Issue #2: F1 Red Bull, NFTs for good, CBDCs and more

Stay up to date with the latest news, updates and activities within the Tezos ecosystem and community.

Welcome to the May edition of TZ APAC’s Fresh Out The Oven! May has been a big month for Tezos, from the Florence upgrade to the announcement of Tezos’ Red Bull Honda Racing F1 sponsorship. So buckle up as we race through this month’s top Tezos stories.

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Red Bull Honda Racing selects Tezos as its official blockchain partner

The multi-year technical partnership will include the launch of the Formula One team’s first ever range of #NFTs exclusively on the Tezos blockchain, to give fans a more immersive Grand Prix experience. 

Christian Horner, Red Bull Racing Honda Team Principal and CEO stated “[Tezos'] energy-efficient design also matches our own long-term future environmental ambitions, and as Formula One moves towards carbon neutrality, the low-impact methodology pioneered by Tezos will be a valuable asset.” 

To make things even sweeter, Tezos’ logo debuted on the F1 cars during the Monaco Grand Prix which not only saw Max Verstappen win the race and Sergio Pérez went viral for the one of the cleanest (and closest) corner turns the world has ever witnessed. Talk about precision. 

Music NFT marketplace raises US$63 million in seed funding and backing by Quincy Jones, Whitney Houston, John Legend, Doja Cat and other major artists

Set to launch in June, the music-focused NFT platform – OneOf, built on Tezos – intends to provide an environmentally sustainable marketplace for musicians and fans alike. Artists using the platform will be able to enjoy zero minting or gas fees, and up-and-coming musicians will be able to raise their profile through its Emerging Artist Spotlight Program.

The funds raised in its seed round will go towards expanding the team, building on top of the platform’s existing technology and supporting independent artists. A large part of the funding will also go towards securing music rights that could potentially be a valuable collectible. 

According to CoinDesk, the investment round included environmental activist Bill Tai, Nima Capital’s Suna Said, Sangha Capital, tech investor Jack Herrick and the Tezos Foundation. Tezos was selected for its low carbon footprint, low transaction costs and its scalability. 

OneOf acts as another example of a company working on blockchain technology as accessible as possible to mainstream users.

TZ APAC supports NFT sale of “53 Never Forgotten” in honour of 53 lives lost on Indonesian submarine, all proceeds towards affected families

TZ APAC is officially supporting a fundraising sale of 5300 NFTs of a digital art piece that serves to commemorate the lives lost on the Indonesian navy submarine – KRI Nanggala 402 – which sank in April. 

The piece is known as “53 Never Forgotten”, which features a 53-second animation loop of a submarine floating amongst animated waves, overlaid by 53 layers of sound. The number 53 is symbolic of the number of naval officers who lost their lives in the tragedy. 

Every NFT is being sold for 1 tez each on hic et nunc. All proceeds will be donated to the families of the sailors who died, as a means of alleviating their financial burden. They can be purchased via 53families.xyz or Art Moments Jakarta Online’s website until June 30. 

The crowdfunding campaign is part of Art Moments Jakarta Online – a hybrid art fair where Indonesian artists are more actively looking towards NFTs as a tool that can help them generate real and sustainable value from their artwork. 

TZ APAC Head, David Shin deep dives into China’s bullish CBDC strategy, as US adopts a hawkish view 

Over 80% of central banks are now researching or developing their own central bank digital currency (CBDC), but China is undeniably at the forefront as it actively pilots the digital yuan (e-CNY) across cities such as Chengdu, Shenzhen and Suzhou, in the run up to its official release at the 2022 Winter Olympics.

In contrast, the USA government has taken a hawkish approach to the concept of a USA digital dollar. USA policymakers are maintaining the direction of free and efficient markets driven by the private sector, by enabling USD-backed stablecoins (e.g. USDT, USDC, and DAI) issued by the private sector, to be used by financial institutions to back payments, settlements, and transactions.

What does each nation’s contrasting strategies mean for sovereign currency competition? 

Get further insights on Long Story Short, a podcast by BSN International:

TZ APAC’s Marissa Trew co-hosts TezTalks Radio, offering Asian blockchain perspective 

Marissa Trew, marketing manager at TZ APAC is officially the new co-host of TezTalks Radio, alongside Tezos Commons’ William McKenzie and Amer Justice. 

TezTalks Radio releases a new episode every two weeks, covering the latest news, trends and industry updates relevant to the Tezos ecosystem. The podcast also profiles and interviews individuals involved in innovative blockchain projects. 

Most recently, TezTalks radio interview KoineArth’s Praphul Chandra and Deep Chenna about their latest enterprise-NFT product, marketsN and the political philosophies underlying its design.

Watch the full episode with KoineArth:

Watch the latest episode here:

Tezos Chinese Community Reward Program launched to cultivate the Tezos ecosystem in China

TZ APAC, Tezos Foundation, TQ Tezos, and Tezos Commons announced the launch of the Community Rewards Program in the Chinese community.

The Global Community Rewards Program for Tezos contributors has been running successfully, with a monthly total reward pool of up to 5,000 tez. TZ APAC is localising this program for Asia, beginning with the Chinese community.

Through this Community Rewards Program run by TZ APAC, members who participate in Tezos ecological development and actively help grow the Tezos Chinese community will receive rewards for their contribution. 

The Tezos Chinese Community Reward Program has six categories. Community members who meet the category requirements will have to submit a form before the end of each month to participate in the Rewards Program. The winners will be announced the following month, and rewards will be distributed to the corresponding wallet thereafter.

Accubits Technologies partners with TZ APAC to promote clean NFTs

Accubits recently launched a white-label NFT marketplace platform under the banner of its crypto product ecosystem – CoinFactory. The platform enables companies and individuals to launch their own NFT marketplace, without needing to expend the resources, budget and time to develop one in-house. Through its partnership with TZ APAC, Accubits will actively promote Tezos’ clean NFTs to any clients planning to launch an NFT marketplace.

TZ APAC collaborates with XTZ News to deliver Tezos ecosystem news in Asia and beyond

TZ APAC is proud to announce its collaboration with XTZ.News, a community-driven publication that covers blockchain projects built on Tezos. This collaboration endeavours to bring updates on the latest news, projects, and events in Asia to the Tezos community, and vice versa.

The strong foothold of TZ APAC in the Asian region and XTZ.News’ extensive coverage will connect the community to the latest trends and ideas in the Tezos ecosystem. Subscribe now to the following channels to stay in the know on all the latest news in the Tezos ecosystem. 

Website | Twitter | Facebook

Institutional clients can now receive Tezos enterprise custody support on Cobo

Cobo, one of the largest crypto asset management platforms based in China, is working with TZ APAC, a leading Asia-based public blockchain consultancy supporting the Tezos ecosystem, to help expand Cobo's integrated product offering to enterprises.

In this expanded collaboration over 160 members of Cobo Custody’s international corporate client base will be able to store tez securely and integrate tez on their platform with just one click.  The integration seeks to meet the growing institutional demand for access to the Tezos ecosystem in China.

Cobo previously launched support for Tezos – an open-source Proof-Of-Stake (PoS) blockchain – in January 2019, through its flagship software wallet, Cobo Wallet. Users of Cobo Wallet can send, receive and store tez in the PoS blockchain in a simple and secure manner.

Florence, Tezos’ Sixth Protocol Upgrade Goes Live

It seems like only yesterday that Tezos underwent its fifth upgrade (codenamed Edo), which added some significant features to the ever-evolving platform such as Tickets, the Adoption Period, and Sapling. Merely 3 months after this milestone, the Tezos network has adopted its sixth upgrade, named Florence.

In this sixth protocol upgrade, Florence brings the following improvements, among others:

• Twice the Maximum Operation Size — with this update, the maximum size of operations is doubled, which results in more than doubling the maximum size of a smart contract. 

• Gas Optimisations — Overall, the gas arithmetic is also sped up by a factor of ten, increasing overall performance of a typical execution cycle of the Michelson interpreter in Florence by 35%. This allows for smart contracts with more complicated functionality to operate even more economically.

• More Intuitive Smart Contract Development — It is easier than ever for developers to write complicated systems of smart contracts without worrying about them behaving in unexpected ways. The Florence upgrade changes the applied order of inter-contract calls emitted by smart contracts, which is considered to be more intuitive for developers.

• More Reliable Amendment Process — Florence deactivates the Test Chain feature in the Economic Protocol. With this change, the amendment process becomes more streamlined and trouble free.