Cryptocurrency

Disney Music Group and Obsess have launched the Disney Music Emporium virtual experience. 

The immersive online store gives fans a virtual way to discover, listen to, learn about and purchase soundtracks and songs from Disney’s extensive catalogue.

“We are excited to collaborate with Obsess to launch an exciting new shopping experience for our Disney Music Emporium store. As we prepare to celebrate 100 years of Disney, this is the perfect way to create discovery and fun for our guests,” said Ken Bunt, President of Disney Music Group.

The Disney Music Emporium virtual experience offers an extensive selection of Disney film and TV soundtracks on CD and vinyl formats in addition to rich content, including a timeline with musical highlights from 100 years of Disney history. 

Visitors can click to learn about and listen to music from Disney’s groundbreaking 1928 debut of Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Steamboat Willie, the first cartoon released with synchronised sound; 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs; and 1940’s Fantasia, with a score performed by The Philadelphia Orchestra. 

The century-long timeline also highlights music from beloved and iconic movies and series such as Dumbo, Bambi, Cinderella, Mary Poppins, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, The Lion King, Frozen, The Mandalorian and Encanto.

Visitors can also directly connect to the Disney Hits podcast on streaming services through the virtual store, as well as to Walt Disney Records’ curated playlists featuring songs from the entire Disney film and TV catalogue.

“We’re so excited to bring the wonder of Disney music to fans in a new way and for Disney Music Group to use the Obsess platform to create this immersive Web3 experience,” said Neha Singh, founder and CEO of Obsess. 

“As Disney prepares to celebrate its 100th anniversary, this Disney Music Emporium virtual environment honours the company’s musical history while providing visitors with a thoroughly modern brand and sensory experience.”

Obsess is a participant in the 2022 Disney Accelerator, a business development programme designed to accelerate the growth of innovative companies from around the world.

Cryptocurrency shorts

Warner Bros intends to use NFTs to give access to exclusive content and films. It has partnered with Web3 firm Eluvio to launch ‘WB Movieverse’, which uses NFTs as authentication for users to access films, behind-the-scenes videos and images. The first offering is a 4K resolution extended edition of The Lord of The Rings with bonus material, accessible across two tiers of NFTs. 

Fireblocks will launch a new product supporting payment service providers, banks, and FinTechs in their transition into stablecoin payments and settlement. Early pilot partner Checkout.com, who was instrumental in supporting the development of the Payments Engine, has facilitated more than $1 billion in digital asset merchant settlements through their solution this year. Today Fireblocks welcomes FIS, the largest merchant acquirer in the world, into its network of partners using the Payments Engine. FIS and its Worldpay solutions already provide card-to-crypto processing services for 4 of the top 5 cryptocurrency exchanges and was the first global merchant acquirer to offer USDC settlements. Together, the payment services providers collectively serve over a million merchants around the world.

An amendment to the UK’s Financial Services and Markets Bill would extend the law’s powers to regulate financial promotion and other activities to crypto assets. 

FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has faced a backlash on Twitter for his blog post outlining his vision for the regulation of crypto, with critics claiming he wants to merely recreate the current financial system and is out of touch with the early adopters’ aims. However Evgeny Gaevoy, CEO of Wintermute, said ‘Crypto Twitter’ is a “tiny subset of the world” and “US regulators and politicians as well as the broader user base matter way more”.

Crypto prices

The overall market cap of the 21,400 coins is at $932 billion at the time of writing (7am UK), up from $913bn on Friday morning.

For round-ups of recent cryptocurrency news developments, click here.

For valuations of the top 100 coins by market cap in US dollars, plus 24-hour price change, see below.