Crypto NFT Today: The Latest News in Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, and NFTs: April 5 – 11
Welcome to another edition of Crypto NFT Today! If you enjoy cryptocurrency, NFTs, and riding emotional, and sometimes, rickety rollercoasters, you’ve come to the right place. So put on some soothing music and let’s go!
Dogecoin Soars After Musk Replaces Twitter’s Blue Bird With the Doge Dog
Dogecoin (DOGE) surged in value by over 35% after Elon Musk replaced Twitter’s familiar blue bird logo with the cryptocurrency’s Shiba Inu dog logo. According to CoinDesk, DOGE climbed as high as $0.1046 from approximately $0.077 just prior to the logo change.
Musk has frequently promoted DOGE, even suggesting that the meme coin has better payments functionality than bitcoin (BTC). Last January, the Financial Times reported that Twitter would create a system permitting payments on the platform. Musk has maintained that Twitter would be “first and foremost” a platform for fiat currencies, he has also worked to incorporated crypto.
Shortly after posting the logo change, Musk tweeted what appeared to be an AI generated meme featuring the DOGE dog.
Senator Elizabeth Warren Goes to War on Crypto
Last week, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), tweeted from her campaign account that she was building an “Anti-crypto Army.”
In the debate between Central Bank Digital Currency vs. blockchain-based cryptocurrencies, Warren in on the side of the government controlled CBDC. This places her against Republicans, like Governors Rod Desantis of Florida and Kristi Noem of South Dakota, who have warned of the threats to freedom and privacy of retail CBDC.
Appearing last year on NBC’s Meet the Press, she told host Chuck Todd:
“Instead of bitcoin, we could be talking about digital currency, that’s something totally different, because that’s a government-backed electronic transfer … but that has something that backs it up.” She added later, “If you think: We can improve that in a digital world? The answer is, sure you could, but in that case, let’s do a CBDC.”
Like most issues, a retail CBDC has become a Blue vs. Red issue, with Democrats favoring government control and Republicans favoring deregulation, with very little middle ground.
OpenSea’s Advanced NFT Market Met With Mixed Reviews
In its latest attempt to win back users from NFT marketplace competitor, Blur, OpenSea has rebranded Gem V2 into OpenSea Pro. The new platform introduces new features and tools with an introductory offer allowing users to list for zero fees.
In a tweet, OpenSea bragged that its new NFT aggregator is best in class, prompting a less than impressed reply wondering when OpenSea would do better supporting artists.
OpenSea acquired the Gem platform last April in order to attract more regular NFT traders. Gem allowed trades in NFTs across multiple markets and collections, with a single transaction. This dramatically lowered trading, or “gas’ fees.
Blur has been steadily eroding OpenSea’s market share with trading incentives that reward churning of assets. In February Blur surpassed OpenSea’s trading volume. Critics have accused Blur’s incentives of encouraging in fake trades.
Users Push Back After Midjourney Banned Images of Xi Jinping
After artificial intelligence image generator Midjourney banned the creation of images of Chinese President Xi Jinping, undeterred users are creating workaround with deep fakes produced by sophisticated machine learning techniques. Although Midjourney allows the creation of images for other world leaders, Xi is excluded from the practice.
Xi is notoriously sensitive to portrayals of his likeness, even banning cartoons depicting him as Winnie the Pooh.
Midjourney’s founder and CEO, David Holtz claimed that the platform banned other image words in the use of image creation, based on local complaints on “various topics in different countries.“
He further claimed that being responsive to complaints was not out of fear of being blocked from the Chinese market,“Our decision was not motivated by financial gain, and in this scenario, it is evident that ensuring access to this technology for Chinese individuals is for the greater good.“
