Sotheby’s to Auction for Generative NFT Arts

Sotheby’s is a legacy auction house set to auction generative works of art spanning both old and contemporary pieces.

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As announced by the company, the auction will run from April 18 to 24th and to feature the works of pioneering generative artists, including Vera Molnár, Chuck Csuri, and Roman Verostko. 

Molnár is regarded as the first woman to ever venture into the world of generative arts, and her work, 1% de désordre (1976), was designed using computer plotting of rows of concentric squares. Still, two squares were programmed to be randomly omitted. The work is estimated to be worth about $15,000 to $20,000. 

Another more expensive work from Molnár will also be on sale. Alongside the work from other artists, the collectors who throw in the winning bids for these pieces will go with the digital version, while the physical versions will remain in the archive of the artists.

“While NFT projects like CryptoPunks and the Bored Ape Yacht Club have stolen headlines around the world over the past year, few might understand how these NFTs are connected with the history of 20th century art movements — including the early generative artists who paved the way for computer art and the algorithm based art that has inspired many contemporary NFT projects,” said Sotheby’s vice president and co-head of digital art Michael Bouhanna in a statement.

Sotheby’s is not new to auctioning NFT works and is credited for pioneering the trend when it helped Mike Winkelmann (aka Beeple) in selling his Everydays piece which was snapped by a collector called MetaKovan for $69.3 million in Ethereum back in March 2021. Since then, the auction has organized a series of auctions involving generative NFT art collections, including the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC).

The announced generative art auction will further entrench the pivotal role of Sotheby’s in bridging the gap between traditional artists and the capabilities of blockchain tech through NFTs as the Web3 ecosystem evolves.

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Sotheby’s Announces Auction Date for Generative NFT Arts

Sotheby’s is a legacy auction house set to auction generative works of art spanning both old and contemporary pieces.

SOTH2.jpg

As announced by the company, the auction will run from April 18 to 24th and to feature the works of pioneering generative artists, including Vera Molnár, Chuck Csuri, and Roman Verostko. 

Molnár is regarded as the first woman to ever venture into the world of generative arts, and her work, 1% de désordre (1976), was designed using computer plotting of rows of concentric squares. Still, two squares were programmed to be randomly omitted. The work is estimated to be worth about $15,000 to $20,000. 

Another more expensive work from Molnár will also be on sale. Alongside the work from other artists, the collectors who throw in the winning bids for these pieces will go with the digital version, while the physical versions will remain in the archive of the artists.

“While NFT projects like CryptoPunks and the Bored Ape Yacht Club have stolen headlines around the world over the past year, few might understand how these NFTs are connected with the history of 20th century art movements — including the early generative artists who paved the way for computer art and the algorithm based art that has inspired many contemporary NFT projects,” said Sotheby’s vice president and co-head of digital art Michael Bouhanna in a statement.

Sotheby’s is not new to auctioning NFT works and is credited for pioneering the trend when it helped Mike Winkelmann (aka Beeple) in selling his Everydays piece which was snapped by a collector called MetaKovan for $69.3 million in Ethereum back in March 2021. Since then, the auction has organized a series of auctions involving generative NFT art collections, including the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC).

The announced generative art auction will further entrench the pivotal role of Sotheby’s in bridging the gap between traditional artists and the capabilities of blockchain tech through NFTs as the Web3 ecosystem evolves.

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London Music Venue Koko Partners With Luno, Embrace 122 Years of Culture With Blockchain

London’s historic live music venue, Koko, has entered into a partnership with cryptocurrency trading platform Luno.

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As reported by IQ, the essence of the partnership is giving this new platform for live music events to promote the values of music through blockchain technology. The partnership is worth multi-million pounds and will see the creation of the Luno in a new multi-format space at the top of the 1,500-cap theatre.

The Luno will be used for many purposes, including hosting digital art exhibitions, DJ Shows, and events that will be essentially focused on decentralized technology and digital currencies.

“Koko is about celebrating 122 years of culture whilst fiercely stepping into the future,” says Seb Croft, Koko’s commercial director. “Our partnership with Luno will allow us to be at the forefront of blockchain technology, supporting artists in new ways and providing game-changing experiences for fans. The opportunities for us to innovate together in the music and entertainment space are endless.”

After an investment of over 70 million pounds, Koko is rebranding as a new global music arena with a new launch date fixed for April 30th. The venue’s officials are optimistic crypto will play a very important role in the future of the music and are proactive enough to offer the support for their affiliated artists’ needs.

“Every day, the relationship between crypto and music grows stronger, with blockchain innovations beginning to revolutionise the industry,” said Sam Kopelman, Luno’s UK country manager. “With Koko, we look forward to working with artists and helping them realise the potential of decentralised technology, giving them greater control over their music and their futures.”

Crypto Platforms and Growing Traditional Industry Partnerships

It is not uncommon to find cryptocurrency-focused firms ink partnerships with traditional companies. These crypto executives are constantly exploring avenues to bolster the integration of these nascent asset classes in various industries.

Crypto.com has a similar partnership with Formula 1 team Aston Martin, and FTX.US has secured a 10-year naming right to the University of California, Berkeley’s Memorial Stadium.

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Virgil Griffith Sentenced to 5-Year Jail for Helping Individuals in North Korea Evade Sanctions

The strong hands of the law have been stretched to Virgil Griffith, an American national and one of the Ethereum core programmers, who is sentenced to 63 months in jail by U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel for allegedly helping individuals in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) evade the US imposed sanctions.

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The relations between North Korea and the United States remain intense as North Korea is reportedly still active with its nuclear program, which is still under sanctions by the United Nations. Based on this, the U.S. government enacted the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to prevent U.S. entities from doing business or selling technologies that can aid North Korea’s threats.

Despite knowing this, the Department of Justice (DoJ) said in its announcement that Griffith and his co-conspirators have developed and managed technologies that can help North Korean individuals mine crypto and eventually evade sanctions. The DoJ revealed that against the approval of relevant authorities, Griffith not just travelled to North Korea by offering services directly to the country, but he also had sought to recruit other American citizens to do the same.

“There is no question North Korea poses a national security threat to our nation, and the regime has shown time and again it will stop at nothing to ignore our laws for its own benefit. Mr. Griffith admitted in court he took actions to evade sanctions, which are in place to prevent the DPRK from building a nuclear weapon. Justice has been served with the sentence handed down today,” said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams.

Griffith, 39, pled guilty to the charges levied against him, and following his sentence, he will be placed on 3 years of supervised release atop a $100,000 fine. The DoJ is known to be proactive when it comes to high-profile fraudulent cases featuring crypto-linked entities. One of the crackdowns launched by the DoJ in recent years involves former BitMEX co-founder and CEO, Arthur Hayes, who promptly resigned from the role following the criminal charges levied against him and other executives of the trading firm.

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Binance Floats €100M Investment in France

Binance cryptocurrency exchange is extending its regional footprint in the European Union with a €100 million investment in France.

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The move was announced at the Paris Blockchain Week Summit event on Wednesday and the exchange’s Chief Executive Officer, Changpeng Zhao (CZ) said that France has what it takes to lead the Web3.0 emancipation in the EU.

“I think France has one of the most progressive and open-minded governments that could help in developing pro-crypto regulations,” Zhao said, adding that the country is uniquely positioned in terms of regulation and talent.

The 100 million Euro funding will be used as part of ‘Objective Moon’, an initiative launched in partnership with a Paris-based accelerator Station F to develop the web3.0 and blockchain ecosystem in the country. Individuals who wish to learn more about the emerging Web3 world can enrol and the funds will also be used to back project developers who are building innovative protocols in the space.

Charting New Regulatory Landmarks

Binance’s interests in France date back to last year when CZ started making consultations with French regulators. With the potential establishment of a regional headquarters in the country, one of his grand plans, the exchange set up an office in Montrouge, a southern suburb of Paris, and employed as many as 20 employees toward the end of last year. The company plans to increase the workforce to 100 employees in order to support its ongoing work in the region appropriately.

The investment in France is one of Binance’s efforts to repair its damaged relationship with many regulators, particularly in Europe. Despite the trading firm having been sanctioned by the United Kingdom’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Italian regulators amongst others, the Binance CEO said the approach to crypto regulation has changed in the past year.

“We have seen a great shift of attitude towards crypto over the past year. Until last year, regulators were talking in a negative way, while many regulators today approach us with a positive note,” he said on Wednesday.

This sets a positive tone for the company in its regulatory moves and with its licensing in Bahrain and Dubai recently, the firm seems to be getting its posture right with regulators, a remarkable shift from where it was a year ago.

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Nexo Launches Crypto-Backed Credit Cards in Europe in Partnership With Mastercard

Digital assets platform Nexo has inked a deal with Mastercard and DiPocket to launch crypto cards that will allow its customers in Europe to spend digital currencies without touching their funds. 

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Spending Crypto Without Depleting One’s Digital Asset’s Reserve

This is going to be made possible with the Nexo crypto card, as users will gain access to a credit line that will allow users to spend as much as 90% of the value of their crypto holdings with Nexo. 

Thanks to the Mastercard partnership, which will serve as the payments infrastructure processor, Nexo Crypto Cardholders can use the card in more than 92 million merchant locations worldwide. DiPocket is the platform’s official card issuer.

“Launching the Nexo Card in Europe in partnership with Mastercard and DiPocket is a big milestone for us and the latest proof of the immense synergy between the existing financial network and digital assets,” said Antoni Trenchev, Co-founder and Managing Partner at Nexo. “This unique product will allow millions of people, first in Europe and then worldwide, to spend instantly without having to give up the potential of their cryptocurrencies, thus offering unprecedented everyday utility for the emerging asset class.”

The new card product will charge no monthly fees, no minimum repayments, or inactivity fees, and there is no foreign transaction (FX) fees for up to €20,000 per month. An additional perk attached to the new product is its 2% cashback on every transaction initiated. This cashback will be paid in BTC or the platform’s native token, NEXO.

Recanting Growth on all Sides

Nexo is undoubtedly charting an ambitious growth path in all aspects as it launched Nexo Ventures, a $150 million fund dedicated to investing in the Web3.0 space. While the capital raise is not a new affair in the growing blockchain ecosystem, the crypto card product is dubbed as the first of its kind. It repositions the platform as one of the pioneers of innovative products.

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MicroStrategy Holds over 129K Bitocins, Data Shows

OKLink, blockchain technology and data service provider in China, released the “2022 First Quarterly Report on the Global Cryptocurrency Market”. Data shows MicroStrategy holds over 129,00 Bitcoins (BTC) with a total value of approximately $5.8 billion.

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The report pointed out that MicroStrategy, one of the largest Bitcoin holders and a listed company, owns more Bitcoin than the company’s market capitalization.

As of the end of the first quarter of 2022, MicroStrategy holds a total of 129,218 BTC with a total value of approximately $5.8 billion. As reported by blockchain.News on April 6, MicroStrategy, the Nasdaq-Listed business intelligence and software firm has made another purchase of 4,167 Bitcoin as it continues on its sporadic BTC accumulation campaign.

In addition to this, the report concludes that the Ethereum ecosystem is the most dynamic and viable of all blockchains.

But due to high gas fees and network congestion, Ethereum scaling layer 2 will be vital this year, facilitating the transition from Proof of Work (PoW) to Proof of Stake (PoS).

Source: OKLink

According to data from OKLink, the future potential of ETH staking is expected to transfer towards Ethereum 2.0. Over 10 million ETH has been staked in ETH 2.0 contracts, accounting for 9.3% of the total ETH in circulation.

OKLink emphasized in the report that some non-EVM-based public blockchains (EVM, referring to Ethereum Virtual Machine) will be more convenient for users to move assets by adding EVM (the core underlying component of Ethereum) to expand compatibility, so that the global blockchain ecosystem will form a variety of possibilities compositionality.

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Stablecoin USDC Issuer Circle to Apply for U.S. Crypto Banking License

Circle Internet Financial, the second-largest stablecoin USDC issuer, said it is now close to applying to U.S. regulators to operate as a bank.

The company did not disclose when it would file the submission, saying only that it “hopes in the near future.”

If approved, Circle would become the fourth federally chartered crypto bank in the U.S., following Anchorage Digital, Protego Trust Bank NA, and Paxos Trust Company.

Circle has been in discussions with regulators such as the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), which oversees bank charters, after having the idea of ​​becoming a crypto bank last August. These include interoperability between blockchains and how to assess the operational risks of a particular blockchain.

Some U.S. regulators say stablecoins of cryptocurrencies need more regulation and should be issued by banks.

But the company’s partnership with the OCC is well underway, despite the enhancement of regulatory requirements for banks are strengthening to engage in crypto activities in November.

“They’ve been doing a lot of work laying the groundwork for how they’re going to supervise crypto, how they’re going to supervise stablecoin issuers specifically,” Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire said.

Circle, the company behind USD Coin (USDC), has bagged funding worth $400 million from different players, including Fidelity Management, BlackRock Inc, and Research LLC, signalling traditional finance interest in the crypto space yesterday.

Earlier this year, the Chicago-based company launched a new account service that enabled corporate customers to deposit, withdraw, receive and store cryptocurrencies through their account and settle all payments in USDC.

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