What's In Your Wallet
Cuban artist Alejandro Alarcón barred from promising NFT trading sites
When everything seemed to be going wrong, Cuban multimedia artist Alejandro Pablo Garcia Alarcón discovered a solution in an unlikely place: NFTs.
Artists like him have suffered a series of setbacks in recent years: the pandemic wreaked havoc on Cuba’s tourism industry, causing art sales to plummet. While American sanctions did not explicitly apply to art, they made it more difficult for Cubans to sell their works and it can be difficult to get featured in Cuban galleries for artists whose work can veer into political commentaries, such as Garcia Alarcón’s.
Nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, are digital images that are registered on a blockchain and are typically purchased with cryptocurrencies. Because of the medium’s decentralized nature, they provide artists like Garcia Alarcón with a rare opportunity to profit from their art on an international stage with few speech restrictions.
“The freedom was the first thing that drew me to it,” said Garcia Alarcón, better known by his artist name Paolo De. “You can commercialize your work without using intermediaries or going through a filter.”
However, doors have begun to close for artists from Cuba and other sanctioned countries this year, as key NFT trading platforms have gradually blocked them from doing business on their platforms, often with little or no explanation.
According to Cuban NFT artist collectives, Garcia Alarcón is one of at least 30 Cuban artists whose profiles have been removed from at least two American-owned NFT trading sites, including the largest, OpenSea, and KnownOrigin.
An Associated Press email seeking comment was not returned.
Some of the biggest names in the Cuban digital art scene have been delisted, including Havana’s most popular interactive art space, Fábrica de Arte Cubano, and photographer Gabriel Guerra Bianchini, the first Cuban to auction off a piece as an NFT.
In March 2021, his work Hotel Habana 3/10, which consists of stacked photos of Havana’s old, classic buildings, made a splash in the local art scene. “404” now appears on his OpenSea page. This page has vanished.”
On its website, OpenSea boasts that it is “building an open digital economy” and that users can “trade their items freely”.
In April 2021, Garcia Alarcón began trading NFTs on OpenSea, with his first work serving as a political commentary on the controversial detention of protesting Cuban artists in January of that year. He made $200 from it and went on to sell about 20 more NFTs via the website.
Garcia Alarcón was once promoted as an artist to watch by OpenSea. However, he was unexpectedly locked out of his account last March.
“They sell you the idea of freedom, of being able to show your work, of not being censored,” Garcia Alarcón explained. “You use the platform to show what you can’t show in your home country, and then something like this happens.”
When an artist is removed from a platform, the art they sold is also removed. Although the NFT remains on the blockchain and is viewable on other NFT trading sites, artists say it is frequently viewed as a loss by collectors who are confused or want to display the art on more popular platforms.
Although OpenSea has not stated why it removed the Cuban artists’ work, it is likely due to the perceived risks of running afoul of US sanctions. In March, OpenSea told the cryptocurrency news site Decrypt that “we have a zero-tolerance policy for the use of our services by sanctioned individuals or entities, and people located in sanctioned countries,” in response to criticism for delisting Iranian artists earlier this year.
The penalties for violating sanctions can be severe; for example, in October, the US Treasury Department fined the cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex US$24 million for allowing traders to avoid American sanctions in places like Cuba, Syria, Iran, and Sudan.
Though the United States has imposed economic sanctions on Cuba for more than six decades, including bans on commercial products such as cigars and rum, many forms of Cuban art are exempt from the sanctions. However, in some cases, NFTs have become more of an investment vehicle, with NFTs selling for tens of millions of dollars during the 2021 boom.
For Gianni D’Alerta, a Cuban American who has spent his entire life in Miami and has never visited the island, the medium was “an opportunity to engage with my culture” and bridge a long-standing divide between Cubans on the island and in Miami.
He is the founder of NFTcuba.ART, a global collective of approximately 100 Cuban artists. Last week he received an email from OpenSea saying the NFTcuba.ART account was blocked “due to activity that goes against our terms of service”.
Artists claim they were never told explicitly why their accounts were deleted, and when D’Alerta asked for more information, OpenSea responded that it was “unable to disclose additional details,” according to emails obtained by the AP.
Some artists speculate that the trading platforms are acting cautiously, while others speculate that people who disagree with what certain artists have to say about Cuba may have created accounts to flag those artists’ profiles.
According to D’Alerta and other collective leaders, the bans have even extended to personal accounts of Cuban artists who do not live on the island.
Meanwhile, Cuban NFT leaders are concerned that de-platforming will have a long-term chilling effect on Cuban digital artists.
Purchasing NFTs is already risky due to recent volatility in the cryptocurrency market, as evidenced by the recent collapse of the popular cryptocurrency trading platform FTX and criminal charges filed against its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried.
According to D’Alerta, it could be viewed as even more of a risk for those purchasing from Cuban artists because the art could later disappear from the major platforms.
“It’s heartbreaking and unfortunate,” he says. “It’s another disappointment, you know. Another realization is that they aren’t a part of the global community.” ‘You can’t participate,’ basically says [NFT platforms].
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The initial iteration of the COGGI Coin was such a resounding success that it immediately spurred the design and production of the second iteration of the coin.
Currently Working on Putting Together a Brand-New COGGI NFT Collection
Fahura Digital Arts have stated that it is working on generating a second round of COGGI NFT Coins in response to the remarkable success of the original release of the coins. This comes after the initial release of COGGI NFT Coins.
On January 6, after Fahura Digital Arts had some early success with the sale of the first 10 Magical Non-fungible Tokens (NFT) via Miidas NFT, the company announced that it is now working on the next generation of COGGI Coins.
On January 7, the creator of the new collection started making statements about it, while simultaneously pushing the Latin phrase “per liberiore mundi,” which means “For a freer world.”
Fahura Digital Arts, the creator of the Presale “Coggi Revolution” Collection, is the entity responsible for the distribution of the NFTs that are a part of the collection.
In addition, Rice Protocol, which is working in conjunction with CoreDAO to power the NFTs, is providing the necessary computing power. COGGI Coin non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are issued by Fahura Digital Arts in the form of ERC-721 tokens for use on the CoreDAO testnet.
Concurrently with the launch of the CORE mainnet, progress has been made on the creation of the Miidas NFT platform. According to the most recent information from the CoreDAO team, the launch of the mainnet should take place in the very near future.
Because of this, in the not-too-distant future, COOGI NFTs will be able to be mined and traded on open marketplaces.
The fact that the bare minimum required to buy a COGGI Coin has been raised to 176 CORE is evidence that demand for both COGGI and CORE is only growing.
The initial collection had a large number of different designs that were shown on a variety of coins. Many of these patterns were associated with precious stones and jewelry in some way.
Fahura Digital Arts are now conducting a feedback collection effort in order to increase user participation and ensure a smooth rollout of the Core Mainnet. As this article is being written, the vote to decide whether or not the Coggi community will make a promise on the number of times it will meet together is still open.
Additionally, Fahura Digital Arts are the company responsible for developing a variety of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) with a llama theme that is compatible with COOGI Coins. You can find the COGGI Llamas on Polygon, and they host a cast of characters that are boisterous and amusing at the same time.
These llamas in the wild command a very high price as well.
The Satoshi Plus ecosystem is being constructed by the official decentralized organization known as the Core DAO. It gives miners the opportunity to gain access to other revenue streams, which they may accomplish by contributing their hashing power to the chain. As a result, miners can potentially increase their earnings.
Core exhibits a strong respect for the history of the cryptocurrency ecosystem, and this joy is matched only by Core’s excitement for its role in the future of the ecosystem. This fervor is fueled by the ideas that lie at the foundation of both blockchains.
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Uniswap, formerly known as UNI, has at long last joined the NFT bandwagon.
As part of the DEX’s most recent effort to seize a section of the market for non-fungible tokens (NFTs), the DEX has announced the release of a new NFT aggregator. This move was made as part of the DEX’s most recent push.
On January 10, Uniswap sent out a tweet in which it announced that the aggregate will consolidate NFT listings from different marketplaces into a single interface, allowing users to view all of the advertising simultaneously.
There were a few different platforms utilized, some of which included LarvaLabs, LooksRare, and OpenSea.
The Uniswap NFT aggregator was developed with the goal of making it easier for NFT traders to compare the prices of different products but what’s even more crucial is the fact that it offers a degree of efficiency that can be deployed as a weapon against the fragmented nature of the market. This is an extremely important feature.
Customers do not need to move from one platform to another in order to discover the best offers or prices since this allows for a unified shopping experience.
Increasing the number of non-fund transfer transactions that are carried out on Uniswap
It was too early to say anything till the time the paper was printed, but it is feasible that Uniswap’s NFT trading volumes may grow as a result of this remark. On the other side, the increase will be dependent on whether or not the efficiency of this new product will be successful in attracting extra users.
An analysis of the company’s past performance revealed that the trading volumes of Uniswap’s non-financial instruments had seen a considerable drop from the highs they attained around six months ago. This was discovered when the company’s history was analyzed. It was a reflection of the general drop that has been witnessed in the market for NFTs over the course of the previous year.
Nevertheless, despite the fall, a considerable amount of commercial activity was still carried out in the market. This was the case despite the fact that the price had dropped. As a result, the brand-new NFT aggregator has the possibility of causing an increase in the number of NFT trades over the course of the following few months.
Will UNI be able to carry on with their rally despite the weather?
Following a significant spike that began around the end of December 2022, Uniswap’s native token, UNI, has been seeing considerable selling pressure as of late. This increase began towards the end of December 2022.
At the time that this article was being written, it was being traded for $5.69, having experienced a little drop in value over the course of the preceding three days.
UNI could still have some room for upward movement, especially taking into account the fact that it had not been overbought at the time that this article was being produced and hence could still have some room for growth.
However, its MFI was already in the overbought zone when we looked at it, which increased the possibility of a probable decrease in value.
New evidence in support of this notion was offered by recent studies on the volume of trades.
At the time that this article was being written, the most current exchange volume figures provided by UNI indicated that there has been a decline in the amount of trading activity that has taken place after a price increase that occurred at the beginning of the week came to an end.
The ratio of money entering the market to money leaving it suggested that purchasers made up the majority of participants in the market.
The fact that UNI’s foreign exchange inflows were greater than its foreign exchange outflows at the time that this article was published is an indication that there was less buy pressure than there was demand.
As a direct result of this, there would almost certainly be an increase in the amount of selling pressure if this trend continued; nevertheless, the bulls may make a comeback if the market climate is conducive to it.
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The highly anticipated debut of the Game of Thrones NFT has already achieved its maximum capacity and is completely sold out, despite the fact that there have been delays and criticisms that it lacks “creative vision.”
The official “Game of Thrones” NFT collection, which was given the name “Build Your Realm,” was completely drained of all of its available inventory after just seven hours of its release yesterday on Nifty’s NFT marketplace.
The collection was given the name “Build Your Realm.”
It was probably not difficult to foresee the high degree of demand for these collectibles due to the general attractiveness of the event (and its new spinoff series “House of the Dragon“).
On the other hand, many people are now commenting that the quality of the artwork in the collection is equivalent to the eighth season of the HBO series, which is a big letdown for those who were anticipating a significant improvement.
Nifty’s and Daz 3D, a digital production company, collaborated on the first series of the collection in order to produce non-fungible tokens. Daz 3D was responsible for the creation and construction of the tokens.
November was the month that saw the first public disclosure of the project (NFTs). Each non-fungible token (NFT) that is mined on the Palm blockchain, which is an Ethereum-compatible sidechain developed solely for NFTs, contains several elements from the universe of “Game of Thrones.” Palm is a blockchain designed exclusively for NFTs. This enables collectors to create their very own one-of-a-kind places and avatars by employing NFTs in the construction process.
The NFTs were made available for distribution through a presale of 3,450 Hero Boxes, which was then followed by a general sale of 1,500 Hero Boxes four hours later. In all, 6,050 Hero Boxes were purchased through both of these sales. Each Hero Box may be purchased for a total cost of $150 (or about 0.11 ETH), and in addition to three Story Cards and nine Resource Cards, it includes one Hero Avatar.
The launch of the NFT has been met with criticism for two distinct reasons: difficulties with the mint, and derision directed at the embarrassingly terrible avatar designs. Both of these issues have contributed to the controversy that has surrounded the launch.
Reproducing mistakes and satirizing existing works of art
As a result of the congestion, Nifty’s released an announcement indicating that it had “paused the line temporarily,” assuring consumers that they will either receive a refund for their purchase or see it emerge in the near future.
According to the account of one user on Twitter, after waiting for one hour, they found out that they still had to wait another two and a half hours before they could mint. Another individual stated that by the time that they had gotten their NFTs, the floor price had already gone down.
The lowest price at which an NFT that is a part of a collection may be obtained immediately is referred to as the floor price of the collection.
It is not particularly typical for issues to develop with minting and delivery when a project is first introduced; despite this, the most prevalent criticism is over the avatars’ outward look, namely the hands, which are portrayed as being unrealistic.
“This Game of Thrones NFT collection is just like the last season of the program,” Justin Taylor is quoted as saying in one of his articles. “There is absolutely no creative vision, and the situation is terrible.”
Loopify, a nickname used by the co-founder of the Web3 gaming project Treeverse, referred to the collection as “the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen.” He said this in reference to the collection. In addition to that, he included an illustration of an avatar with very bizarre hands.
Despite the criticism that has been thrown towards the roasting, some people have pointed out that there is still a chance that it will be beneficial for collectors.
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