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Nifty Launches First USD-Based NFT Exchange Backed By Winklevoss Twins

Nifty, a centralized USD-based exchange for non-fungible tokens (NFTs), has announced that the Nifty Gateway 2.0 upgrade is live as of March 17.

The platform was bought by Gemini, the crypto exchange and custody provider owned by the Winklevoss twins, in late 2019.

According to the announcement, Nifty Gateway 2.0 is the first USD-based exchange for NFTs, also known as Nifties. All services are available to users globally with the exception of withdrawal to fiat currency, which is only available to US users for the time being.

New NFTs Will be Listed Cautiously

With the revamped marketplace, users can put NFTs up for sale in USD, but Nifty has declared it will be taking a “slow and intentional” approach to approving any new token listings.

Per the announcement, “You may also deposit NFTs from other projects and put them up for sale on the marketplace — however, for the time being, we will be slow and intentional about which NFT projects we support, so that we can handle the volume, and deal with any fraud issues that may arise.”

What are Nifties?

Unlike traditional cryptocurrency like Bitcoin, nifties are unique cryptographic tokens that represent a specific asset on the blockchain.

Leveraging blockchain technology, gamers can use nifties to trade and buy interoperable digital collectables, such as dances, skins, and in-game items. This approach can, therefore, propel the value of virtual goods.

Tyler Winklevoss, the CEO of Gemini, acknowledged: “Non-fungible tokens and the digital goods (collectables) will play a major role in the next era of the digital economy. They are the perfect form factor for crypto-collectables, crypto-art, and much more – laying the foundation for entirely new multi-billion dollar industries to emerge.”

He also added: “We’re excited to be working with Nifty Gateway to extend the reach of crypto across other concepts and build a bridge between NFT creators and the growing ranks of everyday consumers looking to purchase them.”

Conversely, Nifty Gateway’s co-founder, Duncan Foster, noted: “Nifties are a fundamentally new type of digital good and are an important tool for ownership as our lives move more and more online.”

Christie’s Auction House Sells NFT Crypto Art ‘Block 21’ for Over $130K

Christie’s auction house has sold a digital portrait of the Bitcoin (BTC) code “Block 21” for over $130,000—marking the first time a non-fungible token (NFT) was auctioned at a major auction house.

The NFT art piece sold by Christie’s for over $130K was created by Ben Gentilli and is meant to represent Satoshi Nakamoto’s vision, “forged out of the very code that lies at the genesis of it all.”

According to a tweet by Christie’s auction house on Oct. 8, “Block 21” which is a combination of a physical piece of art and an NFT and represents Satoshi Nakamoto—sold for $131,250 on Oct. 7.

The bidding for Block 21 began at $22,000 and it was sold as part of Christie’s “Post-War and Contemporary Day Auction.”

The artwork is part of a series by the Robert Alice project called “Portraits of the Mind” and is one of 40 creations which show Bitcoin’s 12.3 million digits of code all engraved and painted onto 40 different circular panels which, in their entirety, stretch more than 50 meters in length.

Block 21 holds exactly 322,048 digits of Satoshi Nakamoto’s original Bitcoin code, and the name is a reference to Bitcoin’s limited supply of 21 million coins. The piece is the only one auctioned by Christie’s but there have been reports that Changpeng Zhao (CZ) of Binance and Matthew Rozsak of Bloq have purchased other pieces in the “Portraits of a Mind” series.

The Robert Alice website states:

“The work is a symbolic expression of Satoshi’s vision, forged out of the very code that lies at the genesis of it all […] Portraits of a Mind explores the multi-faceted identities of Satoshi Nakamoto, in turn reflecting on the nature of both identity and portraiture in a newly decentralized age.”

Crypto Art Sales are Soaring as Non-Fungible Token (NFT) Market Gains Traction

Crypto art being bought and sold as ERC-721 non-fungible tokens (NFT) has been making headlines based on the record-breaking sales being witnessed. This emerging market is gaining traction in spite of the uncertain economic times, according to data acquisition and analytics company DappRadar.

Crypto art pieces selling for more than $100,000

September 21st marked the first time a crypto art piece had been bought for at least $100,000, following the unprecedented sale of “Matt Kane’s Right Place & Right Time” on Async.art. This served as a signal to show the untapped potential in this emerging market.

Per the report:

“Now, under three months later a second piece has raised over $140,000. A programmable version of a scene depicting Vitalik Buterin of Ethereum dressed like a medieval harlequin leaning against a velvet chair made records this weekend when an NFT representation sold for 260 ETH or over $141,000 at the time of writing.”

The sale of the second piece serves as the icing on the cake in terms of the most paid crypto art in dollars.

The quest for a safe haven

The coronavirus (COVID-19) has triggered a global economic turmoil, and this has heightened investors’ pursuit for a safe store of value. This is one of the factors that is making the crypto art market to gain traction.

DappRadar acknowledged:

“The trend seems to be driven by a few major factors including Investors looking for a safe store of value and the space receiving heightened attention as platforms tried to integrate DeFi mechanics such as the use of NFTs as collateral, Insurance, and the delivery of governance tokens to loyal users.”

These crypto pieces seem to be giving investors value for money because they are unique artworks. For instance, Matt Kane’s ‘Right Place & Right Time’ piece is distinctive because it produces a new image daily.

Furthermore, it comprises 24 programmable layers synchronized with Bitcoin’s price volatility in the past 24 hours. The second piece is also exceptional because it utilizes a programmable technology called layering in remaking itself each day. Recently, the top 10 decentralized applications (Dapps) on the Ethereum Network surpassed 1 million daily users, and among them was Rarible, an NFT marketplace.

Why Upland’s Virtual Land NFTs Are The Future Of Crypto

As the 2021 bull run continues for fungible tokens (aka Bitcoin, Ethereum etc), the asset class of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) is poised to catch up and take the crypto world by storm. The rise of NFTs coincides with the rise of metaverses, or parallel worlds where people are spending more and more of their time and money.

Known from the pre-blockchain era mainly through Second Life, blockchain metaverses have burst onto the scene. One such example is Upland, a metaverse that has shown strong growth over the past three months and is now one of the top 3 blockchain dapps in terms of daily active users.

Upland is an EOS blockchain-powered metaverse that allows players to own virtual properties that are mapped to real-world addresses. Upland launched in San Francisco in 2019 and recently expanded to New York City, NY and Fresno, CA with the planned addition of new cities arriving in the near future. Note that you don’t need to be in one of these cities to play Upland, it can be played from anywhere in the world. As Upland expands and properties from across the world become tokenized, every real-life property will one day have a virtual version of itself located in Upland. Virtual property will be as ubiquitous and valuable as property in real life, and Upland is leading the charge to make that happen.

In order to participate, users need to purchase virtual land which themselves are unique, non-fungible tokens. Since every property NFT is a 1/1 edition of itself, it can be expected that as more people join, land prices for these NFT properties will appreciate because of the scarcity factor built-in to digital metaverses. In fact, Upland recently auctioned the New York Stock Exchange for a jaw-dropping $23,000 USD, or 23,000,000 UPX.

Upland follows the principles of an open market economy and uses blockchain technology to ensure true ownership of digital assets: once you purchase a property, it is yours to own forever. Each property parcel is a unique NFT that can be bought, sold, and traded for-profit using the in-game currency called UPX. Upland has an active partnership with Tilia Pay (a subsidiary Linden Labs, the makers of Second Life) that allows players to sell NFT properties for U.S. Dollars. While it is currently in beta, this feature will soon be available to all Uplanders. This makes Upland the first metaverse to allow the conversion of digital asset value into a real-world value-form, fiat money.

As a digital landowner in Upland, you earn a monthly yield of UPX coins that can be used to purchase more properties. Upland’s product roadmap is focused on the user-driven development and construction of single-family homes, real businesses, and cultural centers, including art galleries, on their NFT property parcels.

Since fully-fledged property development is around the corner, Upland recently tested their new 3D building tools with a series of competitions called The Sandbox Wars, designed around a “property development sandbox” that allowed Uplanders to experiment with these new features.

The Sandbox Wars provide an interesting case study with regards to the future potential of Upland’s property development mechanics.

Here’s how it worked: The Sandbox Wars pit different Upland neighbourhoods against each other in a unique game of strategy. Players built alliances while working against other organically formed neighbourhoods teams, both scoring points for their own team while attacking the points of their opponents. Neighbourhoods gained points by building structures like apartment buildings and houses, but also strategically built cell towers to detract from other neighbourhoods’ points. Construction was made possible by using Spud, a unique in-game utility token that is “staked” when constructing a building: the more spud “staked” against a building, the faster it will build. This is a preview of how property development will actually function in Upland following the launch of Upland’s resource token Spark in 2021.

This is only just the beginning. There’s never been more fun to enter the Upland Metaverse, so join today using this special link for a doubled signup bonus! Available on both mobile and web: https://discover.upland.me/blockchainnews_01_2021

Image source: Upland.Me

Venture Capital Company Benchmark to Pump $50 Million into Ethereum-Based Fantasy Football Platform Sorare

Benchmark, a venture capital company that earlier backed Ebay Inc., Twitter Inc., and Uber Technologies, plans to invest a whopping $50 million into Ethereum-powered fantasy football platform Sorare.

Sorare’s sales skyrocket by 130 times

Sorare is a fantasy soccer video game founded on the Ethereum blockchain that enables users to build their preferred teams and trade football player cards.

These cards are limited and can be transferred as unique non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Moreover, the cards earn points on the foundation of every player’s respective real-world weekly performance.

One of Sorare’s primary goals is to boost blockchain and digital asset adoption in daily life. This has been paid off because its sales have increased exponentially by 130 times from $50,000 in January 2020 to nearly $6.5 million this month.

Benchmark, together with other investors like Reddit and Accel, intends to invest a total of $60 million into the platform as its popularity continues to grow.

Sorare hosts at least 4 billion football fans

Sorare is proving to be a force to be reckoned with in the NFT and fantasy football space because it is used by at least 4 billion football enthusiasts globally.

Nicolas Julia, Sorare CEO, noted:

“Human beings have been collecting for centuries; it’s something we do. This is a product that could bring the crypto asset class to millions of people.”

Furthermore, the platform hosts top-ranked soccer clubs like Juventus. In November last year, reigning UEFA Champions League Winners FC Bayern Munich joined Sorare, giving its fans the chance to trade digital cards based on its top players like Robert Lewandowski, Thomas Muller, and Manuel Neuer.

As more investments continue trickling into the Ethereum-based fantasy football platform, there is an enormous market to tap. NFTs are unique tokens compared to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin because they are created in small batches to represent a digitally scarce item like football player cards.

Dogecoin Accepted as Payment by NBA's Dallas Mavericks as Owner Mark Cuban Invests in NFT Platform

Dogecoin (DOGE) will continue gaining traction, and it will soon be entering the NBA thanks to seasoned investor and owner of Dallas Mavericks – Mark Cuban.

Dallas Mavericks will be accepting Dogecoin payments for tickets and merchandise purchased online. The NBA team and BitPay – one of the world’s biggest cryptocurrency payment services – will partner up to enable Dogecoin payments by fans.

The hype Tesla founder Elon Musk has created for Dogecoin seems to have carried on and snowballed, as the meme-based cryptocurrency has entered mainstream adoption. The Mavs are not the only ones who have embraced Dogecoin as a form of payment. Earlier this week, Coinflip ATM provider announced that the Shiba-Inu token will be made available for purchase across 45 states in the U.S., on 1,800 machines.

Before DOGE, the Dallas Mavericks have been accepting Bitcoin as payment for almost two years. Although the NBA franchise has been very forward-thinking with cryptocurrencies, it is not the first in the league to accept cryptocurrencies – In 2014, the Sacramento Kings announced that it will accept Bitcoin payments for tickets and merchandise.

Mark Cuban embraces crypto and NFT wave

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban previously disclosed that he himself had bought DOGE initially so that his son could teach him about crypto. He said:

“For those of you who would like to learn more about Dogecoin, we strongly encourage you to talk to your teenagers who are on TikTok and ask them about it. They will be able to explain it all to you.”

Mark Cuban, the owner of NBA Dallas Mavericks and a billionaire investor, has been among the market bulls embracing the cryptocurrency wave. Cuban appears to favour Ethereum over Bitcoin, however, having only warmed up to the “digital gold” asset recently.

The Dallas Mavericks’ Dogecoin announcement comes as Cuban revealed that he recently invested in Mintable, an NFT platform. The NFT company took to Twitter to announce that the seasoned investor has backed its services, saying:

“It’s official! Mark Cuban has invested in Mintable & we are now proud to be one of the Mark Cuban Companies!”

Cuban said that in his opinion, NFTs were potentially going to replace physical collectibles at some point. He himself has gotten ahead of the game by launching his very own NFT-based “Mark Cuban mini-series.”

What are NFTs?

NFTs are non-fungible tokens that have been all the rage as of lately. They are tokens that are used in several applications, where you can find digital items such as crypto art, digital collectibles, and online gaming accessories. NFTs are one of their kind and are what StadiumTalk dubs “the Mona Lisa of baseball cards,” as each token is unique and irreplaceable.

Most NFTs run on the Ethereum blockchain, and they represent physical assets that have been tokenized. Currently, the hype around NFTs has led to an explosion of digital art being sold via blockchain technology.

Recently, a Banksy art piece worth $95,000 was bought by a blockchain company. The Banksy painting was digitized by Injective protocol. The process involved burning the painting to then create a digital representation of the art using blockchain technology.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey Intends to Donate Proceeds from Tweet NFT to Africa Relief Charity

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has capitalized on the non-fungible token (NFT) hype that has been going around.

Recently, Dorsey decided to convert his first Twitter tweet, dated back to March 2006, to a non-fungible token (NFT) collectible. Bids quickly poured in, and currently, the highest offer for the tweet “just setting up my twttr” is going for $2.5 million.

Dorsey revealed that he planned to convert the proceeds from the tweet NFT to Bitcoin. He will then donate it to charity, more specifically to “GiveDirectly’s Africa Response project.” The charity aims to provide financial relief to families in Kenya, Rwanda, Liberia, and Malawi.

The bidding for the tweet will end on March 21.

What are NFTs?

NFTs have been all the rage as of lately. NFTs are non-fungible tokens that can be used on numerous applications, where you can find digital items to collect, such as crypto art, online gaming accessories, sports cards, and rare collectibles. Each non-fungible token is one of its kind. To summarize, NFTs are what StadiumTalks dubs “the Mona Lisa of baseball cards.”

Beeple NFT Sells at Auction for $69.3M, The Biggest NFT Sale to Date

A non-fungible token (NFT) based on artwork has been auctioned for approximately $69.3 million on Thursday by an unidentified collector.

The auction which took place at Christie’s auction house is the biggest for a digital-based artwork and had about 33 bidders, one of whom is Tron’s Founder, Justin Sun.

The auctioned NFT was an artwork by Mike Winkelmann popular known as Beeple. The artwork, called “The First 5,000 Days” takes its origin back to 2007 when Beeple discovered digital art and he set out to create a piece per day, an exercise he has never missed a day on since then. The collection of the first 5000 pieces of creations was collated and turned into the NFT that now ranks as the biggest sale to date.

NFTs are pulling mind-blowing numbers in terms of selling prices today. Prior to this current record-breaking sale, the highest-auctioned NFT was Beeple’s own work which with the parting sum coming in at $6.6 million.

“As soon as I saw it, I saw it as this massive, massive potential for this as a platform for digital ownership of a bunch of different things, not just art,” Beeple said of the burgeoning NFT marketplace. “Moving forward, I think this will be seen as an alternate form of asset class.”

NFTs despite the hype they are generating in terms of their selling figures, have real-world use cases as they can help to register the ownership of any item on the blockchain. With NFTs, works of art cannot be counterfeited, creative contents will no longer be pirated as all ownership and authentication processes take place on a public blockchain that can be verified by anyone, anywhere.

With the pace NFT has set since the beginning of the year, this year may eventually turn out to be for NFTs, what 2020 was for decentralized finance.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk Is Selling His First NFT and It’s a Techno Song about NFTs

The NFT hype has been escalating and many artists and celebrities have capitalized on the trend to produce an NFT of their own.

Elon Musk is no exception. The Tesla and SpaceX founder has produced a techno song about NFTs, and is selling it as a non-fungible token. On Monday, Musk announced his creation on Twitter saying, “I’m selling this song about NFTs as an NFT.” The preview of the song displays a golden trophy with the words “HODL” – hold on for dear life – emblazoned on it.

The song is a techno track and the lyrics are pure and simple: “NFT for your vanity, computers never sleep – it’s verified, it’s guaranteed.” Currently, the title of the song has not yet been disclosed, and where Musk intends to sell the NFT has not yet been revealed.

Musk is not the only entrepreneur that has taken advantage of the NFT craze to make a quick buck. Recently, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey also announced that his first tweet will be sold as an NFT. The proceeds reaped from the sales will go towards charity. So far, the highest bid for Dorsey’s tweet is reported to be as high as $2.5 million.

Musk’s girlfriend, the electro-pop star Grimes, also recently sold her digital art collection as an NFT last month. The artwork, dubbed “WarNymph,” went for $5.8 million.

NFTs are quickly rising in popularity, and Google Trends has even noted that non-fungible tokens are becoming a bigger trend than decentralized finance (DeFi) was, when the latter boomed last year. According to Google’s global search volume, searches for NFT on the web took a significant leap this year and has far surpassed the searches for DeFi-related topics.

What are NFTs?

NFTs are essentially a digital version of collectables, and they may even one day replace actual figurines or collectible cards, according to NBA Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.

NFTs are a blockchain-backed digital asset that can represent a piece of art, a video clip, a figurine, or other forms of collectables. The buyer of an NFT gets a crypto-backed digital receipt proving the authenticity of the collectable. It is also a proof of purchase.

Currently, the most expensive NFT to have been sold up to now is an artwork by the artist known as “Beeple.” The crypto art collectable was auctioned and the bid placed for it by an unidentified collector was estimated to be $69.3 million.

Elon Musk Reverses Decision to Sell NFT, but not before Setting an Asking Price of 420M Dogecoins

Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced the creation of his first NFT yesterday – an NFT-themed song. On Twitter, he said, “I’m selling this song about NFTs as an NFT.”

The preview of the song displays a golden trophy with the words “HODL” – hold on for dear life – emblazoned on it. The proposed NFT has already been bidded on.

Mike Winkelmann, the famous artist also known as Beeple, replied to Musk’s Twitter, saying that he will bid $69 million to acquire ownership of the NFT-themed song. However, Musk seems to have something else in mind, as he stated that he was more than willing to accept Dogecoin (DOGE) as a form of payment. The Tesla CEO replied to Beeple’s tweet and said that the price for the NFT was 420 million DOGE.

Although Musk seemed intent on joining the NFT craze yesterday, the Tesla CEO may have changed his mind about putting the NFT song up for sale, as he tweeted:

“Actually, doesn’t feel quite right selling this. Will pass.”

Despite going back on his word, Musk tweeting about DOGE on more than one occasion has served to send the meme-based cryptocurrency to the moon. At the time of writing, Dogecoin is valued at $0.058. If calculated with Dogecoin’s unit price, the price of the NFT Musk was planning to sell would have been valued at approximately $24.26 million if 420 Dogecoins were accepted as payment.

Currently, Dogecoin remains bullish on the market. What should we expect of the meme-based cryptocurrency in the next few days?

Dogecoin (DOGE) Price Analysis

Source:DOGE/USD Daily via TradingView

Judging from the daily candlestick chart, the price of Dogecoin (DOGE) fluctuated within a limited interval in the convergent disjoint channel drawn on the chart. Due to the lack of volatility and investor capital inflows, the bulls have failed in trying to push DOGE’s price towards the upper-pressure line of $0.060.

It is worth noting that an optimistic scenario for Dogecoin will depend on whether the cryptocurrency is able to defend the 20-day Exponential Moving Average (20-EMA). If DOGE can successfully stand on the 20-EMA, it can increase investor confidence and push up the meme-based coin’s price.

If today’s closing price can break the upward pressure line of approximately $0.062, then the Dogecoin price may rebound to the $0.070 mark. If the bulls are strong and more buyers enter the cryptocurrency, then DOGE/USD will potentially hit a high of $0.0789.

Inversely, if the price of DOGE fails to stabilize above the 20-EMA, then the lower support line that the cryptocurrency will test will be $0.052. If it breaks below this support line, the continued bearish momentum will trigger a more serious sell-off, pushing DOGE to $0.0474.

Despite the possibility of the bears overpowering the bulls to take control of DOGE, the blue MACD line has surpassed the yellow Signal line, indicating that currently, DOGE is bullish. Therefore, a breakthrough to $0.062 is expected in the short term.