Category: Web3
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Today Blackbird, a restaurant loyalty startup founded by former Resy and Eater founder Ben Leventhal, announced the launch of Blackbird Pay, a new restaurant payment network. Powered by the company’s new blockchain, Blackbird Flynet, Blackbird Pay is a payment system that Blackbird says will charge less than traditional payment platforms (2% on average compared to…
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In March 2022, NFT and crypto investor Andy Nguyen purchased Bored Ape #6184 along with three Mutant Apes and soon decided to establish a Bored Ape-themed restaurant named Bored & Hungry. The restaurant opened its doors on April 9, and by the end of its first day, it had served 1,500 burgers and had lines…
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You can now visit a hot bun vending machine in the metaverse. No, this isn’t a plotline from the sequel to Hot Tub Time Machine, but the next chapter in the continuing push by digital-forward restaurant chain Wow Bao to expand into the Metaverse and web3. The company, which launched its NFT program a year…
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Perhaps not all that surprising given the downturn in interest in Web3 and NFTs among big brands, Starbucks announced today that it’s shutting down its Web3 loyalty program Odyssey. The Odyssey program allowed members to gain benefits through playing games and participating in activities called Journeys. When they completed Journeys, members earned points and received…
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Last year, when news got out that Slim Jim had gone and registered the term meataverse, we all had a good laugh. Over a year later and a few notches down the Gartner Hype Cycle, the salty meat stick company has finally launched its web3 world effort to get people to go online and collect…
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Wow Bao, the digitally nimble Asian food startup that’s expanded nationwide in recent years through an asset-light virtual restaurant model, announced the launch of its NFT program last week. The new NFTs, called Digital CollectaBaos, will be proof of membership in a new super-fan tier called the Hot Buns Club within the company’s Bao Bucks…
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Do you know what DeSci is? Don’t feel bad if you don’t, especially if, like me, food is your primary focus. A16Z’s publication Future describes DeSci as a movement in which “a growing number of scientists and entrepreneurs are leveraging blockchain tools, including smart contracts and tokens, in an attempt to improve modern science. Collectively,…
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Ben Leventhal has nothing if not good timing. In 2004 the New York entrepreneur launched Eater at the dawn of the blogging era, when food media was still mostly legacy publications and message boards. After selling Eater to Vox, he launched Resy in 2014 just as restaurants were beginning to bristle at the data practices…
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Today Forum3, a Seattle-based startup that helps companies build Web3-enabled loyalty programs, has announced it has raised a $10 million seed funding round. The company, co-founded by former Starbucks loyalty lead Adam Brotman and Seattle-based VC and ex-Microsoft exec Andy Sack, raised funding from Decasonic and included participation by Bloccelerate, Liberty City Ventures, and Arca,…
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Late last month, FriesDAO, the organization that made a splash when it raised over $5 million via a token offering earlier this year, saw its treasury raided and drained by a hacker. According to a postmortem created by the DAO’s admins, hackers were able to access the DAO’s treasury and take all of the group’s…
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FriesDAO is closing in on its first restaurant purchase. The group, which managed to raise over $5 million via an initial token offering in the spring of 2022, has identified a boba tea/frozen yogurt store in New York City that it describes as an “absentee store (no daily owner operation needed).” The group says the…
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Over the past year, we’ve seen a rush of enthusiastic entrepreneurs and restaurant-adjacent operators announce initiatives to help onboard the world of dining into the world of web3. How’s it going so far? Let’s just say it may take some time. I decided to check in on some of the early efforts and see how…
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