Amid tumultuous world markets, the crypto community took losses of $670M in Q2, up 52% from one year ago. Even through these strong headwinds, many companies doubled-down on building break-out products, including Civic. And, on the last day of the quarter, European Union regulators agreed on the long-debated Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) framework, a landmark crypto authorization law aimed at protecting investors and setting up stricter standards for stablecoin issuers. On their coattails, US regulators released the first of many reports on crypto following the Biden administration’s executive order. As regulatory momentum gains speed, Web3 identity that is secure, private, reusable and verifiable on-chain becomes more important daily. Civic is ready to answer that call!
Key Milestones
In Q2 of 2022, Civic introduced a new tool, called uniqueness verification, that determines user individuality in order to build diverse communities. When a project uses Civic Pass for uniqueness verification, each user is limited to using one wallet, making NFT drops or any other Web3 use cases a more fair and controllable experience across the board. The Ocean Explorers NFT project will be the first project to use uniqueness verification, and NFT buyers can sign up for their uniqueness verification now, in advance of the mint.
In other product news, Civic also launched a Civic Pass integration for Realms, the preeminent DAO governance platform on Solana, during a hackathon for AthensDAO. Civic Pass for DAO governance adds a host of new features for DAOs, including Sybil resistance, one-person-one-vote systems and quadratic voting systems. It also allows for bot resistance, and age and location restrictions. For DAOs to be successful in the real world, they must have a broader and more nuanced toolset for managing their communities. Civic Pass is designed to give DAOs the tools they need without sacrificing user privacy.
In partnership with the Solana Foundation, Binance.US and others, Civic partnered with TRM Labs to support Chainabuse, a multi-chain reporting tool that allows crypto users to report illicit activity to a public forum. Our goal with TRM Labs is to advance fraud detection capabilities.
We also partnered with Anchorage Digital, which provides a best-in-class custody framework. We selected Anchorage to help us scale our growing business. We are also excited that Anchorage now offers CVC token support for any interested CVC institutional holders.
Civic joined the NFT community at NFT NYC with the announcement of our new uniqueness pass for the Ocean Explorers project and with the launch of Civic.me, a new consumer product for displaying digital assets, currently in alpha. Our leaders spoke at event conference panels about stopping mint meltdowns (Chris Hart, CEO) and evolving standards for NFT 2.0 (JP Bedoya, CPO). We also sponsored the MonkeDAO event and the Superchief Gallery / Snowcrash event while we were in town. Finally, we made our entrance to the event sporting new colors, including Civic Orange, which was part of a greater rebranding effort, in collaboration with Hoo Koo E Koo.
Finally, we were proud to collaborate with our non-profit partner, Identity.com, on a white paper about The Gateway Protocol, which outlines the technology underlying Civic Pass.
Civic in the News
In the second quarter, Civic accumulated a total online readership of more than 130 million viewers, as a result of press releases and news media coverage about uniqueness verification and our partnerships with TRM Labs and Anchorage Digital, in publications such as Yahoo! Finance, MarketWatch and Benzinga. Stories about the TRM Labs partnership appeared in The Block and Cointelegraph.
In Q2, our leaders penned several op-eds for Cointelegraph and Newsweek. Our CEO, Chris Hart, opined about what makes a company Web3 and how to prevent the metaverse from becoming a nightmare. And, our CPO, JP Bedoya, shared a vision of digital identity in the metaverse. Our VP of Engineering, Dan Kelleher, commented on ways that DAOs can be more successful.
Coming Soon
Though we’re barely into Q3, we’re already racing ahead toward our next product announcements. We are looking forward to the Ocean Explorers mint, which will use our uniqueness verification to diversify its community membership and protect against bots. And, you can also expect to see more announcements related to civic.me, which allows you to privately manage your Web3 identity, presence and reputation, including your NFTs.