Investors who survived the 2008 financial crisis understand the importance of liquidity. When an economic recession starts, deflationary pressure hits the market, and buyers disappear. Sellers frantically try to sell assets before their prices drop further, but buyers want to de-risk and go into safe-haven assets, such as treasury bonds and money market funds. The lack of liquidity associated with nonfungible assets is the one reason why investors may think they are riskier than cryptocurrencies. When an investor wants to sell Bitcoin (BTC), they can easily sell to an order book of buyers at various price points. If a seller …

Ripple Labs is launching a fund for creators, marketplaces and brands to explore new use cases for nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, on its ledger. In a Wednesday announcement, Ripple said the $250 million fund would be focused on accelerating adoption in the crypto space by working with nonfungible tokens, or NFTs. The platform said it wanted to address concerns with the minting of the tokenized artwork, including “clunky” user experiences, high transaction fees and the possible effects on the environment. “We believe NFTs embody the promise of tokenization and represent a tipping point for its embrace by the mainstream,” said …

Nonfungible token (NFT) company Bookblocks.io has partnered with a New York-based organization to help women in Afghanistan have access to education amid the Taliban takeover. Bookblocks.io announced it would be releasing a nonfungible token, or NFT, on Oct. 5 with the proceeds to be given to Women for Afghan Women, an organization that helps to provide women with access to education and vocational training in both Afghanistan and the United States. The artwork, inspired by American author Louisa May Alcott, features half a woman’s face covered by a single butterfly wing with the quote “nothing is impossible to a determined …

The team behind the design of NBA Houston Rockets player John Wall’s nonfungible token may have ripped off one of the backgrounds directly from the popular online game Fortnite. Wall first announced he planned to release a line of “Baby Baller” nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, on Tuesday to raise $100,000 for charity and the “Ballers community.” However, once he posted a preview of the tokenized artwork on Twitter, social media users were quick to notice that the background appeared to be lifted from Fortnite. The image, available on eason 5 of Fortnite from Epic Games, shows a basketball court adjacent …

For decades, art galleries and museum exhibitions around the world have facilitated the presence of cultural education, social interaction and visual moments of awe. Michelangelo’s “Sistine Chapel,” Georgia O’Keeffe’s “Black Iris III” and Picasso’s “Weeping Woman” have all inspired generations of art lovers in their own pursuits of life — creative or otherwise. However, since the turn of the century — grossly impacted by seismic shifts in digital behaviors, economic uncertainties and enduring complaints of exclusivity — art galleries have seemingly depreciated in societal appeal. A piece by Arts Professional in late 2017 exposed the decline in visitor numbers to …

Professional wrestler and actor John Cena said fans only purchased 7.4% of his World Wrestling Entertainment, or WWE, nonfungible tokens (NFTs) that he made available last month. Speaking at Florida Supercon 2021 on Sept. 12, Cena said it was a mistake to market his WWE NFTs as part of a package with physical collectibles — a hat, shirt, wristbands, belt, towel, autographed picture, and the digital collectible. The organization offered 500 gold tier packages with the NFT for $1,000, but only a fraction of them sold. “I talk a lot about failure — this idea failed,” said Cena. “Myself and …

A bronze depiction of legendary Bitcoin creator Satoshi Nakamoto is now on display for visitors of Graphisoft Park in Budapest. In an unveiling ceremony on Thursday, András Győrfi, the co-founder of the statue project and editor of crypto news site Kripto Akademia, spoke to a crowd of journalists and Hungarian residents before revealing the shining face of Satoshi. The sculpture shows the upper half of a figure with a featureless face wearing a hoodie with the Bitcoin (BTC) logo. Front of #StatueOfSatoshi pic.twitter.com/LvlDmtio1c — Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) September 16, 2021 “Whoever he or she was, Bitcoin creates value, and especially the …

NFT NSFW Nafty, a blockchain firm that produces decentralized, “not safe for work” (NSFW) platforms, such as OnlyFans competitor Nafty.tv, launched an erotic-themed nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace dubbed “NaftyArt” on Thursday. NaftyArt aims to provide a platform for erotic artists and adult-content creators to promote and sell their tokenized works without fears of it being removed or their accounts shadowbanned. It may also give some NFT proponents an excuse for out-laying large sums of money on NSFW content. The announcement read: “Erotic Artists and Adult Content creators have been struggling for some time to get their work prominently featured on …

Tyler Hobbs, the artist behind the popular generative nonfungible token (NFT) series “Fidenza,” has slammed a Solana-based project for utilizing his code to produce knock-off artworks without his approval. The “Fidenza” series is a curated drop of 999 NFTs on Art Blocks, an Ethereum-based platform that creates and hosts tokenized computer-generated artworks. Hobbs wrote code that generates unique art pieces, using the randomized transaction hash of the buyer’s transaction as input. Hobbs sold the 999 works originally for $400,000 and has since made more than $4 million in commissions as they were sold on. Now his code has been used …

In April of this year, an anonymous buyer purchased a copy of Action Comics #1 for $3,250,000 USD — the highest figure on record for a vintage comic book. Published in 1938 and featuring the first-ever appearance of Superman, the comic is one of the last known copies in existence. Prior to the auction, it was graded by the Certified Guaranty Company, or CGC, using a 10-point system, where it received a near-perfect score. Any legitimate copy of Action Comics #1 would have been worth a decent sum of money, but this particular book out-sold all others because its physical …

Marvel and DC seem to be breaking away from the established tradition of allowing creators and artists to sell original prints of published works due to their reported plans for entry into the nonfungible token (NFT) space. According to Bloomberg, the two comic book staples have barred artists from selling NFTs of the characters they create for the company. Both Marvel and DC reportedly have designs on leveraging their vast collection of comic book art in the expanding NFT scene, potentially a new market for selling collectibles. Indeed, Marvel has already made forays into the NFT space, selling digital collectibles …

Despite the Russian state maintaining a mostly unfriendly stance on cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC), a major state-backed museum is benefiting from the industry by raising hundreds of thousands of dollars with nonfungible tokens, or NFTs. The Russian State Hermitage Museum, the largest museum in the world, has finished its first auction on the NFT platform by Binance — the world's largest crypto exchange — selling five tokenized collectibles depicting masterpieces from artists like Leonardo da Vinci and Vincent van Gogh. The auction included five NFT copies of Hermitage-hosted artworks, including Wassily Kandinsky’s "Composition VI," Giorgione’s "Judith," Da Vinci’s "The Madonna …