Web3 companies have joined forces with Austrian regional groups to introduce "Web3 tours" in Salzburg and beyond. Tourists can utilize NFTs to confirm museum visits, unlocking discounts at restaurants and entertainment venues, as explained by Alex Fedosseev from 1World, one of the partners. While crypto-themed tourism is not new, these new Web3 tourism projects are expanding beyond digital payments.
George Harrap of The Next Billion podcast traveled to Palau to interview the president about their NFT identification card system, which aims to attract tourists and digital nomads to the dollar-based, cashless economy of the South Pacific nation. Palau is also working on developing a stablecoin with Ripple.
Fedosseev highlighted how blockchain technology facilitates direct interactions between companies and tourists, reducing reliance on intermediaries. In El Salvador, Vice President Félix Ulloa suggested that bitcoin's transactional ease has contributed to tourism growth, although a Santander report tweeted by the country's president credited declining homicide rates, not bitcoin, as the primary driver.
Blackdot, a company based in Austin, Texas, has introduced an innovative automated tattoo device this week. In the future, they plan to enable clients to own tattoos as Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). They are even hinting at the concept of "tradable tattoos," where tattoos can be created and then traded or given away as digital collectibles.
Currently, Blackdot's store offers a selection of off-chain tattoos that can cost thousands of dollars, providing an opportunity for individuals to experience the automated tattooing process. Notably, the store features tattoo artists like Tyler Hobbs, renowned for his generative art pieces that have earned him nearly 63,000 ether (ETH) on OpenSea. It's worth noting that Hobbs has only sold one NFT in the past month and a half.
In other developments:
- The buy volume for Friend.tech has started to outpace the sell volume, signaling a slowdown in the mid-September rally on the platform.
- Despite early movers in the space delivering less than expected results, transactions on the metaverse platform SecondLive have surged by 139% over the past 30 days, as users eagerly await the launch of the platform's LIVE token.
- Big Time, a GameFi platform, witnessed a remarkable surge of over 250% in its native token's value after being listed on OKX and Coinbase. The game also successfully sold 1,000 "mystery boxes" for $750 each in under a minute.
