Blockchain Association’s chief legal officer says “it would be absurd” for a United States court to rule that digital assets on private blockchains are securities, following a federal judge's decision to allow a lawsuit against Dapper Labs's NBA Top Shots NFTs to play out. U.S. attorney Jake Chervinsky made the comment after federal judge Victor Marreo denied a motion to dismiss a 2021 lawsuit that accused Dapper Labs of selling nonfungible tokens (NFTs) as unregistered securities. Chervinsky was among a host of lawyers on Twitter to reiterate that the judge’s denial of the motion does not mean a ruling has …

In this week’s newsletter, read about how eBay’s nonfungible token (NFT) platform launched a new creator smart contract. Learn how OpenSea plans to win back its users from its competitor, Blur, and check out why Yuga Labs was accused of intellectual property (IP) theft over the wolf skull logo. In other news, find out how NFTs will act as “high-end properties” during the market booms, and don’t forget this week’s Nifty News, featuring an NFT artist receiving $150,000 for a meme on Ordinals. eBay NFT platform KnownOrigin launches creator smart contract EBay’s NFT marketplace KnownOrigin announced the launch of creator …

The growing GameFi sector has caught the attention of the video game industry, leading many brands to create their own unique blockchain games. However, despite the popularity of these projects, many lack engaging gameplay mechanics and the entertainment value found in successful traditional games. With a focus on high production values, replayability and entertainment, the upcoming blockchain gaming project Undeads aims to bring these much-needed elements to the forefront of the Web3 space. Undeads’ head of community Jan Emil Christiansen will get into more detail about the ambitious gaming project in an AMA on Feb. 22, 3:00 pm UTC. Undeads …

A wallet security team released a real-time dashboard that lets community members detect, track and monitor potential nonfungible token (NFT) hacks using offline signatures in the OpenSea marketplace. According to the team behind crypto wallet ZenGo, they created an NFT hack detector using a simple method. This includes tracking realized NFT trades in the NFT marketplace and comparing the trade amount of the NFT collection’s floor price. If the ratio between the two trade values is suspiciously low, it will get flagged as a potential hack. At the time of writing, the dashboard flagged almost $25 million worth of NFTs …

The launch of Bitcoin Ordinals back in January created a stir within the crypto community on their place within the Bitcoin (BTC) ecosystem. Users are debating whether they offer new use cases for Bitcoin or if it takes away from the initial peer-to-peer cash system vision of BTC. No matter the community sentiment on the Bitcoin NFT issue, this did not stop Bitcoin mining firm Luxor Mining from acquiring OrdinalHub, the primary platform for Bitcoin NFTs. The announcement came on Feb. 20, saying already 150,000 inscriptions have been made, a 15000% increase from the beginning of the month. Luxor highlighted …

Artifacts recovered from the wreckage of the Titanic are set to be tokenized using blockchain technology through a partnership driven by the company that acts as the steward of the sunken vessel. A three-way partnership involving RMS Titanic Inc. (RMST), Hong Kong-based Venture Smart Financial Holdings and Web3 firm Artifact Labs will begin tokenizing precious artifacts from the Titanic to unlock a myriad of Web3 functionalities. Select artifacts from the sunken Titanic will be preserved as nonfungible tokens (NFTs), which is aimed to open up shared ownership to the wider general public. RMST holds the exclusive rights to recover artifacts …

Cardano is a proof-of-stake (PoS) platform launched in September 2017 by Ethereum co-founder Charles Hoskinson. In September 2021, Cardano added support for smart contracts, which paved the way for developing decentralized finance (DeFi) and nonfungible token (NFT) applications. NFTs landed on Cardano’s blockchain in 2022, with Cardano’s native cryptocurrency ADA (ADA) utilized to buy and sell them. The deployment of smart contracts on Cardano allowed the creation of NFT marketplaces, including CNFT.IO and Jpg.store. These marketplaces facilitate NFT projects on Cardano in a cost-effective and scalable way, attracting many enthusiasts seeking a user-friendly platform for creators and traders with low-cost …

The co-founder of the social media website Reddit, Alexis Ohanian, reportedly bought 50,000 Ether (ETH) for just $15,000 during the cryptocurrency’s presale in 2014, a cost of just 30 cents per coin. Ohanian, who left the social media giant in 2020, told Forbes in a Feb. 21 article that he found the idea of a decentralized store of value to be very attractive partly due to his Armenian heritage, prompting him to take an early gamble on Ethereum. “Any group of people who have in their consciousness, or in their collective history, some idea of persecution, especially by a state, …

The decentralized autonomous organization (DAO)-operated golf startup, LinksDAO, may soon put in an offer to purchase the newly marketed Spey Bay Golf Club in Scotland worth about $900,000. LinksDAO — self-described as a “global group of golf enthusiasts” that is on a mission to build the “world’s greatest golf community” — officially opened the proposal vote on Feb. 20, which came after a few weeks of informal deliberation. It would be the DAO’s first ever golf course purchase. few things in life are more fun than doing what you said you were going to do, regardless of adversity i will …

Nonfungible token (NFT) collection Friendsies has refuted claims it is “abandoning” its NFT project following a tsunami of “rug pull” accusations aimed at its founders. On Feb. 21, the founders behind the NFT project told its Twitter followers that it was putting a “pause” on Friendsies and “all future digital goods” for the time being, citing market challenges. Around 40 minutes later, the Twitter account was deleted, while the account of Friendswithyou, who developed the project, was made private — sparking rumors that the founders had “rugged” for about $5 million. With the $5.3m @friendsies_ai hard rug earlier today it …

‘Less interest than anticipated’ — PROOF cancels NFT event Kevin Rose, the co-founder of the nonfungible token (NFT) collection Moonbirds has confirmed that their flagship conference “Proof of Conference” scheduled for May has been canceled, citing “less interest than anticipated.” We made a tough decision today, I want to apologize to everyone that planned on making the trip out. Full ETH refunds have been processed, hotels are refundable, and contact us about flights. (details below) https://t.co/tV4ba85648 — KΞVIN R◎SE (,) (@kevinrose) February 20, 2023 The conference was first announced in early November. It was scheduled to run on May. 11 …

A small monetary bounty and an aptitude for coding were all it took to fork the Ordinals protocol to the world’s second-ever cryptocurrency network, Litecoin (LTC) earlier this week, its creator told Cointelegraph. On Feb. 18, an Australian software engineer by the name of Anthony Guerrera posted a repository to GitHub that forked the Bitcoin (BTC) Ordinals protocol to Litecoin. This allowed for nonfungible token (NFT)-like assets on the Litecoin network in much the same way it had made it to Bitcoin earlier in the year. In an interview with Cointelegraph, Guerrera said he was spurred to make a Litecoin …