NFTs
Cool newsletter – TradingView News
In this week’s newsletter, read about Galaxy Digital using a non-fungible token (NFT) of a historic violin to secure a loan and how NFT sales volume plummeted in May. Check out what the US Treasury Department thinks about NFTs and how Bitcoin NFTs reached a new milestone. In other news, Dapper Labs CEO Roham Gharegozlou claims NFTs are not securities after reaching a settlement in the NBA Top Shot Moments lawsuit.
Galaxy Digital uses historic violin NFT to secure loan
Yat Siu, co-founder of Galaxy Digital and Michael Novogratz’s Animoca Brands, tokenized a 300-year-old violin as collateral for a loan. Galaxy loaned Siu an undisclosed amount, and to secure the loan, the Animoca executive used an NFT of the historic Stradivarius violin and the physical asset as collateral.
The violin was once owned by Russian Empress Catherine the Great. Musical instrument auction house Tarisio has traced the violin’s origins back more than 300 years. Siu acquired the violin at a 2023 auction for $9 million.
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NFT sales volume drops 54% in May: CryptoSlam
NFT sales declined in May, despite the recent increase in April. According to CryptoSlam, NFTs had a sales volume of over $1 billion in April. However, volume dropped to $624 million in May, marking a 54% monthly decline.
Bitcoin-based NFTs saw a 68% drop in sales in May. Other major NFT blockchains such as Solana and Ethereum have also seen downward trends. Solana-based collectibles saw a 48% drop, while Ethereum NFTs fell 55%.
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US Treasury Report Outlines Potential Financial Risks of NFTs
The United States Department of the Treasury released a risk assessment for NFTs to provide information to regulators. The department highlighted several security concerns, including the potential for terrorists to finance operations using NFTs.
In addition to terrorist financing, Treasury also stated that state actors could use NFTs to finance nuclear proliferation and carry out money laundering. Additionally, the government agency said there are risks to investors who could be subjected to rug pulls and theft.
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Bitcoin NFTs hit $4 billion in historic sales volume
NFTs based on the Bitcoin blockchain have recorded a historical sales volume of US$4 billion. Data from NFT tracker CryptoSlam showed on June 4 that Bitcoin-based NFTs had a historical volume of $3.97 billion and a laundering volume of $82 million.
Bitcoin-based digital collectibles also recorded a sales volume of $171 million, ranking first over the past 30 days. Meanwhile, Ethereum-based collectibles had a sales volume of just $159 million last month.
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Dapper Labs’ $4M Deal Reaffirms That NBA NFTs Are Not Securities: CEO
Dapper Labs, the company behind NBA Top Shot Moments NFTs, has reached a $4 million settlement to settle a class action lawsuit alleging the NFTs were sold as unregistered securities.
The company’s CEO, Roham Gharegozlou, stated that the case concluded that NFTs on a decentralized public network are not securities “in the same way that trading cards are not securities.”
The settlement showed that Dapper Labs agreed to pay $4 million if the plaintiffs stopped claiming the NFTs were securities. It also included a guarantee that the Flow blockchain would be sufficiently decentralized and outside of the company’s control.
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Thanks for reading this roundup of the week’s most notable developments in the NFT space. Check back next Wednesday for more reporting and insights on this actively evolving space.