Tag: Banksy

Bleeple’s “Human One,” A Sculpture + NFT Hybrid, Sold For $28.9M At Christie’s

by NEWSBTC

Digital artist Bleeple cemented his place in the history books with this one. Auction house Christie’s sold his human-size 3D video sculpture and NFT hybrid in their first live event since the pandemic. The piece exceeded expectations, the projections had “Human One” selling for $15M and it almost doubled that. Does this hybrid format open a new chapter for NFT art? We wouldn’t know, but Bleeple’s piece sold alongside works from Jean-Michel Basquiat, Banksy, and Peter Doig.

Related Reading | NFTs And Play-To-Earn Are The Future Of Gaming, States EA CEO

A better question might be, are NFT artists willing to put this much effort into their pieces? 

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What Do We Know About “Human One” By Bleeple?

The real-life installation is almost 7 Ft. high and consists of four screens. It has a computer at the base. The environment the astronaut-like figure walks through is ever-changing. According to Christie’s “it’s drawn at random from a data pool of the artist’s visual creations that is accessed via the Ethereum blockchain.” Not only that, Barrons.com informs us that “Beeple’s plan is to shift the generative art images over time “in response to current events,” Christie’s said. The result will be “an eternally contemporary work of art.” 

But wait, why would they use the Ethereum blockchain where a normal database would suffice? We hope that the owner doesn’t have to pay gas fees for that. The clips are one minute long and the piece keeps changing 24 hours a day.  In any case, Ethereum hosts the NFT attached to “Human One.” A crucial piece of the pie, since Bleeple is known for his record-breaking “Everydays – The First 5000 Days.” It was the first NFT Christie’s auctioned and it went for $69M.  

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In any case, Mike Winkelmann AKA Bleeple described “Human One” as “the first portrait of a human born in the metaverse.” He told Christie’s, “I want to make something that people can continue to come back to and find new meaning in. And the meaning will continue to evolve. That to me is super-exciting. It feels like I now have this whole other canvas.”

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What Do We Know About The Auction And The New Owner?

According to Barrons again, “the auction focused on art created since 1980.” The event was “live-streamed to the world with specialists in London and Hong Kong manning the phones and projected on video screens in New York.“ The following videos capture all the action. In the first one, Bleeple himself gives us a backstage tour to Christie’s headquarters. In the second one, a fan screen-captured the moment in which the auctioneer sells Bleeple’s piece.

Related Reading | Why Chainlink Labs Is Collabing With Palm Network NFT Space’s Development

Why do they say $25M in the video but the official Christie’s page says $28.9M? That information is above our paygrade. We did find who the lucky new owner is, though. Crypto-focused family office Dialectic’s Managing Director, Ryan Zurrer. A notorious NFT collector that used to be the Web3 Foundation’s director. In his announcement tweet, Zurrer thanked Bleeple “for the visionary innovation, amazing new energy and hilarious positive vibes that you’ve brought to both crypto and art.”

In his response tweet, Bleeple said “INSANELY HONORED to be in this collection.”

That’s the “Human One” story so far.

Featured Image: "Human One" screenshot | Charts by TradingView

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Apparently, Our Theory About The Fake Banksy NFT Was Incorrect. Here’s New Info

by NEWSBTC

A couple of weeks ago, a hacker with a heart of gold sold a fake Banksy NFT for 100 ETH and then gave the money back. They advertised the auction through Banksy’s official site. If the NFT was fake, someone hacked that site. Which seemed unlikely. Also, there is the issue of the alias that the scammed NFT collector uses. Pranksy, a play on words referencing the elusive graffiti artist Banksy mixed with the word “prank.” Which is what this whole situation is. 

Too many coincidences. Suspicious, we posed our theory:

“Was Pranksy targeted by Banksy and his team? If Banksy wanted to create worldwide headlines and comment on the NFT boom at the same time, a notorious art collector was the missing ingredient. Pransky’s prominence in the NFT community mixed with his name makes him an ideal target.”

It seemed to fit, but the case of the fake Banksy NFT never ceases to amaze. 

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Security Experts Warned Banksy About His Website’s Vulnerability

Luckily for us, the BBC is on the case. They interviewed Sam Curry, “a professional ethical hacker from the US and founder of security consultancy Palisade.” There seem to be too many “ethical hackers” in this story, but ok… Curry told them:

“I was in a security forum and multiple people were posting links to the site. I’d clicked one and immediately saw it was vulnerable, so I reached out to Banksy’s team via email as I wasn’t sure if anyone else had.

“They didn’t respond over email, so I tried a few other ways to contact them including their Instagram, but never received a response.”

These things happen. How many emails does Banksy’s team get? Did it pass their spam folder? Can we be sure they read it on time? The suspicious thing, though, is Mr. Curry’s description of the site’s vulnerability. It:

 “allowed you to create arbitrary files on the website” and post your own pages and content.

So, the flaw permitted the hackers to do exactly what they needed to do to advertise the fake Banksy NFT auction and not much more, huh? Interesting.

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Banksy Isn’t Responsible For The Fake Banksy NFT, Experts Say

Neither the artist’s official website nor the Pest Control website, even acknowledge the fake Banksy NFT. Something doesn’t feel right, though. The BBC felt our uneasiness and tried to put our concerns to rest. They consulted two Banksy experts and they both thought that the shoe didn’t fit. According to them, the elusive graffiti artist is not the mastermind behind the whole event. This is not a “Banksy stunt.” Professor Paul Gough, “principal and vice-chancellor of Arts University Bournemouth,” goes first:

“I don’t see it as a Banksy prank. The timing for me doesn’t work right, the context doesn’t feel appropriate. He’s just done his ‘Spraycation’ stunt where he bombed 10 sites in East Anglia, and put out a video on social media about it.

“That is a pretty major stunt and takes a lot of organising by a very professional crew, so I just don’t think the timings right here so soon after that.”

Here’s the Spraycation video, dated August 13th, 2021:

[embedded content]

It does seem like a “major stunt.” Does that mean that the fake Banksy NFT operation is out of the question? Or did Banksy went to work immediately after finishing his spraycation? Did the elusive graffiti artist strike again in the digital realm?

Second at bat is John Brandler, a Banksy collector, who provides another reason:

 “Banksy’s stunts are not malicious and they don’t hurt people.”

Good point, but let’s be honest, the incident didn’t really hurt Pranksy. The NFT collector got his ETH back,  was the subject of worldwide headlines, and still got to keep the fake Banksy NFT. It may be worth something, someday. 

Is this the last we’re going to hear about the fake Banksy NFT?

Featured Image: Screenshot of the fake Banksy NFT | Charts by TradingView

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NFT Collector Pranksy Tricked By Fake Banksy For Almost 97.7 Ethereum Coins

by NEWSBTC

Pransky, a prominent non-fungible token (NFT) collector, was swindled of 97.7 Ethereum that is worth about $341,500. This happened after the hijack of the website of Banksy, a popular artist, for the promotion of a fake NFT auction.

Nevertheless, almost the entire funds have been recovered. On August 31, Pransky identified one of Banksy’s official website pages promoting the auction for an NFT on OpenSea, a popular marketplace.

Though he disclosed his misgiving for the genuineness of the token, Pransky decided to join in the auction. He placed the highest bid by 87 Ethereum ($304,500) to nearly 100 Ethereum tokens. This bid puts him to be 90% more above all rival bidders in the auction.

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Related Reading | New To Bitcoin? Learn To Trade Crypto With The NewsBTC Trading Course

Usually, artworks are tokenized with NFTs. This helps in creating digital certificates of ownership that can either be sold or bought. The process, however, doesn’t leave the buyer with the actual artwork or its copyright.

Pransky’s bid was accepted with flaws. However, the link to the OpenSea auction was shortly removed from Banksy’s website. This prompted the prominent NFT collector to the possibility of the listing being fraudulent.

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Within just an hour of passing the auction on Twitter, Pransky notified that his bid of 100 ETH was accepted with a link for him. However, the link has been remove from his website, signifying a possible fraud. Nevertheless, he added that it would just be a matter of time to uncover the truth.

NFT Collector Pransky Received The Refund In Ethereum

However, after few hours, fraudsters returned the funds to Pransky by sending 97.69 Ethereum Coins. The NFT collector expresses his confidence in receiving the refund.

He explained that he identified the hacker and followed them on Twitter. Pransky revealed to the BBC that he never expected the refund. He confessed that the hacker’s press coverage and being identified and followed on Twitter could have pushed him to refund.

Pransky explained that he was notified of the auction by an anonymous individual through his community on Discord’s social network. He mentioned that the notification alert came on Monday morning. Pransky suspects that the person who alerted him and others involved in the Banksy NFT sale are potential hackers.

Related Reading | Cream Finance Plans To Repay The Stolen Funds To Its Users

According to Banksy’s associated spokesperson, the artist has no creation of NFT artworks. He further explained that no Banksy NFT auction is affiliated with the artist in any form or shape. However, there’s no comment if hackers intersected Banksy’s website.

Reacting to the whole saga, Cryptochild, a Twitter user, pointed that OpenSea was the debacle sole winner. He mentioned that the platform had carted away with a 2.5% slice of Pransky’s huge bid.

Featured Image From Pixabay

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Fake Banksy NFT Sells for $300k: Questions Surround “Pranksy” Transaction

by Blockonomi

The NFT world saw one of its strangest transactions this week, with an NFT that supposedly appeared on the website of internationally-known artist Banksy, selling for more than $300,000 USD.

After it made an appearance on the artist’s website, the NFT was sold via the OpenSea NFT platform, to a buyer going by the name of “Pranksy”.

The buyer claimed the work was fake – and the transaction was refunded according to Etherscan. In addition, the NFT has vanished from Banksy’s website, and the artist’s spokesperson has denied any involvement by Banksy in the transaction, or promotion of the artwork.

Banksy Might be Up to Something

In a world that continues to be ever more focused on digital life, Banksy keeps (maybe) coming up with ways to stay relevant. We can’t be certain that the artist is behind this stunt – but there are some very interesting questions that should be addressed.

Perhaps the most pressing question is: How did the artwork get posted on Banksy’s website in the first place?

It would be nearly impossible to sell artwork from a secretive artist like Banksy without some form of confirmation – and the posting on the artist’s website acted as a starting point for this adventure in NFTs.

The fact that the transaction was almost immediately undone is also worth looking at – as is the buyer’s name – “Pranksy”.

Due to the quasi-anonymous nature of most public blockchains, it is unlikely that we will ever know the truth of what happened – other than that Banksy is back in the spotlight after the shredded painting stunt back in 2018.

NFTs Are Exploding

Whatever happened with the “fake” Banksy that is now back in the wallet of whoever sold it, NFTs are the hottest new asset class globally. In the NFT gaming sector play-to-earn games are catching on in a big way, with residents of poorer nations looking for new ways to earn an income.

In the Philippines, merchants are starting to accept Smooth Love Potion ($SLP) from Axie Infinity as a form of payment. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), or the central bank of the Philippines, is paying attention to the situation, but has yet to take any action.

As a heavily impoverished country, the Philippines’ throngs of unemployed are always looking for a way to make extra money, and the relatively small amounts of money available in play-to-earn games is better than local jobs pay in many cases.

In addition, Axie Infinity is global in scope, which means that buyers from wealthier nations can connect directly with poorer economies, which is pretty much great for everyone involved.

Venezuelans Look to NFT Games for Badly Needed Income

It would be difficult to find an economy in worse shape than the one in Venezuela. Nothing works in the country, and hyperinflation has been a staple for years.

According to local media reports, Axie Infinity has become an extremely popular way to take advantage of NFTs, as many games offer airdrops or free tokens that allow people with no assets to enter the online gaming ecosystem.

The amounts of money that a player earns with an Axie are small. Well, unless you are in an economy that is totally broken, and even a few USD is enough to make an impact in your life.

All of these tokens can be traded in the global crypto network – which means that major tokens like Bitcoin and Ethereum can eventually be bought with the proceeds of play to earn games – and turned into real cash.

There is a good chance that these NFT-based play-to-earn games will make cryptos more popular than most people can imagine today – so get ready to see tokens you have never heard of post outstanding gains!

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Everything We Know About The Fake Banksy NFT That Sold For 100 ETH

by NEWSBTC

Everything about the fake Banksy NFT story fits together like puzzle pieces. And it’s mysterious. And no one gets hurt. A feel-good story with a twist, if you will. First of all, the person who bought the fake Banksy NFT is known as Pranksy. That’s right, Pranksy. What are the odds? And it just gets weirder from there.

Related Reading | David Marcus Of Facebook Indicates Plans To Support NFTs

You see, Pranksy is a notorious NFT collector. Twitter gave him a blue checkmark, for what it’s worth. His prominence in the NFT community is what elevates this story. Was this person targeted? Pranksy bought the piece “Great Redistribution of the Climate Change Disaster” knowing full well that there was risk involved. Even though Banksy’s official site hosted a page linking to the auction.

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Let’s quote Gizmondo with the 411:

“The forged piece of digital art popped up on Banksy’s official site on Tuesday morning under the now-deleted URL “banksy.co.uk/nft.html.” The only thing on the page was a JPEG of what was presumably Banksy’s take on the $1 billion dollar CryptoPunk hype train, featuring the artist’s usual kind of social commentary, this time about the awful carbon footprint that NFT artwork leaves behind.”

To be fair, Banksy’s “usual kind of social commentary” is usually much more poignant than what this piece offers. The fake Banksy NFT, “Great Redistribution of the Climate Change Disaster,” is basically a CryptoPunks rip-off barking at the wrong cause. The NFT collector knew something felt off from the very beginning; “Is this… real?” was Pranksy’s first reaction.

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Who’s Behind The Sale Of The Fake Banksy NFT?

In the opensea NFT marketplace, the page that hosted the auction was under the name “gaakman.” The Art Newspaper offers information about the possible pseudonym.

“Suggestions that gaakmann could be Banksy because the artist used the pseudonym “Bryan S. Gaakman” when he entered a work into the RA summer exhibition in 2018 seemed far-fetched.”

Since that’s a known Banksy pseudonym and the link came from the official site, Pranksy proceeded. The NFT collector bid 100 ETH, orders of magnitude more than the highest bid at the time. The offer was immediately accepted. That’s when Pranksy knew something was wrong. “The link was removed from his website so it could have been a very elaborate hoax, my guess is that is what it will be, only time will tell!”

Then, someone at the BBC contacted Pranksy and informed him that the fake Banksy NFT was indeed fake. “Hopefully I can get in touch with the team who represents him, if not it was fun entertainment for us all today,” Pranksy said via Twitter. Banksy’s Pest Control authentication team told the BBC, “any Banksy NFT auctions are not affiliated with the artist in any shape or form.”

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The Return Of The Scammed ETH

Was this Pranksy person targeted? This is the turn. This is where it gets weird. Let’s quote Decrypt with the description:

“Then, in perhaps an equally strange turn of events, the scammer returned 97.69 ETH to Pranksy a little more than eight hours later. “No idea why [he returned the funds],” Pranksy told Decrypt. “I think I tracked him down, and he was made aware.”

Pranksy gave the BBC a more detailed description of what “tracked him down” means

“The refund was totally unexpected, I think the press coverage of the hack plus the fact that I had found the hacker and followed him on Twitter may have pushed him into a refund.

“I feel very lucky when a lot of others in a similar situation with less reach would not have had the same outcome,” he said.”

This is where the tables turned and Pranksy turned into the main suspect. The Art Newspaper accuses:

“The question, then, is who has masterminded the sale. Pranksy’s cover photo on Twitter is of a pixelated red and white aeroplane, not dissimilar in aesthetic to the crudely rendered NFT. When asked if he was in on the hoax, Pranksy denied any involvement. “No prank at all,” he told The Art Newspaper. So was he scammed? “I think so, but I wasn’t forced to bid. It’s the risk I took. No refunds on the blockchain!”

Pranksy is a pro. He was aware of the risks from day one.

Our Theory About The Fake Banksy NFT

A mysterious stranger Direct Messaged Pranksy to let him know about that one-in-a-lifetime auction. In the Decrypt story, they have screenshots of the DMs. Was this person targeted by Banksy and his team? If Banksy wanted to create worldwide headlines and comment on the NFT boom at the same time, a notorious art collector was the missing ingredient. Pransky’s prominence in the NFT community mixed with his name makes him an ideal target. 

Related Reading | TA: Ethereum Bulls Keeps Pushing, Why Rally Isn’t Over Yet

Of course, we have no way to prove any of this. Everything about the fake Banksy NFT story fits together like puzzle pieces, however.

Featured Image: Screenshot of the fake Banksy NFT | Charts by TradingView

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NFT whale ‘Pranksy’ pranked by fake Banksy for 97.7 ETH

by Cointelegraph

Nonfungible token collector Pransky was duped out of 97.67 Ether, worth $341,500, after the website of popular artist Banksy was hijacked to promote a fake NFT auction.

However, almost all of the money has since been refunded. 

On Aug. 31, Pransky spotted a page on Banksy’s official website promoting an NFT auction on the popular marketplace, OpenSea. Despite voicing his misgiving as to the authenticity of the token, Pranksy opted to participate in the auction and increased the highest bid by 87 Ether ($304,500) to almost 100 ETH.

The bid was accepted, but after a link to the OpenSea auction was removed from Banksy’s website, the NFT investor began to fear the listing may have been fraudulent. Just one hour after sharing the auction on Twitter, Pranksy posted:

“So my bid of 100 ETH was accepted for the potential #Banksy first #NFT on @opensea. The link was removed from his website so it could have been a very elaborate hoax, my guess is that is what it will be, only time will tell!”

The perpetrators refunded Pranksy a few hours later, sending 97.69 ETH backr. Pranksy believes he received the refund after identifying the hacker and following them on Twitter. He told the BBC:

“The refund was totally unexpected, I think the press coverage of the hack plus the fact that I had found the hacker and followed him on Twitter may have pushed him into a refund.”

A spokesperson associated with Banksy said: “The artist Banksy has not created any NFT artworks. Any Banksy NFT auctions are not affiliated with the artist in any shape or form.” They declined to discuss whether Banky’s website had been breached by hackers.

Related: Forget Lambos, NFTs are the new crypto status symbol

Commenting on the drama, Twitter user “Cryptochild” noted that OpenSea was the sole winner from the debacle, having pocketed a 2.5% cut of Pransky’s massive bid.