Sotheby’s relaunch Glitch digital art sale, newbie gamer uncovers $49K NFT and more

Sotheby’s relaunch Glitch digital art sale, newbie gamer uncovers K NFT and more

After taking diversity concerns into account, Sotheby’s has revamped its Glitch digital art sale. Meanwhile, a newcomer to the online game Illuvium: Beyond has struck gold by discovering the rarest Illuvitar yet.

Digital art auction house Sotheby’s has altered its latest art sale significantly after receiving community feedback regarding a lack of diversity, meanwhile a novice player in Illivium: Beyond has made a staggering profit of 140,525% by finding the most elusive character in the game yet.

Sotheby’s reboot Glitch Digital Art Sale after addressing diversity concerns

Digital art house Sotheby’s have announced that bidding for its upcoming digital art sale “Glitch: Beyond Binary” will open on April 19.

Glitch: Beyond Binary is a reboot of last month’s “Natively Digital: Glitch-ism” auction which was temporarily paused due to critism over its lack of diversity.

In an April 13 tweet, Sotheby’s announced the art sale, stating that it will “highlight the diverse artist communities that make up Glitch Art.”

Join us in welcoming the curators of "Glitch: Beyond Binary", @letsglitchit and @thedinachang, as they highlight the diverse artist communities that make up Glitch Art.

Sale opens 19 April at Sotheby’s. Introduction written by @_menkman. Discover more: https://t.co/PXybAoBKHd pic.twitter.com/SYgMkPdlyk
— Sotheby's Metaverse (@Sothebysverse) April 12, 2023

In a statement released on the same day, Sotheby's emphasized that the sale would represent people from all walks of life. It noted:

“These communities do not just identify as male or female but consist of people from every gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, language, neuro-type, size, ability, class, religion, culture, subculture, political opinion, age, skill level, occupation and background.”

Sotheby’s initally paused the sale on March 27 after popular NFT artist Patrick Amadon told his 142,400 followers that he would withdraw his work from Sotheyby’s upcoming “Natively Digital: Glitch-ism” art sale to protest a lack of female representation.

Newbie strikes it rich uncovering $49K NFT in Illivium

In an April 12 statement, Illivium revealed that a newcomer to the online game Illuvium: Beyond has discovered the rarest Illuvitar yet, the coveted Holo Blazing Rhamphyre, and has managed to sell it for an astonishing $49,128.85 USD.

The lucky player found the rarer Illuvitar inside a D1SK, which is a type of digital loot box containing random Illiviators and Accessories available for only $32 USD – which meant he made a profit of approximately 140,525%.

Have you been watching the #illuvidex ?

Largest single Illuvitar Sale to date!

• T5 Rhamphyre ✅
• Holo ✅
• T3 Background - Yellow Drones ✅
• Rare Expression - Blazing✅
• Power - 3620 ✅

Sold for 25.9875 ETH! (~$49,128.85)

Have you got your D1SKs yet anon? pic.twitter.com/hlR3ahtGMv
— Illuvium (@illuviumio) April 10, 2023

Ukraine president signs first NFT in collection supporting military

On April 9, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed the first NFT in Ukraine, in a collection called UACatsDivision, featuring cats of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, with all funds donated to the Ukraine Military services.

At the time of writing 3,026 NFT cats had already been purchased out of the total 10,000 available.

Unique NFT from the @uacatsdivision
collection has been signed by the President of Ukraine @ZelenskyyUa !

Mint your NFT at https://t.co/6F7Br3bXnU and support Ukraine! 100% of funds goes to the Armed Forces of Ukraine#NFTCollection #NFTs #NFTCommunity #OpenSeaNFT #CryptoNews pic.twitter.com/OyXDxi3Fas
— UACatsDivision (@uacatsdivision) April 8, 2023

Other Nifty News

In recent news, Bitcoin (BTC) miners have pocketed over $5 million from creating NFTs inscriptions using the Ordinals protocol.

Dune Analytics data revealed that transaction fees for Ordinals transactions exploded 240% from $1.5 million on March 10 to 5.2 million by April 12.

It was revealed that nearly 1.1 million Ordinals have been inscribed on the Bitcoin network, mostly consisting of JPEG images and text but consisting of PDFs, video and audio formats.

In other news, an NFT collector made a costly mistake on April 5, bidding 100 Ether (ETH), worth around $192,000 at the time of writing, for an NFT from the Gemesis NFT collection – which were intended to be free to celebrate the launch of OpenSea Pro.

While some community members believe the transaction was a wash trade, others argued the trader simply made a mistake bidding 100 ETH instead of $100.

Another community member argued against theories that it was a wash trade since it was too risky.

Magazine: Crypto winter can take a toll on hodlers’ mental health

Avalanche launches initiative for digital artists, NFT creator protests Sotheby’s gender bias, and more

beeple

The Avalanche Foundation has launched a new mentoring initiative for digital artists, and Ticketmaster has introduced a new feature allowing artists to reward NFT holders.

In a March 30 blog post, The Avalanche Foundation announced the launch of Avaissance, an initiative designed to support digital artists and boost the growth of the Avalanche nonfungible token (NFT) ecosystem.

Avaissance has two main components, an Artist in Resident program (AIR) for over 50 artists and the Mona Lisa Initiative (MLI) to curate digital art and expand the collections of art-focused decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs).

Avaissance begins!

The Avalanche Foundation is launching the Avaissance initiative to grow the #AVAX NFT ecosystem and support its budding artists. The program aims to usher in a rebirth of creative activity on Avalanche.

So, what’s the plan?⬇️ pic.twitter.com/mNhDoQqDhD
— Art on Avalanche (@ArtOnAvax) March 29, 2023

AIR will provide artists “of any skill level” with funding, mentorship and virtual workshops for six months, while MLI will collaborate with DAOs’ curatorial teams to promote emerging Avalanche NFT artists and establish an “Avalanche Permanent Collection.”

Ticketmaster introduces new feature for artists to reward fans using NFTs

On March 27, United States-based ticketing company Ticketmaster announced a new feature token gated ticket sales, which allow artists to reward NFT holders with exclusive benefits, including “special presales, prime seats, custom travel packages and access to unique concert experiences.”

The ticketing giant developed the functionality after being approached by American heavy metal band Avenged Sevenfold (A7X) and its Web3 team, Bitflips, to help implement a service to provide holders of their NFTs – Deathbats Club, a collection of 10,000 unique Deathbat NFTs – the opportunity to unlock perks and access to events.

The feature currently works with tokens minted on Ethereum (ETH) and stored in decentralized application (DApp) wallets, including MetaMask or Coinbase.

NFT artist withdraws work from Sotheby’s over lack of female representation

Popular NFT artist Patrick Amadon told his 142,400 Twitter followers that he will be withdrawing his work from major auction house Sotheby's Natively Digital: Glitch-ism sale to protest a lack of female representation.

I am pulling my work from the Sothebys sale. While I believe it was a genuine oversight and the team means well, the lack of representation is a serious issue and we need to address this in our space. Female-identifying artists have played a major role in the glitch movement. ✊
— Patrick Amadon (@patrickamadon) March 25, 2023

Sotheby’s responded the next day to say it will pause the sale to “redress the imbalance in representation within the sale” and will relaunch at a later date with a “more equitable and diverse group of artists.”

Sotheby’s is pausing Natively Digital: Glitch-ism to redress the imbalance in representation within the sale, and will relaunch with a more equitable and diverse group of artists at a later date.
— Sotheby's Metaverse (@Sothebysverse) March 26, 2023

NFT artist Beeple opens a major 50,000 sq ft studio in South Carolina

Mike Winkelmann, also known as Beeple, shared a video with his Twitter followers on March 12, revealing his new 50,000-square-foot studio in South Carolina.

welcome to Beeple Studios pic.twitter.com/yBUxFRftX2
— beeple (@beeple) March 12, 2023

According to Beeple’s website he will use the space to create his artwork and host events to “showcase the very best art and communities.”

“We are looking to partner with the most cutting-edge artists and communities to put on events that are not possible at any other venue,” the website stated.

Other Nifty News

On March 25, an NFT from the popular CryptoPunks collection, valued at approximately $135,000, was accidently burned by an investor attempting the process of NFT wrapping to potentially borrow liquidity from it.

Today I accidentally burned a @cryptopunksnfts trying to wrap punk 685.

I was so focused on following the instructions exactly, that I slipped up, destroying a third of of my net worth in a single transaction. @yugalabs please sell me the @v1punks 685 as a consolation. pic.twitter.com/jHoTGvlc7j
— Brandon Riley (@vitalitygrowth) March 25, 2023

Sony Interactive Entertainment, the video gaming giant behind the PlayStation brand, recently filed a patent for a framework allowing users to transfer and utilize NFTs across multiple game platforms, titled “NFT framework for transferring and using digital assets between game platforms.”

Once implemented, Playstation 5 users will be able to explore NFT use cases via popular gaming titles.

Patrick Amadon