🍏 Apple's App Store fees threaten NFT startups

🍏 Apple's App Store fees threaten NFT startups 🥩 Vitalik Buterin predicts Dogecoin will eventually move to Proof-of-Stake 🕹️ Chinese university students are getting a leg up on their peers around the world by majoring in the Metaverse

Socrates once said: "The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing." This is probably the most accurate statement ever made. And yet, we humans are a stubborn lot. We think we know everything. Or at least, we think we know more than others.

It's this kind of thinking that gets us into trouble. We make assumptions and judgments based on our limited knowledge and experience. And when things don't go our way, we blame others or external circumstances. So the right thing to do, according to Socrates, is to know that we don't know anything. Then we can start learning and growing. That said, check out what we have for you today:

🍏 Apple's App Store fees threaten NFT startups 🥩 Vitalik Buterin predicts Dogecoin will eventually move to Proof-of-Stake 🕹️ Chinese university students are getting a leg up on their peers around the world by majoring in the Metaverse

Apple's App Store fees threaten NFT startups

How do you deal with the collision of two diametrically opposed business models? On the one hand, you have Apple's App Store, which is a curated marketplace that takes a 30% commission on all sales. On the other hand, you have the world of crypto and the NFTs, which is an open market where anyone can sell anything and there are no transaction fees, so a steep 30% cut could be completely unreasonable and could affect your bottom line.

So, Apple is reportedly planning to allow NFT-based apps on its App Store, but the company is said that all sales would have to go through the in-app purchases and that means the company would still get its 30% commission.

This means that any NFT firm looking to sell their products through Apple's App Store would have to give up a significant portion of their revenue to the tech giant.

Many NFT startups are questioning whether it is feasible to do business through Apple's platform. Some have even threatened to leave the App Store altogether if the fees aren't lowered.

CEO of Epic Games (the game company behind Fortnite), Tim Sweeney, took to Twitter to voice his thoughts on the matter. He described Apple's App Store mechanics as a "grotesquely overpriced in-app payment service."

Sweeney previously had to deal with the App Store when Fortnite was removed from the platform after Epic attempted to circumvent Apple's commission fees. Sweeney has been vocal about how he believes the commission rates are unfair to developers and stifle innovation in the industry.

So it seems like Apple is still trying to figure out how to milk the NFT craze for all it's worth. But at the end of the day, it's just another greedy move by a company that is already raking in billions of dollars in profits. Who's really surprised?

Vitalik Buterin predicts Dogecoin will eventually move to Proof-of-Stake

Dogecoin became the second largest Proof-of-Work (PoW) coin after The Merge, but that doesn’t mean it will stay that way forever. In fact, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin believes that Dogecoin will eventually move to Proof-of-Stake (PoS).

Vitalik said this while speaking at the Messari Mainnet Summit on September 23. He also believes that Zcash will make the switch to PoS as well: “I hope Zcash moves over, and I am hopeful Dogecoin moves to PoS soon,” he said.

With a market cap of $8 billiom, Dogecoin towers over some notable PoW assets such as Ethereum Classic (ETC), Litecoin (LTC), and Bitcoin Cash (BCH). After Ethereum's switch to PoS many miners left the network in search of more profitable coins to mine, which caused Dogecoin's hashrate - and consequently its market cap - to rise.

It's unclear when or if Dogecoin will make the switch to PoS, but it's certainly something that the community is considering. Many experts believe that PoS is a more energy-efficient and environmentally-friendly way to run a blockchain, so it could be in Dogecoin's best interest to make the switch at some point.

Chinese university students are getting a leg up on their peers around the world by majoring in the Metaverse

Seems like these Chinese kids are really getting ahead in the game. They're not just playing around in the Metaverse, they're making it their major. A Chinese university even set up a Metaverse major and named a department after the Metaverse.

Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology has renamed its 25-year-old Information Engineering Department as the Metaverse Engineering Department. The university says it's the first in China to offer a Metaverse major. Pan Zhigeng, dean of the School of Artificial Intelligence - which the Metaverse department is going to join - said that their plans are to train masters, doctoral students and postdoctoral fellows with a focus on the Metaverse in the future.

Previously, the Chinese Ministry of Education had approved the establishment of a special Metaverse research institute at Nanjing University, which is also the first of its kind in China. The institute will focus on the frontier theory, technology and applications of the Metaverse, and carry out systematic and in-depth research on the Metaverse eco-system, including content, hardware, network and security.

The rise of the Metaverse in China can be traced back to 2019, when Tencent first announced that it would invest 10 billion yuan ($1.45 billion) in the development of the Metaverse. Since then, other Chinese tech giants, such as Baidu, Alibaba and Huawei, have also jumped on the bandwagon, with each pouring billions of dollars into the development of the Metaverse. At this point, we're going to have to start calling it the Chinese Metaverse soon.

So what does this all mean for the future? The Metaverse majors might sound silly now, but in a few years they could be the leading minds in developing this new world. I mean who knows, maybe one day we'll all be working in the metaverse and these kids will be our bosses. But seriously, good for them for getting ahead of the curve.