Sotheby’s has made an embarrassing mistake in its $5.4 million NFT auction, Animoca brands has raised $138.88 in funding, and data shows limited collector numbers on SuperRare.
Eagle eyed denizens of Crypto Twitter have spotted a mistake in the NFT of the web’s source code famously auctioned at Sotheby’s this week.
The auction of “This Changed Everything” on June 30 with a $5.4 million sale and was offered by its inventor, Sir Tim Berners-Lee.
The NFT dubbed consists of four elements: the original source code, an animated visualization of the code, a letter written by Sir Tim reflecting on his creation, and a digital poster of the full code.
Despite the sale having a direct connection to Sir Tim, whoever it was that converted the original text file to HTML coding language made a mistake, with DeFi and NFT focused venture investor “Beanie” noting on Twitter that:
The “internet source code” NFT that sold for $5.5M yesterday at Sotheby’s doesn’t even have the correct source code as the conversion of the original text file to html was done sloppy so “<“ and “>” wrongly display as “<>,” in the video.♀️
Kinda embarrassing for Sotheby’s pic.twitter.com/lqdvZ9CmI1
— Beanie (@beaniemaxi) July 1, 2021
Mark O’Neil, a website creator, discussed the mistake with the BBC, and noted in his view it looked like “whoever made the video for the website ran the original text file through something that converted it into HTML.”
Some have argued it may actually add value to the NFT, similar to a misprint error on collectibles such as sports cards and stamps.
Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) “Pleasr” who intended to purchase the piece but decided to pull out from the auction, noted that “we don’t feel this diminishes the piece in anyway, in fact, it might be a bullish smudge.”
Pleasr also highlighted that the mistake could be fixed as the metadata appears to still be updatable, and said Sotheby’s indicated that they would work with buyers to remedy the mistake.
An NFT depicting the mistake is currently up for auction at Art Haus, with a current bid just over $1100.
Animoca Brands is not playing games
NFT game and property developer Animoca Brands has closed the second trance of its $139 million capital raise, based on a “pre-money valuation of US$1 billion.”
Animoca secured $89 million back in May during the first tranche, and has now pulled in a further $50 million in the second tranche.
The second tranche included backing from a long list of investors such as Coinbase Ventures, Blue Pool Capital, Gobi Partners, Korea Investment Partners, Liberty City Ventures, Samsung Venture Investment.
The firm made the announcement yesterday, and noted the funds would be put towards “strategic investments and acquisitions, product development, and licenses for popular intellectual properties.”
Animoca has released notable titles in the past such as The Sandbox, F1 Delta Time, and MotoGP Ignition, while also backing top firms in the NFT space such as Dapper Labs, Open Sea, and Axie Infinity.
In May, the firm also partnered with DLT network Hedera Hashgraph to develop two DLT-based gaming projects, including a gaming platform dubbed “Helix Warp” and an NFT-based soccer game.
“To commemorate the achievement of its unicorn valuation, Animoca Brands will issue NFTs to its investors and key partners,” the announcement stated.
Limited active NFT collectors on SuperRare
According to data from Dune Analytics, active monthly collectors, or people who purchased multiple NFTs on the SuperRare platform number only in the hundreds.
At the peak of the NFT bull run in March, there were just 929 active monthly collectors on SuperRare, a month in which total primary revenue hit more than $3.3 million on the platform.
The number has also declined steadily as hype and prices surrounding NFTs have started to fall over the past few months. In April there were 503 active collectors, 264 in May, and a mere 196 in June. However, given the interest and potential in the space, some see this as very bullish news:
At the peak of the early 2021 NFT boom, there were still fewer than 1,000 monthly collectors on SuperRare.
Trivial to imagine we’ll see something 10-100x bigger before long. pic.twitter.com/ofWBctewjB
— BΞN (@__DeFi__) July 1, 2021
RELATED: Enjin’s EFI token sale nets $20 million as NFT aspirations grow
NFT event in Tokyo
CrypTokyo is currently underway in Japan, curated by the Blockchain Art Exchange (BAE) NFT marketplace, with support from the world’s largest NFT investment fund Metapurse, and the GrowYourBase NFT community.
The event dubbed “Japan’s first physical blockchain art exhibition” will run for three weeks and visitors to the event can view and purchase NFTs, watch talks from prominent Japanese artists, and learn about how to build their own NFT portfolios.
The event also includes an NFT gallery showcasing artwork from Beeple, +DA.YO.NE., Yasumasa Yonehara, Tetsuzo Okubo, Ichi Hatano, Maxim (Peodigy), Robness Cyberpop, Botchy-Botchy.
CrypTokyo is being hosted in UltraSuperNew Gallery in Shibuya and is set to finish on July 22.
Roundup
The Mintable nonfungible token (NFT) minting platform has closed a Series A funding round which included backing from big-name players such as Ripple, Animoca Brands, and Metapurse.
Ripple also made an announcement revealing that Mintable plans to integrate the firm’s own blockchain, XRP Ledger (XRPL), which it claims to be carbon neutral.
Cointelegraph also reported that the Republic of San Marino has approved Vechain’s eNFT based vaccination passports.
San Marino Digital Covid Certificate contains a record of past infections, negative test results, and also provides a digital vaccination certificate, utilizing Vechain’s public blockchain.
