Sotheby’s will allow people to trade their crypto for an ‘intrinsically worthless’ rock

June 21, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Adoption

Is the auction house betting that diamonds will become a crypto user's best friend?

Luxury auction house Sotheby’s will accept bids in crypto for a massive diamond scheduled to be auctioned in Hong Kong next month.

According to a Monday Reuters report, Sotheby’s will offer a 101.38-carat pear-shaped diamond for bids in crypto and fiat starting on July 9. Buyers are expected to bid up $118 million HKD — roughly $15 million — for the stone. This amounts to more than 454 Bitcoin (BTC) at the time of publication at a price of $32,974. Sotheby’s has also accepted Ether (ETH) in previous auctions.

The auction house seems to be marketing to crypto users in the diamond listing. Patti Wong, chairperson of Sotheby's Asia, referred to the stones as “the most ancient and emblematic denominator of value.” Sotheby’s has also named the listing “The Key 10138,” purportedly in reference to the private keys used in crypto.

Though cryptocurrencies have had a volatile 2021 — the price of Bitcoin has fallen more than 5% in the last 24 hours after moving above $40,000 last week — some may question the logic in exchanging an asset with a market capitalization of more than $600 billion for a diamond. Though many people still purchase the rocks for jewelry and engagement rings, their usefulness as a store of value is arguably worse than that of BTC.

Nicky Oppenheimer, the former chairperson of the De Beers diamond corporation, once said “diamonds are intrinsically worthless.” The company largely maintained a monopoly on mining the stones for some time and seemingly restricted the world’s supply, driving up the price. Diamonds are apparently neither “rare” nor “forever” — they can actually delay over time, often faster than other stones. This brings new meaning to the “diamond hands” emoji popular among many crypto users, symbolizing someone HODLing an asset.

However, users have bid for similarly high-priced items at Sotheby’s this year as the company announced it would accept BTC and ETH. This month the auction house’s London salesroom sold a CryptoPunk for $11.8 million. Sotheby’s also announced it would be putting up a nonfungible token with the World Wide Web source code for bids starting on June 23.

Cryptopunk NFT Sold for Almost $12 Million in Sotheby’s Auction

June 11, 2021 Bitcoin.com

Rare CryptoPunks NFT Fetches $11.75M at Sotheby’s

June 10, 2021 The Crypto Briefing

Sotheby’s auction sets new world record for $11.8M CryptoPunk sale

June 10, 2021 Coin Telegraph

<div>Sotheby's auction sets new world record for .8M CryptoPunk sale</div>

Art

“NFTs are dead,” said the previous owner of the COVID Alien artwork once the auction closed.

Luxury auction house Sotheby’s made waves on social media on Thursday following the sale of one rare CryptoPunk.

In a tweet from Sotheby’s, the auction said CryptoPunk #7523 — also known as “COVID Alien” — sold in its London salesroom for roughly $11.8 million. According to the auction house, this sale represents a new world record for a single CryptoPunk artwork.

CryptoPunks, which predate the bulk of the nonfungible token (NFT) craze in 2021, are often small, pixelated depictions of people, apes, zombies and aliens. Sotheby’s announced the sale of the COVID Alien in late May as a “special, standalone” auction. The artwork features an alien wearing a face mask.

Moments ago in our #London saleroom, an extremely rare “Alien” CryptoPunk #7523 from the collection of @sillytuna sold for $11.8M as part of our #NativelyDigital NFT auction – setting a new world auction record for a single CryptoPunk. pic.twitter.com/PDVUSttI3o
— Sotheby's (@Sothebys) June 10, 2021

On-chain data shows that someone purchased the CryptoPunk for 8 Ether (ETH) in a public sale in 2017 — a fraction of the sale price today. However, last month New York-based auction house Christie’s sold nine CryptoPunks for almost $17 million, implying there is still strong interest from many buyers for these pieces.

"Punks were designed as pseudonymous portraits, masks for those crypto pioneers that value the idea of privacy in the modern age," said Sotheby's in an overview of the auction. "Avatars, portraits or masks, they stand as semiotic reference points to a specific internet crypto native identity that now spreads itself across social networks — particularly Twitter. More is said by a Punk as a profile picture than a portrait of the individual behind the account."

The NFT collector “Sillytuna,” who owned the COVID Alien prior to the sale, previously told Cointelegraph that he acquired the digital collectible in an over-the-counter deal. He took to Twitter immediately after the sale to announce that “NFTs are DEAD” and hinted he may have already used some of the funds to make another artwork purchase.

4520 Eth for a cryptopunk.

NFTs are DEAD! pic.twitter.com/eEwTKYju2w
— Sillytuna (@sillytuna) June 10, 2021

Nifty News: Olympic NFT pins and games, world’s first intelligent NFT and more

June 4, 2021 Coin Telegraph

Auction

Sotheby's has revealed the world’s first “intelligent” NFT, Playboy is auctioning off a tokenized boarding pass to the “bunny jet”, and Olympic-themed NFT collectibles are dropping this month.

Playboy, the lifestyle and entertainment brand famous for its distinctive logo — among other things, has launched its first collection of five animated NFTs, on a new NFT market placed dubbed “Raretoshi” which is backed by Blockstream’s Liquid sidechain.

The NFTs were unveiled during the lead up to the 2021 Bitcoin Miami conference on June 3:

Announcing Reimagining the Rabbit: Miami, Playboy’s first collection of animated NFTs, featuring @aylaelmoussa @mbsjq @rek0de @JonNoorlander- Debuting 6.3.21 at Bitcoin 2021 on the Raretoshi marketplace. Video credit: Ayla El-Moussa. Learn more at https://t.co/2JkHnyq3J9 pic.twitter.com/fUSCHuvYuS
— Playboy (@Playboy) June 2, 2021

All of the NFTs are one-of-one editions, and include three Miami-themed animations, an animated magazine cover with the bunny logo covering a model, and a tokenized “bunny boarding pass.”

Collectors can bid for the NFTs using Liquid Bitcoin (L-BTC) — a type of asset on Blockstream’s Liquid sidechain, with a supply that is pegged 1:1 with Bitcoin.

The highest starting price is 5 L-BTC worth roughly $188,315 for the “bunny boarding pass” — which includes a bonus of a round-trip flight on the Big Bunny jet, anywhere in the U.S., for the collector and 10 other guests.

Bidding activity, however, appears to be non-existent so far, with no bids placed on any of the five artworks at the time of writing.

Olympic standard NFTs

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and nWay — a subsidiary of game developer Animoca Brands — have collaborated to drop a set of Olympic-themed tokenized NFT pins and a video game.

The Olympic themed video game will launch in the lead up to the 2022 Beijing Olympic Winter Games and players will be able to earn free Olympic NFT collectibles if they’re any good.

The animated 3D pins commemorate historic events from the history of the Olympics — and vary in rarity and value. The first set of pins will be available on nWay from June 17, and can be traded on a peer-to-peer marketplace to be launched shortly after the first drop.

Intelligent NFTs

Sotherby’s art auction house claims its auctioning off the first ever intelligent NFT (iNFT), with bids closing June 11.

The one-of-one iNFT dubbed “Alice” depicts an ERC-721 tokenized female Robot, developed by Robert Alice in collaboration with robotics firm Alethea AI.

Tomorrow at 1pm ET, meet Alice, the world’s first intelligent NFT (iNFT) created by @robertalice_21 x @real_alethea for our #NativelyDigital NFT Sale. A self-learning intelligent avatar powered by the world's most powerful AIs, Alice will answer YOUR questions live. 1/3 pic.twitter.com/uoKHII27BH
— Sotheby's (@Sothebys) June 3, 2021

“The first iNFT ever made, this iNFT stands at the genesis of a new medium. The collector will add to their collection this historic iNFT which will refine and develop based on their questions,” says the description of Alice on the project's website "thefirstinft."

According to the website, it may actually cost the collector to maintain and update the iNFT with the project noting that "depending on collectors' plans for the iNFT, the associated hosting costs of the API calls to Alethea AI’s GPT-X will pass in full into the care and duty of the collector."

Alethea AI does however offer a one-time free of charge set up for the intelligent NFT. The auction has six days to go and currently has a top bid of $35,000.

NFTs to raise funds for the Sydney Children’s hospital

A Melbourne-based digital artist who goes under the alias “Hipworth” on Twitter has created a one-of-one NFT which will be auctioned off at the Gold Dinner Gala on June 10 — with all the proceeds going to the Sydney Children’s hospital.

What a brilliant project initiated by @indepreserve. #Australia has a wonderful history in supporting #NFT auctions for charity, as per the @F1DeltaTime donation led by @animocabrands to raise funds for last year's bushfire recovery efforts.

Please bid to support a good cause! https://t.co/rS5Dbv8Q6R
— Leah Callon-Butler (@leah_cb) June 3, 2021

The NFT has been minted on NFT marketplace Makersplace, and depicts a silver animated queen statue backed by electronic music. Bids can be placed leading up to the event, and currently has a high bid of $1,000.

Sotheby’s