This week’s Web3 Wrap features an inspired set of developments and projects, including Daniel Allan’s monumental EP crowdfund, Friends With Benefits’ fellowship program, Stacks’ Bitcoin smart contracts, Catalog’s artist conversations, and much more.

Check it all out below.

Daniel Allan Crowd Funds New EP With a DAO—And Sells Out Three Records on Catalog 

The last two weeks have proved to be monumental for rising beatmaker Daniel Allan, with the artist crowdfunding 50 Eth ($180,800 at the time of writing) for his latest EP in less than 24 hours. 

Allan used a DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) framework to raise the funds, with the DAO token holders (the investors) buying the master rights to his artist share of a new six-track EP. The DAO ($OVERSTIM) has been set up so that every month, token holders are paid out the royalties using a splits contract set up and accounted for by the $OVERSTIM team.

Token holders also have access to a Discord server, “with different sections baked out for payouts, accounting, and governance.”

Following the successful raise, Allan continued his stellar run of form, selling out three more records on NFT marketplace Catalog for 4 Eth.

You can read more about $OVERSTIM here.

FWB Opens Up Fellowship Program

Popular DAO Friends With Benefits (FWB) has kicked off a new fellowship program.

Entering its “fourth official season,” FWB has opened up a new fellowship program, allowing for creatives that may not have the financial means to join the community to apply for a token allocation, and therefore continued access to the group. 

To account for the steep learning curve and enters such throwing communities, an FWB Benefactor program has also been kicked off and will run alongside the fellowship program, providing the accepted fellows with knowledge and know-how to allow for smoother integration.

You can read more about the programs over at the FWB Mirror. 

Stacks Blockchain Adds Smart Contracts to Bitcoin and Soars 71% 

Stacks, a new blockchain that adds smart contract support to Bitcoin, has seen its token, STX, rise over 71% in the last week.

Bitcoin doesn’t support smart contracts, so platforms and projects that utilize smart contracts—NFTs, DeFi, etc.—have historically been bordered off from its transactions. The Stacks blockchain, however, does support smart contracts and wraps all of its transactions for those contracts up and settles them on Bitcoin, allowing for Bitcoin to essentially support a much more diverse set of projects. Stacks founder Muneeb Ali describes it as a “Layer 1.5” solution and its popularity is soaring after the success of a handful of its NFT projects, including Bitcoin Birds, which was the most transacted NFT collection on Stacks, and StacksPunks, a CryptoPunks rip-off. 

You can check out a more in-depth report on Decrypt.

Metaverse Music Fest Announces First Edition

Metaverse Music Fest has announced its first edition, running from October 29 to 31.

The festival welcomes “artists, builders, wearable designers, stages curators, organization wizards and all incredible citizens of the #metaverse” to join and attend. Over the three days, the festival aims to have all the Blockchain-based Metaverses—for example, Cryptovoxels, Decentraland, and Somnium Space—concurrently celebrate NFT music. Projects and artists are already pouring in with support and activations—you can see this on the festival’s Twitter profile, linked below—with new announcements on the way.

You can find more info over at the festival’s Twitter.

Catalog Launches Artist Conversations on Twitter Spaces 

NFT music marketplace and platform Catalog has launched a new series of artist conversations on Twitter Spaces.

In the announcement post, Catalog invites users to bring questions about Web3 and music NFTs to the virtual event and to join in on a jam. The first artist feature will be American-based Japanese-New Zealand artist Mark de Clive-Lowe, a world-class DJ, musician and producer, and recent Catalog alumni.

You can set a reminder here.

Bankless Kicks off State of the DAO Newsletter

Bankless DAO released a newsletter project this week.

Titled State of the DAO, the newsletter promotes to be a “high-signal low-noise newsletter for understanding DAOs.” The first newsletter—and we’re assuming the newsletter project as a whole—is broken up into five sections: a headline piece, this time an in-depth article called “WTF are DAOs?”; DAOS at a Glance, a section linking to articles that will provide an overview of the DAO ecosystem; Ecosystem Takes, a collection of insights from across the ecosystem; Get Plugged In, which links beginner-level events, event highlights, and job opportunities; and DAO Spotlight, a section spotlighting key DAOs operating today.

For anyone interested in DAOs, this newsletter promises to be a deep and welcomed offering. You can check it out and sign up here.

What to Join and Who to Follow:

Coopahtroopa: DeFi OG, Web3 advisor, and leading DAO proponent.

Daniel Allan: Web3 music producer and artist. 

NFT Now: upcoming NFT drops and news.

Evil King Gremplin: co-creator of Nouns DAO and CrypToadz OG.

Forefront: exclusive content and market insights on Social Tokens and DAOs.