The Format #005

The SEC lost… Wow. To most people this won’t mean anything other than “some crypto company gets one over on the SEC…”. What this means to new business models and new ways of executing is potentially huge - if it’s legal to buy tokens from an exchange then we can suppose that selling “game tokens” to a player is legal too, which opens up a potential world of interoperability, with users in control of their game assets and simple (business) models for developers to make the bottom line work harder for them… Interesting times ahead. (I still need a lawyer though right? 🥸)

Ripple Labs notches landmark win in SEC case over XRP cryptocurrency

In a landmark legal case, Ripple Labs Inc. secured a victory against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) when a judge ruled that Ripple's sale of its XRP token on public exchanges did not violate federal securities law, however, the SEC also partially succeeded as the judge determined that Ripple's direct sales of XRP to sophisticated investors constituted unregistered securities sales… This is great for the gaming industry 🙌🏽, but will surely be challenged again…

The Power of Milestone Unlocks in Gamification Design

Ok, so this isn’t news exactly… But at OPENFORMAT we love games and our protocol is very heavily influenced by the gaming world (missions, XP, achievements, badges, etc). With the upsurge in token gating (locking areas of a website with an NFT or an amount of tokens/points) and progressive mission based systems that unlock further functionality, this post by Yu-kai Chou is enlightening.

Coinbase Introduces Messaging Service to Its Self-Custody Wallet

One of the big problems in the anonymous and decentralised world is communicating with users - it’s why Discord is such a big deal. So.. This release from Coinbase is potentially the first real solution for communication streams between users and a “broadcast entity”. The XMTP protocol they’re using is open source so expect more of this from other “Web3” players soon…

For The Love Of God, Can We Write Better Web3 Stories?

A new take on “wizard syndrome”… 😁 For some reason people like to make things complicated, add jargon, create layers of complexity and output what seem like mystical technologies that still aren’t easily understood (my car mechanic is a wizard but I trust her so it’s ok!). Humans like stories, colour, and experiences that make sense of large concepts, and this slightly self deprecating post from an enthusiastic content writer kind of nails it.

And Finally…

Humans are pumping out so much groundwater that it's changing Earth's tilt

Ok, so this isn’t tech related but at OPENFORMAT we’re very focused on how humans and the planet can work more harmoniously together, and this recent study shows that nearly two inches of sea rise in twenty years can be attributed to the way that humans are managing ground water… Here’s a link to the original paper in case you want to get into the details..

Prompt (Generated by AI): “a powerful wizard concocting something incredibly complex in a laboratory in the near future. Hi tech. Studio Ghibli style. Highly detailed. Wide angle.”