Dear Bankless Nation,

NFTs have come a long way since their inception. What once was a protocol slated for cryptoart, NFT technology has encompassed far more utility than the purposes for which it was intended, and this has led to innumerable innovations in web3 development.

Powerful.

However, this doesn’t mean the original purpose the ERC-720 and ERC-1155 tokens is no longer existent. Artists of all stripes are producing more art on the blockchain than ever before. In celebration of the proliferation of decentralized art, Kaf takes us on a tour of the ten most highly valued NFTs in blockchain history.

Drawing attention to basic operations in blockchain tech, Kouros reports on an important development from one of the most popular web3 wallets: the updated privacy policy and data collection details of Metamask.

On the heels of the FTX fiasco, The Rug, with their weekly collectible NFT, reports on the mostly credible news that banks are welcoming crypto detractors with open arms; Perchy provides a look into the life and times of Chippi; and DustyEye is back with a deeper look and call for help in understanding the pluritime traveling canine, Maxtor.

Welcome to Decentralized Arts.

Contributors: BanklessDAO Writers Guild (Grendel, Kouros, Kaf, nonsensetwice, Frank America)

This is the official NFT newsletter of BanklessDAO. If you were a Premium Member of the Bankless Newsletter as of May 1st, 2021, you have been subscribed to this newsletter at launch. To unsubscribe, edit your settings here.

Curated NFT News

Metamask Is Now Tracking IP Addresses

Consensys published an updated version of Metamask’s privacy policy on November 23 detailing all information they collect from users. This includes: identity information, contact information, profile information, financial information, marketing information, and technical information, among others.

ConseSys stated the following: “If you’re using your own Ethereum node or a third-party RPC provider with MetaMask, then neither Infura nor MetaMask will collect your IP address or Ethereum wallet address (but you should be aware your information will be subject to whatever information collection is performed by the RPC provider you are using and their terms regarding such collection).”

Further, the privacy policy also states that Metamask will use your personal information to adhere to laws, including AML (Anti-Money Laundering) regulations and KYC (know-your-customer) requirements.

This could pose a threat to anonymous NFT and crypto traders that want to remain unknown.

The crypto community has had an overall negative response to the policy. @CryptoArmament for example said “If you want to be the go to wallet for DeFi then don’t collect our data. Whether you use it now or not. Just means our data is kept somewhere waiting for a breach. Bad look and a reason for us to look for a different wallet to use.”

Another user, @CryptoSnooper, advised that users can stay with Metamask and change their RPC provider or change their wallets. He said that they should consider @rainbowdotme and @TrustWallet. It’s worth mentioning that if you’re considering changing wallets it’s crucial that you restore your wallet before you uninstall Metamask.

Another user, @UniquelyNFT, with regard to the FTX collapse, added that this is poor timing to change anything when so many people are looking into self-custody.

The Rug Weekly NFT

Fiat Billionaire Finally Exposes Crypto

 Brought to you by The Rug

Who needs crypto when you can return to centralized banks, and they will accept you with open arms?

“As a gesture of good faith, Dimon offered those leaving crypto fancy Chase coffee mugs and a low introductory rate credit card, starting at 5%. “Has Bitcoin ever given you a deal like this? I don’t think so,” he added.”

Collect the central bank offer as an NFT on optimism.

Top Most Expensive NFTs in History

Blockchain technology's impact on the art-world

By Kaf

NFTs have revolutionized the art world.

When computer graphics came into existence in the second part of the 20th century, the first works of digital art emerged. While not closely considered in the beginning, concerns have arisen regarding ownership in a form of art that was impossible to physically. Thanks to blockchain technology, NFTs have become the means by which the issue of ownership is being addressed. The most prestigious galleries and artists in the world have concentrated their efforts on this new technology, which is altering the way we gather art treasures thanks to the certification on the blockchain.

Let's investigate the most expensive sales in the history of NFTs.

EVERYDAYS: THE FIRST 5000 DAYS 

Artist: Beeple
Collector: metakovan
Date Sold: 11 Mar 2021
Price: 69,346,250.00 USD
Gallery: Christie's

“Everydays – The First 5000 days” is a unique piece in the history of digital art. It includes a mosaic of each image Beeple has consistently uploaded online each day since 2007. Pop culture icons including Jeff Bezos, Donald Trump, Pikachu, Shrek, and more are included in the 5,000-image collage. Additionally, a number of the images display numerous homophobic, sexist, and racist elements.

The work was purchased by Vignesh Sundaresan, known as MetaKovan, a Singapore-based programmer and owner of Metapurse.

CLOCK 

Artist: Pak
Collector: Assange DAO
Date Sold: 09 feb 2022
Price: 16,953 ETH
Gallery: Manifold

“Clock” is a single NFT timer that keeps track of how many days Assange has been imprisoned. Assange was arrested in London in 2019 and faces possible extradition to the United States. The money raised from the sale of the NFT will be used to pay Assange's legal expenses.

AssangeDAO, a collective of cypherpunks formed in an attempt to free WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, won the bid.

HUMAN ONE

Artist(s): beeple
Collector: kukulabanze
Date Sold: 10 Nov 2021
Price: 28,985,000.00 USD
Gallery: Christie's

This video sculpture is a hybrid of digital and physical technology, accompanied by an NFT. It shows a man walking around with what appears to be a space helmet on his head while wearing a silver outfit. It is "the first portrait of a human born in the metaverse," according to Beeple.

New York auction house Christie's sold HUMAN ONE for 28.9 million USD to Ryan Zurrer, a collector from Switzerland.

RIGHT-CLICK AND SAVE AS GUY

Artist(s): xcopy
Collector: Cozomo de´Medici
Sale date: 09 Dec. 2021
Price: 1600 ETH
Gallery: SuperRare

Long before our current NFT environment existed, XCOPY's "Right Click Save As Boy" was legendary. On December 6, 2018, it was sold for the first time. After Beeple's historic Everydays auction, the iconic piece was aired on BBC World News, which helped to change how the public saw NFTs.

Due to the fact that this well-known NFT artwork had only ever been sold twice before–first for 1 ETH, then for 99 ETH–the 'Medici acquisition represented a 3,500% rise in the piece's worth, selling at 1600 ETH. 

CROSSROAD

Artist(s): Beeple
Collector: Baby Beluga NFT
Date Sold: 29 Oct 2020
Price: 5517.00 ETH
Gallery: Nifty Gateway

Crossroad became a meme in the context of the 2020 presidential election before NFTs garnered any truly noteworthy mainstream press coverage. According to Beeple, it had several listed versions of the play, depending on who won the presidency. It was written as a representation of the political tension in the United States.

The NFT was sold through Nifty Gateway, a popular digital collectibles marketplace.

ALL TIME HIGH IN THE CITY

Artist(s): XCOPY
Collector: rarecollector3000
Date Sold: 02 Jan 2022
Price: 1630 ETH
Gallery: SuperRare

London-based XCOPY, known for its ominous, abstract, and dystopian graphics, sometimes incorporates motion, flicker, or glitch elements into their works. Numerous artists and projects have imitated their animated works, making their aesthetic a mainstay of the NFT ecology.

The animated artwork, minted in 2018, shows Charon, the ferryman of the Underworld, escorting a man across the River Styx.

Just a few months after first selling for 1000 ETH, XCOPY's All Time High in the City was sold to rarecollector3000 in January 2022 for 1630 ETH.

FREE ROSS

Artist(s): Ross Ulbricht 
Collector: Free Ross DAO
Date Sold: 09 Dec 2021
Price: 1446 ETH
Gallery: SuperRare

The Ross Ulbricht Genesis Collection NFT is a singular collection of ten works of art and writings by Ross Ulbricht, spanning his early years, adolescence, and time spent in prison.

When Free Ross was made available as a part of the Collection, the money raised from the sale was used to establish a donor-advised fund called Art4Giving as well as attempts to free Ross Ulbricht from prison. The goal of the fund is to lessen the suffering of inmates and their loved ones.

Free Ross, Ross Ulbricht's first NFT, was put up for auction for six days in early December 2021 and brought in a staggering 6.12 million USD.

A COIN FOR THE FERRYMAN

Artist(s): XCOPY
Collector: jpeggy
Date Sold: 04 Nov 2021
Price: 1330 ETH
Gallery: SuperRare

A Coin for the Ferryman, like XCOPY’s other priceless works, pays homage to the mysterious artist's early days as a crypto artist. In November 2021, just days before the price of Ether reached an all-time high, the piece changed wallets for the first time since it was originally sold for $139 in 2018.

On November 4, 2021, XCOPY's A Coin for the Ferryman sold for 6.02 million USD. User jpeggy of SuperRare, who also owns XCOPY's EVADER, made the transaction.

OCEAN FRONT

Artist(s): Beeple
Collector: Justin Sun
Date Sold: 19 Mar 2021
Price: 5015.464 ETH
Gallery: Nifty Gateway

Ocean Front NFT was introduced as a part of The Carbon Drop collection, which Nifty Gateway and the Open Earth Foundation jointly launched. The collection includes eight distinct "carbon negative" NFTs in an effort to balance the emissions underlying the minting, which was motivated by the discussion regarding how NFTs affect the environment.

Beeple's Ocean Front NFT was sold for 6 million USD in March 2021 to Chinese cryptocurrency entrepreneur and founder of the TRON blockchain, Justin Sun.

REPLICATOR

Artist(s): Mad Dog Jones
Collector: anonymous
Date Sold: 23 Apr 2021
Price: 3464.014 ETH
Gallery: Phillips

The artwork of Mad Dog Jones deftly combines cyberpunk with dystopian themes that examine topics of beauty, nature, and technology.

Seven distinct generations of artwork make up the NFT experience Replicator. A photocopier in an office setting is the first Genesis illustration of the Generation 1. This first generation NFT generates six NFTs at a pace of one per month, each generation being distinct from the previous and succeeding generations.

The auction soared to 2.4 million USD on the first day and changed to a final price of 4,140,000 USD. Sold to an anonymous collector, the work had participants from all over the world.

Special mentions

The Merge 

The most expensive NFT ever is really a group of NFTs created by Pak. 

Pak @muratpak

Merge started with ~29000 tokens. Now has less than 25000. Extinction in progress.

10:35 PM ∙ Apr 5, 2022

---

458Likes49Retweets

Pak raised nearly 92 million USD from collector/investor miles, who rallied in the massive sale of his NFT artwork “The Merge.” The artwork was fragmented into thousands of parts, which were put up for sale as shares through the Nifty Gateway platform. 

Ultimately, The Merge has made Pak the most valuable living artist in history, surpassing Jeff Koon's 1986 painting Rabbit, which sold for 91 million USD.

Learn more about Pak's artwork in this article.

CryptoPunks Collections

CryptoPunks is undoubtedly one of the most famous collections in the NFT space. One of the key factors that increase the popularity of CryptoPunks is that this crypto asset is considered one of the first projects on the Ethereum network.

The project served as the model for numerous other related artistic works, including Bored Ape Yacht Club, Pudgy Penguins, and many others.

The most expensive CryptoPunks are:

• CryptoPunk #5822: 8000 ETH

• CryptoPunk #7523: 4700 ETH

• CryptoPunk #4156: 2500 ETH

Ringers Collection

The Ringers series is made up of 1000 NFTs of generative art. Every one of these jobs is distinct. Within 20 minutes of the 1,000 Ringers series debuting on Art Blocks, all 0.1 ETH copies had been sold out. Since then, an enormous secondary market has sprung up around these NFTs.

The collection was created by artist Dmitri Cherniak and has retained its historical value thanks to critical acclaim and historic sales. For many collectors, Ringers was the first project to open their eyes to the power of generative art. Owning a single NFT Ringers is seen as a status symbol. The two most expensive Ringers are:

• Ringers #109: 2100 ETH

• Ringers #879: 1800 ETH

Final Thoughts

There is no denying that collectors of NFT art take it very seriously, given the enormous sums of money that have been spent. Some of these pieces commemorate developments in digital art that are already history.

Many of the move's detractors argue that prices are too volatile. However this notion is a reality across all art sales. Have you ever heard of a Picasso Floor Price? Do you also know the offers that collectors get following high-priced auctions? Surely not, because that kind of information is private.

Blockchain technology provides us with such transparency that it has sparked fresh discussions in the field of art. NFTs have altered how we interact with art as well as how we collect it.

Chippi Corner

By Perchy

#LOOKINGFORMAXTOR

Illustrated by GIORGIO FINAMORE, SELENA GARU MAHER, AND LELRAH

ATTENTION PLEASE: 

We ask anyone who has noticed, glimpsed, or dreamed of a cyber dog, consistent with the Maxtor profile described in the previous newsletter, to anyone who has had direct or indirect news, to anyone who has seen more sinuous wavy curved lines than usual or has received notions about the concept of Pluritime talking directly with Maxtor ...

... in short, we ask anyone who knows something to share the material in their possession on the net accompanied by the hashtag #LOOKINGFORMAXTOR.

Illustrations, texts, photographs, documents, poems, stories, paintings, notarial deeds, extracts, sketches, newspaper articles, recordings, artifacts … any kind of testimony is precious!

All the material collected will be archived by the DustyEye group and examined by Moscabianca Editions with the aim of tracing Maxtor by reconstructing his movements along the infinite narrative lines of the Pluritime

We look forward to your contributions no later than the date of the next vernal equinox, March 20 of the year 2023 at 4:44 pm, in order to have enough material to finally publish a dossier on Maxtor.

Thank you in advance,

DustyEye & Moscabianca Editions

[TO BE CONTINUED]

______________________

WEB: www.DustyEye.com
IG: @DustyEye_DE
TWITTER: @Dusty_Eye

Meme

A small joke contributed by The Rug.

Postscript

Decentralized Arts is written and produced by a small team of contributors who are passionate about art, both visual and written, and its growing place in crypto and NFTs. With each edition, we aim to bring you not only the most current and relevant news in the NFT space, but also explorations in what it means for our culture and societies for this market to continue to grow and expand. When everyone is an owner of art, we all gain a deeper appreciation for it.

If you enjoyed reading this newsletter, please share it with someone who you think will appreciate the content. We also welcome suggestions via our feedback form.

With great appreciation for you, we thank you for reading and subscribing to Decentralized Arts.

Cordially,

Grendel, Kouros, Kaf, nonsensetwice, and Frank America