Category: News

NFTs Applicable To Expiring Copyrights?

Posted on by Augustine Ojeh

Although Non-fungible Tokens are most commonly associated with digital arts, they exist in more forms than just digital arts.  NFTs is used by a lot of musicians such as Kings of Leon in the release of his latest album.  In the sports industry, NFTs involve recording the highlights of major sporting events. The fashion industry is not left out. Here, fashion companies like Nike and Gucci are selling their digital branded products. They do this in a novel form of NFTs known as  NFTs Fashion or Non-fungible wears.

One thing is certain; there are still a lot of possibilities to explore in the NFTs world. There are a lot of real-world applications of NFTs we are yet to explore and one of them is the digital publishing industry.

NFTs In The Publishing Industry

The game-changing implications of publishing and promoting books with NFTs is the topic of discussion by many. For example, the Alliance of Independent Authors is helping indie authors to promote their latest books using NFTs. Other associated items for the fans club such as character cards are also made into NFTs. Tezos Farmation, a project built on Tezos network, even uses the complete text of George Orwell’s Animal Farm book and slices it up into 10,000 pieces to use as titles for the NFTs.

NFTs that stem from existing books are normally bound to copyrights. However, in the case of Tezos Farmation, the copyright had already expired. Any party can use text from the book for free. This triggers a very interesting question: How can NFTs preserve copyrights and royalties for books with expired copyrights?

The NFT application in the publishing industry is so far mostly focused on books that still have royalties and are within their copyright lifespan. But, there are authors whose work lives on long past both their mortal existence and that of their copyrights; can NFTs provide their estates a means to extend the life of the book and its royalties?

The Journey Of NFTs To The Public Domain

Copyright laws are complex and vary greatly around the world. It is true that many countries do not offer copyright protection in line with international conventions. However, most jurisdictions work on the basis that copyright will protect the property of the author for life and 25 years after their death.

In the European Union, copyright protects for 70 years after the death of the latest living author. It is the same in the United States, except for books originally published between 1927 and 1978. No matter how long you protect the copyrights – if given enough time – it will end up free in the public domain.

When amazing literature enters the public domain, the future value of the work will reduce to zero. However, there often remains a disconnected community that intrinsically values the work.

Preserving the Value Of An Expiring Copyright

Currently, publishing houses have no desire to collaborate with the estate of copyright holders. Especially holders that are about to enter the public domain because the work will soon be free. A certificate of authenticity represented by a tradable NFT might provide an incentive for such collaborations.

After the copyright expires and the work goes into the public domain, the NFTs will carry the royalty further into the digital world. One can generate royalties through sales in the NFT marketplace on the blockchain. Other ways are through even more complex smart contracts for specific use cases for first edition, limited edition or signed vintage copies.

The estates holding expiring copyrights have credibility, which is a precious asset in the NFT world. They have nothing to lose. They are in the box seat to capitalize on their current ownership and potential for a digital community.

Chia Rivals Ethereum And Solana For NFT Superiority

Posted on by Augustine Ojeh

There’s no doubt that Ethereum is way ahead in the NFTs scene. The famous blockchain technology not only leads by trading volume but also by high-value market. Solana closely follows its trail and now a new ‘Big boy’ steps into the scene. Chia blockchain platform has claimed to deliver in areas where the above NFTs platform fall short. 

What Makes Chia Different?

The entrant blockchain platform caught the attention of many in the crypto world last year. How? By delivering a new kind of storage based alternative to blockchain security and mining. An alternative that suggested a more “green” and environmentally friendly option, compared to Bitcoin and Ethereum.

It is this same idea that the platform is deciding to bring to the NFT space.

Today, Chia announced the launch of its so-called NFT1 standard on main-net. This was done just weeks after rolling out the initial NFT0 standard on test-net.

Chia Network Director, President, and COO Gene Hoffman made a suggestion. He suggested that the new NFT-capable platform would be more eco-friendly than Ethereum. He also claims that it will be more stable than Solana, which has seen spurts of downtime since last fall.

“What’s been exciting is I think people are seeing this as a real opportunity to have a more green option than proof-of-work, especially as Ethereum may or may not get around to the Merge.”

Gene Hoffman

Can Chia Handle The Heat?

Ethereum’s environmental impact has been hotly debated amid the rise of the NFT market. In addition to that, the Merge that Hoffman mentioned – a shift to an energy-efficient proof-of-stake consensus model – has been on the horizon for years. It’s currently slated for August this year.

After taking aim at Ethereum’s latest upgrade, Hoffman doubled down on his criticism of Solana. He added, “We’ve seen Solana’s technical acumen of late, and that’s not been very strong.”

However, the network’s longest periods of downtime came amid overwhelming demand prompted by automated bots. This includes a peak as high as 6 million transactions per second sent to try and game an NFT mint.

With NFT support just coming online, Chia does not appear to have been tested in such an extreme manner. And for its counter-part, Solana is attempting to address its admitted stability issues.

Could Chia handle the demand of a hot NFT project mint, with or without bots trying to overwhelm the process?

Chia currently processes about 30 transactions per second (TPS), while Solana can range up into the thousands. Hoffman admitted that some kind of layer-2-scaling solution would be necessary to handle NFT mints at a faster rate than Chia’s TPS.

But he also suggested that Chia is designed for different needs than Solana, pointing to a recent Chia blog post regarding the so-called blockchain trilemma – that a blockchain can only be two of the three following things: secure, decentralized, and scalable (or able to handle a sizable amount of transactions). Chia has opted for the first two.

Plotting NFT support

An NFT is a blockchain token that serves as proof of ownership of an item, and they’re often used for digital goods like artwork, collectibles, and video game items.

The NFT market expanded to $25 billion worth of trading volume in 2021, per data from DappRadar, and that momentum carried into 2022 ahead of the recent wider crypto market decline that has impacted NFTs as well.

With the NFT1 standard, Chia Network claims that it offers improvements over Ethereum and Solana NFT functionality, such as providing what it says is a clearer picture of the provenance of an NFT via a decentralized identifier (DID), as well as enabling improved permanence of assets tied to NFTs.

Cristiano Ronaldo To Release NFT

Posted on by Augustine Ojeh

NFTs seem to be gaining more ground in popularity and involvement as the day passes. First, it was renowned artist Marina Abramovic who ventured into the NFT world two weeks ago. Now it’s the football ‘living legend’ Cristiano Ronaldo who is about to storm the NFT space. 

The footballer with the most goals in professional football inked a contract with famous crypto exchange, Binance. The multi-year partnership deal will see Ronaldo releasing his own NFT collection. Furthermore, Experts think that this deal will set the pace for other sport icons to get into NFTs. 

Expectations For Ronaldo’s NFTs

Lian Anndy, the chief digital advisor at a Mongolian Productivity Organization said that Ronaldo is a top-class current football legend. He also has hundreds of millions of followers all across social media. The most followed man on Instagram will certainly create a surge when he releases his NFT collection. “There is absolutely no doubt that this NFT will be sold out in seconds.” Anndy added.

When asked to predict an estimation of Ronaldo’s NFTs value, Lian response was quite simple. He said if there are unique pieces with special rights, a few hundred thousand will not be a problem. “This price range is taken with the current market reference for NFT and prices of Ronaldo’s collectibles,” he says.

Lian said signing big Intellectual Properties like this is also part of a bear market strategy. There is obviously a need to bring in non-crypto new blood to support the market now.

“I am also curious what the other centralized marketplaces such as Bybit for instance would do next to grab their share of the pie,” he said.

Sport Stars Getting Into NFTs

Lian responded to another query by responding that Lebron James might be the next in line to launch an NFT series.

Furthermore, the chief advisor of crypto advisory firm Acryptoverse, Raj Kapoor suspected that Binance needed this partnership with Ronaldo. He speculated that they intend to bring more value to BSC. This value will eventually lead to an increase in the NFT mart share.

When asked to estimate the value of Ronaldo’s NFTs collection, Kapoor responds emphatically. He says that estimating hypothetically is very dangerous for the market. However, he speculated that a few more zeros might end up on Ronaldo’s net worth, if this goes right.

“Ronaldo would be raking in upwards of $5 million with this new partnership and I am being conservative,” Kapoor says and predicts that “media favorite Lionel Messi, would soon be the next NFT darling.”

Kapoor says, Messi is a popular figure with an unparalleled fan following and it will not be surprising if his next big goal is in the NFT space.

How This Affects Web3 Adoption

Germany-based Aliasgar Merchant, founder of ‘Learn Web3 With Us’ says launching and promotion of NFTs is an indication of the overall adoption of the web3 space, however, it might also be an under-representation of what NFTs are capable of doing.

“Predicting the kind of sales Ronaldo’s NFTs will make is a long shot, given the bearish crypto market sentiments prevalent. Previously, Snoop Dogg made around $100,000 from his NFT sale. I would predict something around that range for Ronaldo too, given the conditions of the market don’t deteriorate,” he says.

Merchant further said the trend of launching NFTs by celebrities is skyrocketing and that this is just the beginning for sports icons to join the trend.

“If I had to make a guess, I would predict Neymar and Novak Djokovic would be next in line,” Merchant says.

Doodles NFTs Hits $500 Million In sales

Posted on by Augustine Ojeh

Doodles has erupted in popularity since its launch in October last year. The NFT has now become one of the top non-fungible token collections on the market.

The ground-breaking NFT now features 10,000 pastel-colored, squiggly drawings. All of these drawings, living on the Ethereum blockchain. The cheapest of this collection trades for about $17,000 – equivalent to 15 ETH. 

Julian Holguin, newly appointed CEO has some plans up his sleeves. The former president of Billboard has serious plans to push the current $500 million trading volume of NFTs.

Doodles NFT Intentions

“We want to create joyful experiences for people no matter what product we create, whether it’s a video game, a profile picture for Instagram, the music you listen to, [or] real-life attractions,” Holguin told Insider during an interview at the NFT.NYC conference Wednesday.

However, Holguin doesn’t just want cute photos. The CEO’s vision is to transform the company into a Web3 multimedia and entertainment brand. One that will be famous for featuring films, music and animations.

With this goal in mind the company has begun to take big steps. This week, they named musician Pharrell Williams as their chief brand officer.

“I’m a big fan of the brand. We’re going to build from the core community outward and bring Doodles to new heights.” Williams said.

On the same day, Doodles announced it had also raised its first funding round. The funding round was led by the venture capital firm, Seven Seven Six. This firm is helmed by the co-founder of Reddit, Alexis Ohanian.

In the 24 hours leading up to Thursday, which coincided with the event in New York, Doodles’ online sales volume surged over 1,000% to surpass $3.2 million, according to Cryptoslam data.

NFTs Despite The Economic Downturn

Despite having an amazing year in 2021, NFT sales have declined heavily. From its peak of almost $1 billion, NFTs have declined by 80% since January per nonfungible.com. Furthermore, it is not new that the size of the cryptocurrency market has fallen drastically. The market dropped by more than 50% to $1 trillion after being at $3 trillion sometime last year.

Bitcoin, the most widely traded cryptocurrency, is hovering around $20,000 currently, after hitting a record $69,000 in November. A slowing economy, coupled with rising interest rates and red-hot inflation has turned investors away from riskier assets.

However, Holguin still believes that the upcoming Doodles 2 collection will cost relatively less. This will lower the cost of entry and encourage NFT investments. 

“The economy presents a macro challenge right now for everyone,” Holguin said. “But we’re really diversifying our business so we’re not completely tethered to the price of crypto. Plus Doodles 2 is going to be the most easily accessible project from a price perspective.“

In the event of a recession, Holguin said, the last thing people will get rid of will be something like a Netflix or Spotify account — and those kinds of platforms are exactly what Doodles aims to develop on the blockchain.

Hope For NFTs Future?

He said the current rout in the digital asset market was a sign of a “big maturation process” and echoed the belief of both the founder of NFT.NYC as well as the US CEO of The Sandbox: Stronger projects with supportive communities are going to be the ones that emerge stronger than before. 

“Yeah, the economy is going through a down period right now, but this isn’t going to last forever,” Holguin said.

MoonPay Launches NFT Platform With Universal And Fox Industries

Posted on by Augustine Ojeh

Crypto start-up MoonPay made an announcement on Tuesday. The crypto start-up stated that it’s partnering with Universal Pictures, Fox Corporation and Snoop Dogg’s Death Row Records. The common goal being to launch a new NFT platform called HyperMint.

NFTs And Big Brands

The new platform enables large brands, agencies, and enterprises to mint hundreds of millions of NFTs a day. Thus, scaling up an operation that previously took months using blockchain technology. It was announced today that MoonPay CEO will give a speech at Radio City Music Hall. This is due to this week’s NFT.NYC conference in New York City.

The platform and its underlying technology present a big opportunity. This opportunity is peculiar to legacy brands like Universal and Fox that readily access intellectual property.

NFTs are digital assets that represent real-world objects — such as art, music and real estate — and can’t be replicated. In the past few months, big brands from every industry, including Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, and Nike have brought NFTs into their marketing initiatives.

“The potential of NFTs goes beyond collecting; it’s the utility. You can essentially program anything into these NFTs over time, which is why we decided to focus on this new product offering. That’s really making this shift possible; to go beyond collectability and program utility into these NFTs and there needs to be enterprise-grade tooling.”

Soto-Wright

MoonPay’s Journey 

Founded in 2018, Miami-based MoonPay’s software lets users buy and sell cryptocurrencies using conventional payment methods like credit cards, bank transfers, or mobile wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay. It also sells its technology to other businesses including crypto website Bitcoin.com and non-fungible token marketplace OpenSea, a model Soto-Wright calls “crypto-as-a-service.”

Soto-Wright has previously said the firm aims to make crypto accessible to the masses in the same way that video-conferencing tools like Zoom made it easier to make calls over the internet.

MoonPay’s pitch to investors is that it offers a “gateway” to digital assets. For now, that includes bitcoin, ether and other digital tokens like NFTs. The recent market volatility and risk-off investor environment hasn’t been kind to crypto trading, but Soto-Wright’s vision is to expand the platform to include everything from digital fashion to tokenized stocks.

How The Crypto Market Crash Affects MoonPay’s Plans

The company’s latest product launch comes amid an extended selloff in cryptocurrencies. investors continue to grapple with aggressive interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve and a worsening liquidity. A crunch that has pushed major players into financial difficulty. The crypto-space is still reeling from the fallout of the $60 billion collapse of two major tokens last month.

“It’s been a rough few months for crypto,” Soto-Wright said. “I’ve seen many of these different cycles before. I’ve seen this movie. There’s always going to be periods of volatility. It’s a brand new asset class and we have a brand new subset of that asset class, which is NFTs.”

MoonPay says it has been profitable since launching its platform in 2019. It is now used by more than 10 million customers in 160 countries. Last month, MoonPay added more than 60 celebrity investors to its balance sheet, including Justin Bieber, Gwyneth Paltrow, Snoop Dogg and Ashton Kutcher, among others. Combined, its new investors poured $87 million into a previously announced $555 million funding round led by Tiger Global and Coatue, valuing the company at $3.4 billion. 

Bill Gates Describes NFT As Based On ‘The Greater Fool’ Theory As Bored Ape Slumps

Posted on by Augustine Ojeh

Bill Gates has never been a fan of cryptocurrencies or NFTs, and those feelings were again on full display. This time, at a climate conference hosted by TechCrunch on Tuesday.

Gates slammed the crypto and NFT sector as being “based on the greater-fool theory.” This theory is the idea that investors can sometimes make money buying overvalued assets if those assets can be sold to someone else at a higher price.

That theory worked well for investors and traders of cryptocurrencies and NFTs, until it didn’t. This can be pinpointed to around November when bitcoin tapped-out at about $69,000. Since then, the cryptocurrency market has erased $2 trillion in market value and bitcoin has dropped 70% to $21,000.

Bill Highlights The Weaknesses Of Cryptocurrencies And NFTs

The weakness in cryptocurrencies comes amid an implosion of various stablecoin and staking projects, including Luna, TerraUSD. The most recent weakness being Celsius Network, which halted withdrawals on its network and erased billions of dollars in market value.

“Obviously, expensive digital images of monkeys are going to improve the world immensely, and that’s so incredible.” …Gates said with sarcasm.

“I’m used to asset classes like a farm where they have output or a company where they make products. To have an asset class that is 100% based on a sort of greater-fool theory that somebody is going to pay for it more than I do. And where it has at its heart this anonymity that you avoid taxation or any sort of government rules.” Gates said.

Meanwhile, the Bored Ape Yacht Club has been a key symbol of rising valuations in the NFT market. Interestingly, celebrities are snapping up disinterested ape illustrations alongside seven-figure sales. But now, the Ethereum profile picture collection shows how much NFT demand has fallen amid a wider crypto market crash.

Bored Ape NFT Slumps

The floor price for a Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT – the cheapest available item listed on a secondary marketplace – currently sits at $96,469, or 80 ETH, according to NFT Price Floor. Overnight, the price fell as low as $91,741, per decrypt.co report.

Currently, the cost of an entry level Bored Ape NFT has dropped by about 78% in 2 months in dollars. However, the floor price sat at $429,000 on the day just before the Bored Ape NFT game – Otherside – was launched.

In terms of ETH, the collection has dropped by a severe 47% since then. Although the price is decent, this statistic only reflects the fallen price of ethereum and how it affects NFT collections. 

Every significant NFT collection has lost a huge amount of value over the past month. When measured in USD, Bored Apes are down 54% in the last 30 days. Surprisingly, CryptoPunks are also down 48% in that span and the newer Moonbirds have shed 62% of their value.

How Fall Of Cryptocurrency Has Affected NFTs

The NFT market saw skyrocketing demand in 2021, generating $25 billion worth of trading volume. The demand persisted in 2022, with nearly $16 billion worth of organic trading in the first four months this year. On May 1, leading NFT marketplace OpenSea marked its best single day of trading at $476 million.

The fading crypto-market have impacted the NFT space significantly, with daily trading volume falling off instantly with the market’s crash. However, with leading coins like Bitcoin and Ethereum reaching lows not seen since 2020, NFT trading actually climbed as buyers sought “bargains” amid depressed prices.

Renowned Artist Marina Abramović Ventures Into The NFT World 

Posted on by Augustine Ojeh

Marina Abramović, a well-known performance artist. She decided to take a bold step into the world of cryptocurrency by launching her very own NFT later this week.  The NFT is based on “the Hero” (2001), one of her most interesting and personal performance pieces. In the original version of this piece, she sat astride a white steed, holding a white flag that she waved gracefully in the wind, set against a vast landscape of trees and sky in Spain.

The piece, was a tribute to her then-recently deceased father, who was a Yugoslavian war hero during World War II.

Marina Abramovic NFT

A Brief History About Marina And The Hero Art

Abramović, who was born in Belgrade, Serbia in 1946, is now revisiting that work in collaboration with The Cultural Institute of Radical Contemporary Art (CIRCA) in London. The movie airs from June 13 to August 13 on a network of screens ranging from Piccadilly Lights in London and Times Square in New York, all the way to COEX K-Pop Square in Seoul, South Korea.

The artist has also written The Heroes’ Manifesto, a reconceptualization of her ‘An Artist’s Life’ Manifesto from 2011. The new manifesto is being described as a response to the urgent need for heroism over artistry in today’s world.

Furthermore, Abramović’s NFT of The Hero (2001) will launch on Tezos blockchain, considered to be more environmentally friendly than others. She announces details of her inaugural NFT during a conversation with CIRCA Artistic Director, Josef O’Connor, at Art Basel on 18 June.

Why Did Marina Decide To Venture Into NFTs?

Marina didn’t really intend to venture into NFT. However, she stated in an interview that the entire idea came as a surprise. The Hero was originally filmed in PAL, so they decided to do a lot of post production work on the landscape. That took them months of editing each frame because they wanted the image to envelop the audience. Marina believes that ideas have to come as a surprise – frame by frame something new emerged from the stillness. 

Marina and her team discover how the movement of the flag in the wind took on a new beauty and significance with each new frame. From there they discovered thousands of unique NFT and have decided to explore its possibilities.

Marina responded passionately, when asked why she was getting into with NFTs. She found the advent of NFTs as a suitable means to express her old arts in a more modern fashion. She needed a clear means of communicating with this new generation. One not birthed in the era of the original version of the Hero.

“You have to consider the future when making art because, Art must look forward”

Marina Abramović

Expectations From Marina Abramović’s NFT Inaugural Launch?

Marina told newsmen that she is excited to see what follows from the successful building of her new company. 

For her, It is about finding solutions to the ongoing catastrophe and who can bring the solution? The heroes. The ones who sacrifice everything. The ones who bring the new light to illuminate this world. If she started out today, this is what she said she would be doing. 

She concluded by saying What Nadya Tolokonnikova achieved in March –  raising over $6.7 million for Ukraine relief efforts – it’s incredible. And hopes to see what other ideas people have in the web3 space that would help save the world.

‘Stranger Things’ NFT Triggers A Negative Response Amid MasterCard Adoption

Posted on by Augustine Ojeh

NFT platform Candy Digital has released another “Stranger Things” minigame for Netflix, where players must solve riddles to earn NFTs of the stars of the show. But some fans aren’t happy.

The “Stranger Things” NFTs are 11,111 unique tokens on Candy Digital’s Palm blockchain – a layer 2 Ethereum sidechain – that signify ownership of one of five digital posters.

stranger things nft

How Did Netflix Get Here?

Back in April, Netflix quietly teased the NFT partnership with hidden messages in the Season 4 trailer for its hit original show.

Last week, about 4,700 players earned a free NFT poster of Eleven, the show’s lead played by Millie Bobby Brown, by playing a mystery game involving a virtual “Stranger Things” laboratory.

This week, a new round of the minigame is live on the site. Players must solve “I am Hell’s Master” riddles to earn one of four free NFT posters of characters Mike Wheeler, Jonathan Byers, Will Byers, or Argyle. 

How The Public Responded To The News

Response to the news was mixed. Some crypto enthusiasts and fans of the show said they enjoyed the minigame.

Among those interested in earning NFTs, at least one “Stranger Things” fan reported being repeatedly logged out of their account while trying to complete the challenge.

But when the “Stranger Things” Twitter account shared the NFT news last week, other fans were outraged.

“You think we care about NFTs?” one fan wrote, along with a GIF of a man shooting a gun. Another “Stranger Things” fan wrote off NFT technology as a “grift.”

“I deeply love Stranger Things, but I’m profoundly disappointed that Netflix decided it’d be a good idea to run an NFT grift on its fans,” the fan wrote. “I’m not going anywhere near this trash.”

“I am once again asking Netflix to STOP making NFTs of my favorite shows. I can’t handle the grief,” another fan said, referring to Netflix’s previous Ethereum NFTs released for its sci-fi show “Love, Death and Robots.”

Others called the NFTs “bullshit,” replied with vomiting emojis and crying GIFs, and even told the company to “fuck off.”

Is This Happening For The First Time?

NFT backlash is nothing new – in the video game industry, many were outraged by Ubisoft’s push into Tezos NFTs and Square Enix’s interest in NFT gaming. Fan outrage against NFTs has even led to the cancellation of multiple indie game NFT integrations.

Candy’s Netflix NFTs and minigame mark the platform’s first foray into major Hollywood partnerships. Prior to Netflix, Candy established partnerships with Major League Baseball (MLB), the WWE, and Getty Images.

MasterCard’s Adoption of Stranger Things NFT

While the backlash from the fans of ‘stranger things’ NFT continues, MasterCard, a leading payment giant plans to use card payments to expand access to the non-fungible token (NFT) market.

Raj Dhamodharan, an executive vice president of the company, disclosed in a blog post published on June 9 that it had worked with Immutable X, Candy Digital, The Sandbox, Mintable, Spring, Nifty Gateway, and MoonPay to facilitate NFT commerce.

“We’re working with these companies to make it possible for users to use their MasterCard cards to buy NFTs on one of their marketplaces or through their crypto services,” he said. “With 2.9 billion Mastercard cards in circulation around the world, this shift has the potential to have a significant influence on the NFT ecosystem.”

Raj Dhamodharan

Coinbase and Mastercard have already collaborated to allow cash payments on Mastercard’s freshly launched NFT platform. After purchasing a CryptoPunk late last year, Visa is also keeping a close eye on the NFT industry.