Web 3 and the Metaverse Are Not the Same
  The biggest crypto news and ideas of the day Dec. 24, 2021 If you were forwarded this newsletter and would like to receive it, sign up here. Sponsored by  Welcome to The Node.
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Today's must-reads Top Shelf  Happy Friday to all and merry Christmas to those who celebrate. For the long holiday weekend, we at CoinDesk have gathered a few recent articles, essays and op-eds you might want to read. No better gift than a good read.
PANTERA'S PREDICTIONS: Pantera's Paul Veradittakit makes six predictions about crypto in 2022. This year, we saw decentralized finance (DeFi) swell to a $100 billion+ industry, bitcoin (BTC) reach a price peak of $69,000, massive ecosystem growth for companion blockchain networks (layer 2) such as Arbitrum and alternative chains like Solana, over $22 billion in sales for non-fungible tokens (NFT) and more mainstream and institutional interest than ever before. Can that keep pace?
STABLECOIN SUCCOR: Jake Chervinsky, head of policy at the Blockchain Association, writes about why the U.S. should support the nascent stablecoin industry rather than pursue a central bank digital currency (CBDC). Stablecoins are already expanding the reach of the U.S. dollar, but if the government were to restrict stablecoins in favor of a CBDC, that trend could quickly reverse. U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota makes a similar case.
WEB 3 VS. META: Web 3 and the metaverse are not the same, argues culture commentator Annie Zhang. "What people missed is the innovation and focus Meta was pushing for was largely on hardware and a 3D user consumption and input interface that, quite frankly, does not exist today. Facebook is trying to solve the immersion problem," she writes. Web 3 might have higher ambitions – even if Jack Dorsey doesn't want in.
GENERATING GENERATIVE ART: Joshua Davis is among hundreds, maybe thousands, of creators who have made life-changing amounts of money from the non-fungible token (NFT) boom. But he didn't make his mil selling profile jpegs of zombie gophers wearing polo shirts. Davis is just one of the many "generative artists," or those who use new tools like machine learning to automate the creation of art, who have finally found a home in the world of crypto, writes CoinDesk's David Z. Morris.
THE DAO DIVIDER? What's next for Friends With Benefits, the buzzy new decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) and social club? Designed to be open to all who purchase various tiers of the group's tokens, FWB, (75 will get you access to the group's sprawling, multifarious Discord server, with dedicated chat rooms for everything from memes to music), the price of this social token is subject to the market. Is FWB pricing out future friends, asks CoinDesk's Will Gottsegen?
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The Chaser... 
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