then, there was Frank Cheng, the Co-Founder of Apeiron, who joined the AMA team to discuss their Rougelite x God Game hybrid that allows players to grow their own planets.

And on Interlinked Episode #23, Stephen Arnold and Adam Watts of Decimated were featured where they took a deep dive into the game’s development, fundraising, and community management, among other topics.

Ktrap dropped a March update, focusing on recent top sales and core metrics from the previous month to reflect upon. The future looks bright!

Rounding off the week, CitCap and its investors celebrated another success as the GAM3S.gg investment round sold out completely, with the public round finishing in under 5 seconds! On to the next one.

Until next week, citizens.

RWA stands for Real World Assets. If you take a look into this sector of crypto, you will quickly realize it has been outperforming almost everything else in the space for the past few weeks. Yes, even with markets dumping or going sideways, RWA has been on a steady climb. There are many projects that 2-5x-ed in the last month. 

So what are RWAs? Well, the basic premise of it is simple: you take an asset that exists in the “real world” and put it on the blockchain.

There is a strong case to be made that this niche will be one of the leading sectors of crypto going forward, particularly because institutions, banks, whales, and big corporations have incentives to pump it. It is, after all, always been their turf. Take a look at what BlackRock’s CEO Larry Fink has to say about it here:

Currently this market is still small and growing slowly. And BlackRock is going hard on it, it seems. Historically, the most basic and easy to understand RWAs were just stablecoins like BUSD, USDC, USDT and DAI. The stablecoin market itself grew from $5.2 billion in early 2020 to $134.6 billion in 2024. Today, RWAs encompass a wide variety of other assets such as:

• Commodity-Backed Tokens. These are tokens backed by precious metals such as gold dominate commodity-backed tokens, but other commodities like uranium are also being tokenized. Such an example is PAX-Gold, a coin which is pegged to gold.

• Tokenized Treasury Products. Tokenized US treasuries saw a remarkable 641% growth in 2023, reaching $861 million in market cap. Platforms like Mountain Protocol and Ondo Finance are leading in this sector.

• Real Estate. The idea of selling your ownership certificate of a house as an NFT might not be that far away, and there are projects trying to make this into a reality. An example would be Propy, or Parcl, a project on Solana where you can short or long real estate markets.

In short, these assets are hot right now because they are tailored to institutional investors, not your average shitcoin gamblers. These are serious whales with serious funding that want to get involved in the crypto market. Add RWA to your list.

RWAs represent an intersection between traditional assets and blockchain technology, and this is another avenue where mass onboarding and adoption can happen. Obviously, there are some challenges we will have to figure out along the way, including reliance on third-party services and risks associated with lending and also on-chain security.

As technology advances at an unprecedented pace, the rise of quantum computing looms on the horizon, promising revolutionary breakthroughs in computation power. While quantum computing holds immense potential for solving complex problems at speeds unattainable by classical computers, its advent poses significant challenges for the security infrastructure of cryptocurrencies.

Cryptocurrencies, built upon cryptographic principles, rely on mathematical algorithms for securing transactions, verifying identities, and maintaining the integrity of the distributed ledger. However, the cryptographic schemes currently in use, such as RSA and ECC (Elliptic Curve Cryptography), are vulnerable to attacks from quantum computers.

Quantum computers leverage the principles of quantum mechanics to perform calculations exponentially faster than classical computers. This capability threatens to undermine the security of cryptographic systems that underpin the entire cryptocurrency ecosystem. In a future where quantum computers become a reality, the cryptographic algorithms used to secure digital assets and transactions could be rendered obsolete, potentially leading to widespread security breaches and financial losses.

One of the primary concerns is the vulnerability of public-key cryptography, which forms the foundation of most blockchain networks. Quantum computers could efficiently solve the mathematical problems that currently serve as the basis for public-key encryption, enabling adversaries to decrypt sensitive information, forge digital signatures, and manipulate transactions.

To address this looming threat, researchers and developers in the cryptocurrency space are actively exploring quantum-resistant cryptographic algorithms and post-quantum cryptographic schemes. These new cryptographic primitives aim to withstand attacks from quantum computers, ensuring the continued security and resilience of blockchain networks in the quantum era.

However, transitioning to quantum-resistant algorithms presents its own set of challenges. It requires widespread adoption across the cryptocurrency ecosystem, including consensus among developers, miners, node operators, and users. Moreover, the migration process must be carefully managed to avoid disruptions to existing blockchain protocols and services.

Despite these challenges, the urgency of preparing for the quantum computing era cannot be overstated. Cryptocurrency stakeholders must proactively invest in research and development efforts to stay ahead of potential quantum threats. This includes fostering collaboration between academia, industry, and the open-source community to accelerate the development and standardization of quantum-resistant cryptographic solutions.

In conclusion, the rise of quantum computing heralds a new era of computational power and technological innovation. However, it also poses existential threats to the security of cryptocurrencies as we know them. By embracing the challenges posed by quantum computing and adopting quantum-resistant cryptographic solutions, the cryptocurrency community can safeguard the integrity, privacy, and decentralization of digital assets in the quantum age.

• Discord ID: bengothard

• Background: Finance, Media

• Entered Crypto: 2021

• Joined NT: Just After S1 Mint

• Expertise: Sales, Investing Podcasting, Media, Content Creation

• Dislikes Working on: Monotonous Tasks

• Most Known For: AMAs/Podcast

• One Word: Integrity

• Outside Interests: Guitar & Sports

A gamer since the tender age of 6, Ben P. Gothard was predestined to join the Crypto Gaming Illuminati. At one point in his life, he actually competed and started trying to go pro and started but an unfortunate wrist injury changed his trajectory.

At 16, he asked his dad to set him up with a Fidelity account, and investing became his next passion. While he wanted to be a Financial planner at the time, a couple phone calls changed that. One was from a roommate that wanted help selling t-shirts, and the others was from his dad that needed social media help.

With that, he launched his first business and became a CEO. While still on the certified financial planner track at Louisiana State, he spoke with the finance department head, and in the process, landed them as a client. This was the first iteration of Gothard Enterprises, a marketing agency.

Passive income became a side passion, and over the next year he wrote his first book, “CEO at 20 a Little Book for Big Dreams.” He followed this up by starting a group for entrepreneurs. At first he thought he could help them solve common problems, but quickly realized it was the network effect and everyone in the group could help solve each others problems. This pivoted into a wildly successful podcast.

Now he has published 6 or 7 different books, one an Amazon bestseller, and roughly 600 podcast episodes. He’s interviewed billionaires, New York Times bestselling authors, Emmy award winners, and even Grant Cardone. Ask Ben about the Jewish Gangster next time you see him at an event.

It was 2021 when he discovered the world of crypto. One of his ecommerce store partners had a crypto company that needed marketing assistance. It was a wild introduction, since the project was launching one shitcoin after another. Once he learned what was going on he stepped away, but the crypto bug had bit. He started interviewing web3 founders on his podcast, and then he discovered Neo Tokyo and things shifted for the better.

He knew he wanted to devote his life to this industry and he got into Neo Tokyo soon after mint. Early on he recognized the potential of Citizen Capital and became their CMO, which brings us to what Ben is working on now.

He currently serves as the Co-founder of Nexus Labs alongside Hustlepedia of Crypto Banter. They are building an omni-chain multi wallet portfolio tracker with lots of additional money making features. The project should be live any day now.

Ben also runs the Neo Tokyo podcast and AMA division that puts out weekly interviews. He also helped start a new division called the Neo Tokyo Syndicate where he helps introduce projects looking to raise capital to a network of investors looking to deploy capital.

Ben’s strongest area of expertise is on podcasting, media, and content creation as well as partnership building. ”If I'm not super good at it, you can still reach out to me for it because I probably know somebody who is and happy to always point you in the right direction.” Ben said.

Outside NT, Ben enjoys splaying guitar and was even in a band in High School. He also dabbles in basketball, ping pong, skiing and tennis.

To learn more follow @benpgothard on X.

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

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