#139 - Sorare scores another big league partner ⚽️

GM and welcome to Decentra Daily.

We're the web3 newsletter that won't leave you scratching your head with acronyms or complicated jargon.

Today,

• Sorare's EPL deal

• MarketWizard's 🧙‍♂️ Crypto Outlook

• Zuck's VR gamble in 2015

Top 24 hr collection volume

via CoinMarketCap

1. Sewer Pass - 278 sales earning 919.12 ETH (0.05%)

2. CryptoPunks - 8 sales earning 547.1 ETH (0.06%)

3. BAYC - 6 sales earning 483.4 ETH (0.03%)

4. MAYC - 11 sales earning 140.89 ETH (0.31%)

5. Angry Apes Society - 1,476 sales earning 125.26 ETH (1.28%)

Sorare takes another step toward the big leagues

Sorare, the NFT game with ambitions to become a household fantasy sports brand, just took another shot on target...

...hit the back of the net? ...scored a worldie? ...what's the soccer-based metaphor I'm looking for here?

In a 4-year deal, all 20 EPL clubs are now officially licensed and available for players to collect, trade, and recruit to their fantasy teams.

In a thread announcing the partnership, co-founder Nicolas Julia highlighted how far Sorare has come since their first English club deal with West Ham United in 2019.

At this point, their positioning across major sports franchises (NBA, MLB, La Liga, Bundesliga) rivals any sports game – let alone web3 projects.

Now, it all comes down to gameplay: can Sorare make their product fun and rewarding enough to break through into the true mainstream?

With the Premier League's arrival, Sorare has launched new game modes including league-specific tournaments and draft-based gameplay.

Here's a nice, TV-friendly ad announcing the deal:

Tweet of the day

On the web3 wire

Yuga founder Wylie Aronow announces health diagnosis ❤️‍🩹After a diagnosis of congestive heart failure, Aronow says he's taking some time away from work to focus on recovery.

Musk reiterates his plans to incorporate crypto into Twitter 🐥Elon says payments will initially be in fiat but systems will be built to handle crypto.

Sandbox’s $SAND is ⬆️ 90% since new year, but ⬇️ 90% from ATH The bullishness comes ahead of Sandboxes's token unlock, scheduled Feb 14.

MarketWizard's 🧙‍♂️ Crypto Outlook

Crypto conjurer MarketWizard is back with another expert financial forecast. What are the signals saying this week?

This week's crypto forecast 🌦

Macro events

• I'm expecting lots of volatility this week because of upcoming macro events

• Starting Wednesday, global central banks will announce interest rate hike decisions for this month

• On Thursday, big tech releases its earnings (Amazon, Apple, Google)

• Friday sees an unemployment data update

S&P 500

• The $SPX has finally managed to break out of a 1-year downtrend, but there are still threats to overcome before declaring victory

• There's a critical horizontal resistance to flip ($4140 - $4200)

• And also this week's macro events ⬆️

Bitcoin

• I’m expecting a pullback towards 22k - 21.5k this week, then a continuation toward 25k

• Once BTC reaches its final target and starts consolidating, we'll see money rotate into alt coins.

TL;DR: This week, I’m expecting de-risk from crypto and stocks due to upcoming macroeconomic events.

You can find deeper market analysis and crypto conversation via MarketWizard's Discord channel.

Decentra Daily is brought to you by ProfilePicture.AI

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They've already churned out nearly 1.5 million pfps for their customers – who all just got a lot more attractive.

With realism, artistic, and funny modes, there's an AI profile pic for every occasion – Oh, and they also make profile pictures for pets, too.

Meme of the day

Can't argue with that

Zuck laid out his VR beliefs in a 2015 email

Check out this piece of web3 history from yesterday's edition of Internal Tech Emails (another great newsletter worth a sub).

In 2015, Zuckerberg made a long email pitch to key Facebook and Unity stakeholders, on why FB's focus should shift toward the metaverse.

The email was penned not long after Zuck bought Oculus, the VR headset company, and was first leaked in a book by Blake Harris.

Now, it's become part of the evidence file in the ongoing FTC vs Meta case.

So what does the email say?

Mark believes VR represents the next computing revolution after mobile – one that's more immersive, intuitive to use, and economical.

(e.g. you don't need the money or wall space for a physical TV – just your VR headset and a streaming app.)

Key VR use cases in his opinion = social communication, media consumption, and immersive video.

He also thinks that FB/Meta can get the jump on VR by admitting that they can't compete with Apple and Google in this current, cell phone-centric cycle.

Instead, they should focus on making tomorrow's hardware and apps. Producing both is crucial.

And, the Zuck was considering a multi-billion-dollar acquisition of Unity, the video game engine.

He wanted to buy Unity to corner the market and get their help in building his metaverse.

What are the takeaways from Zuck's mail?

• Zuck was (is?) obsessed with FB's subservience to Google and Apple's app stores and devices. He wants control over an entire ecosystem

• He felt that acquiring a big game engine like Unity was a key part of becoming dominant in VR – and that didn't happen

• There's a lot about how to make FB a major VR player, and very little about why users will want these products. User demand for VR is already assumed, in 2015

• Zuck gambled that VR would be a bigger innovation center than AI over the next 10 years...

C U tmrw 👋

What we're reading this week