🎨 Art Blocks NFTs Soar as Savvy Collectors Snap Up Edgy Pieces

Hello Defiers! Here’s what we are covering today,

NFTs

• Art Blocks NFTs Soar as Savvy Collectors Snap Up Edgy Pieces
• When $114M in CryptoPunks Sell, So Do Other NFT Projects

The State

• Crypto Tax Debate On Capitol Hill Signals Big Changes for DeFi

Video

• Quick Take: Punks, Blocks, and the biggest buys in NFT land

Links

• Monero’s former maintainer arrested in the US for allegations unrelated to cryptocurrency: CoinTelegraph
• EIP1559 Expert Panel | Tim Beiko, Hasu, Micah Zoltu, Barnabe Monnot, Matt Garnett (LightClients): Bankless
• Ethereum London Upgrade Community Call: Medium

Podcast

🎙Listen to the interview in this week’s podcast episode here:

📣 Livestream: DeFi Transparency w/ SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce

📆 Mark your calendar for tomorrow Aug. 4 at 10am EST on The Defiant’s YouTube channel: The Defiant & DeFi Watch co-host a pop-up event focusing on DeFi transparency with SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce, crypto attorney Gabriel Shapiro, CEO of Compound Labs Robert Leshner, The Defiant founder Camila Russo and DeFi Watch founder Chris Blec.

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NFTs

🎨 Art Blocks NFTs Soar as Savvy Collectors Snap Up Edgy Pieces

THE LEAD While all eyes remain on red-hot NFT avatars like Cryptopunks and Bored Apes, some savvy collectors have been quietly amassing Art Blocks in recent weeks.

DEMAND The hook? Art Blocks specializes in a revolutionary genre called Generative Art that’s been around a long time but has found new life in the spellbinding world of NFTs. Demand has been insatiable, with several artworks from artist Tyler Hobbs’ ‘Fidenza’ collection being sold for over 100 ETH ($250K) apiece. At the time of writing, the floor price for a Fidenza is 30 ETH ($60K), roughly 176x the mint price of 0.17 ETH when it launched in early June.

SPREE Crypto hedge fund Three Arrows Capital (3AC) has reportedly been on an NFT buying spree. “I like Art Blocks because it is founded by a good person, and it is found by good people,” says Zeneca_33, a Twitter user whose daily Art Block market updates are a must-read for anyone following the market.

👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO 👈

💰 When $114M in CryptoPunks Sell, So Do Other NFT Projects

TLDR CryptoPunk sales exploded over the past week, and the rest of the NFT market is coming along for the ride.

VALUE The OG NFT avatar project has always been the biggest tour de force in the NFT marketplace, but recently the project has seen an unprecedented amount of sales, in both volume and value. From July 25 through August 1, 933 Punks sold for a total of $114M. CryptoPunks’ all-time volume is $523.5M, meaning that last week’s sales made up 22% of the overall CryptoPunk volume.

👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO 👈

The State

🏛 Crypto Tax Debate On Capitol Hill Signals Big Changes for DeFi

TLDR Taxing cryptocurrencies just picked up serious momentum, with potentially serious ramifications for DeFi.

NEWS The U.S. Senate’s $1 trillion infrastructure package now under consideration includes a provision that would tax transactions involving Bitcoin and its ilk to raise around $28 billion in funding. That means swapping Ethereum and other DeFi tokens may have to be recorded and taxed every year just like other securities.

DEFINITIONS But that’s still a ways off. As soon as the bill hit the floor it triggered a debate. Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Penn) urged senators not to rush ahead with a “hastily-designed tax reporting regime.” At issue are legal definitions of brokers, exchanges, miners, and cryptocurrencies themselves. Ever since Bitcoin emerged in 2009, lawmakers and regulators around the world have struggled to establish precisely what a cryptocurrency is — an asset, a security, a commodity, or something else entirely.

👉READ THE FULL STORY IN THE DEFIANT.IO 👈

Video

📺 Quick Take: Punks, Blocks, and the biggest buys in NFT land

Links

🔗 Monero’s former maintainer arrested in the US for allegations unrelated to cryptocurrency: CoinTelegraph

An arrest warrant for Riccardo Spagni was issued on July 20, 2021, at the request of the South African government. He was apprehended the same day in the United States.

🔗 EIP1559 Expert Panel | Tim Beiko, Hasu, Micah Zoltu, Barnabe Monnot, Matt Garnett (LightClients): Bankless

🔗 Ethereum London Upgrade Community Call: Medium

The Ethereum Cat Herders is hosting a community call inviting the Ethereum community to join us in the celebration of the (soon to be) mainnet deploying the London upgrade. This is the second upgrade-specific community call of the year 2021.

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✊ Head to THEDEFIANT.IO for more DeFi news 📰

🧑‍💻 ✍️ Stories in this newsletter were written by Dan Kahan and YYC Trader, and edited by Bailey Reutzel and Camila Russo. Videos were produced by Robin Schmidt and Alp Gasimov. Podcast was led by Camila, edited by Alp.

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The Defiant is a daily newsletter focusing on decentralized finance, a new financial system that’s being built on top of open blockchains. The space is evolving at breakneck speed and revolutionizing tech and money. Sign up to learn more and keep up on the latest, most interesting developments. Subscribers get full access, while free signups get only part of the content. Click here to pay with DAI (for $100/yr) or sub with fiat by clicking on the button above ($15/mo, $150/yr).