NFTs
Celebrating ‘Plastic-Free July’ with NFTs and Tezos art
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Since its initial coin offering in 2017, Tezos blockchain has become the art world’s favorite because of its energy efficiency and low cost. AI artists, including Anadol Refillan internationally renowned media artist, director, and pioneer in data aesthetics and machine intelligence, uses Tezos to execute peer-to-peer transactions and deploy smart contracts. The token is listed on cryptocurrency exchanges as Tezos (XTZ).
In addition to being part of Basel Art since 2021 and collaborating with environmental gallery Serpentine Arts Technologies since 2023, during this Plastic-Free July, for the first time, the Tezos blockchain is part of Ribela Love Nature, a sustainable outdoor techno art and music event, which features more than 100 different artworks by more than 30 visual artists, more than 20 NFT artworks for sale and music in more than 15 live performances and DJ sets.
Plastic-Free July draws attention to the impact of Plastic waste about nature. ‘Plastic-Free July’ campaign originated in Australia in 2011 to draw attention to the global problem of plastic waste, which is causing serious harm to animals, nature and human health. The award-winning campaign is a key initiative of the Plastic Free Foundation, which works towards a vision of seeing a world free of plastic waste, as detailed in the “2023 Impact Report”.
The Plastic-Free July campaign was instrumental in the adoption of the world’s first campaign Plastic Treatywhich was supported by 175 nations at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) meeting in Nairobi in 2022. UNEP’s Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution is still negotiating the terms of the Treaty, so it could be implemented as early as 2025.
My July Plastic-Free art exhibitions to draw attention to the harm of plastic pollution to marine animals are held at two museums:
- Putnam History Museum — Healing Waters by Selva Ozelli
- Havre de Grace Maritime Museum — Moody Blue Crabs by Selva Ozelli
Alongside participation in the sustainable technology event, Tezos X’s vision also announced a significant development in the Tezos ecosystem: the introduction of Jstz (pronounced ‘justice’), a JavaScript-powered smart rollup that will scale and make Tezos an interoperable blockchain platform and a cloud-like OP-based blockchain backend for all types of applications.
Scaling the utility of blockchain is crucial to widespread adoption. After all, the fastest and most cost-effective blockchain is useless if people have nothing to do with it or nowhere to go from there. And they will only have those things if someone builds them on Jstz, an L2 rollup being built on Tezos to enable developers to use JavaScript and its vast resources, such as JavaScript APIs, battle-tested JS tools, npm ecosystem and libraries with the best advantages of web3, with integrated identity, wallet and payments Jstz GitHub repository.
On June 28, 2024, the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the U.S. Internal Revenue Service published The agency has finalized the digital asset broker-dealer reporting regulations that require broker-dealer reporting for centralized exchanges and hosted wallet providers, providing comprehensive rules under which transactions in digital assets, which include NFTs, will be reported in the U.S. However, it left out related rules for decentralized finance and unhosted wallets as it continues to study 44,000 comments to the agency. Defi operations and unhosted wallet providers will have to wait for their own rules later in the year.
The final regulations will come into effect for transactions starting in 2025 and will require digital asset brokers to maintain control over the cost basis of client tokens starting in 2026. They will also need to register 1099-DA forms like their traditional investment company cousins, with an annual cap of $600 in NFT revenue before it needs to be reported.
The final regulations provide NFT platforms with much-needed clarity on their reporting obligations while creating transparency for both artist taxpayers and the IRS when it comes to tax reporting and compliance. It is also an essential step toward closing the estimated $50 billion cryptocurrency tax loophole and will further legitimize digital assets. Artists will now know what they need to report for activities conducted with a digital asset exchange NFT platform, and the IRS will know what to expect to see on tax returns.