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| What you need to know today in crypto and beyond July 6, 2021 Sponsored By: If you were forwarded this newsletter and would like to receive it, sign up here.
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–Daniel Kuhn
Today's must-reads Top Shelf BINANCE BLOCKED: U.K. bank Barclays is blocking customers from using their debit and credit cards to make payments to Binance, it said Monday. The move follows the FCA’s announcement that the crypto exchange cannot conduct regulated activities in the country. A Binance spokesperson said Tuesday the decision was based on an “inaccurate understanding of events.”
INDIA EXPANSION: Coinbase is looking to hire “hundreds” of engineers, builders and entrepreneurs for its new hub in India, and is offering an incentive of $1,000 in crypto. In March, Coinbase announced plans to open a hub in Hyderabad, India, in the face of the (dwindling) possibility of a crypto ban in the country.
SURVEY: More than 80% of institutional investors expect to increase their exposure to crypto and digital assets by 2023, according to a survey by Nickel Digital Asset Management. The study included institutional investors and wealth managers from the U.S., U.K., France, Germany and the UAE. Four out of 10 respondents said they would increase their crypto holdings dramatically. The number of those responding to the survey was not provided.
REVIL STRIKES AGAIN: Ransomware hacking group REvil brought the networks of at least 200 U.S. companies to their knees on Friday and is now demanding $70 million in bitcoin. President Biden has ordered U.S. intelligence agencies to investigate the attack, which has reportedly infected over 1 million cloud-connected machines.
–Helene Braun
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“The regulatory landscape in India seems still very nascent right now […] so I don’t know what direction they’re going.”
–TRM Labs CEO Esteban Castaño, on CoinDesk's “First Mover.”
A message from CoinDesk EIP 1559: Ethereum's Fee Market Upgrade Explained CoinDesk Research's newest report dives into the economic impacts and investment implications of Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 1559. At its core, the code change is designed to make transaction fees on Ethereum less volatile and more predictable.
At the same time, EIP 1559 also poses several risks to Ethereum including risks of miner capitulation or revolt, technological risk in the form of unexpected bugs, and risk of user disappointment. In this report, CoinDesk Research gives an overview of how EIP 1559 works and its intended impact for investors, miners and users. Download the full report.
What others are writing... Off-Chain Signals Locals say a bitcoin mining facility is destroying New York’s Finger Lakes region (NBC News) Over $13 billion has now been staked on Ethereum 2.0 (Business Insider) Cryptocurrency can’t escape the global financial system, The Guardian’s Quinn Slobodian writes A China central bank office shuts down software maker over involvement in crypto trading (Reuters)–H.B.
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Putting the news in perspective The Takeaway Putting Punk Back Into CryptoPunks The amount of money flowing into crypto art is matched only by the size of the egos involved. This was on display last week when conceptual artist and crypto gadfly Ryder Ripps sold a copy of a CryptoPunk as his own work. His listing on the NFT platform Foundation received a copyright notification from Larva Labs, the creators of the CryptoPunk project (in 2017), raising questions about artistic authenticity and the technological limits of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). But Ripps isn't taking it lying down. He wants to make a point:
“By engaging their so-called art with the Ethereum network, they should be believers in the self-governing ideals of cryptocurrency. I question Larva Labs' motives, understanding of art, understanding of ‘punk’ and understanding of cryptocurrency/NFT,” Ripps told CoinDesk in an email.
CryptoPunks are a set of 10,000 Ethereum-based NFTs, each token corresponding to a unique cartoonish figure. They’re glitchy. They’re kitschy. But some are also worth a ton of money. In February, FlamingoDAO bought an “ultra rare” alien Punk for $762,000. Just two days ago, CryptoPunk #1886 – a zombie character with messy hair and a beard – went for over $1 million worth of ETH. Punks have been auctioned off at Sotheby’s and Christies for millions. Said to be one of the catalysts of the crypto art boom, Punks are sought after for their blockchain-ensured scarcity and computer-generated rarity. No two are alike. It’s that point Ripps attempted to press with his latest artistic statement, an effort to goad Larva Labs into taking copyright action, he said.
On June 29, Ripps listed an NFT titled "CryptoPunk #3100" on Foundation, a near-facsimile of an official punk by the same name. Ripps’s version, which sold for 2.189 ETH (~$4,620 USD), was of slightly higher resolution than the original, which last sold on March 11 for a record-breaking (at the time) 4,200 ETH (~$7,584,485). “This work is a critique of NFT and Larva Labs,” Ripps said. In an Instagram post, he went into further detail about how CryptoPunks are devoid of humanity and have become institutionalized by traditional artistic gatekeepers – like very old auction houses. “The glimmer of what was once ‘punk’ about Cryptopunks [sic] is gone,” he wrote. On July 1, Larva Labs submitted a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notice to Foundation, which was forwarded to Ryder Ripps as required by law, a Foundation representative said. Hours later, Ripps submitted a counterclaim to Foundation saying his work falls under “fair use,” and minted the DMCA takedown notice as an NFT along with Larva Labs’ email. Jason Williams, who also goes by “Parabolic Guy,” bought the work after seeing the controversy flare up on Twitter. CryptoPunk “die-hards” argue that copies would dilute the value of their holdings. Others thought Ripps’ project failed to advance the crypto art movement.
“As I started to think about it more I figured it would lead to a broader discussion around the DMCA copyright what’s real and what’s not, etc.,” Williams said in a direct message. “And I thought the punk would be very valuable since it is the first DMCA punk that Larva Labs took action against.”
There have been other punk copycat projects. CryptoPhunks, for one, markets itself as “Punks that Larva Labs does not want you to own.” The project was taken off OpenSea initially but has found a workaround for now. Then there's the mirror world series hosted on Binance Smart Chain. Part of the issue is that NFTs provide buyers with ownership of a digital token, but not necessarily the work to which the token corresponds. Just as when you buy a painting, that doesn't mean you can sell the image in the painting to McDonald's to use as wallpaper in an Egg McMuffin ad. This is a boundary that Ripps has pressed in the past. Although a work of art may not improve upon or transform an original physically, which is a typical stipulation of fair use, it could be introducing a new artistic thought. “Welcome to the annoying world of conceptual art,” Ripps wrote.
–D.K.
Brady Dale contributed reporting.
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