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Web3 News From Consensus
A special edition of The Airdrop on the ground in Austin at CoinDesk's festival.
By Rosie Perper
Updated Apr 28, 2023, 9:51 p.m. Published Apr 28, 2023, 8:24 p.m.
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Howdy y'all and welcome to a special Consensus 2023 edition of The Airdrop, our weekly newsletter where we discuss the biggest stories across Web3.
We're in Austin, Texas this week and there's so much to report from the floor that we're changing up the format and bringing you a highlight edition focused on the festival.
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This Week's Alpha
Aping into Web3 gaming: Yuga Labs' new CEO Daniel Alegre sat down with me at Consensus in his first public speaking appearance to discuss his move from mainstream gaming giant Activision Blizzard to Web3, the company's secrets to success and future plans for its gamified metaverse experience called The Otherside.
- “You can actually really bring the Web 2 players and have them realize, OK, this is what Web3 does,” Alegre said. “If the experiences are excellent, people will follow.”
- Future plans: "You're gonna be seeing more and more [brand partnerships], those kinds of activations, and we obviously want to stay true to our community, and bring value to the community."
Polygon powered by Google Cloud: Google Cloud is working with Polygon Labs to help make it easier for brands to build Web3 products using its Blockchain Node Engine.
- “Today's announcement with Google Cloud aims to increase transaction throughput enabling use cases in gaming, supply chain management, and DeFi," Polygon President Ryan Wyatt said in the statement.
- "Initial tests to run Polygon zkEVM’s zero-knowledge proofs on Google Cloud ... resulted in significantly faster and cheaper transactions as compared to the existing setup," Google Cloud said in its statement.
Roadblocks to mass adoption: Clunky and clumsy technology is blocking mass adoption of Web3, said brand leaders from across the Web2 and Web3 space.
- “Every click that you need to take in the [onboarding] process, you're going to lose 50% of people,” said Julie Garneau, head of Web3 at beverage giant Anheuser-Busch.
- Andy Sack, co-CEO of Forum3, which advises the Starbucks Odyssey project, said that needing to open up a wallet in order to have a branded experience is “an alien one for consumers.”
You can catch up on our full coverage of Consensus 2023 here.
In Other News
- Twitter's mass migration: As Twitter removes legacy blue checkmarks from trusted sources like journalists, brands and public figures, many users are seeking decentralized social media alternatives, and Bluesky has emerged as a top contender.
- Proof of community: NFT collective Proof is building a 3D world for holders of its Moonbirds collection via metaverse platform Mona.
- OpenSea is open to Web2: The NFT marketplace told TechCrunch+ that more tools need to be available for non-crypto native brands. “It’s too complicated, so if we can be a platform that reduces that friction and makes it easier then a creator can do what they do, which is be creative, and we’ll take care of the rest," said Shiva Rajaraman, OpenSea’s chief business officer.
More For You
KuCoin captured a record share of centralised exchange volume in 2025, with more than $1.25tn traded as its volumes grew faster than the wider crypto market.
What to know:
- KuCoin recorded over $1.25 trillion in total trading volume in 2025, equivalent to an average of roughly $114 billion per month, marking its strongest year on record.
- This performance translated into an all-time high share of centralised exchange volume, as KuCoin’s activity expanded faster than aggregate CEX volumes, which slowed during periods of lower market volatility.
- Spot and derivatives volumes were evenly split, each exceeding $500 billion for the year, signalling broad-based usage rather than reliance on a single product line.
- Altcoins accounted for the majority of trading activity, reinforcing KuCoin’s role as a primary liquidity venue beyond BTC and ETH at a time when majors saw more muted turnover.
- Even as overall crypto volumes softened mid-year, KuCoin maintained elevated baseline activity, indicating structurally higher user engagement rather than short-lived volume spikes.
More For You
Tristan Thompson launches prediction market turning NBA stats into stock
NBA veteran Tristan Thompson launched basketball.fun, a new prediction market platform that turns top athletes into tradable assets.
What to know:
How it works: The platform differentiates itself from standard betting by treating the NBA's top 100 players as individual financial assets to collect.
- Users can buy and open "packs" of players, mimicking the nostalgic experience of buying physical trading cards.
- Player "share prices" luctuate based on real-time performance, rising if a player records a triple-double or dropping if they struggle after an injury.
- Users can trade these player shares on a secondary marketplace.
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