Business analytics firm MicroStrategy, which owns more bitcoin than any other corporation in the world, posted its biggest loss ever Thursday as a result of the cryptocurrency's massive crash last quarter, but the company's longtime CEO Michael Saylor said the company will continuing buying more of the volatile asset amid strong support from institutional investors.

Longtime CEO Michael Saylor said MicroStrategy intends to continue buying more bitcoin despite its ... [+] GETTY IMAGES

KEY FACTS

In an after-market release Thursday, Virginia-based MicroStrategy reported a second-quarter loss of $299.3 million, compared to a $3 million profit in last year's second quarter, on approximately $125 million in sales, up 13.4% from a year earlier.

Fueling its overall losses, the company disclosed a $424.8 million impairment loss due to the declining value of its bitcoin holdings in the quarter, during which the cryptocurrency's prices plummeted 40%. 

The impairment loss reflects a decline in bitcoin’s carrying value, but it can effectively be recouped if prices recover—not out of the question given the coin’s volatility and past resurgence.

In a statement alongside earnings, Saylor touted the company's successful debt offering in June, after which the firm purchased an additional 13,005 bitcoins for $489 million in cash.

As of June 30, MicroStrategy owns about 105,085 bitcoins, worth nearly $4.2 billion based on Thursday prices of about $39,760.

SURPRISING FACT 

Last month, MicroStrategy raised a greater-than-expected $500 million through the sale of bonds in order to acquire more of the world's largest cryptocurrency. In a sign of massive interest from institutional investors, the company received more than $1.5 billion in orders for the offering, which was announced while bitcoin prices were at a one-month low of about $33,400.

CRUCIAL QUOTE 

“We continue to be pleased by the results of the implementation of our digital asset strategy," Saylor said Thursday, noting the company's latest capital raise and adding: "Going forward, we intend to continue to deploy additional capital into our digital asset strategy.”

KEY BACKGROUND

Given its outsized crypto investment, MicroStrategy's stock tends to ride bitcoin's incredibly volatile price wave. Shares have plunged more than 50% since February, when bitcoin sank after Tesla CEO Elon Musk, a vocal crypto supporter who's fueled volatility in the space this year, said prices seemed “a little high.

” The cryptocurrency is down about 30% over the same period, but like MicroStrategy, whose stock has skyrocketed 410%, its prices have surged 260% over the past year.

MicroStrategy's second-quarter loss is its greatest since the dot-com era in 2000, when the data-mining company posted a third-quarter loss of $168 million. That year, the stock soared nearly 2,500% before plunging more than 95% when the broader market crashed.

TANGENT

MicroStrategy owns more bitcoin than any publicly traded company, but in its namesake bitcoin fund, investment manager Grayscale owns 654,885 tokens—worth more than $26 billion on Thursday.



Jonathan Ponciano

I'm a reporter at Forbes focusing on markets and finance. I graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where I double-majored in business journalism… Read More

A report from City A.M. alleged that an anonymous insider at Amazon had news that it would start to accept Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies by the end of the year. This rumor quickly spread across news sites and social media.

Amazon has since denied the rumors via an email statement to Bloomberg.  Amazon denied the report from City A.M., according to Zero Hedge.

It added that it has no plans to launch a crypto by 2022 and will not accept Bitcoin this year but that it will continue to explore cryptocurrencies and blockchain. 

“Notwithstanding our interest in the space, the speculation that has ensued around our specific plans for cryptocurrencies is not true. We remain focused on exploring what this could look like for customers shopping on Amazon," said the Amazon spokesperson.

City A.M.'s source said that Amazon had a fully-fledged plan to allow crypto payments and that it would be an integral part of the company going forward. 

"This isn’t just going through the motions to set up cryptocurrency payment solutions at some point in the future – this is a full-on, well-discussed, integral part of the future mechanism of how Amazon will work," said the source. 

Don’t miss out on how smart money is playing the crypto game. Subscribe to our premium newsletter - Crypto Investor.

The source even said that this project had come down from Jeff Bezos himself.“It begins with Bitcoin – this is the key first stage of this crypto project, and the directive is coming from the very top… Jeff Bezos himself.

”The Amazon insider said that the company was looking to add far more than just Bitcoin and that they have been working on this since 2019. “Ethereum, Cardano and Bitcoin Cash will be next in line before they bring about eight of the most popular cryptocurrencies online. 

It won’t take long because the plans are already there, and they have been working on them since 2019. This entire project is pretty much ready to roll.

”The source also added that Amazon is looking to develop its own native token after all the big cryptos are integrated. “When all these crypto ducks are lined up, there’s another twist to push things even further into Amazon’s favor – a native token," explained the source. 

Amazon starting to accept Bitcoin and even going as far as to make its own token lit the crypto community on fire and Bitcoin pumped nearly 11% on the day, only to drop back down after it denied the rumors.

This is the second time Amazon has been in the news for cryptocurrency in the last week.

The company caused a stir last week after it published a new job listing for a digital currency and blockchain product lead that would "own the vision and strategy for Amazon’s Digital Currency and Blockchain strategy and product roadmap.

"While Amazon has apparently denied the reports from the City A.M. insider, the company's new job listing shows that it does have some level of interest in cryptocurrency or blockchain. This story is developing.

Global health experts have condemned Boris Johnson’s lifting of most Covid-19 legal restrictions in England on Monday as “a threat to the world”, as daily case numbers in the UK rose to more than 50,000.


 The UK now has the third highest number of cases of any country in the world — only Indonesia and Brazil have more — and some scientists fear it could become a breeding ground for new Covid variants.


 Ministers have warned that daily cases could soon hit 100,000 and have in recent days shown growing signs of nerves as July 19 — described by tabloid newspapers as “Freedom Day” — approaches.


 Health secretary Sajid Javid declared this month that there was “no going back”, but now ministers admit restrictions may have to be reintroduced as they brace themselves for a huge spike in cases.


 “Of course if we get into a situation where it’s unacceptable and we do need to put back further restrictions then that of course is something the government will look at,” Lucy Frazer, solicitor-general, told Sky News.


 As the UK reported 51,870 cases — the highest figure since January 15 — global scientists at an “emergency international summit” urged the Johnson government to “urgently reconsider its proposed actions”.


 The online event, organised by UK scientists opposed to ending the restrictions, attracted current and former government advisers from New Zealand, Italy, Israel, South Africa, Australia and Taiwan.


 They signed a declaration saying Johnson’s decision would have “a profoundly damaging impact in England” and added:

“The UK is one of the world’s leading travel hubs — any variant that becomes dominant there is likely to spread to the rest of the world.

”

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Stephen Duckett, former secretary of Australia’s health department, said:

“There is no reputable public health adviser of any kind who would recommend opening up at a time when the virus is spreading rapidly.

”

British officials say Johnson will not retreat at the last minute. Nightclubs will reopen on July 19, limits on social gatherings will end and people will no longer be legally required to wear masks in crowded places.


 Chris Whitty, chief medical officer, has argued that it is better for England to suffer a Covid wave in the summer — when health systems are under less pressure and schools are off — than in the winter.


 Johnson, who has been under intense pressure from Tory MPs to end Covid restrictions, also believes that the country’s “defensive wall” will be reinforced over the summer as more people are vaccinated and infected people — particularly the young — develop antibodies.


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But in recent days the government’s once bullish tone has evaporated. Where ministers once boasted about throwing away their masks, Johnson is now urging people to exercise “extreme caution”.


 Some fear the Covid “wave” that Whitty is prepared to see wash over England over the summer could become a tsunami, despite the fact that the link between cases and hospitalisations has been severely weakened.

Whitty said on Thursday, referring to individual hospitals:

“I don’t think we should underestimate the fact that we could get into trouble again surprisingly fast.”

Grant Shapps, transport secretary, said he “wanted” Sadiq Khan, London mayor, to require mask-wearing on public transport in the capital, even though the government has scrapped the legal requirement to do so.


 Meanwhile Covid certificates, which only weeks ago were being dismissed by ministers as unnecessary, are now being recommended for use at nightclubs and other venues.


 Bosses complain that they are being confronted with difficult legal issues over what to expect from customers and staff, as Johnson shifts responsibility for fighting Covid to the businesses and individuals.


 Meanwhile companies and public services are being disrupted as hundreds of thousands of staff are “pinged” by the NHS Covid-19 app and told to self-isolate after coming into contact with someone with the virus.

 The prime minister is now caught in a political vice, with Tory MPs and rightwing newspapers urging him to strike out for “freedom”, while public opinion wants him to be far more cautious.


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Mark Harper, chair of the lockdown-sceptic Covid Recovery Group, said Whitty was right to say that the country had to learn to live with the virus and that it was right to trust the public “to balance the risks of life”.


 He criticised the chaotic government messaging of the past week, suggesting it smacked of the description by Dominic Cummings, Johnson’s former adviser, of a prime minister veering unpredictably on policy issues.


 “The government must govern in a way that avoids giving credence to the ‘shopping trolley’ critiques of the PM’s former senior adviser,” Harper told the Financial Times.


 Meanwhile senior Tories admit that opinion polling on Johnson’s policy is “very bad”, highlighting the political risk to the prime minister if it starts to unravel.


 An Ipsos Mori poll this week found that four in 10 adults supported compulsory face masks in public indefinitely, while a third of workers were “uncomfortable” about returning to the office. A quarter thought nightclubs should never reopen.

While the short-term market outlook for many NFT projects look uncertain, and multiple new releases struggle to gain traction, one gardening-themed drop may have set some records by selling 8,888 nonfungible tokens (NFTs) in just under an hour.

Nonfungible token studio Zenft released a line of 8,888 unique bonzai NFT plants that quickly sold out on Tuesday, with the studio selling each digital tree for 0.08 Ether (ETH), or roughly $220 at the time of publication.

The bonsais have augmented reality/virtual reality functionality, and their 3D design is a step up from previous pixelated, 2D projects. The studio celebrated the nearly $2,000,000 sale with a tweet:

The success is somewhat of a surprise, given that NFTs remain mired in a slump following explosive growth earlier this year. New drops like Crypteriors struggle to sell out completely, making the one-hour mark a particular feat.However, some collectors suspect that the success may be due in part to clever marketing.

“I like the way they look but it feels like people are trying to recreate what happened with the Bored Apes money printing machine,” said one prominent collector who spoke to Cointelegraph on the condition of anonymity. “Been feeling a little exhausted seeing the space devolve into celeb pump and dump.

”Bored Ape Yacht Club, another recent success amid the market dip, managed to attract a fervent community in part on the back of outreach to prominent investors and collectors in the NFT space — and as one collector put it, where whales go, smaller collectors, or “plankton,” follow (sometimes to their detriment).

In an interview with Cointelegraph, “8ncient Gardener,” one of the three Zenft “gardeners” (or developers), said that marketing played a role — 8ncient “took painstaking care around crafting our giveaways,” in particular — but ultimately, the quality of the art is what made the bonsais such a hit. “I think our art speaks for itself quite honestly.

And everyone can unify around a bonsai. We had Apes, Punks, Voxo, Sandbox, Camels — all these NFT factions all rallying around bonsai,” he said. “In a world of pixel art we made gorgeous 3D bonsai.”

The on-chain evidence is somewhat mixed. There are currently 1,736 different holders of the nearly 9,000 bonsais, with over 22% of the supply concentrated in two NFT whale addresses.

From there, there’s a steep drop-off, however, with a broad range of addresses holding smaller quantities of the bonsais.While it’s impossible to tell the exact source of the success, Zenft “Grove Councilor” “Justsomebonzai” argued that the digital trees are ultimately spreading joy:

“People genuinely like Bonsai, they're beautiful IRL and they're beautiful as an NFT.”

The regulator has suggested that a dedicated market regulator would offer some protection against fraud and manipulation.

DeFi and crypto lending may pose issues for investors, SEC Chair Gary Gensler said.

Decentralized finance (DeFi) could pose fresh challenges for U.S. investors, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Gary Gensler said Wednesday.

The cryptocurrency sector poses various risks to investors in the markets and challenges to the securities regulator, Gensler said in prepared testimony before the House Appropriations Committee. He pointed to volatility in the market and novel products as some examples of these issues.

“Crypto lending platforms and so-called decentralized finance (‘DeFi’) platforms raise a number of challenges for investors and the SEC staff trying to protect them,” Gensler said.

SEC Chairman Gensler: SEC Should Be ‘Ready to Bring Cases’ Involving Crypto

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) chief Gary Gensler said Thursday federal financial regulators should “be ready to bring cases” against bad actors in crypto and other emerging technologies. “The Hash” team weighs in.
 The crypto market had an overall market capitalization of $1.6 trillion on Monday after losing over one-third of its value in under two weeks, he said. While bitcoin (BTC, +1.51%) grabs most headlines, he noted that more than 80 tokens have a $1 billion market cap, while more than 1,500 had a market cap of over $1 million.

Gensler previously told the House Financial Services Committee that stronger regulation around crypto exchanges could help protect investors. In particular, he suggested a dedicated market regulator for the crypto markets would provide some protection around fraud and manipulation, two concerns the SEC has often cited in rejecting bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) applications.The regulator repeated the concern on Wednesday.

“Tokens currently on the market that are securities may be offered, sold, and traded in non-compliance with the federal securities laws. Furthermore, none of the exchanges trading crypto tokens has registered yet as an exchange with the SEC.

Altogether, this has led to substantially less investor protection than in our traditional securities markets, and to correspondingly greater opportunities for fraud and manipulation,” he said.

Read more: BlockFi Botches Promo With Outsized Bitcoin Reward Payments

Even the crypto market’s current volatility is suspect, Gensler seemed to say.“In recent weeks, the reported trading volume has ranged from $130 billion to $330 billion per day.

These figures, however, are not audited or reported to regulatory authorities, as the tokens are traded on unregistered crypto exchanges. That is just one of many regulatory gaps in these crypto asset markets,” Gensler said.

He also indicated that the SEC would be willing to bring enforcement actions against parties that don’t comply with federal securities laws.

The regulatory agency has already brought 75 such actions, and “has been consistent” in how it describes its approach, he said. He said the SEC “should be ready” to bring further actions in a speech to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority last week.

• Traders taking excessive risk in the bitcoin market being forced to sell when the price goes down were the bigger culprits for last week’s 30% drop in bitcoin prices, according to analysts.
• Bitcoin traders liquidated roughly $12 billion in levered positions last week as the price of the cryptocurrency spiraled, according to bybt.com, a cryptocurrency futures trading platform.
• “Selling begets more selling until you come to an equilibrium on leverage in the system,” says JMP’s Devin Ryan.

Slow Ventures’ Jill Carlson on fears surrounding bitcoin mining councilBitcoin’s aggressive moves are being driven by much more than the next China crackdown or Elon Musk headline.

Traders taking excessive risk in the unregulated cryptocurrency market being forced to sell when prices go down were in large part responsible for last week’s 30% drop in prices and outages for major exchanges, according to analysts.

A burgeoning bitcoin lending market is also adding to the volatility.The price of cryptocurrencies tanked last week, with bitcoin losing roughly a third of its value in a matter of hours. Bitcoin popped to nearly $40,000 on Monday but is still down about 33% from its high.



When traders use margin, they essentially borrow from their brokerage firm to take a bigger position in bitcoin. If prices go down, they have to pay the brokerage firm back in what’s known as a “margin call.

” As part of that, there’s often a set price that triggers selling in order to make sure traders can pay the exchange back.Brian Kelly, CEO of BKCM, pointed to firms in Asia such as BitMEX allowing 100-to-1 leverage for cryptocurrency trades.

Robinhood does not allow traders to use margin for cryptocurrency, and Coinbase only allows it for professional traders.
Bitcoin bull says the volatility could lead to a big breakout

“You get this crowd factor — everybody’s liquidation price tends to be somewhat near everyone else’s-- when you hit that, all of these automatic sell orders come in, and the price just cascades down,” Kelly, told CNBC.Bitcoin traders liquidated roughly $12 billion in levered positions last week as the price of the cryptocurrency spiraled, according to bybt.com. This mass exodus wiped out about 800,000 crypto accounts.

“Selling begets more selling until you come to an equilibrium on leverage in the system,” said JMP analyst Devin Ryan. That selling begins to “compound” as leveraged positions are liquidated, because they can’t meet those margin requirements, he said.

“Leverage in the crypto markets — particularly on the retail side — has been a big theme that accentuates the volatility,” Ryan added.As the crypto market expands, Ryan said he expects leverage to become less of an influence, especially as more institutional capital comes in.Investors, both retail and institutional, have poured into bitcoin and other digital assets in 2021.

The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange — Coinbase — said trading volume in the first quarter of the year was $335 billion, of which approximately $120 billion was retail and $215 billion was institutional.

Trading volumes totaled about $30 billion in the first quarter of 2020.Mark Cuban weighed in on the leverage aspect for ether, the world’s second largest cryptocurrency, on
Twitter last week.

“De-Levered Markets get crushed. Doesn’t matter what the asset is. Stocks. Crypto. Debt. Houses. They bring forced liquidations and lower prices. But crypto has the same problem that [high-frequency traders] bring to stocks, front-running is legal, as gas fees introduce latency that can be gamed,” Cuban said in a tweet last week.

Lending

The other behind-the-scenes cause for selling may have come from the growing bitcoin lending market.Crypto companies such as BlockFi and Celsius allow bitcoin holders to store their crypto with the firm, in exchange for an interest rate of between 6% and 8%. On the back end, those firms lend bitcoin out to hedge funds and other professional traders.

They also allow people to use their bitcoin holdings as collateral for loans.For example, if someone took out a $1 million loan backed by bitcoin and the price drops by 30%, they may owe 30% more to the lender.

″As you hit a certain collateral level, firms will automatically sell your bitcoin and send the collateral to the lender,” BKCM’s Brian Kelly said. “This adds to the massive cascade effect -- there was so much volume that most of the exchanges broke.”

Regulation

The fact that bitcoin is not regulated by a central bank is part of what makes it so valuable to its investors.But that lack of a central authority, and increased adoption has put a target on its back from some in Washington. The Treasury Department announced Thursday it will require any transfer worth $10,000 or more in crypto to be reported to the Internal Revenue Service.

“The market does not have the same backstops that other more traditional markets do,” said Ryan. “In some ways the crypto markets are cleaner and they’re not being influenced by a buyer of last resort.

”Still, Ryan said regulation can be viewed as validation of the crypto market, and could be a positive for the digital asset.

“The crypto markets are still in their early days relative to other asset classes and so they’re going through a maturation phase where they are scaling and adoption in increasing, its still relatively nascent,” he said. “Volatility is a feature here just as the market develops,” Ryan said.

Bitcoin plunged below $39,000 for the first time in more than three months Wednesday after China said cryptocurrencies would not be allowed in transactions and warned investors against speculative trading in them, despite the country powering most of the world's mining.

The comments sent the unit diving more than 10 percent and dealt it another blow soon after being battered by comments from tycoon Elon Musk and his Tesla car company.

Trading in cryptocurrencies has been banned in China since 2019 to prevent money laundering as leaders try to stop people from shifting cash overseas. The country had been home to around 90 percent of the global trade in the sector.

And in a statement, three state-backed industry associations said "cryptocurrency prices have skyrocketed and plummeted, and cryptocurrency trading speculation activities have rebounded".

The price fluctuations "seriously violate people's asset safety and disrupt normal economic and financial order", said the statement, which was posted to social media by the People's Bank of China.

The notice warned consumers against wild speculation, adding that the "losses caused by investment transactions are borne by the consumers themselves", since Chinese law offers no protection to them.

It reiterated that providing cryptocurrency services to customers and crypto-based financial products was illegal for Chinese financial institutions and payment providers.

Linghao Bao, analyst at Trivium China, said despite the ban Chinese investors can still find ways to buy cryptocurrencies through illegal vendors."There will always be a way to circumvent regulations," he said.

"The point of this order is to tell financial institutions to up their game to detect these crypto-related transactions.

"Bitcoin tumbled Wednesday from $45,600 to $38,570, its lowest since early February, and well off the record high of $64,870 seen last month. It later edged back above $40,000 but analysts have warned it could test as low as $30,000.

"This is the latest chapter of China tightening the noose around crypto," Antoni Trenchev, managing partner and co-founder of London-based crypto lender Nexo, said.- 'Here to stay' -Adam Reynolds, of Saxo Markets, added that avoiding use of cryptocurrency, which can be transferred out of the country, is "essential to maintaining capital controls" in China.

Bitcoin has had a torrid few days. It took a heavy hit at the start of the week after Musk appeared to suggest Tesla was planning to sell its huge holdings of the unit. And that came days after the electric car giant said it would halt using it in transactions because of environmental concerns.

"Elon Musk started the ball rolling," Germany-based crypto analyst Timo Emden told AFP. "It will take some time for them to recover from this shock."Mining cryptocurrency is a hugely energy-intensive process requiring large amounts of electricity in giant data centres.

China, which powers nearly 80 percent of the global cryptocurrency trade, relies on a particularly polluting type of coal, lignite, to power some of its mining.

"If bitcoin was a country, it would use around the same amount of electricity a year to mine as Switzerland does in total," Deutsche Bank analysts said in a note.

However, some Chinese enthusiasts remained unfazed."This has happened before and it happens every year... Crypto is here to stay," said trader and ex-tech industry worker Zeng Jiajun.

The Hong Kong Bitcoin Association tweeted, "It is customary for the People's Bank of China to ban bitcoin at least once in a bull cycle.

"China is in the midst of a wide-ranging regulatory crackdown on its fintech sector, whose biggest players -- including Alibaba and Tencent -- have been hit with big fines after being found guilty of monopolistic practices.

The central bank has also sought to promote its own heavily regulated digital yuan, which it is testing across the country in pilot schemes.-- Bloomberg News contributed to this story --

Bitcoin fell sharply on Tuesday, continuing a major sell-off that began a week ago.The digital currency fell over 13% to hit an intraday low of $38,585.86 at around 12:54 a.m. ET, according to CoinDesk data. It was the lowest level since Feb. 9, the last time it dropped below $40,000.

As of 4:30 a.m. ET, bitcoin was trading above $40,000 again, but still down by about 12%.

Negative news over the past week has dampened sentiment for bitcoin.On May 12, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said the electric carmaker had suspended vehicle purchases using bitcoin, citing environmental concerns over the so-called computational “mining” process.

This is where high-powered computers are used to solve complex mathematical puzzles to enable transactions using bitcoin.Musk’s comments caused over $300 billion to be wiped off the entire cryptocurrency market that day.

The announcement to suspend bitcoin payment came just three months after Tesla revealed that it bought $1.5 billion worth of bitcoin, and would start accepting bitcoin in exchange for its products.

Early this week, the Tesla CEO suggested the company may have sold its bitcoin holdings but later clarified that it has “not sold any Bitcoin.

”Then on Tuesday, three Chinese banking and payment industry bodies issued a statement warning financial institutions not to conduct virtual currency related business, including trading or exchanging fiat currency for cryptocurrency.

China’s hard line on digital currencies is not new. In 2017, authorities shut down local cryptocurrency exchanges and banned so-called initial coin offerings (ICOs), a way for companies in the space to raise money through issuing new digital tokens.

Traders in China once accounted for a huge share of the bitcoin market but after the crackdown, their influence was reduced significantly. Chinese cryptocurrency operations have moved abroad.

Bitcoin is still up 40% year-to-date and more than 300% in the last 12 months.Other cryptocurrencies also plunged. Ether, the digital currency that powers the Ethereum blockchain, was down nearly 16% at $2,960.29 at 4:30 a.m. ET.

Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency that started as a joke and has been talked up by Musk, fell 16% to $0.4189.Around $270 billion had been wiped off the entire value of the cryptocurrency market in 24 hours as of 4:30 a.m. ET.

Close to a bottom for bitcoin?

Bitcoin is off by about 38% from its all-time high of $64,829.14 which was hit in mid-April.Vijay Ayyar, head of business development at cryptocurrency exchange Luno, said that a 30% to 40% pullback is “normal” during bitcoin bull markets.

“So this is very much expected after we topped out at 64K ($64,000),” he said.

Ayyar pointed to a roughly 35% correction in January as well as similar falls during the huge run-up in bitcoin’s price in 2017.“We are definitely close to a bottom” around $38,000 to $40,000, he said.

Galaxy Digital CEO Novogratz on bitcoin, crypto and ESG concernsBitcoin bull Mike Novogratz told CNBC on Tuesday that he sees $40,000 as a buying level for the digital currency.

The investor, who runs cryptocurrency financial services and investment management Galaxy Digital, said he expects bitcoin to consolidate in a trading range between $40,000 to $55,000.

“Then we’ll have another leg up. And I say that not just by guessing. We see institutions moving in, and it takes them a while,” Novogratz said.

EBay EBAY, -1.64% users can now buy digital tokens on the e-commerce giant’s platform.

Senior Vice President of eBay Jordan Sweetnam announced in a blog post Tuesday the company will now permit sales of non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, from approved eBay sellers, with plans to expand the pool of sellers in the future.

“In the coming months, eBay will add new capabilities that bring blockchain-driven collectibles to our platform,” Sweetnam said. 

See also: Here’s where Jeff Bezos’s superyacht ranks among the world’s most expensive boats

Prior to today, selling on eBay was limited to physical items, with some exceptions.

“All listings on eBay must offer either a physical item or a service for sale,” according to the site’s policy.An NFT is a verifiable digital asset vouchsafed by blockchain technology.

NFTs are not exchangeable like currencies, as each is unique and can’t be replicated.

NFTs use blockchain, the technology ledger backing cryptocurrencies like bitcoin BTCUSD, -0.81%  and ethereum ETHUSD, -0.12%,  which are databases of linked information to record ownership or transactions of a product.

See also: Golden State Warriors become first pro sports team to release its own NFTs

NFTs have exploded in popularity of late, spearheaded by the support of celebrity business figures such as Mark Cuban and Gary Vaynerchuk.

In the past few months, people have spent hundreds of millions of dollars in totality on these digital assets, such as the “Disaster Girl” meme, NBA Top Shot and digital art like one from the artist known as Beeple, which sold for $70 million.

For anyone who still thinks Dogecoin is a joke, there are some 90 billion reasons that say it’s not.That’s how much the digital token is nearly worth in dollar terms after jumping again in Wednesday trading. Useless or not, the coin has been swept up in the crypto mania that’s gripped markets awash in central bank largesse.

KEEP READINGFor the ruined, Turkey’s crypto crackdown comes too lateWho let the Doge out? Crypto frenzy crashes Robinhood appSotheby’s links up with Coinbase to accept crypto for BanksyMove over Bitcoin, Ether tops $3,000

It’s the latest milestone in a year of speculative excesses for a market Nouriel Roubini once described as “the mother of all bubbles”.

While in the past, trillions of dollars in stimulus by governments and central banks might have triggered a rush into gold for the inflation-wary and risky stocks for the intrepid, a deluge of cash this time round is flooding into the nascent crypto market.

Few illustrate this better than Dogecoin, a so-called memecoin that’s become the destination for a horde of day traders egged on by Internet buzz and a self-propelling buying frenzy.

A potential trigger for the latest leg up: Tesla Inc. co-founder and crypto fan Elon Musk is appearing on Saturday Night Live this weekend, spurring speculation he may talk up Dogecoin again on the comedy show.

“When you think about the full spirit of what this crypto revolution is, there’s something pure in what Dogecoin has done,” Mike Novogratz, founder of Galaxy Digital Holdings, said on CNBC.

“I worry that once the enthusiasm rolls out, there are no developers, there’s no institutions coming in. But it’s got the moniker of the people’s coin right now and it’d be very dangerous to be short.

”The overnight gain took Dogecoin’s one-week advance to 118% and its value to $87 billion in Wednesday trading, according to CoinMarketCap.com data, eclipsing the largest exchange-traded gold fund and even stocks like Fedex Corp. and Snap Inc. A year ago, the asset was worth just $315 million.

It’s all the more remarkable given that other retail favorites from bullish stock options to Cathie Wood’s tech fund have all seen activity dip from the highs earlier this year.

Now, cryptomania might even be hurting gold, according to some analysts. The precious metal has suffered outflows in recent months even as a deluge of stimulus cash drove the value of the world’s crypto market to a $2 trillion record.

“At some point, something is just real,” said Sam Bankman-Fried, the Hong Kong-based chief executive officer of the FTX crypto exchange.

“If Dogecoin is stupid and valueless, it shouldn’t be worth $90 billion. How about gold or Bitcoin or euros? Our collective imagination has given them value, and now we just think about them having value.

”Dogecoin, started in 2013 as a joke based on the Shiba Inu breed of dog, may become so accepted by the mainstream it might evolve into a payment option at retailers, Bankman-Fried said.

At Blockfolio, a firm owned by FTX that helps users manage their crypto portfolios, trading volumes are spiking with Dogecoin’s every gain, a sign it’s become essential to the whole ecosystem.

Dogecoin buying got so fevered Tuesday, Robinhood’s trading app briefly crashed. Other so-called altcoins surged, with Dash spiking 11% over a 24-hour period through the New York morning on Wednesday and Ethereum Classic rising 25%.

While it’s difficult to assign firm reasons to Dogecoin’s ascent, a few factors have fueled the gains. On April 20, a day normally associated with pot, some users got #DogeDay trending to push up the price. Celebrities from Musk to the Dallas Mavericks’ billionaire owner Mark Cuban also jumped on the bandwagon.

The Gemini crypto exchange backed by the Winklevoss twins announced Tuesday it will soon enable trading of the coin.

“As the economy reopens, a lot of these Covid-related movements in various assets will experience some volatility,” said Tony Bedikian, head of global markets at Citizens Bank.

“But I think they are going to become a permanent part of the currency markets as central banks have continued to print money at astronomical levels.”(Adds context throughout and comments from Novogratz, Bedikian)

–With assistance from Yakob Peterseil, Vildana Hajric, Claire Ballentine and Anchalee Worrachate.

Dogecoin, the cryptocurrency that began as a joke when it launched in 2013, is now worth more than General Motors (GM), the American carmaker founded in 1908, based on market cap value.

On Wednesday, Dogecoin's market cap value—the total market value of the circulating supply of a cryptocurrency—hit a reported $87.1 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.

The meme cryptocurrency's market cap value was higher than that of GM, which was recorded to be around $80.3 billion on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)/Nasdaq at the time of reporting.

Dogecoin (listed as DOGE on the cryptocurrency market) was priced at around $0.66, marking around a 53 percent rise in the last 24 hours. The price reached as high as just over $0.69 at one point in the same time period, according to CoinMarketCap.

NEWSWEEK NEWSLETTER SIGN-UP >The graphic below, produced by Statista, shows the price changes of selected cryptocurrencies in 2021.



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Its 24-hour trading volume was at over $52.3 billion on Wednesday, marking a 271 percent increase in the same timeframe, according to CoinMarketCap.NEWSWEEK SUBSCRIPTION OFFERS >


Dogecoin's latest market cap value was also more than double that of Twitter. The social media platform's market cap was listed at around $43.4 billion on NYSE at the time of reporting.

The joke cryptocurrency ranked 138th in a list of top assets by market cap on AssetDash, a leaderboard for assets. GM ranked 155 and Twitter ranked 290.

The price of dogecoin has seen a series of surges in recent months, including in mid-April.

The cryptocurrency hit a new all-time high, as the value of a single dogecoin surpassed 20 cents for the first time on April 15.Its value soared from late January, rising by more than 800 percent at one point.

The price flattened out from mid-February and climbed on a sharp incline from early April, according to data from CoinMarketCap.Its price surge has been helped by social media buzz, with nods from public figures such as Tesla CEO Elon Musk and several celebrities, as well as more recently from Slim Jim, the American snack brand.


Dogecoin's price hike on April 15 reportedly came after a shout-out from the CEO of Conagra Brands, the parent company of Slim Jim. The meat stick brand has been tweeting about Dogecoin from early March.

The Twitter account of Slim Jim saw a 160 percent increase in followers after it began engaging with Dogecoin content. Its tweet impressions also soared, receiving 35 million impressions in 25 days, according to Conagra CEO Sean Connolly, CoinDesk first reported on April 15.

"We've seen a market uptick in audience interaction, including direct engagement and advocacy from the person that created Dogecoin," Connolly said on an earnings call at the time.

A bill seeking to “pause” crypto mining for three years in New York was referred to the state's Environmental Conservation committee on May 3.

Crypto miners in New York may be subject to a forced three-year hiatus if the latest environmentally-focused bill passes in the state senate.

The New York Senate Bill 6486 was proposed by Democrat senator Kevin S. Parker, the Chairman of Committee on Energy and Telecommunications, and co-sponsored by fellow Democrat senator Rachel May, the Chair of Committee on Aging, Chair of Legislative Commission on Rural Resources.

The bill is yet to receive widespread backing from other senators, however the Democrats do control the lower house and senate.

The bill seeks to “establish a moratorium on the operation of cryptocurrency mining centers,” to slow the environmental impacts of fossil-fuel-backed crypto mining in particular.It also aims to enforce stricter regulations for mining centers, such as the requirement to undergo an environmental impact review, which would prevent crypto mining if the facility does not comply with New York’s climate change targets.

The Bill was referred to the Environmental Conservation Committee on May 3 and claims to be acting in accordance with New York’s “Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act,” with that bill stating that:

“A single cryptocurrency transaction uses the same amount of energy that an average American household uses in one month, with an estimated level of global energy usage equivalent to that of the country of Swede.”

“It is reasonable to believe the associated greenhouse gas emissions will irreparably harm compliance with the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act in contravention of state law. ” the bill adds.

The Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act was passed in 2019 and set targets such as 70% renewable energy by 2030, 100% zero-emission electricity by 2040, and 22 million tons of carbon reduction through energy efficiency and electrification.

Crypto mining is already a hot topic in New York, such as the proposed expansion of Greenbridge’s gas-fired Bitcoin plant on Seneca Lake. The plant reportedly has plans to power up to 27,000 computers that will run 24/7 to mine Bitcoin.

The Environmental Group Seneca Lake Guardian are outraged with the proposal, and stated in a call to action published on Feb. 1 that: “Cuomo can’t lead on climate change, and support Bitcoin expansion on Seneca.

”Speaking in response to the Greenbridge’s potential crypto mining operations, Yvonne Taylor, Vice President of the Environmental Group Seneca Lake Guardian, noted that:

“We’re talking about burning more fossil fuels to make fake money in the middle of climate change, which we view as insane.”

There are moves around the world to regulate crypto mining in light of carbon targets, and especially in China which accounts for an estimated 65% of the world’s Bitcoin hashing power.

On April 27 Beijing sent an “emergency notice” to conduct checks on data centers involved in crypto mining, with the CCP reportedly moving to impose stricter supervision on crypto mining in the nation, amid concerns of failing to meet China’s climate change-focused “five-year plan.”

The dogecoin (DOGE) army is not the only one making a killing this year. Miners responsible for generating the Shiba Inu-themed cryptocurrency may also be laughing their way to the bank.

• The daily revenue of dogecoin miners rose to a record high of $3.6 million on April 26, marking a 4,575% rise from the New Year's day tally of $77,000, blockchain data provided by ByteTree shows.
• Revenue estimates assume miners, who operate predominantly on cash, sell their coins immediately.
• Miners receive newly created coins and transaction processing fees as a reward for mining blocks and processing transactions on the distributed ledger.

Dogecoin daily miner revenueSource: ByteTree

• The price of dogecoin has rallied by 7,000% this year, sending miner revenue skywards.
• The meme-based cryptocurrency reached a record high of 45 cents on April 18 and was last seen changing hands near 32 cents, up nearly 20% rise on a 24-hour basis.
• Data provided by Coin Metrics shows a 60-fold increase in daily transaction fees this year alongside several brief spikes in the number of daily transactions.
• However, transaction fees brought in just $23,200 or 0.64% of the total miner revenue of $3.6 million on April 26.

Dogecoin: Daily transaction fees and transaction countSource: Coin Metrics

• "Transaction fees have risen, but price overwhelms," ByteTree CIO Charlie Morris said.
• "The market has been squeezed higher. I suspect many people who owned it a few years ago have forgotten, leading to tighter supply than perceived," Morris added.
• Some observers fear the ongoing price rally is a bubble that can burst easily as 98 wallets are holding nearly 65% of all coins. Besides, the cryptocurrency is heavily influenced by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s usually humorous tweets.
• Bitcoin bull and CEO of Galaxy Digital Mike Novogratz recently called dogecoin's rally a sign of speculative retail frenzy.
• However, DOGE's real-world adoption is gaining traction with the Dallas Mavericks basketball team, medical supplier CovCare and several others adopting the cryptocurrency as a payments alternative.

Germany’s Financial Supervisory Authority BaFin has warned investors the cryptocurrency exchange Binance may have violated European securities rules with the launch of its stock tokens.

• In an announcement Wednesday, BaFin said the Binance stock tokens tracking the movement of shares in Tesla, Coinbase and MicroStrategy have been identified as “suspicious” and require a prospectus that wasn't issued prior to trading.
• BaFin said the cryptocurrency exchange has violated the prospectus obligation under Article 3 Paragraph 1 of the European Prospectus Regulation.
• According to BaFin, the violation of the prospectus constitutes an administrative offense and can be punished with a fine of up to €5 million ($6 million) or 3% of Binance’s annual revenue.
• Elsewhere red flags have already been raised by Hong Kong law firms regarding the Binance stock tokens launched earlier this month.
• On April 22, the Financial Times reported that U.K.'s regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, is “working with the firm [Binance] to understand the product, the regulations that may apply to it and how it is marketed.”
• The stock tokens allow Binance customers to purchase as little as one-hundredth of a regular share using Binance USD (BUSD), a U.S. dollar stablecoin issued by the exchange.
• Binance was contacted for comment, but didn't immediately respond at the time of publication.

Read more: Binance’s Tesla, Coinbase Stock Tokens Under Scrutiny From UK Regulator: Report

Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, are all the rage. But their popularity may have already peaked. Prices of NFTs, the digital certificates that have taken the art and collectibles world by storm this year, have plunged about 70% from their high point in February.

The average price for an NFT on April 5 was about $1,256 -- down from more than $4.000 in late February, according to market research site NonFungible.com.

Data from The Block, another crypto research firm, shows a similarly large decline for both prices and NFT sales as well.

NFTs have been an investing and pop culture mania for the past few weeks, leading some to wonder if the frenzy is a market bubble fueled by the wealthy and younger traders flush with stimulus money.A JPEG file by the digital artist Beeple recently sold for $69 million at Christie's. NFTs have helped boost the price of sports trading cards. Rock group Kings of Leon released their most recent album as an NFT.





NFTs are suddenly everywhere, but they have some big problems

There was even a recent "Saturday Night Live" skit about NFTs.

And several CNN Business staffers have also wrote about how they've dabbled in the NFT market with the purchase of cartoon cats.

The NFT craze has helped boost the value of ethereum, the cryptocurrency whose blockchain network is used for a large number of NFT transactions. Ethereum prices are up more than 180% so far this year, a surge that exceeds the spike in bitcoin's price (XBT).

 maker Funko (FNKO) and Hall of Fame Resort & Entertainment (which owns an NFL themed village in Canton, Ohio) have also soared thanks to partnerships to develop non-fungible tokens. 

Funko announced last week that it was buying a majority stake in TokenWave, LLC, the developer of the TokenHead app and website that tracks NFTs.

Hall of Fame Resort & Entertainment inked a partnership late last month with marketing firm Dolphin Entertainment (DLPN) to develop football NFTs,
Proponents of NFTs point out that each token is unique and can't be replicated, which creates a scarcity value that is good for both the artists that make them as well as collectors.




NFTs: Fad or future? 2 experts weigh in


Funko CEO Brian Mariotti noted that in the release about the TokenWave deal, saying that the investment in NFTs marries the digital and physical collectibles business.

"The NFT world is all about content," Mariotti said.That may be true, but the sharp, sudden rise in the value of NFTs and more recent pullback is reminding some of other similar historic market bubbles, such as tulip mania in the 1600s, the dot com/tech crash of 2000 and bank stocks and housing prices in 2008.NFTs may be here to stay, but they just may not be worth the staggering sums of money that some people have shelled out for them in the past few weeks.

Even Beeple, aka Michael Joseph Winkelmann, joked with CNN's Julia Chatterley in March that he might be the biggest winner of what could turn out to be an NFT bubble.

• Bitcoin's three-month realized volatility has fallen to 86%, after its rise to above 90% in February.
• While volatility drops for the leading cryptocurrency, institutions could see this as a green light to enter the crypto space.
• Former SEC chairman Jay Clayton warns of new regulations that could come for Bitcoin. 

Institutions have been entering the cryptocurrency space, as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley are two of the latest large banks to join in providing Bitcoin-related products and services to their clients. Researchers from JPMorgan Chase & Co. believe that other institutional investors will follow as Bitcoin’s volatility levels have declined.

Bitcoin funds inflow at the expense of gold

JPMorgan strategists, including Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou, noted a three-month realized volatility for Bitcoin has fallen to 86%, after its rise to above 90% in February. The six-month realized volatility has declined to roughly 73%. As Bitcoin’s volatility levels decrease, institutions could find the leading cryptocurrency more appealing. The strategists explained:

These tentative signs of Bitcoin volatility normalization are encouraging. In our opinion, a potential normalization of Bitcoin volatility from here would likely help to reinvigorate the institutional interest going forward.

Bitcoin’s volatility has long been a primary concern for institutional investors, as the higher volatility an asset has, the more risks are associated with it. The pioneer digital currency’s correlation structure relative to other traditional assets could also boost its popularity. As JPMorgan strategists explained, Bitcoin is a more attractive asset from a diversification point of view. 

The world’s largest cryptocurrency has been less correlated with traditional assets such as stocks and gold, which bolsters arguments that the new asset class could offer portfolio diversification benefits. In the past two quarters, as JPMorgan strategists suggested that $7 billion of inflows into Bitcoin funds have come at the expense of gold, which has seen the $20 billion of outflows from exchange-traded funds that track the precious metal.

If Bitcoin were to match the total private sector investment in gold, the leading digital currency would reach the price of $130,000. 

Bitcoin could be more regulated in the future

While institutions are just starting to offer Bitcoin and crypto-related products, the new asset class could be more regulated in the future.Former US Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) chairman Jay Clayton expects regulation for cryptocurrencies to come in the future, both directly and indirectly.


Clayton, currently an adviser for One River Asset Management on cryptocurrencies, believes that the regulatory environment around the new asset class would eventually evolve. 


Although Clayton clarified that Bitcoin had not been clarified as a security for a long time, its status does not earn protection from new regulations, which he hinted — could be coming soon. 

The former SEC chairman’s remarks on Bitcoin also shed light on the SEC v. Ripple case, as the regulator filed its $1.3 billion lawsuit against the blockchain company and its executives, Brad Garlinghouse and Chris Larsen, for allegedly selling XRP illegally since 2013. 

In the case, the SEC argued that XRP tokens have characteristics of securities and that the company failed to register them as such. Since both Bitcoin and Ethereum were not considered as securities by the SEC, Ripple relied on this stance for one of its main lines of defense. 

Tesla is not making it attractive to pay for a model S, 3, X or Y in BTC.

This week, CEO Elon Musk announced via Twitter (where else?) that his upstart automaker had begun letting interested buyers pay for their electric vehicles in bitcoin.

It’s part of a corporate push to acquire as much of the original cryptocurrency as possible – or at least that’s how it seems – as the manufacturer has no plans to convert the cryptocurrency to fiat. 

But the idiosyncrasies of crypto make it difficult to take advantage of this option.

For example, according to the company’s Bitcoin Payment Terms and Conditions, bitcoin transactions must be completed within a certain window of time, or else the price in BTC expires and the buyer must ask for a new one. “You have about 30 minutes to make a payment,” a Tesla representative for the northeast region said Thursday.

While that condition is not surprising given bitcoin’s infamous volatility – depending which direction the exchange rate moves, either the car buyer or Tesla could get hosed by a wide swing – it underscores how even in a roaring bull market, crypto still struggles to gain widespread acceptance as a payment method. 

The fault lies with the native complexities of the Bitcoin system, the U.S. tax policy around cryptocurrencies and, in this case, a paucity of information available from Tesla’s customer support team. At least, if you’re a member of the press looking for answers.

No BTC discount

Tesla is notoriously media-shy, after disbanding its PR department late last year. So after calling headquarters in Palo Alto and getting bounced around, and then separately emailing CFO Zach Kirkhorn and the black-hole address for press inquiries, this reporter phoned a number of Tesla retailers based in the northeast and along the West Coast … and learned very little about purchasing a vehicle with bitcoin. 

“It’s very simple. If they ask about purchasing it, we can assist them with making an appointment,” the northeast Tesla representative said, unhelpfully. To be fair, a New Jersey resident who is actually in the market for a vehicle said she called a Tesla branch and got all her questions answered. 

She told CoinDesk that the Paramus-Route 17 gallery accepts bitcoin – though was told flat-out there was no early-adopter’s discount. 

But we were able to glean a few telling insights, including the 30-minute payment window.


A Tesla(Cam Bradford/Unsplash, modified by CoinDesk)

Another is that Tesla will only accept exact amounts and will not reimburse payments sent to an incorrect alphanumeric address. 

In fact, bolded passage punctuate the company’s Bitcoin Payment Terms & Conditions document with warning including:

"IF YOU INPUT THE BITCOIN ADDRESS INCORRECTLY, YOUR BITCOIN MAY BE IRRETRIEVABLY LOST OR DESTROYED.” 

And… 

"YOU MUST EXERCISE CARE WHEN INPUTTING THE BITCOIN ADDRESS INTO THE RECIPIENT FIELD BECAUSE BITCOIN TRANSACTIONS CANNOT BE REVERSED. WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY FAILURE TO ACCURATELY INPUT THE ALPHANUMERIC CODE INTO THE RECIPIENT FIELD.”

‘Not quite sure’

That document says nothing about tax liabilities, though this is another consideration for U.S. buyers. Under current policy, a purchase of goods or services made with cryptocurrency is a taxable event – even if it’s just a cup of coffee. 

This means that car buyers must account for potential gains or losses if their bitcoin is worth more or less now than when they first purchased it. 

Finally, there are the deflationary incentives in the Bitcoin ecosystem that may discourage potential buyers from spending their coins on cars, or anything.

A hard cap of 21 million coins, a decreasing rate of issuance and a growing number of buyers create favorable conditions for the price of BTC to rise over the years, all else equal.


A Tesla showroom in Miami.(Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

While Lamborghinis have long been the objet petit a for many Bitcoiners, those that have made the purchase – or any purchase – often come to regret it. In 2013, someone purchased a $103,000 Tesla Model S Performance for 91.4 BTC. Those coins today would be worth $4.7 million.

Asked whether there has been any interest from HODLers since Musk tweeted this week, the Tesla representative said, “Not quite sure if anything sold yet in bitcoin.”

But another employee sounded excited: “I don’t really know that much, and don’t want to take on the liability of speaking to the press, to be frank. It’s great news,” this Tesla representative said.

Ray Dalio, founder of the $150 billion hedge fund Bridgewater Associates, believes bitcoin (BTC, -3.33%) has “proven itself” in the last 10 years but still sees a “good probability” that it will be outlawed by governments.

Speaking to Yahoo Finance’s Andy Serwer on Wednesday, the billionaire investor said it was “very likely under a certain set of circumstances” that bitcoin would be “outlawed” as gold was in the 1930s.

Under the U.S. Gold Reserve Act of 1934, it became illegal for individuals to own gold because, according to Dalio, governments did not want gold to compete with money or credit as a store of value.

“Every country treasures its monopoly on controlling the supply and demand. They don’t want other monies to be operating or competing, because things can get out of control,” Dalio added, citing India’s proposed ban on crypto as an example.

Read more: Indian Government Officials Give Mixed Signals Over Planned Crypto Legislation

He added that bitcoin has “proven itself over the last 10 years,” having not been hacked and building a significant following.

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Dalio has previously warned about the possibility of cryptocurrency bans by governments.

On other occasions, he expressed positive sentiment about bitcoin’s role as a diversifier in investment portfolios.

In November, prior to BTC’s staggering run-up to $50,000 and beyond, Dalio said if bitcoin or other cryptos become “material,” governments will “outlaw” it. “They’ll use whatever teeth they have to enforce that,” he said at the time.

Since NFTs became ubiquitous enough on the global art market to spark near-instant backlash and controversy, the question still remains whether the Non-Fungible Tokens, sold and exchanged via the Ethereum blockchain, will catch on with the general public like MP3s once did in the past.

With that said, however, new milestones are being struck with alarming frequency: on Tuesday evening, Sophia the robot will become the first robot to ever auction its own digital NFT artwork via an auction on Nifty Gateway. Sophia was created in 2016 by the Hong Kong-based company Hanson Robotics, and her NFTs were made in collaboration with the artist Andrea Bonaceto.

Bonaceto is also a partner with the blockchain technology investment company Eterna Capital, which should give you an idea of just how much of a boon the NFT explosion is for longtime supporters of blockchain innovations.

Because collectors are free to buy and flip NFTs however they see fit within the non-regulated cryptocurrency space it’s possible to rack up huge profits in no time at all, as most elegantly demonstrated by Beeple’s recent $69,346,250 victory at Christie’s.

“We created Sophia herself as a work of art, as well as an AI development platform,” Dr. David Hanson said in a statement. “Her intelligence is a collective of algorithms and humans working together like a hive.

For this show, Sophia created the art entirely using neural networks and symbolic AI, responding to her perception of Andrea Bonaceto’s works, as well as to data from her ‘life’ experiences, under guidance from the Sophia team’s designers and programmers.”




NFT artwork made by Sophia the robot and Andrea Bonaceto. Sophia the Robot

The artwork that’s been produced by this collaboration is certainly intriguing; swirls of paint and disjointed eyes and lips blur together to created a muddled final result.

But with NFTs, it seems like the imagery is entirely besides the point, and that money and novelty are ultimately dictating every innovation that’s to come.

• Bitcoin conditions are "similar to the second half or later stages of a bull market," Glassnode said.
• Analysts pointed to signs of long-term holders spending coins and to a reduction in big wallets.
• Talk of a bitcoin price plunge has grown; a crypto entrepreneur said there could be a 90% drop.
• Sign up here for our daily newsletter, 10 Things Before the Opening Bell.

Bitcoin may be entering the second half or later stages of a bull market, crypto analysts at Glassnode said on Monday, as nervousness grows in some quarters about a plunge in the price.

Glassnode's weekly analysis found that there had been a pickup in "wealth transfers" from long-term bitcoin holders to newer speculators, which the company said was reminiscent of market peaks.

The report said bitcoin bull markets eventually reach a "euphoric top" that materializes as big holders increasingly spending their coins to realize profits.Glassnode estimated that long-term bitcoin holders had reactivated about 9% of supply so far in 2021 by spending coins, though this was below the 17% reactivation before the market's crash in 2017.

"These studies suggest conditions are similar to the second half or later stages of a bull market," Glassnode said.The bitcoin price was down 6% on Tuesday, to $54,294, well off a high of $62,000 earlier in March but still up by about 700% from a year ago.Glassnode also said on Tuesday that the biggest players - wallets with 1,000 to 10,000 bitcoins - had cut their holdings by 307,000 bitcoins since December.

Read more: Hedge funds are ramping up bets against Chamath Palihapitiya's SPACs and have already taken home $40 million this year. Here's a detailed look at the wagers they're making.

Timothy Peterson, an investment manager, tweeted that falls in big holdings "are often but not always associated with bear markets."

On Monday, Bobby Lee, the founder of the crypto exchange BTCC, told CNBC that 2021 would be a bull market for bitcoin, of the sort that comes around every three or four years. He said the bitcoin price could go as high as $300,000 this year.

But Lee said that the "bubble" was likely to pop. "People should be aware that it could fall as much as 80% to 90% of its value from the all-time peak," he said.

However, many bitcoin advocates have pointed to growing institutional interest as a reason bitcoin is unlikely to crash as it has in the past. Visa, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan are some of the latest big names to get involved.

KEY POINTS

• Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s first tweet, offered for sale as a nonfungible token, was sold on Monday for 1,630.58 ether.
• That’s equivalent to about $2.9 million based on ether’s price at the time of sale.
• Dorsey said he will convert the proceeds to bitcoin and will then donate that to Give Directly’s Africa Response fund.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey addresses students during a town hall at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in New Delhi, India, November 12, 2018.Anushree Fadnavis | Reuters


Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s first tweet, offered for sale as a nonfungible token, was sold on Monday for 1,630.58 ether, a cryptocurrency. That’s equivalent to about $2.9 million based on ether’s price at the time of sale.

The tweet, which said “just setting up my twttr,” was first published on March 21, 2006. It was listed for sale as an NFT on March 6. By March 9, the highest offer was from Sina Estavi, CEO of Bridge Oracle.

Estavi won the auction, though his bid was worth about $2.5 million it was placed.

Ownership of these assets is recorded on a blockchain — a digital ledger similar to those that underpin bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

But a person can’t exchange one NFT for another as they would with dollars or other assets. Each NFT is unique and acts as a collector’s item that can’t be duplicated, making them rare by design.

OpenSea has been one of a handful of NFT marketplaces to explode in popularity in recent weeks as collectors wade into the trading of nonfungible tokens on the blockchain.

While new startups have been popping up everyday, platforms that launched in crypto’s earlier times are receiving rampant attention from investors who see this wave of excitement for cryptocurrencies and tokens as much different than the ones that preceded it.

Today, the startup announced that it’s closed a $23 million round of funding led by Andreessen Horowitz with participation from a laundry list of angels and firms including Naval Ravikant, Mark Cuban, Alexis Ohanian, Dylan Field and Linda Xie.

OpenSea launched back in 2017, announcing a $2 million round a few months later from Founders Fund and a few crypto centric firms. At the time CryptoKitties mania was most of what Ethereum had to offer and early NFT projects were being slowly embraced by a community that was enthusiastic but more curious than anything.


Fast forward to 2021 and NFTs are certainly having a moment, and while the specific shades of that moment may be heavily focused on high-dollar artwork sales from traditional auction houses or NFT memes being tweeted out by Elon Musk, proponents see a future for the tokens that upends the economics of content creation and influence on the internet.

The enthusiasm accompanies a months-long rally in the value of cryptocurrencies themselves that have taken Ethereum and Bitcoin to multiples of previous all-time highs.

The market for digital goods expanding widely may depend heavily on further adoption among gaming giants and larger media organizations, but early on there’s hope that digital-first creators can use these marketplaces to connect more directly with fans and begin to bypass the massive platforms they depend on now.

There are still some early hiccups as the tech develops. While Ethereum has committed to moving from its energy-intensive proof-of-work standard to a more efficient proof-of-stake one eventually, the existing structure has been far from efficient, which has opened many of the early NFT artists to criticism surrounding climate change concerns and whether the stakeholders in crypto tokens should be prioritizing environmental worries over the specific challenges of certain proofs.

In February, OpenSea announced support for more efficient Tezos-based NFTs.

A more nebulous challenge for marketplaces like OpenSea may be cutting through the noise of speculation and providing a marketplace for more users that are actually buying to own, an especially difficult proposition given the breakneck pace of growth for the digital currencies being used to purchase the digital goods themselves.

A fun thing about living in modern times is now we have to know what the hell NFTs are in order to keep up with news about pizza. Pizza Hut Canada has announced it is releasing “1 Byte Favourites,” aka digital images of pizza, as non-fungible tokens.

“Pizza Hut believes no world should exist without pizza, especially their pan pizza. That’s why they wanted to make sure it was enshrined in the digital universe,” they said in a release. Each week the company will release a new image of a pizza slice, each of a different recipe, for purchase on Rarible.

The first-ever “slice” was listed for $0.0001 ETH (a cryptocurrency the equivalent of 18 cents), but wound up being sold for $8,824.So, what the hell does this mean?

A non-fungible token is essentially a unique digital asset available for purchase with cryptocurrency on the Ethereum blockchain.

Once an artist or company uploads this digital asset, “the NFT will exist permanently on the blockchain, so long as the chain remains in operation. As a result, no two NFTs are purely identical, since each piece contains unique digital properties,” explains Vox. This idea of rarity is driving a collecting boom, with people paying millions for essentially unique jpegs.

Instead of paying money for a slice of pizza, you’re paying money for a one-of-a-kind digital picture of pizza, even though that doesn’t include IP rights, so is it even yours?

Also, people have already been hacking and stealing NFTs. Honestly this tweet probably explains it best:

On top of all this, NFTs are absolutely destroying the planet. Memo Akten estimates a single NFT’s ecological footprint “is equivalent to a EU resident’s total electric power consumption for more than a month, with emissions equivalent to driving for 1000Km, or flying for 2 hours.

” Some artists have already used the equivalent of an EU resident’s energy consumption in an entire lifetime in NFT transactions.

Pizza Hut made a big deal of its environmental push in the past years, pushing plant-based meat toppings and a round pizza box that used less packaging, and with parent company Yum Brands boasting it saved 1.3 billion gallons of water in 2017.

Obviously there’s no purely sustainable transaction, but it reveals Pizza Hut’s dedication to the environment for what it is: a hypocritical marketing ploy.Pizza Hut isn’t the only one getting into the NFT market. 

Taco Bell has sold NFT gifs of tacos. And the guy who went viral over the summer for drinking Ocean Spray while skateboarding to Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” is selling the original video clip as an NFT, but without the Fleetwood Mac song because, surprise surprise, he doesn’t have the rights to that song.

 And of course you’ll still be able to watch that video literally anywhere. So congrats to whoever thinks they own these things. Hope your slice of digital pizza that you can’t eat brings you a lot of joy!

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have rocketed out of obscurity in recent weeks to become a global phenomenon. Amid this hysteria, France has staked a surprising claim as an epicentre of this virtual gold rush.

Last week NFT startup Arianee, which certifies ownership of virtual luxury goods, raised €9m in VC.

That came just two weeks after NFT-based fantasy football platform Sorare raised a €40m round of VC led by international A-list investors such Benchmark and Accel.Both French companies have been percolating for several years, putting in place the infrastructure and deals needed to lay a foundation. Yet timing is everything, and the pair seemed to have sufficiently matured at just the right moment. 

“I think that we are riding a wave.”

“I think that we are riding a wave,” said Sorare CEO and cofounder Nicolas Julia. “It’s not just gaming people talking about this. All the verticals are literally exploding right now on the NFT market.

”A non-fungible token is a digital identifier that can be used to verify ownership of a virtual item on the blockchain. Attaching an NFT to such items as artwork or playing cards allows them to be bought and sold, often through bidding, while ensuring the identity of the creator and the owners.

That digital guarantee of ownership has, in turn, has allowed creators to sell their works for sums in recent weeks that have stunned those with only a passing knowledge of blockchain or cryptocurrency.




Beeple’s collage, Everydays: The First 5000 Days, sold at Christie’s. Credit: BeepleIn February, an NFT-enabled GIF of the animated Nyan Cat, a classic internet meme, sold for roughly $580k. Just last week, Christie’s auctioned a series of digital images by artist Beeple for $69.3m.

This week, London-based roboticist Dr. David Hanson announced that his Sophia the Robot would work with artist Andrea Bonaceto to create NFT digital artworks that would be auctioned later this month.Naturally, there are some fears of a bubble.

But for those working in the blockchain space, NFTs are a natural evolution that is rewriting the fundamental economics of how digital content is valued. The problem with digital works historically is that they can be copied infinitely, making any single one worthless.

By verifying the uniqueness, NFTs create a scarcity online that is causing the value of coveted items to soar. And that has triggered a stampede of creators, investors, and entrepreneurs who are looking for ways to profit from the trend.

“What we’ve seen so far is the very earliest stages of mainstream adoption by artists,” said Mati Greenspan, CEO of cryptocurrency investment advisory firm Quantum Economics. “It’s evolving extremely quickly. And there’s no doubt that this market is hot.”

French timing

Even for founders like Julia of Sorare, the sudden attention is dizzying. He cofounded Sorare in 2018 after first hearing about NFTs. Sorare allows users to collect the trading cards of their favourite football players. These cards are attached to an NFT and can be bought and sold on a marketplace via bidding that drives up their value.

The cards can then be used to assemble teams and play in fantasy football leagues.“We were fascinated because as human beings, people have been collecting things in the physical space for centuries,” Julia said. “With this technology, they have an opportunity to collect in the digital world.

”Refining the technology and the service took a couple of years, and the company managed to raise a pre-seed round of funding in 2019 of €550k. Julia recalled how difficult it was to explain the concept to investors at the time.

Along the way, Sorare began attracting an impressive array of partnerships with football teams. That led to a €3.5m seed round last summer with French and European investors. Even as Julia felt the momentum building, he’s surprised by how quickly the world turned in the company’s direction.In January 2020, the company booked €40k in sales.

By February 2021, the monthly figure had grown to €11m as Sorare added another 130 clubs. The sports world has become a major pillar of this trend. Players, clubs and leagues are now salivating at a potential revenue from licensing partners from a market for digital sports collectibles that Julia estimates to be worth more than €10bn.

In the US, the NBA’s Top Shots, which uses NFTs to sell video highlights of players, has grossed more than $230m in sales. 




Even Sophia the Robot is making digital artBy late last year, investors were banging on Julia’s door. In November, the company had €10m in the bank and was profitable. But it was hard to turn away money that could accelerate its scaling.

Particularly when offers were coming from people such as Benchmark Venture Partner Peter Fenton, known for his investments in Twitter and Yelp.Within 48 hours of Julia’s first meeting with Fenton, Julia had received a term sheet. Eventually, a host of notable angels also joined the round, including Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian, Vayernmedia CEO Gary Vaynerchuk, and French football star Antoine Griezmann.“That was kind of crazy for us,” Julia said.

“The level of conviction from Peter and the partnership was crazy. That was something that I never imagined was possible before.

”While NFTs can be a difficult concept for many to grasp, the key for a company like Sorare is to “abstract” the technology or essentially make it invisible to users. No one who wants to trade cards has to know anything about blockchain technology or distributed ledgers or cryptocurrency.

That’s also the goal of Arianee, which has followed a similar journey.“The blockchain technologies and NFTs and all these kinds of things are not supposed to be mainstream,” said Arianee cofounder Frederic Montagnon. “In the same way that the very core layers of the internet are not mainstream.”




Credit: Arianee

Founded in 2016, Arianee assigns NFTs, or what it calls ‘digital passports’, to digital copies of luxury goods such as watches and clothes that can be used to certify that the item is authentic and not a counterfeit or knockoff. That allows the owners to guarantee the value and the origin should they decide to resell them or pass them along.

But it also potentially reinvents the relationship between the brand, the customer and the product.For instance, Vacheron Constantin, which makes watches that can cost over €70k, is working with Arianee to use NFTs for its products.

Should a customer sell the watch, the NFT goes with it, and the company will know the identity of the new owner allowing them to establish a relationship. In addition, customers who authenticate their watches will be able to join a new digital platform called The Hour Club which will offer exclusive access to content and experiences.

“You start to imagine what can be unlocked online in a digital experience when you can prove that you’re the legitimate owner,” said Arianee CEO Pierre-Nicolas Hurstel.

“You can be granted access to anything with a digital key of ownership that’s used as a sign-in for services, communities, and online experiences.”The Arianee cofounders said the timing of the NFT craze makes sense because of the time it has taken to develop the underlying technology.

They spent several years creating their own protocol, then turning that into an open source project, and then building the first version of its commercial SaaS platform which debuted in 2019.




Arianee Token


While they are excited about the wave of NFT interest, they also worry that the focus on mind-bending sales figures for digital artworks will obscure the broader potential of the technology.

They decided to focus first on luxury items given France’s historical strength in this sector. But they are betting long term that every item purchased will have a digital twin. 

The virtual versions of items may seem ephemeral at first glance. But Montagnon said as people live more of their lives in virtual environments, the financial and emotional attachments to digital items are becoming more meaningful. 

“What’s happened over the past 25 years is that we went from no screen to probably 85% to 90% of our time spent on a screen or with a screen in your hands,” Montagnon said. “We are living connected all the time now.

And the existence of real assets, when you spend most of your time in a digital environment, has no sense anymore. What we are trying to do is to bring all these real assets into your digital life.”

• In the European Securities and Markets Authority's (ESMA) "Trends, Risks and Vulnerabilities Report," published Wednesday, the three bodies that make up the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) said some cryptocurrencies are "highly risky and speculative."
• There's a risk investors could lose "all their money" in the largely unregulated market, they said.
• The ESMA report cited "significant risks" presented by the recent all-time highs of bitcoin (BTC, +3.24%) and other crypto assets.
• The ESAs pointed to the "continued relevance" of their previous warnings.
• More generally, global stablecoins remain under regulatory scrutiny even if there is positive sentiment around central bank digital currencies, the report said.
• It also highlighted the large energy consumption of proof-of-work mechanisms like bitcoin's, and the importance of incentivizing less resource-intensive blockchain mechanisms such as proof-of-authority.

See also: European Commission, ECB Unite to Consider Potential Pitfalls of the Digital Euro

• Mark Mobius told CNBC the market could face a "major" correction if bitcoin prices crash.
• The Mobius Capital Partners founder said bitcoin's rally could be a force behind the recent gains in other assets like stocks.
• He said investors who have made large gains off of cryptocurrency are now putting money and even "gambling" in other assets.
• Sign up here for our daily newsletter, 10 Things Before the Opening Bell.

Veteran investor Mark Mobius told CNBC on Wednesday he "hopes and prays" the price of bitcoin doesn't crash because the broader market could face a large downturn if that were to happen.

During a CNBC Pro Talk, the Mobius Capital Partners founder suggested the rise in cryptocurrency prices could be partially responsible for the stock market's recent gains, as investors who have made money in crypto - some of them even "cryptocurrency billionaires" - have taken on more risk in other assets.

"This is probably one of the reasons why the market is doing so well, is that people who have bought, let's say bitcoin at $1 or $10, now are feeling rich," Mobius said.

Mobius added that investors who are feeling rich are "more willing to throw money in the market and even gamble."

"I hope and pray that the bitcoin prices do not crash because if they do, I think we are going to see a major market correction," said the investor.

Bitcoin is currently trading around $55,000 after reaching an all-time high above $61,000 earlier this week.In an interview with Bloomberg last week, Mobius said he fears a decline bitcoin prices could hit tech stocks "very badly."

"I think the relationship between bitcoin prices and the tech market is very close," he said in a Bloomberg interview. "So watch that indicator.

I vividly remember the moment I realized NFTs were a thing. I was talking to a friend who's into cryptocurrency. He was regaling me with a particularly turbulent crypto tale.

He'd invested $300 into an altcoin, one of the thousands of tokens not named Bitcoin or Ether, but the developer vanished. Then, after months of silence, the developer returned, revealing they had been working on the coin the whole time.

That coin became the hot ticket in crypto town, and my friend's $300 became $30,000. Just typical crazy crypto shit.  "I'm not going to sell," he told me. "If you hold the coin for a certain number of days, the developer gives you an NFT.

So I'll wait for that." I was staggered. I knew NFTs to be nifty-but-worthless pieces of digital art, but my friend was willing to risk a once-in-a-lifetime jackpot to get one. Then he explained that someone had bought an NFT for 800 ether, or $1.2 million, the week before.

Ah. Nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, are digital products whose authenticity has been certified on a blockchain. They can be pretty much anything digital: Kings of Leon are selling tokens that give owners access to their new album. A gif of the Dogecoin cryptocurrency mascot (pictured above) sold as an NFT for $69,000, and Christie's last week auctioned a digital art NFT for $69 million.


By signing up, you agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time.This is where "nonfungible" comes in. A fungible asset is one that's interchangeable with others of its kind -- like money.

There are 1.8 billion $50 notes in circulation, and all of them are worth $50. Assets that aren't fungible, like houses, cars or paintings, aren't interchangeable and are valued on a case-by-case basis.

At this point, you're probably confused and maybe even beating yourself up for not getting it. But actually, there's nothing to get. It's incomprehensible that clips, memes and gifs are selling for six, seven and even eight figures. Know what else is incomprehensible?

Cryptocurrency, but that hasn't stopped it from becoming a trillion-dollar market. Just because NFTs are crazy doesn't mean they won't be around for a long time.

NFTs and you

There are a few reasons people are buying NFTs. NFTs are all about ownership. Take Jack Dorsey auctioning off his first tweet as an NFT:

Everyone can see that tweet, but only the person who buys its NFT will own it. That ownership will be certified unchangeably on a blockchain, which is a digital ledger that records transactions for all to see.

It's the difference, NFT buyers will tell you, between having a print or an original painting.Others buy NFTs because they believe in the technology. One of the dominant criticisms of cryptocurrency is that it's a solution searching for a problem.

Some are flocking to NFTs because they're true believers in blockchain. They see nonfungible tokens, which are proof of ownership, as a real-world application of that technology.There's something to this. What NFTs really do is create scarcity.

It's artificial scarcity, but that's nothing unusual: Nike and Kanye West created artificial scarcity when they decided to only produce 200 Yeezy Red October sneakers, which is why that particular pair of sneakers runs over $10,000.

 When the Kings of Leon released their new album as a $50 NFT, they only made it available in that form for two weeks, essentially making a blockchain-powered limited edition.

So the simplest way to think about NFTs is as collectibles. Just like a small group of people are willing to drop six figures on a mint-condition, first-edition Charizard, there's a small group of much richer people willing to pay eight figures to "own" a piece of digital art -- even if you or I can freely see that art with a quick Google search. 

Sometimes, NFTs are completely silly. An NFT of the Bad Luck Bryan meme sold for $36,000. Other times, they're less so. You may have seen that Christie's, a high-end art auctioneer, sold an artist's NFT for $69 million. On the face of it, that sounds like the height of insanity.

But it's not that much crazier than, say, a blue canvas selling for $40 million at a similar auction. But what's less ambiguously bad about NFTs is their environmental impact.

Blockchain technology is extremely inefficient. Cryptocurrencies are created by powerful PCs that mine blockchains, done via the solving of increasingly complex equations.

This process means that more carbon emissions come from Bitcoin mining than the entire country of Switzerland.NFTs are similarly costly to produce. Spurts of energy will be exerted when an NFT is minted and then again each time someone buys that NFT, since its ownership change is reflected on the blockchain.

The sale of a set of NFTs recently consumed 8.7 megawatt hours, reports Wired.That's a lot of energy. The average US household consumes 10.6 megawatt hours -- per year.

Confused? You should be

Even with that explanation, it's galling to see NFT sales in the headlines. Someone recently spent $20,000 on an NFT clip of Logan Paul opening a pack of Pokemon cards. It's hard to see that and not wonder, at your core:

Why?

There's a precedent for this in cryptocurrency, the blockchain cousins of NFTs. Cryptocurrency markets don't make sense, so in a way it makes sense that NFTs don't either. Both are born out of speculation. 

The first Bitcoin was mined in 2009, but it took a few years for the cryptocurrency to become the headline-grabbing craze it is today. Ethereum, the second biggest cryptocurrency, was launched in 2015. In many ways, it's more important than Bitcoin.

Right now, Bitcoin is like gold in that all you can do with it is buy it or sell it, but developers use the Ethereum blockchain to build other coins and applications. NFT is one such application:

Most nonfungible tokens are written on the Ethereum blockchain. As quaint as it sounds, the cryptocurrency world went agog when Bitcoin first hit $1,000 back in 2013.

 It's around then that the quest to find "the next Bitcoin" became an obsession on both sides of the community:

Developers wanted to make the next Bitcoin, punters wanted to find it early and mint their fortune. In the years since, with Bitcoin now hovering around $50,000, that impulse has only grown stronger. The cryptocurrency market operates similar to a stock market.

There are thousands and thousands of tokens to buy. Some replicate real-world financial tools -- there are tokens that work like hedge funds or lending platforms, for instance -- while others claim to work faster or more reliably than Ethereum. Some, like the famous Dogecoin, are billion-dollar memes.
A piece by the artist Beeple was sold at a Christie's auction for over $69 million.Christie'sCryptocurrencies have yet to find meaningful real-world applications, so at this point it's all speculation.

But that hasn't stopped hundreds of altcoins from becoming incredibly valuable, and making thousands of people rich in the process. I recently saw a cryptocurrency explode from 27 cents to just over $75 in less than three weeks. That's 275x profit if you bought the low and sold the high.

A Tesla investor would have seen similar gains if they bought in at its all-time low and sold at its all-time high -- 11 years later. 

NFTs, like cryptocurrency, are all about speculation. Just like people buy a useless cryptocurrency for $50,000 strictly for the purpose of selling it at $100,000, people will buy an NFT of Homer Simpson meshed with Pepe the Frog for $38,000 just because they think they can sell it later for more.And they can.

Someone did buy that NFT -- and sold it later for $320,000.So no, NFTs don't make sense. But cryptocurrency has shown that a trend doesn't need to make sense in order to grow exponentially every year.

We're probably witnessing an NFT bubble right now, and as with Bitcoin in 2017 that bubble will probably burst -- but don't expect that to kill NFTs for good.My friend never got his NFT:

The developer vanished again. And while he was waiting, his $30,000 crashed back down to around $500. He won't be the last person to lose a car's worth of money chasing NFT dreams.

A 20th-century avant-garde artwork is being auctioned later this month, with the buyer to receive a certificate of authenticity in the form of a non-fungible token (NFT).

According to a press release shared with CoinDesk on Wednesday, the auction is for a 1926 painting titled “Abstract Composition” by Ukraine-born Wladimir Baranoff-Rossine. The sale will take place on the Mark Cuban-backed NFT marketplace Mintable, which says it has been working closely with the artist’s family as part of a series of sales of his works.

The artwork will be sold in its original frame, signed by the artist and with the NFT certificate that digitally verifies the artwork’s provenance and authenticity using blockchain technology.

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Additional sales, to be solely digital NFT representations of Baranoff-Rossine’s works, will be conducted via three auctions and six limited edition sales beginning March 25.

Mintable CEO Zach Burks told CoinDesk via email the artist’s grandson had reached out to Mintable a few months ago seeking to use NFTs as a means to digitize the family legacy.

See also: Sotheby’s Moves Into ‘New World’ of Digital Art and NFTs

Baranoff-Rossiné was a Ukrainian, Russian, and French painter, sculptor and inventor. 

He was part of the Cubo-Futurism movement before being swept up in Nazi persecution based on Jewish heritage which saw him transported to Auschwitz where he subsequently died.