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SportsLine&#x27;s Mike McClure, a daily Fantasy pro with more than $2 million in winnings, gives optimal MLB DFS lineup advice for Friday

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Friday&#x27;s DraftKings DFS picks include a stack of Orioles hitters, featuring Gunnar Henderson against Rays pitcher Aaron Civale.

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Our panel of experts is here to give you their NBA DFS advice for today’s contests by answering a handful of questions to help you make crucial lineup-building decisions. Want to know Noto’s favorite Captain? Or squirrelpatrol’s hot take? Find out below · Notorious: Anthony Edwards, ...

NBA DFS Picks: DraftKings & FanDuel Expert Survey for Thursday, May 30th

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DraftKings

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Since the inception of The Naked Collector in 2021, I’ve been one of the leading voices in Web3 consumer and specifically Web3 fashion research. My , has attracted a loyal following from industry giants, including  H&M, Harvard Business School, Adidas, JP Morgan and Coinbase. private newsletter Today, I'm thrilled to unveil the enigmatic world of Web3 fashion and corporate (Web2) NFTs to a wider audience. As a recognized authority in this niche, I've had the unique privilege of observing and shaping emerging trends, which positions me ideally to present these awards. The awards represent the innovative spirit and transformative potential of Web3. They serve to acknowledge remarkable contributions and groundbreaking advancements in this rapidly evolving field. Best Web3 Success Story: Pudgy Penguins In April 2022, Pudgy Penguins was considered a dead project. However, under the new leadership of Luca Netz, the brand has undergone remarkable innovation and growth. This resurgence is best exemplified by the introduction of Pudgy Penguin Toys, now shelved in 2000 Walmart stores. These toys not only offer physical enjoyment but also unlock unique NFT traits, including clothing, which users can interact with and trade online. A key to their success is the strategic use of NFTs as Intellectual Property (IP) to generate revenue. Pudgy Penguins from May to the end of the year, demonstrating a lucrative intersection between physical products and digital assets. What sets them apart is their approach to community engagement; Pudgy Toys are licensed directly from the community, marking a pioneering move in the market. anticipates toy sales to reach approximately $10 million In 2023, the brand expanded its portfolio by launching Pudgy Toys and the IGLOO fashion line. Looking ahead to 2024, Pudgy Penguins is set to join the ranks of BAYC, Azuki, and RTFKT by launching its own metaverse, "Pudgy World." Best Web2* (Fashion) Success Story: PUMA Puma NFT collections went largely under the radar but amassed 4th largest volume among Web2 brand NFTs (after DraftKings, Nike and Porsche). Notably, while PUMA's revenue in the traditional sportswear market reached only 35% of Adidas' revenue, its 2023 NFT sales volume impressively exceeded that of Adidas by 450%. Furthermore, PUMA's Web3 royalties achieved 73% of Adidas' figures. A notable aspect of PUMA's NFT success is its ability to attract new participants in the digital asset space. Approximately 33% of its NFT buyers were beginners (wallets with less than 10 transactions), compared to the average of 18% across both Web3 fashion and other Web2 brand NFT collections. This statistic underscores PUMA's role in expanding the reach and appeal of NFTs beyond the traditional market. Best Web2 (Non-Fashion) Success Story: DraftKings DraftKings has emerged as a leader in the non-fashion Web2 space, thanks to its NFT-enabled fantasy games, including Reignmakers Football, UFC, & PGA Tour. The NFTs are minted on the Polygon blockchain and DraftKings games have amassed the largest NFT volume in 2023 among all Web2 brands. According to CryptoSlam data, the collections accumulated a total volume of $251,409,713 since February (as of December 2023). This achievement ranks them as the 25th most traded NFT collection of all time in less than a year, with over 120,000 holders. Notably, the collection also secured the highest royalties among Web2 brands, totaling $25 million. A key strategy of DraftKings has been targeting regular users, especially those not native to the Web3 space. By trading on the Polygon blockchain and simplifying the process – such as allowing payment for NFTs with credit cards and minimizing Web3 complexities like gas fees and cryptocurrencies – they have made their platform more accessible. Additionally, DraftKings' ownmarketplace facilitates these trades, from which the company garners a 10% marketplace fee. Given the projected growth of the U.S. online sports betting market – estimated to reach an annual $12.5 billion by 2025, up from $6.8 billion in 2022 (Stifel Research) – and the inherent suitability of NFTs for fantasy sports, DraftKings' volume is expected to continue its upward trajectory. Web2 Brand With Most Holders (Users): Reddit As of December 2023, Reddit had the most NFT holders with 24.9M, according to Polygon Analytics). For comparison, below is the holder situation in October 2023, from . The Naked Collector Fashion in Web3 Industry Report Biggest Disappointment: RTFKT Despite being at the forefront of merging Web3 with fashion technology and gaining publicity through endorsements from celebrities, RTFKT emerges as the year's biggest disappointment, primarily due to the lofty expectations placed upon it. While Nike’s own native dotSWOOSH ID collection saw 376,000 holders mint the ID, RTFKT saw its performance numbers decline. While RTFKT continued to dominate the fashion volume charts for the second consecutive year, the market witnessed a significant decline in the value of its collections. The Clone X floor price, for instance, plummeted from $8.5K in February 2023 (and an all-time high of $67K in April 2022) to just over $3K by December 2023. The most affected were holders of secondary collections such as CryptoKicks, EVO X Vials, MNLTHs, Trillium Lace Engines and Loot Pods, primarily due to their redeemable nature — a development that caught many by surprise. some of which lost nearly all value RTFKT’s downturn can be partly attributed to delays in production processes. However, a larger factor was the misalignment between holder expectations and project delivery, exacerbated by insufficient communication (from many holders’ point of view). The floor price, a reflection of current and projected sentiment, suggests that if RTFKT successfully advances its Wear to Earn technology and metaverse ecosystem, it could positively influence both the floor prices and the overall sentiment around the project. There have also been glimpses of RTFKT’s potential for mainstream adoption, evidenced by LeBron James wearing theRTFKT x Nike Air Force 1 - Genesis sneakers and DJ Khaled sporting the Nike x RTFKT AR Hoodie. Whether the same holders who supported RTFKT from the beginning will still be here, is another question. Most Surprising Web2 Brand Entry: Maison Margiela Maison Margiela marked its entry into the Web3 space with a unique and surprising move, launching its first gamified minting experience on October 24. Participants were given the chance to collect 24 distinctly numbered digital tokens, numbered from 0 to 23. This innovative endeavor utilized "Polygon Soul-Bound Tokens," which are non-transferable and allowed each participant to mint only one of each type. The experience was gas-free, emphasizing user accessibility and ease. The competition, designed to be fast-paced and equitable, was set to conclude once all 100 numbers were minted. Despite its intriguing approach to gamifying FOMO (fear of missing out), the minting experience garnered some negative feedback, particularly concerning its perceived difficulty. Biggest Fashion Trend: Phygitals one of the most significant trends in fashion NFTs this year has been the rise of 'phygitals' – physical fashion items linked to NFTs through embedded NFC or RFID chips. This trend aligns with the growing narrative around RWAs (real-world assets) within the broader crypto space, indicating a continuing expansion in the future. As predicted in 2022, In 2023, underscoring their rising popularity. The next evolution of this trend is expected to involve the integration of real-world data, such as ESG and sports data, through oracles. Other anticipated developments include the collateralization of high-value items, like luxury watches, and the introduction of physical-to-digital perks, exempli ed by concepts like 'wear to earn.' phygitals emerged as the most popular product release category among Web2 fashion brands, (From The Naked Collector Fashion in Web3 Industry Report) Largest Avg. Profit in 2023 (Web2 fashion collection):Nike/RTFKT CloneX Mintvial ($1,751) Largest Avg. ROI in 2023 (Web3 fashion collection): A Kid Called Beast ($684) The "A Kid Called Beast" (AKCB) collection has emerged as a standout in the 2023 Web3 fashion sector. This collection features 9,999 unique, 3D characters that are ready for augmented reality, hosted on the Ethereum blockchain. Each character belongs to one of 20 distinct "beasthoods," symbolizing various personality traits and emphasizing the collection's focus on fashion and cultural representation. Gaining traction on platforms like OpenSea, AKCB's innovative approach to distribution and its strong identity as a Web3 brand have been pivotal in fostering a robust community around these digital collectibles. Secondary Volume in 2023 (Web2 vs. Web3 Fashion) We can see that Web2 brands dominated the fashion NFT volume in 2023. This dominance was evident not only in the absolute volume of transactions but also in the average volume per collection. The data analyzed included 46 Web2 and 31 Web3 NFT collections, representing an 11% difference in the number of collections. However, the disparity in volume was far more significant, with a 106% higher volume for Web2 brands compared to their Web3 counterparts. This substantial difference underscores the prevailing influence of Web2 entities in the fashion NFT space. Secondary Volume in 2023 (All Web2 brands) When it comes to Web2 brand volume in 2023 (including non-fashion NFTs), DraftKings and Nike/RTFKT have established a clear lead over their competitors. Their performance notably overshadowed even the highly publicized Starbucks collection. It's important to acknowledge that both DraftKings and Nike/RTFKT bene ted from having a substantial supply of collections, a factor that likely contributed to their dominant positions in the market. Brand Primary Volume (Web2 Fashion) Nike is not only leading in secondary volume but primary (or mint) volume as well. Phygital Fashion Secondary Volume in 2023 (Web2 & Web3 Fashion) Nike/RTFKT is also the leader in phygital NFT secondary volume having three of their collections in the top 5. The most noteworthy is their Clone X Forging SZN 1, which saw 45.4K items forged, making it the largest phygital collection to date in terms of both volume and size. Additionally, their collaboration with RIMOWA for a phygital luggage collection ranked third in volume. The innovative cIRL sneakers, equipped with Wear to Earn functionality, placed fourth. 10KTF, a Web3 native brand, also made its mark in the top 5 with their Kagami phygital digital displays linked to their parent PFP collection. Meanwhile, PUMA's Materializer, an NFT representing a physical pair of shoes claimable in 2023, topped off the list. Highest Royalties in 2023 (All Web2 Brands): DraftKings ($25.1M) DraftKings had the highest Web2 royalties despite having the second largest volume, mainly due to their 10% marketplace fee. Highest Royalties in 2023 (Web3 Fashion): A Kid Called Beast ($1.8M) Want to Read More? Go to , to read how you can access the full report including Web3 user insights. https://thenakedcollector.substack.com/p/2023-recap-2023-2024-data-based-web3 Disclaimer The data in this report was generated directly by me through SQL queries on the Flipside Crypto platform This report is for informational purposes only. The information is as of its publication date and may change without notice. The publisher accepts no liability for any actions taken on the basis of the information provided. You are encouraged to share this report with others! The only request is to attribute the work to the author, The Naked Collector, in any sharing or reproduction of this material. When sharing digitally, please tag The Naked Collector or reference this work by citing the author properly. This report promotes the respectful exchange of information and acknowledges the hard work and expertise that went into creating this report. Thank you for your cooperation and understanding. Also published . here

And the Web3 Award Goes To...

এবং Web3 অ্যাওয়ার্ড যায়...

Und der Web3 Award geht an...

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NFTs have become a creative and commercial revolution. They have become a major topic of discussion among artists and entrepreneurs worldwide and have risen to an unimaginable value. As per recent estimates, the NFT market has surpassed in 2021, compared to just under $41 million in 2018! $40 billion NFTs have been sold for millions of dollars. And here is a look at the top 10 largest NFT sales that have happened in 2021. Top 10 Most Expensive NFTs on the Planet as of 2021: ‘The Merge’: Pak, $91.8M ‘Everydays - The First 5,000 Days’: Beeple, $69.3M ‘Human One’: Beeple, $28.98M ‘Cryptopunk #7523’: Larva Labs, $11.75M ‘Cryptopunk #4156’: Larva Labs, $10.35M ‘Cryptopunk #7804’: Larva Labs, $7.6M ‘Cryptopunk #3100’: Larva Labs, $7.51M ‘Right-click and Save As guy’, Xcopy, $7.09M ‘Ringers #109’: Art Blocks, $6.93M ‘Crossroad’: Beeple, $6.6M Deciphering NFTs: What are Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs)? The term ‘NFT’ stands for a ‘Non-fungible token’. If an asset can be exchanged or substituted with a similar asset having the same value, it is ‘fungible’. For instance, the currency is a fungible asset. If you take ten $1 bills and exchange them for a single $10 bill, the value of your money will still be the same. But non-fungible assets are one of their kind in the Cryptosphere. They can’t be traded or substituted for something similar because nothing similar exists! For example, the original Mona Lisa painting is a unique piece of art. It cannot be exchanged for a Mona Lisa poster sold at a local gift shop. The Eiffel tower cannot be exchanged for its photograph taken by somebody, because only one of it exists. People take a unique piece of creative artwork and assign a digital token to it. This token acts as a certificate of ownership and authenticity. And it gets stored on a blockchain ledger. Whoever has that token becomes the owner of that property and its rights. It can be a traditional or digital painting, video games, sports memorabilia, songs, GIFs, tweets, a social media post, anything! Since such artworks are immensely rare and unique in their design, they cannot be duplicated. Thus, they have a very high value. Top 10 NFT Sales in 2021 Let us look at these famous NFT sales in more detail: Pak’s ‘The Merge’ Beeple held the record for selling the most expensive NFT of 2021 for most of the year. But from December 2 to December 4, 2021, the NFT artist Pak put ‘The Merge’ on sale via Nifty Gateway. The artwork was divided into numerous masses, each costing $575 and going up by __ __every six hours. $25 If a buyer already had a piece by Pak, the mass’s price would come down to $299. The piece collectively fetched $91.8M, with 312,686 pieces sold among 28,983 traders. Beeple’s ‘Everydays – The First 5,000 Days’ Mike Winkelmann, also known as Beeple, is one of the most prominent NFT artists today, with his own NFT marketplace as well, going by the name We.new. On 11 March 2021, sold this NFT through Christie’s online auction for $69.3M (42329.453 ETH). It was bought by Vignesh Sundaran, aka Metakovan, founder and financer of Metapurse. This particular sale was the most popular of the year and plunged NFTs into mainstream attention. Beeple’s ‘Human One’ The ‘Human One’ NFT is a life-sized 3D sculpture. It shows a human born in the Metaverse, wearing a silver-coloured space suit. The unique thing about this artwork is that it can change in form every day based on Beeple’s desires. He has promised that he will keep updating it during his lifetime. It was sold on November 9, 2021, to the Swiss entrepreneur Ryan Zurrer, for $28.98M. The sale happened through the 21st Century Evening Sale auction hosted by Christie’s.** Larva Labs’ ‘Cryptopunk #7523’ Larva Labs studio is a team of two Canadian software developers Matt Hall and John Watkinson. And on 10 June 2021, they sold this NFT for $11.75M at London’s Sotheby’s. The buyer was DraftKing’s largest shareholder, Shalom Meckenzie. It is also dubbed as the ‘Covid Alien’. It is the most expensive Cryptopunk NFT among Larva Labs’ Cryptopunk collection, containing 10,000 uniquely created characters. These punks are 24x24 pixel unique avatars in 8-bit style. And among cryptocurrency communities, people use them as status symbols due to their rare and exclusive nature. While some consider their Cryptopunk #9998 to be the most expensive NFT ever sold (for $532 Million!), its sale remains controversial. Larva Labs’ ‘Cryptopunk #4156’** ‘Cryptopunk #4156’ was sold for $10.35M (2500 ETH) to an unknown user on 9 December 2021. It is a rare Ape-styled punk. And there are only 24 of these in the entire 10,000 Cryptopunk collection.** ** Larva Labs’ ‘Cryptopunk #7804’ This NFT was sold for $7.56M (4200 ETH) on March 11, 2021, to someone called Peruggia on Twitter. It was one of the two major NFT sales that happened on the date. Larva Labs’ ‘Cryptopunk #3100’ Selling for a touch less than #7804, this Cryptopunk was sold for $7.51M. It was the second of the two major March 11 NFT sales. XCopy’s ‘Right-click and Save As Guy’ This artwork by XCopy sold for $7.09M through Superrare in November. It was bought by the rapper and crypto whale Snoop Dogg, under his NFT alias ‘Cozomo de Medici’. Art Blocks’ ‘Ringers #109’ Art Blocks is a platform that creates on-demand generative-styled art collectables. Among its collection of 99,000 NFTs, this one was sold for $6.93M to an unknown collector on Oct 2, 2021. Beeple’s ‘Crossroad’ Beeple struck again with this 3D animated 10-second short of his. This short featured the former US president Mr. Donald Trump and was first sold on Nifty Gateway. But it generated $6.6M via a secondary market sale on February 25, 2021, bought by an anonymous buyer. Conclusion With their demand rising exponentially around the globe, NFTs will revolutionize commercial transactions and ownership as we know it. Be it purchasing digital real-estate and owning unique creative assets or using NFTs in software licenses, event tickets, and club memberships, its use cases are endless. Coupled with the rapidly-growing Metaverse, NFTs might even change the face of the world.

Top 10 NFT Sales In 2021 That Broke All the Records

The US sports betting market is booming. In 2020, Americans spent almost , so it’s no surprise that the competition to acquire customers for sportsbooks is fierce. As a growing number of states legalize sports betting, millions of new gamblers are emerging, making it imperative for companies to invest heavily in customer acquisition to secure a piece of the action. $35 billion wagering on sports events Strategic Localization DraftKings and FanDuel are the standout leaders in the rapidly expanding sports betting sector, responsible for approximately 80% of the US market. But a growing number of competitors are coming forward in an attempt to gain market share as the sports gambling industry reaches new heights in revenue. While Nevada continues to hold the largest sports betting market in the US, gambling is now legal in approximately half of the states, with others soon to follow. Starting from June 2018 up to June 2021, New Jersey hit a revenue of with monthly handle of $447.5 million in May. $1,089 million from sportsbook operators [Source: ESPN; As for May 25, 2021] In our recent video discussion about in the sports betting space, Daniel Kustelski, co-founder and CEO of games-as-a-service provider Chalkline, stated the importance of localization in the current climate. effective customer acquisition strategies “Obviously, what we're seeing – varying strategy and tactics by the operators depending on really the size of their balance sheets. There's a lot of national coverage for brands, but really what it comes down to is what is working on a state-by-state basis. We're seeing lots of, certainly, above the line advertising. But then down at its more regional and local level, it's really about figuring out who in each one of these states is interested in sports betting and/or maybe has bet illegally in the past and how do you acquire those customers.” In addition to expressing the need to customize advertising on a state-by-state basis, Kustelski mentioned some methods being used to acquire customers. “(We’re seeing) lots of deals with media companies right now between sportsbooks and major media companies, and not just on a major national scale. We're seeing those types of deals happening locally and regionally, and maybe just relevant for a couple of states.” Overcoming Barriers to Entry While the sports betting market is highly lucrative, it’s not easy to enter. Startups in this space must navigate a patchwork of complex regulations that vary from state to state. The two market leaders—DraftKings and FanDuel—are both owned by large public companies, giving them access to deep pockets for advertising spend in addition to vast legal and compliance teams to manage the regulatory complexities of the industry. “I think the first wave that we saw was really about market access ,” Kustelski explained. “Do I have access to this state or that state, or what does that look like. And I think that while we're still starting to see market access deals, I think there's certainly a push now to ‘Okay, I am in particular states - how do I now acquire customers in those particular states and what is my arsenal in order to do that.’” [Source: Roundhill Investments] Another challenge facing sports betting startups is how to differentiate themselves from competitors. The reality is that most betting platforms offer basically the same service. While many companies offer a range of bonuses for registration with their service, new entrants in this space can stand out from the pack by delving deeply into the analysis of what sports fans are most interested in and subsequently tailoring their special offers accordingly. Every registration bonus is not created equally, and those that can appeal directly to the largest percentage of new customers in the sports betting market can significantly raise awareness and interest in their platform. An excellent example of effectively applying this concept comes from FanDuel. FanDuel partnered with WSC Sports to deliver in-game highlights directly to their users, in near real-time. The technology uses AI to automatically analyze live sports broadcasts, identify events that occur, and then create customized short-form video that can be published on a mobile app. One more difficulty facing entrants in the sports betting industry is the extraordinarily long journey from an initial customer touchpoint to their eventual registration with a platform. During our discussion, Kustelski talked about some misconceptions held by startups in their first attempts to acquire customers. Kustelski explained before providing us with a more realistic view of the industry, which typically includes the need for acquisition tools to achieve success. “I think that there is some assumption from some of the operators and the sportsbooks that if they build it, people are going to come, and everybody's going to sign up in the first two months and then that's it,” “It's really hard to sign up customers on my sportsbook. People would come to my registration page ten to eleven times before they even started the registration process. It depends (on) walking people through that process of registering and depositing and then placing that wager. There will forever be a need for acquisition tools because everybody is in a slightly different state of education.” Impactful Strategies for Success Sportsbook operators in the US typically employ a range of tactics in their quest to acquire customers, such as registration bonuses, ongoing promotions, odds boosts, and sponsorship deals. #1 Media Deals and Sponsorships Media deals and sponsorships are on the rise as the sports betting market skyrockets. With a growing number of new entrants vying for attention, combined with a rapidly increasing revenue stream as the industry expands to additional states, partnership deals provide a powerful method for raising awareness of new betting platforms. It’s interesting to note that . While the lion’s share of paid advertising comes from DraftKings and FanDuel with a from January-September 2020, as illustrated in the following chart from market research firm Kantar, new industry entrants may climb further up the spend ladder in the coming period. 90% of sports betting ad spend in 2020 went to TV broadcasters combined media ad spend of over $154 million [Source: Kantar] Many companies have signed profitable partnership deals to further their customer acquisition reach, including: CBS / William Hill NBCU / PointsBet Fox / Stars Group Turner / DraftKings & FanDuel ESPN / Caesars New York Knicks, Rangers, & Giants / DraftKings While media partnerships and sponsorships can be excellent methods for expanding the awareness of sports betting platforms, it’s vital to ensure that the brand image being created is on point. When a platform uses questionable promotion tactics, it may harm their image significantly, resulting in a major backlash from customers and the overall sports betting industry. For example, in what may be remembered as the most inappropriate advertising strategy of the year, Pennsylvania’s Barstool Sportsbook posted an image on Instagram of a young child holding up a sign that said “Daddy I need -3.5” with a caption reading “Do it for the children”. Although the company later deleted the content from its account, the post received a lot of negative attention and may prove to be a permanent scar on the platform’s reputation. #2 Promotional Offers Promotional offers continue to be a major tool for customer acquisition in the sports betting industry. Providing the right type of promotional offers can help a platform stand out from the competition while being an overall incentive to join the world of gambling on sporting events. In a report by PaySafe called , the company points to research commissioned in 2020 which found that 28% of US players named good promotional offers as a differentiator when evaluating different sportsbooks that they do not currently have an account with. “ All the way players pay: The game plan for growth ” Another promotional offer strategy is a controversial tactic that’s sometimes called “a race to the bottom”. A new American sportsbook called Vigtory is attempting to disrupt the industry by taking a vig from wagers that’s between 50-75% lower than what traditional sportsbooks take. The company is targeting bettors who are big spenders as opposed to average sports gamblers, believing that offering a major savings on the vig will attract high rollers to its platform. Such tactics can be difficult to manage for many operators, as : Harry Lang, a UK sports and online gaming marketer, explained “The smaller guys will find it hard to compete because they won’t be able to ‘loss lead’ with small margins. They’ll go broke trying to keep up.” #3 Expansive Access to Services Providing wide access to betting services is a key component of successful platforms. A strong mobile presence is imperative as online betting continues to grow in popularity for the majority of consumers. A large percentage of people are on two screens for much of their day, especially during the pandemic due to the reduction of in-person retail. Building an innovative second screen experience is an excellent way to keep sports fans entertained and engaged while increasing betting opportunities that lead to additional revenue. Kustelski explained. “I think that New Jersey is a great example of the importance of mobile. It's probably 90% of all the wagers that come in on mobile, and certainly during the pandemic when there was no retail opportunity. Providing people the ability to entertain themselves on free-to-play or sports betting on their mobile phones where they are already – it’s not important, it's everything,” He elaborated on this point based on his experiences with Chalkline. “We have 20% of our game plays on desktop but 80% is on mobile and so especially when you look at these states like say Tennessee, Tennessee is mobile and online only and that's a really unique opportunity for people to kind of panel beat their processes around getting people to sign up through digital means.” [Source: CNBC; As of March 12, 2021] #4 Behavioral Marketing Behavioral marketing is an advanced method of targeting customers based on their activity on websites as opposed to simply analyzing the pages a customer visits. The actions being tracked and utilized may include the way a user engages with product listings, the length of time spent viewing a coupon, a user’s search history, and other measureable activities. For platforms in the sports betting space, behavioral marketing provides powerful information that can be used to acquire customers in a highly personalized manner. In Chalkline’s case, the company analyzes the passion points of each user of its games, including which ones they engage with and how long they spend playing each game. This information is subsequently used to personalize their messaging, sending users the campaigns that are best aligned with their tracked activity. Considering the modern consumer’s expectations for personalization, behavioral marketing is an ideal tool in the quest for customers, as Kustelski illustrated during our recent conversation. “We collect a lot of data , and all of our data is captured on behalf of our clients. But on a weekly basis that report really looks like this: how many games we created, we created 15 games for you last week, these are all the types of players that played, this is how many times player X or player Y played these games, player X only played the football games and player Y actually played the UFC and the golf games,” Kustelski explained. The extraordinary amount of data collected can subsequently be used to understand what works best for customers and what isn’t working as well. Kustelski continued. “The BI that we collect is really grounded in the fact that our tech team and our team has built a sportsbook,” “We understand the value of every single thing that the client does on our site, and we know that is intelligence to the operator. That is critically important for the operator but also when we start to collect information from the operator, we can also start to glean how they are engaging with our particular product - our free play as well as real money - so we know that most of the time, if there's a free play component by an operator, it's going to be played. Fifty percent of all the real money players are going to be playing that free play for various reasons. If there are ways that we can maybe entice people to deposit money if they've already signed up, what are some of those games and what are some of those passion points that we can use (to say) ‘hey, here are campaigns that work for the various personas and the various registrations down into the funnel.’” We’ve covered a lot of material about a range of customer acquisition tactics in this article. The following comparison table summarizes the options to help you decide which methods are best for meeting your particular goals. Keeping Up with Competition Although sports betting used to be relegated to very small parts of the US, this pastime has now expanded to half of the country and will continue to spread throughout additional states in the coming period. As a growing number of startups attempt to grab a piece of the lucrative action, the platforms that apply innovative marketing methodologies along with exceptional technological infrastructures are poised to climb the competitive ladder of the rapidly expanding sports betting market. By Russell Karp , VP Media & Entertainment at DataArt

4 Ways to Acquire Customers as a Sports Betting Business

Hi Christian, welcome to our series “Behind the Startup.” Please tell us about yourself and the story behind Tradestars? Ishan Pandey: : Hello Ishan, thanks for having me here today. I’m Chris, a software engineer and entrepreneur. I love tech, and I’ve been in the blockchain space for +4yr now. Mainly in the gaming industry. I contributed to many projects like Decentraland.org, Decent.bet, Pop chest, and some small others before starting TradeStars. Christian Hentschel I was at Decentraland in December 2017 when CryptoKitties released the first version of their collectables, and at that moment was a revolution. The crypto community started to work on a standard for this (that became the ERC721), and the team at Decentraland used it to sell around 90,000 of virtual land around April 2018. Some of the items were sold for astronomic figures, so it became natural to me that there would be a need or common use case to fractionalize these assets and allow fractional ownership. Because of my background in the Fantasy Sports space, I started thinking around these concepts when the TradeStars idea appeared. Can you explain how the trading of fantasy stocks of athletes works? Further, what are the regulations around it? Ishan Pandey: Fantasy trading of athletes is a new concept applied on a blockchain. The fractional NFT implementation represents athletes’ real-life performances, and on top of a DEX, users can buy/sell fractions of these NFTs. Once users log in to the platform, they can fund their account with FIAT offramp or by connecting an external crypto wallet. Christian Hentschel: Right after this, several Fractional NFT markets are available for users where they can buy fantasy stocks. At the implementation level, this process feels like using Uniswap, for example. By building a portfolio of fantasy stocks, users can start mining tokens which is the company governance token, and the APY rate at which they receive it is influenced by the portfolio’s athletes performance on the field. This is called by connecting economics and sports together. This is a novel concept for both the blockchain and the fantasy sports industry. " gamifying DeFi" The legal landscape is very different depending on the country or region. In many of the jurisdictions, you may need a sports betting licence to operate. On this aspect, the legal opinion of a lawyer is much appreciated as each platform and its framework is different. Please explain how the Fantasy NFT marketplace model functions and how the entire system is conceptualized? Ishan Pandey: The whole Fantasy NFT marketplace concept is based on the connection between economic mechanics and sports performances. Christian Hentschel: The athletes’ fantasy stocks have their prices impacted by the real-life performance expectations (and results) and depending on your knowledge of the sport. You’ll be able to maximize the portfolio in order to farm the token at the highest rate. The tokens can unlock or access different tier of contests and rewards inside the game and have governance power. What are your views on NBA Top shot and the platform’s recent $7.5b+ valuation? Ishan Pandey: I believe the response is impressive, yet that’s just the tip of the iceberg for what we will see blockchain and the NFT concept will disrupt. Christian Hentschel: The NFT idea is simple yet so powerful that it can disrupt the whole world. I think about real estate, CO2 certificates, any asset that can be legally tied to, and verified with, a non-fungible digital record. I have no doubt we’re going to see more and more implementations around this, not only in the gaming/sports sector in the years to come. According to you, how will blockchain-based gaming affect the traditional gaming ecosystem? Ishan Pandey: It will absolutely change it. No doubts about it. Just think of all the digital real-estate out there in different games and all that will be created, owned and possibly traded by the users. Think of interoperability, like buying a look for your avatar in Decentraland and selling it on your digital store on the Sandbox, or other things alike. The gaming ecosystem will profoundly change by giving users actual digital ownership of the things they love to spend time with. Christian Hentschel: What are your views on the Play-to-Earn concept, and what current impediments do you see for its wide-scale adoption? Ishan Pandey: We’re already witnessing how all these interesting concepts around ownership and interoperability are changing and enabling new business models. Christian Hentschel: For me, the play to earn model is to the gaming industry what the shared economy concept is to the tourism, vacation rental or delivery industries, to name some—a game-changer. But to fully unleash its potential and mass adoption, the main challenge is to focus on making the technology as friendly and accessible as possible. We should be able to provide a great user experience without the need to explain about wallets, private keys, signatures, etc. Ethereum rising transaction fees are proving to be a bottleneck for the DeFi ecosystem. According to you, why Matic layer 2 is the solution for decentralized applications that wish to build on Ethereum? Ishan Pandey: I would definitely recommend Polygon to deploy a dApp. I believe the Polygon team is truly exceptional, hard-working and trustful, and has come with the right set of tools to help solve the scalability issues we’re having currently in Ethereum today. Christian Hentschel: Do you think combining Blockchain and Fantasy Sports will induce mass adoption of blockchain in the mainstream sports industry? Ishan Pandey: I do believe so. I think Fantasy Sports is a fascinating use case for blockchain technology and we’re working with the idea to help push the blockchain technology to a massive audience. Christian Hentschel: In our case, we expect many use cases inside the game to have opportunities in the offline world. This is very interesting and an opportunity in the sports industry in particular, and through actions with teams, leagues and athletes, we will start bridging and making the sports world and blockchain technology closer. And I fully expect we will lead in this category. There is a rise in the use of smartphones and subsequently hefty restrictions posed on sports betting worldwide by the regulators. According to you, what is the state of fantasy sports currently and which jurisdictions are best equipped to accommodate fantasy sports platforms? Ishan Pandey: The state of Fantasy Sports varies from region to region. I believe the US Draftkings is leading in the category, but you see companies like Dream11, in India that validates the model in other parts of the world, where I believe there are enormous opportunities for this model to flourish. The current Draft Kings model has already been there for 12 years and leveraged mainly the rise of the smartphone and regulations around skills-based games. I find the model changed, and new users are looking for other types of interactions with their sports passion. I believe India, MENA and south-east Asia are showing a growing appetite for this type of products following already shown trends of the more developed old markets. Christian Hentschel: The purpose of this article is to remove informational asymmetry existing today in our digital markets by performing due diligence by asking the right questions and equipping readers with better opinions to make informed decisions. The material does not constitute any investment, financial, or legal advice. Please do your research before investing in any digital assets or tokens, etc. The writer does not have any vested interest in the company.

How NFTs Can Disrupt the Fantasy Sports Industry 

With a , Fantasy Sports is big, but COVID-19 is bigger. Nobody in the fantasy sports industry expected that the pandemic would not only delay games but ultimately shorten the sports season by months. With more people staying at home during the pandemic, the demand for online gaming platforms has increased significantly. current valuation of around $19 billion But COVID-19 aside, the global fantasy sports market is anticipated to hit $48.6 billion by 2027, according to a published by Allied Market Research. The Fantasy Sports & Gaming Association in the U.S. reports that 70% of fantasy sports players compete in leagues that charge a fee and a player spends an annual In 2018, the global market for all fantasy sports was estimated at around and is projected to grow to $33.2 billion by 2025. recent report of $653 on fees. $13.9 billion What Does the Global Scoreboard Look Like for Fantasy Sports? Global fantasy sports market is composed of many sports like Soccer, American Football, Baseball, Basket, Cricket, and other sports. The market size does not follow the amount of fans the sport has. Example: Soccer (4Bil fans) is the most popular sport and Cricket (2Bil fans) the second. But in the Fantasy Sports space, with 70% of the market in the US and UK, the football segment accounts for the majority of the market share, and at the international level, the fantasy cricket segment is expected to grow with the fastest CAGR of 17.9% by 2027, due to the . growing popularity in the Asia-Pacific region As sports and fantasy leagues have slowly returned, it’s clear that they will never be the same moving forward, especially with the new technologies that have made global financial accessibility even easier. With tech like blockchain and digital money becoming more mainstream, bringing the fantasy sports sector onto the blockchain allows for it to transform into a more transparent, accessible, and cheaper ecosystem for users. What If Fantasy Operated Like the NASDAQ? But what if fantasy sports could operate similar to the NASDAQ and New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)? I spoke with Christian Hentschel, the founder and CTO of , a blockchain startup that has over 30,000 users on its now public “sporting stock exchange.” TradeStars There’s no question that traditional fantasy sports need some tweaks. But why? Why is it better to look to an athlete’s real-time performance, rather than simply competing against other users? , or DFS, according to Hentschel, is an innovation from around 10 years ago that leveraged the rise of smartphones, and expanded greatly based on similarities to the sports betting with a better legal framework to develop. Daily Fantasy Sports Historically, the U.S. prohibited sports betting, with its legal landscape considering it an offense, rather than economically beneficial. Fantasy sports has flourished upon this, considered to be a “game of skill,” rather than a “ ”. game of chance “I believe the quick adoption and expansion was largely attributed to sports fans finding a similar dynamic to sports betting since historically it was prohibited in the US,” Hentschel shared. “For example, competing against other sports fans, in a social environment allows individuals to express how much they know about their favorite sports.” , The TradeStars founder went on to add that new technologies like blockchain have opened the door to bigger opportunities like what TradeStars has created. “I believe that new technologies like blockchain, the now common way in which people use their smartphones to communicate, mobile penetration mixed with the lack of creativity and innovation in the traditional Fantasy Sports space opens the door to a huge opportunity for new ideas.” “I strongly believe there’s an enormous opportunity to innovate in the fantasy sports space,” he says, pointing to the UK for reference. “The UK, the most crowded and regulated market, has seen this trend for the past four years, where people demonstrated that trading over fantasy stocks instead of building a team, is the next big iteration for the industry.” What Are ‘Fractional NFTs?’ TradeStars relies on a few relatively new concepts for the blockchain industry, such as non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and decentralized finance (DeFi). Fantasy sports enthusiasts, let me ask you this – what if, rather than building a virtual team of players and competing against another user in traditional fantasy, you could “invest” into stocks that represent the performance of athletes, similar to how consumers invest in stocks which represent publicly traded companies’ performance? What if, each athlete’s real-life performance is tokenized on the blockchain? That would make sense, right? Enter a New Type of NFT The idea to represent the Athletes' performances (tokenization) on a blockchain through a unique item like the NFT standard, needed a tweak for allowing players to be able to buy / sell fractions of it. Here's the concept of “fractional non-fungible tokens,” or Fractionable NFTs. “This ‘Fractionable NFT’ enables NFTs to now be partially owned,” Hentschel explains. “We came out with the idea of using the ERC-20 standard to represent the NFT fractions, and provide the capability for the NFT to set the price and circulating supply of these shares as a function of the market supply and demand.” Decentralized Trading In plain, the Fractionable NFTs represent the tokenized real-time performance of athletes themselves and manages the supply and price of its shares through the use of an (automated market making) or Bonding Curve algorithm. Similar to the liquidity pools seen on conventional decentralized exchanges. AMM Fractionable NFTs set the price based on its shares supply and demand, and rewards for the shareholders in the form of TSX (the platform’s main governance token) are based on statistics tracking the athlete's real-life performance. The major difference, compared to traditional fantasy’s, according to the TradeStars founder, is how TradeStars introduces economic incentives into the platform, which are tied to these tokenized stats and the Fractionable NFT shares’ supply and demand. Take DraftKings, for example, which cross-pollinates audiences between Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS), sports betting, and online casinos. We are now seeing brands leveraging digital platforms to help expand their reach beyond their vertical industries--we now see a horizontal shift. Jason Robins has indicated plans to not only power markets for betting on everything, but to become “the premier brand in digital sports entertainment.” The explosive growth of the sports betting industry in the United States, alongside rapid worldwide expansion within esports, connected health, and social gaming, has spawned a surge of intellectual and investment capital flowing to innovative startups. With the introduction of the TSX into the system, we reward the community and real users of the platform. This is a unique capability and enormous advantage of using the blockchain for this type of product. “By having the fractionable tokens supply managed by a bonding curve algorithm, we incentivize the opportunity on the buyers or sellers side, as it does not follow a liner “PxQ” traditional price setting. We set up the opportunity on the buyers or sellers side. Simply market supply and demand, but the interesting thing happens with the introduction of our TSX governance tokens. The payout dividends for the shareholders sets an incentive on the opportunity to spot and buy early those assets that promise the most upside to your investment, influenced by their portfolio real-life performance.” By using their sporting knowledge, and relying on their favorite real-life statistics, fans can speculate on short or long-term positions and compete against each other in a unique social experience for a trading platform. TradeStars revealed that while it currently focuses on cricket, it intends to bring soccer and other eSports to the platform in the near future.

How ‘Fractional NFTs’ Can Help Accelerate the Future of Fantasy Sports on the Blockchain

When I first started reviewing online casino sites there we're no online gambling apps yet. It was only 2001 and online gaming was still in its infancy. Then later on, in 2009 I opened a local office for a social media site I was developing. My head of and user experience kept telling me over and over that we needed to build these new apps and how the were going to be a major game changer. Unfortunately I didn't listen to his advice for whatever reason and I didn't develop an app. That was a pretty big mistake. analytics iPad apps Little did I know that in less than a decade & real money casino apps would become a major way for people to gamble from their mobile phones. mobile gambling In this Hacker Noon story I'll be talking about the different kinds of available from top gaming developers. I'll be covering both free-play gaming apps and real money casino app games you can find for iPhones, iPads and Android phones/tablets. online gambling apps Types of Gambling Apps One of the best things about online betting apps in my opinion are the number of choices you have. I've listed few of the top free casino apps below. This is followed by my research findings that I discovered when digging around the web for the lowdown on real money online gambling apps. - I love to play free casino games on mobile apps because you can't lose and loot. Anyone that has spent their share of time inside a casino knows that it can become an expensive hobby. Free online casino apps offer players all of the excitement of real casino gaming at the truly affordable cost of $0. That's a smart bet I'll place any day of the week. Free and exciting online gaming entertainment is an activity loved by millions of people from around the world. Free Casino Apps - I'm more of a blackjack player than I am a poker player. This is especially the case if I'm going to be gambling for real money. With this being said, I do enjoy playing Texas holdem poker on a couple of the better free online poker apps . One of my favorite holdem poker apps is available on Google Play for Android phones and tablets. Free Poker Apps Zynga'a Texas holdem poker app - There are some amazingly realistic free online slots apps you can download on the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store. A few of the free slot apps that I recommend include Quick Hit Slots and Hit It Rich slots. In particular with regards to free slot apps, the available on the App Store for iPhones and iPads has got to be one of the best free slot apps that exists. Free Slots Apps myVegas slots app - Now when I'm talking about this is a language I speak fluently. I've played blackjack for more than 20 years and I play the game beyond expert level. Absolutely love playing blackjack whether its for real cash, a free blackjack app or just a fun home game at night with some free chips. I just love to play blackjack anytime, anywhere. A couple of my favorite free blackjack apps are for iOS mobile devices and for Android mobile devices. Free Blackjack Apps blackjack Vegas Casino 21 Card Game Super Lucky Casino's Blackjack App Real Money Gambling Apps You'll be surprised at the limited number of real money gambling app options available on the App Store and Google Play Store. Most real money casino gaming is done through gambler's mobile web browsers and not through mobile gambling apps that you'll find for iPhone and Android phones. With this being said, there are a few real money options for you to consider. - In my opinion, Mr Green online casino has the best real money casino app. Have you tried Mr Green's mobile casino app yet?  Its one of the very few real money online casino apps available to download from both Google Play and the App Store. Mr Green is a highly respected, industry award winning casino & sportsbook with mobile gambling games from NetEnt, Microgaming, IGT, NextGen Gaming and other leading casino software providers. You can even go to Mr Green to play live dealer casino games by Revolution Gaming software. Real Money Casino App - Unless you're located in New Jersey and Pennsylvania where sportsbooks like DraftKings and FanDuel have online sports betting apps then you'll have a difficult time finding real money sportsbook apps. The good news is all of the web's premier sports gambling sites offer mobile betting sites you can access from any WiFi enabled mobile device. Today most mobile sports betting is done via mobile-friendly sportsbook sites. Real Money Sports Betting App Mobile Gambling on GambleRock Visit GambleRock.com for a more complete overview of mobile gambling apps and mobile betting websites. I created to build an online gaming community of gamblers who share their reviews and honest opinions about the web's most popular betting sites. GambleRock's mobile gambling guide lists the best online gambling apps for real money wagering and free-play mobile casino gaming. GambleRock

Gambling Apps [Explained] - Real Money Casino Apps vs Free Mobile Gaming

Technology has turned the restaurant industry into a zero-sum game. The food & beverage industry operates on razor-thin margins, where delivery apps such as DoorDash and GrubHub take a 20% service fee on each order, . On top of that, there exists every other foodie app hustling to sell advertising space online. leaving little profit left for restaurant owners Food is at the base of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Required for energy production in multi-cellular organisms, humans cannot exist without it. Blockchain micropayments will revolutionize the food review industry because it will satisfy every level of Maslow’s hierarchy. Existing food review mechanisms sufficiently satisfy the bottom three layers of the pyramid. They help consumers identify safe and secure places to eat, while also giving them a sense of belonging within the community. Until now, the model has been broken, without any mechanism to satisfy the top two layers of the hierarchy. To achieve full satisfaction, a rewards mechanism must be in place, that is sufficiently perceived as valuable by most of the user base. This concept came to fruition, while stuck in a remote part of Jerusalem with my friend Rob. We realized that nobody in Israel uses Yelp, and Instagram was terrible for discovering new local delicacies in a foreign country. is a successful 25-year old entrepreneur from South Florida. He started out flipping electronics, eventually buying himself into the world of BurgerIM franchises with a solid footing on the corporate level. Robinson Aguado By creating a user interface that highlights photos of food as the primary stream, barriers to usage will be reduced across language barriers. Blockchain can also turn ad dollars into rewards for content creators, eliminate opportunities for negative reviews, and revolutionize the food tech industry with micropayments. The Existing Ecosystem Colu: A new decentralized payment system for local communities The State of Isreal is widely known as a . Inventions such as Waze, Mobileye, and flash drives have spawned from this young state. However, when it comes to mobile payment technologies they have been far behind the curve. It can be baffling to see that such a technologically advanced economy, has such a low adoption of payment protocols such as Apple Pay. startup nation Colu , which came to the rescue to solve this issue. By creating an unrivaled user experience, they began to partner with local businesses to create a mobile payment system. Users load fiat to their wallet and spend money by scanning a QR code. Colu is the local business focused startup What I really like about them, is that they took a human-centric approach to solve a problem in their community, before implementing a true blockchain solution. Currently operating in 4 cities (Tel Aviv, Haifa, London, and Liverpool), they boast the following adoption metrics: Approximately 200,000 users Approximately 2,000 businesses which accept Colu payment Approximately 300,000 monthly transactions taking place Their long term strategy is to work with municipalities to create incentive tokens for the greater good, redeemable at local businesses. For example, say a city wants people to recycle more. Citizens can earn Colu tokens for “good behavior,” which supports the greater good of the municipality. Appics: Next generation social media powered by Steemit The team over at Appics is as a rewards-based social media network. Their goal is to merge lifestyle, passion, and user-generated income inside a single mobile application. making headways Their model is to give 65% of revenue to content creators, 25% to curators, and 10% to sustain the network. The split is decided proportionally to likes. Unlike Instagram, likes are weighted based on the users’ ethos. For example, likes from Beyonce Knowles has more clout than a like from Timmy Oppenheimer. Similar to Facebook and Instagram, there is no opportunity to give a bad score. Positive feedback enables paying users more of an incentive to continue paying for the service because nobody wants to pay to be trolled. The network runs on a modified version of the Steemit blockchain. that was one of the first to bring social networking to the blockchain community. Their tokens are inflationary to meet demand. This means that over time, more tokens are created therefore making it a long term depreciating asset. It will be interesting to see how they play out. Steemit is Reddit style dApp The Simplicity of Yelp, Blended with the Influence of Instagram A mockup of what a food gram would look like As mentioned in my previous article, . blockchain is in desperate need of human-centric design Yelp’s success is predicated on two factors. The simplicity of the user experience, and the phenomenal training they provide to their advertising sales team. Training managers there are some of the best in the world, while their product team has mastered the ability to listen to consumers. On the other hand, Yelp has been losing a lot of their market dominance to competitors in the space. , inviting users to become “Local Guides.” Similar to the approach of Yelp Elites, this boosts users into the hierarchy of self-importance at a more accessible threshold than Yelp. However, Instagram has become the biggest thorn in the side for both companies. Google has been marketing its Maps app as more of a local discovery tool In the age of the influencer, no platform has achieved greater success than Instagram. Their ability to reward users for engagement through likes, followers, and communal support, has skyrocketed them into one of the most powerful social tools for marketers. An entire ecosystem has developed for paid influencers, who utilize their social clout for monetary gains. Brands are able to connect directly to their customers, through paid partnerships with influencers who can charge upwards of $30,000 per post. When done correctly, these brand partnerships can lead to significant ROIs but are out of reach for most small to medium-sized businesses. is likely the most well-known food influencer in the world. Many of his posts are authentic reviews of food that he enjoys, while others are massive endorsement deals for fast-growing burger franchises. The old homage goes, a picture is worth a thousand words, which is why his reach goes much further on Instagram than with any other platform. He is proof that people eat with their eyes, and while his page can be considered as a Food bible to some, users still yearn for the validation of their own inner circles for the photos that they post. The question is, what can be done to make people feel like their food posts are as valuable as his? FoodGod The Jackpot Model As of this writing, the . The odds of winning the big prize are slim to none, but the runner up prizes of $2 to $1 million are more within reach. The aspiration of potentially taking home the big prize is enough motivation for people to stand in line for hours, just for the opportunity to buy a ticket. The same goes for websites like Fan Duel or DraftKings. Users get drawn in by the big prizes but stay after winning the more attainable smaller prizes. Even Medium implements a similar model, where top contributors are taking home thousands of dollars per post, and the rest of us take home pennies on the dollar, and still love to write. Powerball jackpot sits at $625 Million In a blockchain based review system, content creators will earn micropayments as a proportion of ad revenue dollars spent by the local businesses they post about. For example, say Timmy posts a picture of a slice of cheese pizza from John’s Best Pizza to FoodGram. John’s Best Pizza happens to be a FoodGram advertiser spending $200 / month. Timmy sees that they are a verified advertiser through the app, which is a reason he took his business there. By posting a verified picture of his food there, Timmy earns a financial reward in proportion to the total number of other users who have posted photos there, relative to the restaurant’s ad spend. Due to the presence of micropayments, users are verified via their account information to ensure a restaurant owner doesn’t create a slew of fake accounts, to boost their own reputation. Payments would be processed in fiat at first, migrating into a blockchain based payment system as the infrastructure is developed. Based on existing post rates of traditional social media platforms, users could earn ~$20 / month, with top posters earning upwards of $10,000. Tying It Together The jackpot model applied to a blockchain based food review system, will bridge the gap between incentivizing reviews and maintaining authenticity. By giving users a status of self-worth and recognition though achieved earnings, they join a community which supports each other discover new restaurants that are safe and exciting to eat at. Micropayments will revolutionize the food review industry by creating a seamless user experience for brands to connect with customers. Utilizing the power of blockchain technology, the platform will give authority back to end users through a self-regulating mechanism, in which a proof of identity must be staked in order to reap the benefits. William Seggos is the CEO of . He specializes in helping startups develop human-centric blockchain strategies and works with luxury retail brands to drive e-commerce growth. He is also working on developing the first-ever blockchain powered sales enablement tool, . To get in contact, email him at chaincollectiveny@gmail.com. Stay hungry :) Blueglass Consulting Objectr.io

Yelp Meets Instagram: How Blockchain Will Revolutionize the Food Tech Ecosystem

The National Basketball Association kicked off its 73rd season with the first two games on October 16th. But it made big news in the preseason as the NBA and Turner Broadcasting that fans would be able to purchase a portion of live games to watch on Turner’s B/R Live streaming service, nba.com, and the NBA app. officially confirmed The NBA previously tested micropayments late last season by allowing fans to watch the 4th quarter of in-progress games for just .99 cents. Starting with the 2018–19 season, the league will offer the fourth quarter, the part of the game that generates the most interest for bettors, for $1.99 on out-of-market games on League Pass only. By December, fans will have the option of buying any quarter separately, and eventually the initiative may expand to selling viewing rights to as little as 10-minute blocks of real time. Though the prices will be fixed for now, a dynamic pricing model is also being considered. It is no coincidence that Bleacher Report is owned by Warner Media, who also have a stake in Draft Kings. Though the casual fan will be attracted to this convenient offering the betting public will eventually make up the majority of consumers for the NBA’s new revenue stream. Why are the NBA’s experiments so important? Both sports ratings and traditional TV/cable consumption have dropped over the past few years, yet most sports fans are keeping their pay TV subscriptions. In fact, 82% of subscribers say they keep their cable or satellite service due to live sports and would have otherwise cut the cord ( ). There continues to be a demand for live sports though viewing habits have changed, due to a number of reasons (which we will get into another time), where access across multiple platforms (linear, mobile, web) is now expected. Additionally, viewers are more often checking in to games during a live event rather than watching it in its entirety. Additionally, dwindling attention spans and growing proliferation of shared content turn fans to streaming platforms and social media to seek out online sports highlights, interviews, and funny moments. according to last year’s PwC’s survey The NBA currently offers numerous streaming options, including League Pass, which is a season-long, full-league package, and cheaper subscriptions, including team-specific and other customizable options. It is the first, and thus far the only North American major league, to have launched a pay-per-game and partial watch options. NBA Digital, a partnership between the league and Turner, has delivered a wide array of forward-thinking initiatives in recent years, including its industry-leading offering of live NBA games in virtual reality and placing original NBA content across social platforms such as Facebook Watch and Twitter. This has led to the NBA and Turner taking the lead in the sports micropayments market that is perfectly suited to shifting consumer preferences and on-demand content distribution models with instantaneous access to content anytime, anywhere. To quote NBA commissioner Adam Silver, “at some point in the near future, fans can choose to buy any part of any game.” It is easy to imagine other major sports and social platforms moving to this same model. For instance, that the platform might be developing a micropayment system that would allow fans to watch select clips of sporting events. Will the NHL sell overtime and shootouts? Or what about watching the final innings of a baseball game? Twitter recently hinted The NBA, with its younger fanbase and tremendous global reach, is pushing technology in ways no other professional leagues could. The idea behind micropayments is to reach out to a broader audience, especially for those who have placed wagers on games. In light of legalized sports betting in the United States, the NBA’s move is another example of how nimble and proactive they are compared to other major sports leagues. When live, in-game betting goes mainstream, gamblers will be more inclined to watch a portion of a game to monitor their wagers. If the offering finds significant traction among fans (which it probably will), micropayments are going to be an important new revenue stream. An additional benefit of this new initiative is that it could help turn people away from pirated live streams and attract new audiences who are typically unwilling to sign up for recurring subscriptions but who want their customized highlights and the outcome of the game. Micropayments beyond sports While the NBA is learning to utilize the power of micropayments in sports broadcasting, they are far from the first entrant in this market and won’t be the last. These small transactions have opened doors for media and entertainment enterprises to monetize larger customer bases without losing revenue from their existing, more expensive offerings. Making in-app purchases for downloaded games, streaming parts of sports games or episodes of TV shows, or paying a quarter for every article you read are just a few possibilities that might soon become reality. Microservices-based applications that facilitate agility, scalability and speed to market will undeniably play a major role in the success of media and entertainment companies that want to stay relevant in the highly competitive and increasingly crowded market. By Russell Karp, VP Media & Entertainment at DataArt

The Future of Micropayments: How the NBA’s Latest Initiative Affects Sports Fans and Bettors

This post was first published on Sunday in Dennis Keohane’s weekly Utterly Biased newsletter. To receive UB in the future, sign up here. The memories from my first visit to Intelligent.ly are still quite vivid. I remember the bold — at least in my opinion at the time — blues of the company logo hanging throughout the classroom, which contrasted with the various faded reds of the exposed brick space of the entire BzzAgent office that housed Intelligent.ly. The space on Harrison Avenue was filled with the brightly colored — and oversized — paintings of Seth Minkin. Minkin served as Dave Balter’s “artist-in-residence” in the space. The former warehouse was also home to a wide array of companies. Not only were BzzAgent ( ) and Intelligent.ly based there, but other organizations over the years like Dunnhumby Ventures, Promoboxx, HelpScout, and Smarterer called the office home. At one point, this writer, as VentureFizz’s unofficial Boston-based jack-of-all-trades, had a small desk in the space. Dunnhumby after the 2011 acquisition There were small bits of classic Balter/Hodges flair throughout Intelligent.ly’s classroom in the far back of the space. In addition to Minkin’s massive animal paintings, there was a smallish triceratops statue, various other random knick-knacks, a kitchen brimming with wine, and a fair amount of liquor — heavy on the tequila. When classes were in session, there was always copious amounts of Regina pizza, and what seemed like a never-ending supply of PBR. I have no clue who spoke the first evening I went to Intelligent.ly — maybe then-Boundless CTO Aaron White, but I might be mistaken — but I do remember being quite nervous and eager to keep as low a profile as possible. Back then, which I think was the spring of 2012, I was an English teacher at a local private school with an inkling that it was time to transition careers. I had grown interested in entrepreneurship and wanted to learn more about what it was like to start and run a small business. At the time, Intelligent.ly was the best resource to learn about that in an intimate yet casual setting. At the session I attended, I tried to follow the presentation without drawing much notice. I feared I would somehow get outed as being a teacher — whose bosses would frown upon this moonlighting and career exploration — and, more generally, as a fraud. While trying to maintain shaman-like invisibility, I learned enough that evening to be enchanted by the world of entrepreneurship, especially the Boston “innovation” community, as it has been referred to on and off over the years. (The use of this phrasing will be the focus of a future UB newsletter.) But it wasn’t the presentation or the speaker that piqued my interest. It was the warmth of everyone bopping about the Intelligent.ly space — the hosts, the wallflowers, the attendees, the seemingly harried folks still working in BzzAgent or one of the other companies sharing the office at the time. It was so welcoming. There was a bright, light air to the evening, and, by extension, the possibility of becoming an entrepreneur in Boston in general. startup This is no small feat. It was something inherent and unique to Intelligent.ly. While the feelings I explain above are my own, I am sure many others have had similar experiences, whether in the old-school class format of Intelligent.ly or the more recent, leadership training iteration. This experience helped stoke a passion that spring-boarded not only my career but my life to unimagined places. With the news that Intelligent.ly is shutting down in 2018 , it’s important to acknowledge the role that the organization played not just in the growth of some businesses locally, but in the lives of many people, myself included. delivered by Sarah Hodges on Medium last week Intelligent.ly was founded in 2012 by Dave Balter, who is currently a partner at , with current partner Sarah Hodges at the helm. Back then, Balter was leading BzzAgent post-acquisition, and Hodges was finishing up a successful stint running marketing for RunKeeper and about to move to Smarterer. Flipside Crypto Pillar VC Last year, the two, a couple for the past few years, were married. At the time it first opened, Intelligent.ly was compared to the co-working/ space General Assembly in New York. Looking back, I’d say that’s not a very apt comparison. GA, in my mind, is more akin to The University of Phoenix, a great place to learn, if you are motivated. Intelligent.ly was something a bit different. learning Intelligent.ly evolved over its history, but even in its earliest form, it made an impact on the individuals who attended its programming. Going to a class in those days was an adventure. It could lead to an introduction to a niche business topic, experience-based guidance on moving up the hierarchy of a small business, opportunities to meet and be mentored by those running some of Boston’s most successful companies, or, quite honestly, time to just meet and hang out with like-minded folks. When programming first started — small, intimate classes and discussions at 500 Harrison — the focus was to serve as a conduit to bring those on the outside of Boston’s startup world to the inside. Founders, CEOs, engineers, product heads, HR managers, lawyers and the like would show up and dig into their prepared presentations for audiences that could include stay-at-home moms, college students, creatives, and a plethora of others seeking an education that couldn’t be found elsewhere in the city. More often than not, the sessions would conclude with lengthy Q&A periods. Sometimes there would be even longer, spontaneous post-event gatherings during which the speaker might mingle and answer questions from the audience. I believe that many a key hire and many unexpected investment opportunities arose from these unplanned *salons*. As some of Balter’s other projects expanded — most notably Smarterer, which was acquired by Pluralsight in 2014 — Intelligent.ly moved out of the South End and into different venues, including, the at-the-time Diane Hessan-led, Communispace, now known as C-Space. While classes still continued to fill up on a regular basis, in my observations, a lot of the vibrancy present in the “back” of BzzAgent was lost with the change. In recent years, Intelligent.ly evolved into something quite different from its original format. The most recent model of the program sought to train individuals who had been identified as having the most promising leadership potential from a small cohort of local companies, like Dyn, DraftKings, etc. This version of Intelligent.ly filled a void for many of the small organizations who didn’t have the time, or wherewithal, to develop its next generation of leaders. Many of the companies and people that I have spoken to who went through the program, had nothing but positive things to say about the experience. The reasons for the Intelligent.ly’s evolution over the past five years has a bit to do with finances, as more consistent revenue is available when developing a curriculum and partnering with corporate entities to educate their workforce than to rely on individuals to sign-up for entrepreneurship classes. You could also see in Intelligent.ly’s growth arc and ultimate end a potentially dire trend for the Greater Boston area’s long prominence in developing innovative companies and the creative individuals who build, run, and staff these organizations. But that is a story for another day. Like most tech and innovation projects, Intelligent.ly isn’t immune from some criticism as well. While overall, the organization made an enormous impact on many people and small local companies — I think it was an ideal place for people making career changes into the startup world — one could argue that it didn’t do enough to bridge the minority communities around Boston with the startup ecosystem. While this flaw is something many are still trying to figure out, I must say that Intelligent.ly was far ahead of the curve in welcoming and giving opportunities to women to position themselves in more prominent roles in various industries across the city. Also, it can be said that one of Intelligent.ly’s greatest assets, its clubhouse-like environment early on, could also have been seen as too insider for some. It is a quintessentially Bostonian trait to perceive an insider/outsider dichotomy in almost every social or business collegiality, so I don’t put too much stock in those who viewed Intelligent.ly in this light. What it comes down to is that over five years Intelligent.ly played an influential role in the city’s business landscape and helped advance the careers of many in Boston. Personally, I will miss Intelligent.ly deeply. Many great memories that stand out from my own experiences. Watching HubSpot CTO and co-founder Dharmesh Shah work through a presentation on “Inbound Marketing for Entrepreneurs,” was revelatoryfor me. I didn’t know that someone with such business acumen could also be witty, inspirational, and candid at once. I met people at Intelligent.ly whom I now consider to be vital and treasured friends and confidants, including Balter, Hodges, JessMeetKen’s Ken Deckinger, and HubSpot’s Katie Burke, among others. This alone causes pangs of sorrow for those who won’t be able to make similar deep connections in the absence of Intelligent.ly. I still have people, many of whom have established their own incredible careers, who come up to me and thank me for the Intelligent.ly class I taught on making career changes (which just happened to be the same evening the Red Sox clinched the World Series at Fenway in 2013). The impact that sharing your own story can have on others is a lesson I am grateful to have been able to have learned with the help of Intelligent.ly. More than anything, the Intelligent.ly that will live on in my mind is the casual conversations, usually over a beer, that delved into topics, both erudite and sophomoric, that actually could change the way one sees the world and the potential for one’s place in it. The landscape of Boston’s “innovation” community has changed rapidly over the past few years, so quick, it may seem, that we don’t realize that a unique era may have ended or be fading. The key attribute of this period — with organizations like MassChallenge, Bostinno, Techstars, Startup School, and the like thriving; HubSpot and Wayfair, among others, successfully going public; young founders shooting for the moon; and venture money widely accessible — may be the sheer audacity of the key players and the yearning to ignite passion or change from those running businesses and organizations. Intelligent.ly was the keystone of that period. Although it may come back in some other form, I am thankful to have experienced the organization in its prime. Utterly Biased and Boston’s Next “Clubhouse” Thinking about Intelligent.ly for the past week, what stood out in my mind is the welcoming environment Balter, Hodges, and crew created with the program. To my mind, this is something that has been lacking in Boston the past few years. As Utterly Biased returns in 2018, there are going to be some changes, all of them for the better I hope. One thing I aim to do is replicate what I loved about Intelligent.ly’s early days: A laid back, supportive community. Next week I’ll lay out some more details about what this looks like, but I just wanted to share that I am really excited about the next phase of Utterly Biased. Thanks for being along for the ride. -D Don’t forget to sign up for the weekly newsletter!

Intelligent.ly, and why it mattered

2016 just wrapped up yesterday, which leaves of flood of information to be digested. Big-wigs like Marc Andreesen, Marc Benioff, Reid Hoffman, and Jeff Lawson showed up. Through the entire three days, these were the main ideas: Disrupt SF AI and Machine Learning AI was the buzzword of the entire conference. The majority of speakers mentioned plans on integrating artificial intelligence and machine learning into their products and organizations and a portion of Alley was dedicated to solely AI, which is a reflection of the growth of artificial intelligence’s market in recent years. Benioff talked a little about Einstein, which is an integration of AI into Salesforce’s core CRM product. He will explain it in further detail at DreamForce this year. Uber’s director in the self-driving initiative also spoke on how AI in the ride-hailing service will inadvertently disrupt unexpected markets. Real estate will be affected because parking lots will be in smaller demand, for example. DraftKings and Crunchbase CEOs also spoke on the vitality of machine learning in refining their respective databases for their core products. Marc Andreesen also heavily emphasized AI: Andreesen Horowitz is reserving a large part of their fund for AI startups. Startup Equality and Inclusion Equally popular in speech during Disrupt was the lingering problem of diversity and inclusion in Silicon Valley. One of the speakers was Morgan DeBaun, female black founder of Blavity, a platform for black millennials to post articles on important social and racial matters close to the black community. Her experience has been that her platform retains users four-fold better than other community-based news and opinion platforms because of the tight-knit community of black millennials. Marc Benioff was especially passionate about inclusion. He talked about when he discovered females in Salesforce were being paid less than men, he immediately raised their salaries to an equal level. There was even a panel of three female founders in the health-tech space who talked about their experiences being female founders. Public and Private Sector Relations Secretary of Defense Ash Carter (and the Secret Service) was in attendance at Disrupt this year, and Carter had a chance to speak. His rhetoric was one of cooperation between the private tech sector and a burgeoning technology-focused government. He repeated his phrase of “we have to meet in the middle” multiple times. He also admitted the government’s bureaucratic faults: Startups typically have a shorter 6 month to 1 year horizon, whereas government grants and purchases take too long to get approved. He claims that the Department of Defense is working on becoming leaner to match the pace of American startups. Besides the impressive lineup of speakers, there were also several impressive startups in Startup Battlefield and Startup Alley. My three favorite were Bitmark, BlazingDB, and Flock. is a startup that I heard of prior to Disrupt SF, so when I saw the founder, Sean Moss-Pultz, in Startup Alley, I was excited to speak to him on what Bitmark was working on. According to him, Bitmark is a “blockchain-based distributed property registration system that enables individuals to claim ownership over personal data and digital assets.” In reality, this means that typical consumers can sell their data — name, email, phone number, buying habits, etc. — for businesses to purchase for marketing purposes. The main thesis is that your data is valuable, so why not capitalize on it? Bitmark was one of the most exciting startups in Startup Battlefield. The founder was very passionate about the potency of his product: A big data SQL parser that is bound to kill the likes of Amazon Redshift and open-source PostgreSQL. Essentially, BlazingDB utilizes GPUs to parse data at the petabyte scale, which has put it at around 5x faster than Redshift and an astounding 80x faster than PostgreSQL. Their one weakness was a lack of patents. BlazingDB is a Slack-killer. Their team communications app is about four-fold cheaper than Slack with more features like simpler cross-department communication. The one part about their company that really caught my attention was their ability to acquire Slack users and retain them better than Slack. Flock 

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