The UK is increasingly bullish on crypto, Udinese launches its fan token on Socios, L’Oréal and Meta fund Web3 startups
Electrifying news for this Halloween edition of Young Monday, but fear not, nothing scary! The first item concerns fan tokens. Socios launched the Udinese Calcio crypto on Wednesday the 26th of October 2022. The UK introduces the Financial Service and Markets Bill to regulate cryptocurrencies and Meta is working with L’Oréal to fund Web3 startups.
Socios launches Udinese Calcio fan token
On the 26th of October 2022, Udinese Calcio, Friuli’s Serie A team, launched its UDI fan token on the Socios.com platform. Socios is the most popular fan token platform, built on the Chiliz blockchain. The Udinese Calcio UDI fan token will allow fans to participate in the team’s decisions through surveys, and access exclusive promotions for customised products and content. There are 25,000 UDI fan tokens and they were sold through three different stages, which ensured that most fans will own at least a few.
The first survey in which Udinese Calcio fan token holders were able to participate was launched by Socios at the same time as the first phase of the UDI crypto sale. Fans were able to choose the ‘motivational’ slogan to be printed on the shirts that the players will use for the pre-match warm-up. Voting participants will also take part in a draw, the prize of which will be an official jersey autographed by all members of the Friulian team. Udinese Calcio and Socios have been working together since February 2022 with the aim of involving fans more closely in the club’s decisions. In this regard, more than 500 surveys will be offered to fan token holders by the end of the year.
Growing adoption in the UK thanks to Rishi Sunak
On the 25th of October, the UK presented the ‘Financial Services and Markets Bill’, a bill aimed at strengthening the country’s position in the cryptocurrency sector. The aim of the bill is to turn the UK into a global hub for crypto and Web3 in general. What is the first step to achieve this? Expanding and amending existing regulations, especially those relating to stablecoins. The latter will be renamed to ‘Digital Settlement Assets’ within the document, and could be added to the list of accepted currencies for payments and thus become a widespread means of payment.
This openness of the UK on the subject of cryptocurrencies is not surprising, given the interest in the topic of the new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Sunak replaced Liz Truss on Monday the 24th of October 2022, who resigned after only 40 days in office. Sunak, during his previous tenure as Chancellor of the Exchequer (finance minister), had already demonstrated his interest in crypto and Web3 technologies. The idea of making the UK a global technology hub for crypto assets was conceived at that time, along with the even more ambitious proposal to create an NFT collection for the British royal mint. Rishi Sunak has also spoken out on a number of occasions about CBDCs. As far back in 2011, he proposed creating a UK Central Bank Digital Currency to be called ‘Britcoin’.
Meta and L’Oréal, working together to finance Web3
Meta and L’Oréal have decided to join forces, assisted by the French business school HEC Paris, to launch a Web3 startup accelerator to promote creativity in the metaverse. Startup accelerators, or incubators, build growth pathways to help young companies with innovative ideas make a name for themselves in an industry. Meta, L’Oréal and HEC will help start-ups that want to specialise in the production of Web3 technologies, in particular augmented reality (AR) virtual reality (VR), 3D production, user experience portability and the token economy.
The collaboration, which will run from January to June 2023, will be entirely hosted by Meta, within its startup campus in Paris, Station F. Applications to participate are open until the 20th of November 2022, and will be judged by a jury composed not only of Meta, L’Oréal and HEC employees, but also of entrepreneurs and investors with experience in the sector. Meta’s Vice President for Southern Europe, Laurent Solly, said, “We are proud to partner with L’Oréal on this ambitious project, which aims to support the French startup ecosystem and will play a key role in building a shared, creative and inclusive metaverse.”
