This week’s Web3 Wrap includes our own XLR8R+033, which is the second XLR8R+ to be minted as an NFT, Audius’ five-million-dollar strategic fundraise, Cardano’s long-awaited smart contract integration, Resident Advisor’s feature on DAOs, and much more.

Dive into the world of Web3 below.

XLR8R Releases the Latest Edition of XLR8R+ as an NFT

This week, XLR8R released the latest edition of XLR8R+ (XLR8R+033), the second XLR8R+ edition to be minted and available as an NFT.

The edition was minted with a jaw-dropping animated artwork by Jamie Gorman on the Polygon (Matic) chain and includes all the regular XLR8R+ assets in the downloadable locked content, including a collection of techno tracks from Jamaica Suk, BNJMN, and Kyoka, plus an Ableton Live project live from Jamaica Suk, and a zine with art, design, artist profiles, and an in-depth track breakdown. The NFT is available for one month only and is exclusive to XLR8R+ subscribers. 

You can find more information on the edition and package here, or subscribe here to claim the NFT.

Audius Secures Five Million Dollars of Strategic Investment from Pusha T, Nas, Mike Shinoda, Disclosure, and Others

Blockchain-backed streaming service Audius, which currently boasts more than 6 million monthly users, announced a new five-million-dollar round of strategic funding today from several of the biggest names in the music industry. Artists Pusha T, Nas, Disclosure, Mike Shinoda, The Chainsmokers, Katy Perry, and Steve Aoki, plus music industry heavyweights such as Maverick Founder Guy Oseary’s Sound Ventures and former Sony Music CEO Martin Bandier were named as investors.

The platform notes that more than one hundred thousand artists have uploaded music to the site, which launched in late 2019. Audius is now the largest decentralized consumer product in the market and the fastest-growing streaming platform outright.

Andrew Ryce Explores DAO’s and the “Promise of Utopia” for Resident Advisor 

Resident Advisor this week released an in-depth piece by Andrew Ryce in which he introduces readers to DAOs and they may have “potentially revolutionary implications for the music industry—if harnessed responsibly.”

The piece does a great job of explaining the ideas behind DAOs and how they may relate to and help the music industry. Most of the real-world examples in the feature focus on FWB (Friends With Benefits), a community DAO that is attempting to lay the groundwork for what’s possible with cultural membership structures. Although it currently costs around $8000 to join—which essentially sections off the non-wealthy and majority of the music industry—FWB has many promising features and, reportedly, is leading to community-led technological builds, IRL meetups, think tanks, and more.

You can read the full piece here.

Khalil Signs With New World Inc. to Release New Music as NFT

Singer-songwriter and R&B superstar Khalil will be creating and releasing new musical NFTs on the platform New World Inc.

His NFT collection will feature new and exclusive music packages as well as art that can be viewed and interacted with in augmented reality on the app New World. New World is an augmented reality, art-focused NFT company that allows artists, celebrities, and creators to distribute NFTs. New World has already signed notable artists such as Diogo Snow, who has created pieces for Drake and Fetty Wap. “I have been working on a few projects over the last year and decided I wanted to experiment by mixing my music with art, so creating an NFT was the perfect medium. Mixing audio and visuals together is a new outlet for me to express my creativity and share it with fans,” the artist has stated.

Metapurse to Create the First NFT and Art Music Festival

The world’s first music, art, and technology festival focusing on blockchain technology is on the horizon.

Metapurse, an NFT investment fund, is producing a festival project dubbed Dreamverse, which will have fully immersive galleries and musical performances. The in-person experience will feature art that is presented in a hybridized digital-physical format, with attendees able to opt into virtual reality art experiences. One of the biggest attractions to the event will be the public debut of Beeple’s high-profile work Everydays: The First 5,000 Days. The piece is one of the most well-known in the space, fetching a hefty $69 million during its initial sale. 

The festival will be headlined by EDM artist Alesso, who is scheduled to appear with RAC and PLS&TY. Alesso will also be debuting his first NFT, which will later be sold through Tezos-based market OneOf. “This is a celebration of a vibrant, diverse, empathetic community. A merging of the physical and digital realms, Dreamverse is an expression of the renaissance we have been experiencing the last few years”, says founder of Metapurse, Metakovan.

Tickets are on sale now, and the festival will go live on November 4. 

Cardano Successfully Applies Alonzo Hard Fork Adding Smart Contracts to the Platform

Cryptocurrency Cardano, one of the market leaders according to market cap, has finally brought smart contracts to the ecosystem with the latest Alonzo hard fork.

This gives Cardano the ability to launch DeFi applications, with several companies lined up and ready to start building. IO-HK, the development company behind Cardano, claims that there are already 150 projects currently being developed via Cardano’s Project Catalyst platform. IO-HK has also stated that Cardano’s smart contract implementation will be different from the way other smart contract platforms operate, and so they encourage developers to embrace the new features to better leverage the chain.

Solana Network to Issue ‘Post-Mortem’ Update After 18-Hour Outage

The Solana network is issuing a post mortem report after outages caused the network to go down for more than 18 hours.

The crash came following reports of “intermittent instability” on Tuesday, leading to a 17% nosedive going as low as $142. The cause of the problem seemed to stem from a denial of service attack executed on one of the decentralized exchanges Raydium, which had bots scrambling to buy a newly-listed token on the platform, causing upwards of 400,000 transactions per second. The developers were finally able to take the network offline to patch the exploit that the botters were using. Some dApps have still not gone back online following the outage. Despite this sudden network hiccup, the price of Solana has recovered from the dip and the core development team has promised to issue a detailed post-mortem report outlining the events that unfolded and how they plan to account for that in the future.

Producer Auctioning Snoop Dogg’s Platinum Plaque for a Good Cause

Tito “the Hood Santa” Rodriguez, known for producing internationally acclaimed artists like Snoop Dogg, is auctioning off one of his platinum plaques to help raise money for a local charity.

The charity that the proceeds will go to, the Local Hearts foundation, was also founded by Tito after he transitioned out of the music industry. The NFT that is being auctioned is a 1-of-1 digital representation of the platinum plaque he received for Snoop Dogg Presents Tha Eastsidaz. The winner of the auction will not only receive a digital copy of the plaque but also the physical award that was presented to Tito (they even agreed to cover the shipping costs). The owner of the NFT will also receive an exclusive ZUZ protocol NFT, which will airdrop Zeus tokens into the user’s wallet for the next eight months, as well as allow for gasless minting on the network. ZUZ also has some other projects underway: they’re currently launching a product that allows for accelerated NFT distribution with lower gas fees called “Multisend,” and another called the “NFT Forge Immolator,” a chain-agnostic app for creating dynamic NFTs that conduct certain actions over time.

What to Join and Who to Follow:

Mentxlist42O: NFT gallery curator and community leader.

Boiz Collection: a series of uniquely sculpted collectible avatars called boiz.xyz

Rhadiska: a digital artist and creator of AlieNation and Monday art club.

Debbie Tea: NFT illustrator and visual artist.

Ardhiraputra: motion designer & illustrator on SuperRare, Foundation.