The Ethereum network will transition from a PoW network to a proof-of-stake (PoS) network on or around September 15, 2022. The Merge hinges on the fusion of Ethereum’s current proof-of-work blockchain with the Beacon Chain, a proof-of-stake blockchain that was launched in December 2020 but so far has not processed any transactions.
The Merge will open the door to another process, called “sharding,” which will segment the network into many parallel chains. This will unclog the network, which currently supports only about 30 transactions per second and charges users extortionate transaction fees. If everything goes to plan, according to the Ethereum Foundation, a sharded Ethereum should eventually reach a throughput of 100,000 per second.
The main change will be the reduced environmental footprint, which may reduce the reputational price of using the Ethereum database and the products and services built on it.
The metaverse is already making waves. The predicted growth of the metaverse in e-commerce market share from 2021 to 2026 is $60.47 billion at a progressing CAGR of 36.47 per cent. Technavio released a report on “The Metaverse In E-commerce Market by Geography (North America, APAC, Europe, South America, and the Middle East and Africa) and Platform ( Computer, Mobile, and Headset) Forecast and Analysis 2022-2026.”
Emirates NBD, a banking group in the MENAT, has launched a global accelerator programme for metaverse start-ups. It will enhance the customer experience for the new virtual economy in partnership with the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) Fintech Hive, financial technology hub in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia (MEASA) region powered by technology provider Microsoft.
Square Yards, a Proptech company, has launched a 3D Metaverse platform to display the future of real estate search and discovery through a high-end 3D digital twin of the city of Dubai.
NVIDIA Omniverse Avatar Cloud Engine (ACE), along with new Omniverse Connectors and applications, has been launched to enable users to quickly build and customise virtual assistants and digital humans.
Layer 2 Ethereum scaling platform Polygon has seen more than 37,000 decentralised applications (dApps) developed on its network, a 400% increase since the start of 2022.
The figures were sourced from partnered Web3 development platform Alchemy and represent the cumulative number of applications ever launched on both the Polygon testnet and mainnet.
In terms of active developer teams, Polygon reached 11,800 at the end of July, up 47.5% since March. The project team also highlighted a breakdown of dApp projects which notably showed that “74% of teams integrated exclusively on Polygon, while 26% deployed on both Polygon and Ethereum”.
I was honoured to be a part of a few events this month including Founders Institute: Founders Night Out and the NFT Rooftop Party. I also had a great chat on Girish Bali’s podcast Back2Basics which can be listened to here.
I would like to invite you to join xenabler, Belinda and me at CapTech 2022 at International Convention Centre, Sydney.
This summit highlights Australia at the centre of innovation and entrepreneurship by connecting and bringing together the brightest minds, industry leaders, ventures, technology and capital from Australia and globally.
Sectors: Web3, Fintech, Blockchain, Health, Education, Agriculture, Sustainability.
I am honoured to take part in this event with SIPBN and look forward to seeing the #Web3 and #Blockchain community there.
WHEN: 18 October 2022 9am-5pm.
Get tickets here.
