‘Hunger Games’ creative execs turning new project into Web3 world
In an interview with Decrypt, Cedric Nicolas-Troyan, Bryan Unkeless, Blaise Hemingway and Bryce Anderson shared their vision and plans for the upcoming sci-fi project called Runner.
Runner is built to become a video game, NFT profile picture project, comic book and TV show.
“While our central story is focusing on a few characters, it was a natural extension to look at PFPs as a way to really start creating specific identities within our world,” Unkeless comments on creating non-fungible tokens (NFTs).
“The challenge, frankly, from a lot of Web3 projects is they have unbelievable visuals, and they even have great world-building, but they don’t necessarily yet have the overarching concept and construct that lends itself to different mediums. What we hope is that we have enough knowledge and experience from film and television and gaming that we know what works there,” they add.
The Runner team has experience producing the “Hunger Games,” “Birds of Prey,” “Bright,” “I, Tonya” and feels like even though Hollywood has been slow with adopting new technology like streaming or even digital cameras, “anything that works for the audience will eventually work for Hollywood.”
Influencer and entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk launches NFT consulting company
Gary Vaynerchuk, or Gary Vee, is going deeper in Web3 with his new consulting firm.
According to the trademark filing, the company under the name Vayner3 will offer “technical consulting, business consulting and business strategic planning services advertising, marketing, and promotion services in the field of non-fungible tokens, cryptocurrencies, and other metaverse and Web3 activities and assets.”
Gary Vee has been a digital asset space enthusiast for a while now, especially when it comes to NFTs. He recently held one of the biggest NFT events – the VeeCon NFT conference in Minneapolis, with an impressive lineup of celebrities, including Snoop Dogg, Pharrell, Beeple, Eva Longoria, Mila Kunis and many more.
Web3 infrastructure startup Merge raises $9.5 million
Octopus Ventures, together with Coinbase Ventures, Hashed and Ethereal Ventures, has invested a total of $9.5 million in a UK-based startup, Merge. The company, founded by a former PayPal executive Kebbie Sebastian, focuses on building an infrastructure for Web3 companies, providing payments, banking, compliance, risk management with an application programming interface (API).
“Our target customers are Web3 companies that need to interface and collect funds in fiat from their customers or institutions, so we’re talking crypto exchanges, wallets and DeFi gateways,” the founder shared, adding that even though the startup has started with the UK, it aims to provide their services worldwide.
The Market Minute
Crypto markets have been pretty steady over the past 24 hours, only losing 0.06% in market cap. Bitcoin (BTC) has been staying at around $31,800 levels, while Ethereum (ETH) lost around 2% and has been trading at $1,952.
AXS, a token behind the Axie Infinity blockchain game, has rallied around 20% to trade at $23.95 at press time. WAVES, a cryptocurrency of the Waves blockchain, has seen its trading volume rise by 150% over the past two days and its price spike to as high as $10.40 before settling at $9.07 at the time of writing.
In other headlines
Fireblocks Hires Former Bank of England Fintech Chief to Lead CBDC Efforts – CoinDesk
Top crypto firms go on the hunt for acquisition targets as market crashes – CNBC
UN agency head sees ‘massive opportunities’ in crypto: WEF 2022 – Cointelegraph
