They say Disney is the happiest place on earth.

But we know one place in Disney that isn’t happy… And it’s not the “It’s a Small World” ride. No, today, we’re talking about Disney’s abandoned Metaverse.

We’ll explore all the latest behind the factors and motivations that led to Mickey Mouse’s decision to ditch his Web3 ambitions.

Espresso Shots

☕️ New Charges for SBF 🚔 🇨🇳 

Sam Bankman-Fried now faces an additional charge for bribing Chinese government officials.

The charges allege that SBF bribed Chinese government officials with $40 million in crypto in order to get them to unfreeze a billion dollars worth of assets for FTX’s sister exchange, Alameda.

Sam’s eight initial charges from the FEC allege that he:

 “would and did defraud the United States, and an agency thereof, by impairing, obstructing, and defeating the lawful functions of a department and agency of the United States through deceitful and dishonest means.”

Then, in February, SBF was hit with an additional four criminal charges regarding 300 illicit political donations in an attempt to, “try to purchase influence over cryptocurrency regulation in Washington, D.C.”

Now, SBF is facing a total of thirteen total criminal charges. We don’t know if Sam is superstitious, but hopefully more crimes will emerge to prevent any bad luck.

☕️ The Law Firm Taking on Crypto Regulators ⚖️ 👨🏻‍⚖️

Cooper & Kirk PLLC, a DC-based law firm, published a paper titled, “Operation Choke Point 2.0: The Federal Bank Regulators Come for Crypto.”

The paper attacks recent regulation against crypto, describing the state of affairs as a, “well-coordinated effort to marginalize the industry and cut off its connectivity to the banking system– and it’s working.”

The first “Operation Choke Point” was a series of investigations into a program that was using the American banking system to push political agendas without going through due process.

“Operation Choke Point 2.0” is solely focused on banking regulators’ attempts to cut crypto out of the American financial system.

We eagerly await the next iteration in the series, “Operation Choke Point 3.0: Return of the Heimlich.”

☕️ Turning Poop… Into Bitcoin? 🐄 💩

Breaking Moos: Irish farmers have found a way to turn their cattle’s dung into crypto.

We know this sounds like a fairy tale, but Tom Campbell, a farmer in Northern Ireland, is using the excess methane from his cows to power Bitcoin mines.

It’s a process called anaerobic digestion, which breaks down the cow’s dung into methane gas which can be converted to electrical power, in this case, for Bitcoin mining.

Ireland’s agricultural industry, namely cows, are responsible for a whopping 35% of the greenhouse gas emissions in Ireland.

Irish climate scientists estimate that if just 41% of farms adopted anaerobic digestion, they would produce enough electricity to power every house in Ireland.

And once the Irish figure out how to convert urine into fossil fuel, they’ll be truly unstoppable.

Spilling the Beans

Disney Ditches the Metaverse

We’ve seen a whole host of companies that are bullish on the metaverse.

Apple, Amazon, and Epic Games, just for starters.

But one entertainment giant, arguably the most “whimsical” of all of the Metaverse’s suitors, has stepped out of the race to VR.

And that company is Disney.

It was announced yesterday, that as part of an ongoing effort to cut costs, Disney shut down its Next Generation Storytelling & Consumer Experiences group.

This division was made up of fifty employees and also housed all of Disney’s intended Metaverse innovations.

Disney has declined to comment on this decision, but this is clearly a part of larger budget tightening by the entertainment titan.

Bob Iger, the current CEO of Disney who stepped back in after the brief and tumultuous stewardship of Bob Chapek, is desperately trying to cut back on costs.

Ultimately, that means that the elimination of Disney’s metaverse division was only the first in waves of layoffs to come. Disney intends to slash around 7,000 jobs.

Disney anticipates another round of layoffs in April, with a final round of layoffs at the start of summer. 

And what a way to start your summer. “Sorry, you don’t have a job anymore, but would you like a family and friends discount to the happiest place on earth?”

But Disney is hardly the only company going through this, there have been a ton of major layoffs across the tech sector this year.

Nearly every major tech company has joined the fray: Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Yahoo, Zoom, and many more. Well over a 100,000 jobs have been cut.

But the trend that really interests us here isn’t the layoffs, but rather, that many of these companies, like Disney, are deciding to scrap their Metaverse intentions.

Last February, Microsoft laid off 100 employees dedicated to its Metaverse division. A division that, like a chameleon, only had a lifespan of four months.

Tencent, Asia’s largest internet provider, also deleted its 300-person virtual reality division around the same time.

Snapchat entirely eliminated its Web3 division in 2022.

And none of these companies are talking, so we’ll have to do what we do best here at Coffee & Crypto, and speculate.

We believe that more than anything, this is a crisis of confidence and perhaps, timing.

Zuckerberg has plowed tens of billions of dollars into the Metaverse with not much to show for it, except billions of dollars in losses. 

In fact, Zuckerberg’s own sentiments became all too clear in a note published on Facebook earlier this March, addressing Meta’s intended layoffs.

And Mark even managed to make mass layoffs sound fun, as only he can. 

“A leaner org[anization] will execute its highest priorities fast. People will be more productive, and their work will be more fun and fulfilling. We will become an even greater magnet for the most talented people,” the note reads.

But most importantly, this note intones a shift in priorities for Zuckerberg. 2021 Zuckerberg couldn’t stop talking about the Metaverse. 2023 Zuckerberg seems much more focused on AI.

In this state-of-the-union note, he only mentioned the Metaverse twice. He mentioned AI innovation four times.

In fact, look at his wrap up. Zuckerberg literally puts AI ahead of the Metaverse.

“I believe that we are working on some of the most transformative technology our industry has ever seen. Our single largest investment is in advancing AI and building it into every one of our products.”

Zuck then calls back a few lines later to his Meta play: 

“Our leading work building the metaverse and shaping the next generation of computing platforms also remain central to defining the future of social connection.”

Perhaps Disney and these other companies have noticed Zuckerberg’s shifting attention and waning enthusiasm for the Metaverse.

If a product’s biggest zealot isn’t even enthused, it may be time to divest.

Perhaps they’ve noticed that Meta doesn’t exactly seem to be swimming in metaverse success.

Though Meta is still the biggest fish in the pond when it comes to VR, there has still been no indication that when the Metaverse catches on, it will be the place to be.

Whatever factors led to their decisions, when these tech companies were forced to tighten their belts, they all saw their Metaverse divisions as the first, extraneous investment to ditch.

While the Metaverse’s future remains uncertain, we know one thing for sure. When it comes to Disney, the Mouse… will not be in the house.

Meme of the Day

Ohhh, so that's what the metaverse is. 

Crypto 101

Avatar: This is the image or figure that represents you online. It can be as complicated as 3D rendering of your body or as simple as a profile picture on Facebook or Twitter. 

This has a little to do with that James Cameron movie about blue people. Remember how they would connect to the blue people with computers? And then they became their avatars? It's basically the same thing. 

The Last Sip

If the Irish are able to use their dark magic to turn cow pies into fuel for Bitcoin mining, we thought up a couple other fantastical, crypto transformations we’d like to see the Irish try.

• Turn potatoes into Ethereum.

• Render dogs into Dogecoin.

• Turn Irish immigrants into decent, sober, hard working Americans.

Stay Caffeinated,

Coffee & Crypto Team

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