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Business January 15, 2023

NFT Trademark Filings Soared More than 20,000% Last Year

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NFT Trademark Filings Soar More than 20,000%

Non-Fungible Token (NFT) trademark filings in 2022 soared by 28,588% from 2020, according to data from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) shared by licensed attorney Mike Kondoudis. The total number of NFTs filed with the organization in 2022 was 7,746 which was 286 times higher than 2020’s total of 27. 

Despite 2022 being seen by many stakeholders of the NFT industry as one of the worse due to declining sales volume towards the end of the year, trademarks for the period were 259% higher than 2021’s 2,154 filings. 

NFT trademark saw a significant spike in March 2022

While many projects were launched in March which was also the month the Federal Reserve increased its funds’ benchmark rate by 25 basis point from 0.25% to 0.50%, the USPTO were busy accepting and reviewing filings. 

NFT trademark filings for March were 1,089 and this corresponded to a significant global NFT market sales volume of approximately $2.5 billion. Mainstream organizations that filed trademarks during the third month of 2022 include, but are not limited to, France-based football club Paris Saint Germain (PSG), Playboy, Jimmy Johns, Tommy Hilfiger, Levi’s, Johnson & Johnson, and American Express. 

Despite the positives, the bearish outlook of the market which gained roots in December 2021, was deepened by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the collapse of Terra in May of the same year, and later FTX’s bankruptcy filing affected all parts of the market. 

Unfortunately, NFT trademark filings were negatively affected too. There was a 69% decline in applications from March as the USPTO received 341 filings throughout December 2022. Total global NFT market sales for the period were around $678 million.     

NFT Trademark Filings Soar More than 20,000%

USPTO by Mike Kondoudis

No signs of slowing down

The cryptocurrency, decentralized finance (DeFi), metaverse, Web3, and NFT market is in a recovery phase in January 2023. More than $100 billion have been added to the total crypto market capitalization from about $757 billion on the last day of 2022 to roughly $864 billion on Jan. 13, 2023.

NFT Trademark Filings Soar More than 20,000%

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NFT-related coins and tokens such as Flow (FLOW), the Sandbox (SAND), Avalanche (AVAX), Enjin Coin (ENJ), ApeCoin (APE), and Axie Infinity (AXS) lead the gains.

The positive signs have been reflected in NFT trademark filings in January. In the first two weeks of the month, Intuit Inc., an American business software company, owner of the American Music Awards, and National Geographic Society Corporation have all filed NFT trademark applications with the USPTO. 

Soaring global NFT market sales

The global NFT market sales for the first two weeks of January were around $380 million from more than 280,000 unique buyers, involved in over 2.6 million transactions at an average sale value of $142. This statistic was higher than June 2021’s $357 million

The cumulative volumes of Axie Infinity, Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC), Otherside for Otherdeed, Metroverse Blackout City Block, Doodles, Cool Cats, Sorare, The Sandbox, NBA Top Shots, NFL ALL DAY, Moonbirds, Meebits, Azuki, CryptoPunks, and CloneX have contributed to all-time global market sales of $47 billion

With the launch of new NFT projects that will be adding to the increasing number of trademark filings, global NFT market sales could soon be on their way to surpassing the $50 billion milestone. 

 

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Image credits: Shutterstock, CC images, Midjourney, Unsplash.

Business

Twitter Now Worth Only a Third of Musk’s $44B Purchase Price

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Twitter Worth Only a Third of Musk’s $44B Purchase Price

It’s been almost seven months since Elon Musk acquired Twitter for $44 billion but the tech entrepreneur has failed to invigorate the company’s fortunes. Financial services corporation Fidelity now estimate the value of the app to stand at just 33% of Musk’s purchase price.

Musk completed his famous takeover of the microblogging site in October, fulfilling his long-term desire to be the boss of Twitter.

The tech billionaire was criticized for overspending on Twitter during the acquisition. Musk paid $44 billion for Twitter, with $33.5 billion in equity. However, Musk has also acknowledged he overpaid and said it was only worth half of what he paid.

“Myself and the other investors are obviously overpaying for Twitter right now. The long term potential for Twitter in my view is an order of magnitude greater than its current value,” said Musk.

Twitter was valued at $20 billion in March by Musk himself in an email that was sent to the company’s employees.

Twitter struggles under Musk

Following Musk’s takeover, many corporations and companies cut ties with the platform. Musk’s erratic decision-making and management style is blamed on driving a host of advertisers away.

Ford, General Motors, Volkswagen, General Mills, Mondelez, Pfizer, and United Airlines are among the major corporations that paused or pulled their advertisements from Twitter due to concerns regarding hate speech and conspiracy theories.

International ad and consulting firm Interpublic, which represents American Express, Coca-Cola, Fitbit, Spotify, and dozens of other major corporations, has also stopped advertising on the platform. That cut caused Twitter to lose $24 billion. Given the recent advertiser exodus it is unsurprising that Fidelity downgraded Twitter’s value – but it remains unclear exactly how they arrived at a final valuation.

In November, Fidelity initially decreased the value of its Twitter stake to 44% of the purchase price. This was followed by subsequent markdowns in December and February.

“In 2021, Twitter generated more than 4.5 billion U.S. dollars in advertising service revenues, up from 3.2 billion U.S. dollars in the previous year,” according to Statista.

Also Read: Six Months of Twitter Under the Rule of Elon Musk

Additionally, the micro-blogging platform produced around $571 million in data licensing revenue, up from $508 million 2020.

Insider Intelligence projected “that Twitter’s 2023 ad revenues would reach $4.74 billion worldwide.” However, since Musk took charge, the market research company has cut its projection by “nearly $2 billion, to just $2.98 billion, as the app grapples with brand safety issues, confusing policies, and broken technology.”

Twitter Blue: a flop card

Twitter Blue, a subscription-based verification checkmark with various features, remains one of the most popular changes in Musk’s brief tenure.

In November, the Tesla chief introduced a feature called “Blue for $8/month,” which brought a drastic change to Twitter’s policy by providing a verification checkmark known as a Blue tick.

This feature also offers additional benefits such as the ability to edit tweets, half-ads, longer tweets, text formatting, bookmark folders, NFT profile pictures, etc.

Interestingly, though, the change has been copied by Facebook and Instagram owner Meta, whose subscription service Meta Verified lets users add a blue checkmark to their accounts.

Musk faced accusations of charging its users to cover his $44 billion, which he invested to become the boss. Despite the criticism for removing legacy checkmarks from popular accounts, Twitter Blue generated $11 million on mobile in its first three months as a new product.

The amount it has generated is slightly lower than expected, as Twitter has 368 million monthly active users worldwide.

However, Twitter is adding more features to the paid verification badge as Musk tries to develop it as a flagship product under the Twitter umbrella.

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AI

Baidu Is Rolling Out a $145M Venture Capital AI Fund

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Baidu is Rolling Out a $145M Venture Capital AI Fund

Chinese tech giant Baidu is setting up a venture capital fund of $145 million or 1 billion yuan to back AI-focused startups. Baidu co-founder and CEO Robin Li announced the launch of the fund at a JP Morgan summit in China this week.

The move could signal China’s push towards self-reliance in the cut-throat generative AI sector. The fund will support the development and innovation of AI-based content creation, such as chatbots, video and audio synthesis, and natural language processing.

The fund is targeting early-stage AI applications, an area which Chinese generative AI startups have so far struggled to reach widespread adoption.

Also read: AI Code of Conduct Coming ‘Within Weeks’ Says US and Europe

Tailing the US’s OpenAI

OpenAI recently created an investment fund valued at more than $175 million, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. the company has been investing in startups, with its OpenAI Startup Fund to back companies “pushing the boundaries of how powerful AI can positively impact the world.”

Baidu is also planning to launch competition for developers to build applications using its Ernie large language model (LLM) or integrate the model into their existing products, in a similar fashion other tech firms are using OpenAI’s ChatGPT technology.

Ernie bot is Baidu’s own AI-powered LLM that can generate natural and coherent texts based on user inputs.

“American developers are building new applications based on ChatGPT or other language models. In China, there will be an increasing number of developers building AI applications using Ernie as their foundation,” said Li.

Baidu unveiled the chatbot in March this year and claimed that it outperformed other LLMs in several benchmarks.

Battle for AI supremacy

The success of ChatGPT has put Chinese tech companies under pressure to fast-track the release of their own LLMs and bring them to market.

According to Reuters there are over 75 Chinese companies that have already released their own LLMs since 2020. Baidu and e-commerce giant Alibaba are among these companies.

A report by a state-run research firm says over 79 LLMs have been launched in the past 3 years.

And the Baidu boss predicts that in the generative AI age, Chinese companies will catch up, and even lead the way in discovering commercial applications for AI.

“I am very bullish on China AI development. Over the past few decades, China has warmly embraced new technologies,” said Li.

“Even though we didn’t invent Android, iOS or Windows, we developed a host of very innovative applications like WeChat, Douyin and Didi. Many of them are popular and useful. The same trend is playing out in the AI age. Technology ushers in a myriad of possibilities and we are good at capturing them to build applications,” explained Li.

LLMs, a vital tech

Since they can produce realistic and varied material across a range of subjects and forms, LLMs are seen as a vital technology for expanding AI applications and services. They do, however, also present ethical and legal difficulties, such as possible abuse, plagiarism, and bias. China released draft regulations on the use of generative AI in April in response to the spike in LLMs, requiring developers to acquire approval and explicitly label such products.

The growth and adoption of AI-based content production in China and elsewhere are anticipated to be accelerated by Baidu’s venture capital fund and competition.

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Business

Metaverse Gaming Market Expected to Reach $119.2 Billion by 2028

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Metaverse Gaming Market Expected to Reach $119.2 Billion by 2028

The metaverse gaming market is estimated to encompass $22.7 billion in 2023 and projected to reach $119.2 billion by 2028, according to a recent report from ReportLinker.

The metaverse has been a hot cake in the tech industry in recent years and was boosted by Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to change Facebook’s name to Meta. However, the market has been limping towards AI, which stole the spotlight from virtual reality.

“The global metaverse in gaming market size is estimated at USD 22.7 billion in 2023 and is projected to reach USD 119.2 billion by 2028 at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 39.3%,” stated the report.

The growth of the metaverse in the gaming market is expected to be fuelled by several significant factors, including the dynamic and evolving landscape of adjacent technology markets “such as extended reality (XR),” which encompasses “virtual reality (VR),” augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR).

Expectation of rapid growth

In 2021, the gaming industry experienced rapid growth, with billions of people playing video games globally and generating over $193 billion in revenue.

Gaming companies quickly became early adopters in exploring the potential of the metaverse. Looking ahead to 2023, it was projected that the metaverse will continue to reshape the gaming landscape.

A survey from last year shows that about 52% of U.S. gamers believe the metaverse will change the game industry.

“According to the survey, just over half (52%) of gamers believe the metaverse will change the video game industry and a plurality (41%) think that the metaverse will have a positive impact on the industry (vs. 25% who disagree),” reads the survey report of Globant and polling firm YouGov.

Moreover, 40% say the buzz around “metaverse gaming is warranted,” though nearly “one-third (30%) were undecided” on that subject.

Who are the big players?

The metaverse is not just a single platform, virtual experience, or game; it is an entire world recreated to provide an immersive experience. Gaming is one of the many experiences in the metaverse that is powered by AI, VR, and AR.

Whenever it comes to gaming, some of the giant games like Fornite, Unreal, and Roblox come to mind.

Read Also: Meta Seeks to Boost Its Metaverse Gaming Credentials

And those are expected to be significant players in the metaverse due to their existing influence and capabilities in the gaming industry, as a report from 2022 states.

“As gaming platforms like Fortnight gain functionality and evolve into technologically advanced social meeting places, it becomes more likely that a functioning Metaverse, with an independent economy, systems, and processes is in our future,” reads the report.

Fortnite has transformed into a social meeting place, offering interactive events and branded experiences.

Unreal’s powerful engine enables immersive media experiences, while Roblox’s user-generated content and virtual currency have attracted millions of users. These factors position them to thrive in the evolving metaverse landscape.

Europe expecting significant growth

Europe is expected to witness significant growth in the gaming metaverse market, with the second-highest CAGR during the calculation period.

The UK, Germany, and France lead the way in technology investment, while Russia and Spain are also adopting new display technologies.

“The substantial growth of the virtual world immersive interactive gaming industry in Europe is a crucial driver for the gaming metaverse market in this region,” stated the report.

The immersive interactive gaming industry in Europe, along with the demand for AR, VR, and MR technologies in the entertainment sector, serves as a driving force, indicated ReportLinker.

Initiatives such as the European Association for Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality (EuroVR) and projects like Augmented Heritage and International Augmented Med (I AM) contribute to market growth.

With increasing startups in extended reality, particularly in Sweden, Europe is poised for increased growth in the gaming metaverse markets.

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