CoinDesk Crypto

Publisher DC Comics, a subsidiary of Warner Bros, itself a unit of Time Warner, is unhappy with artists using its intellectual property (IP) in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and said it has its own plans for characters.  

In a letter sent to freelancers employed by the firm Thursday, Jay Kogan, DC Comics’ senior VP of legal affairs, stressed it is against company policy to sell digital images featuring DC’s IP with or without NFTs.

Kogan said DC Comics has its own plans to enter the NFT space and is currently exploring opportunities to enter the market.

Related: Tesla’s Elon Musk Wants Coinbase to Become DOGE-Friendly

Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are becoming the newest fan collectibles and have generated significant press and buzz in the digital space. DC is exploring opportunities to enter the market for the distribution and sale of original DC digital art with NFTs including both new art created specifically for the NFT market, as well as original digital art rendered for DC’s comic book publications.

As DC examines the complexities of the NFT marketplace, and we work on a reasonable and fair solution for all parties involved, including fans and collectors, please note that the offering for sale of any digital images featuring DC’s intellectual property with or without NFTs, whether rendered for DC’s publications or rendered outside the scope of one’s contractual engagement with DC, is not permitted. If you are approached by anyone interested in including any of your DC art in an NFT program, please let Lawrence Ganem, DC’s VP, Talent Services know.

We expect the participation of DC’s freelance talent will be an integral component of the NFT program that DC puts into place. We’ll share further information as it becomes available, and we appreciate your cooperation and partnership.

Letter sent by Jay Kogan, DC Comics’ senior VP of legal affairs, to company freelancers.

Former DC Comics artist Jose Delgo, who is known for his sketches of Wonder Woman, has made $1.95 million by selling NFTs featuring the superhero and other licensed characters, reports Gizmodo.

Related: Is This the Beginning of the Next Institutional Bitcoin Wave?

NFTs are digital assets that represent a wide range of unique tangible and intangible items, from collectible sports cards to virtual real estate and even digital sneakers.

Recently NFTs have become a craze with millions of dollars being spent on rare or desirable digital artworks. On Thursday, a piece of digital artwork or NFT by crypto artist Beeple was sold for a record $69.3 million by the auction house Christie’s.

The NFT industry had a market capitalization of $338 million at the end of 2020, according to NonFungible.com.

Related Stories

• Bitcoin Spikes to New Record High Over $61K
• FTX in Talks to Sponsor Miami Heat’s NBA Stadium: Report

Publisher DC Comics, a subsidiary of Warner Bros, itself a unit of Time Warner, is unhappy with artists using its intellectual property (IP) in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and said it has its own plans for characters.  

In a letter written by DC Comics, Jay Kogan, senior vice president, legal affairs sent out to freelancers employed by the firm Thursday, it was stressed it is against company policy to sell digital images featuring DC’s IP with or without NFTs.

Kogan said DC Comics has its own plans to enter the NFT space and is currently exploring opportunities to enter the market.

Related: Is This the Beginning of the Next Institutional Bitcoin Wave?

Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are becoming the newest fan collectibles and have generated significant press and buzz in the digital space. DC is exploring opportunities to enter the market for the distribution and sale of original DC digital art with NFTs including both new art created specifically for the NFT market, as well as original digital art rendered for DC’s comic book publications.

As DC examines the complexities of the NFT marketplace, and we work on a reasonable and fair solution for all parties involved, including fans and collectors, please note that the offering for sale of any digital images featuring DC’s intellectual property with or without NFTs, whether rendered for DC’s publications or rendered outside the scope of one’s contractual engagement with DC, is not permitted. If you are approached by anyone interested in including any of your DC art in an NFT program, please let Lawrence Ganem, DC’s VP, Talent Services know.

We expect the participation of DC’s freelance talent will be an integral component of the NFT program that DC puts into place. We’ll share further information as it becomes available, and we appreciate your cooperation and partnership.

Letter sent by DC Comics, Jay Kogan, senior vice president, legal affairs to company freelancers.

Former DC Comics artist Jose Delgo, who is known for his sketches of Wonder Woman, has made $1.95 million by selling NFTs featuring the super hero and other licensed characters, reports Gizmodo.

Related: Bitcoin Spikes to New Record High Over $60K

NFTs are digital assets that represent a wide range of unique tangible and intangible items, from collectible sports cards to virtual real estate and even digital sneakers.

Recently NFTs have become a craze with millions of dollars being spent on rare or desirable digital artworks. On Thursday, a piece of digital artwork or NFT by crypto artist Beeple was sold for a record $69.3 million by the auction house Christie’s.

The NFT industry had a market capitalization of $338 million at the end of 2020, according to nonfungible.com.

Read more: Why the NFT Frenzy Won’t Drive Up Prices for Bitcoin Just Yet

Related Stories

• FTX in Talks to Sponsor Miami Heat’s NBA Stadium: Report
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin’s Winning Streak Ends as Prices Struggle to Break Record

After a period of drops and consolidation since mid-February, Bitcoin has found its mojo again and soared to new all-time highs.

• In a move starting just after 10:00 a.m. UTC Saturday, the top cryptocurrency by market cap crossed $60,000 for the first time and hours later crossed $61,000 to set a new all-time high of $61,124.86, according to the CoinDesk 20. In recent trading, bitcoin was at $61,119.51, up 7.47% in the last 24 hours.
• “Institutional investment continues to build momentum with Chinese internet firm Meitu the latest to execute a Bitcoin treasury strategy, ” according to Jehan Chu, co-founder and managing partner of Kenetic, a Hong Kong-based trading firm.
• “Further, Beeple’s $69 milllion NFT record demonstrates the true power of crypto, adding curiosity and fuel to the retail fire. Expect volatility but a landing of $100k levels by Q3,” he said.
• The move passed the previous all-time record of around $58,330 set on Feb. 21.
• Since then bitcoin had seen a retreat to as low as $43,000, amid uncertainty in the traditional markets over stimulus expectations and their positive affects on U.S. bond yields.
• Both stocks and cryptocurrencies across the board saw losses and sideways trading in the last several weeks, before rising again in the last 8 days.
• The new high comes two days after President Joe Biden signed a massive $1.9 trillion stimulus program into law that is sending checks for $1,400 to U.S. citizens. According to various media accounts, people have started receiving the checks, which could be another factor in bitcoin’s rise.
• U.S. Treasury yields have climbed back to over 12-month highs in the wake of Biden’s fresh stimulus. This time, however, bitcoin is showing resilience – contrary to last week of February when prices fell by 20% amid rising yields.
• Bitcoin’s quick rise caused the liquidation of over $100 million in short positions in a matter of minutes, according to a tweet from Glassnode co-founder and CTO Rafael Schultze-Kraft.
• The move to $61,000 brought bitcoin’s market cap to $1.14 trillion – not so far below the $1.385 trillion value of Alphabet (Google), according to CompaniesMarketCap.com.

UPDATE (March 13, 11:47 UTC): Added latest price after move over $60,000.
UPDATE (March 13, 20:28 UTC): Added latest price after move over $61,000.

See also: Why Bitcoin Is More Like a $100 Bill Than Gold

Related Stories

• Tesla’s Elon Musk Wants Coinbase to Become DOGE-Friendly
• ‘Batman Is Ours Alone to Exploit.’ DC Comics Warns Against Using Its Characters in NFTs
• Is This the Beginning of the Next Institutional Bitcoin Wave?
• FTX in Talks to Sponsor Miami Heat’s NBA Stadium: Report

After a period of drops and consolidation since Mid-February, Bitcoin has found its mojo again and soared to new all-time highs.

• In a sudden move starting just after 10:00 UTC Saturday, the top cryptocurrency by market cap rose to $60,065.15, according to the CoinDesk 20.
• “Bitcoin is testing the sound barrier at $60k, and institutional investment continues to build momentum with Chinese internet firm Meitu the latest to execute a Bitcoin treasury strategy, ” according to Jehan Chu, co-founder and managing partner of Kenetic, a Hong Kong-based trading firm.
• “Further, Beeple’s $69 milllion NFT record demonstrates the true power of crypto, adding curiosity and fuel to the retail fire. Expect volatility but a landing of $100k levels by Q3,” he said.
• The move passes the previous all-time record of around $58,330 set on Feb. 21.
• Since then bitcoin had seen a retreat to as low as $43,000, amid uncertainty in the traditional markets over stimulus expectations and their positive affects on U.S. bond yields.
• Both stocks and cryptocurrencies across the board saw losses and sideways trading in the last several weeks, before rising again in the last 8 days.
• The new high comes two days after President Joe Biden signed a massive $1.9 trillion stimulus program into law that will send checks for $1,400 to U.S. citizens.
• U.S. Treasury yields have climbed back to over 12-month highs in the wake of Biden’s fresh stimulus. This time, however, bitcoin is showing resilience – contrary to last week of February when prices fell by 20% amid rising yields.
• Bitcoin’s quick rise caused the liquidation of over $100 million in short positions in a matter of minutes, according to a tweet from Glassnode co-founder and CTO Rafael Schultze-Kraft.
• The move to $60,000 brings bitcoin’s market cap to $1.12 trillion – not so far below the $1.385 trillion value of Alphabet (Google), according to CompaniesMarketCap.com.

UPDATE (11:47 UTC, March 13, 2021): Added latest price after move over $60,000.

See also: Why Bitcoin Is More Like a $100 Bill Than Gold

Related Stories

• FTX in Talks to Sponsor Miami Heat’s NBA Stadium: Report
• Market Wrap: Bitcoin’s Winning Streak Ends as Prices Struggle to Break Record
• Why Bitcoin Is More Like a $100 Bill Than Gold
• NFT Mania Fits With ‘Crippling Inflation’ Fear, but Don’t Call It a Bubble

Crypto exchange FTX is in talks with Miami-Dade County in Florida to sponsor the basketball arena that houses the Miami Heat, a professional basketball team, according to the Miami Herald.

The Herald reported Friday that FTX is “getting closer” to signing a deal with Miami-Dade County, which owns the stadium and is legally responsible for naming rights. According to the news outlet, an unidentified party registered ftxarena.com, as well as similar social media handles. American Airlines is the current name sponsor for the arena.

Should the deal go through, FTX would become the first crypto exchange to sponsor a major professional sports venue in the U.S.

Related: Market Wrap: Bitcoin’s Winning Streak Ends as Prices Struggle to Break Record

The talks are another sign that crypto is breaking into the mainstream in 2021 amid new price highs, institutional and corporate investment and the growing use of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in the art world.

FTX founder and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried responded to a request for comment with the “eyes” emoji (). Bankman-Fried, who also runs Alameda Research, has been an active participant in the cryptocurrency industry over the past year, particularly in the decentralized finance (DeFi) and crypto derivatives trading sectors.

He also donated $5 million to the (ultimately successful) presidential campaign of Joe Biden.

The National Basketball Association (NBA) is no stranger to cryptocurrency projects. The league has been a major player in the NFT space, working with Dapper Labs on Top Shot, which tokenizes short video clips of game moments.

Related: Why Bitcoin Is More Like a $100 Bill Than Gold

The project, which launched out of beta last year, has become immensely popular, with over $1 million worth of NFTs selling in a day last month.

The Miami Heat has a personal connection to NBA Top Shot, with shooting guard Tyler Herro providing the vocal introduction to new users on the platform.

A spokesperson for Miami-Dade County did not immediately return a request for comment.

Zack Voell contributed reporting.

Related Stories

• NFT Mania Fits With ‘Crippling Inflation’ Fear, but Don’t Call It a Bubble
• Why Binance Is Reportedly Facing a CFTC Probe

• Bitcoin (BTC) trading around $56,700 as of 21:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET), slipping 1.3% over the previous 24 hours.
• Bitcoin’s 24-hour range: $55,116 to $58,150.
• Continuing a strong start to the month, bitcoin bulls pushed all the way to $58,000 on Friday, but they’re still struggling to pass the record high set in mid February.

Bitcoin was down 2.2% on Friday, poised to end its longest winning streak this year, after prices failed to break though the all-time-high above $58,300 set last month.

As of 21:00 UTC (4 p.m. ET), bitcoin was changing hands just above $56,000 on Coinbase. The seven straight days of gains allowed the largest cryptocurrency to recover nearly all of its losses from late February, but bulls were unable to push the market to new highs.

Read more: Watch Out for These Risks Before Investing in Bitcoin or Ether 

Related: Why Bitcoin Is More Like a $100 Bill Than Gold

The largest cryptocurrency is now up 25% so far in March, and a gain this month would mark the sixth straight monthly increase, the first time that’s happened in seven years. Bitcoin has doubled this year.

For bullish technical traders, the possibility of a “double top” forming on the price chart could be concerning, according to CoinDesk’s Damanick Dantes. “Traders are on watch for a breakout to fresh all-time highs, but there is concern about a double top forming, which could lead to profit taking,” Dantes wrote Friday. 

In other words, the market has retraced last month’s comedown only to now sit on the precipice of either a bearish “double top” technical chart or a bullish blastoff to fresh all-time highs, signalling a continuation of the rally over the last two weeks. 

“It’s over to the weekend trading crowd to decide if bitcoin should remain at the top end of its range, or take a little pop higher and register a new all-time high,” Matt Blom, head of sales and trading for the digital-asset exchange firm EQUOS, wrote Friday in his newsletter.

Ether lags

Related: NFT Mania Fits With ‘Crippling Inflation’ Fear, but Don’t Call It a Bubble

Although mostly tracking with bitcoin’s gains this week, ether (ETH) lagged behind it. The second-largest cryptocurrency traded around $1,743, dropping almost 4% in 24 hours as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET). 

The Ethereum developer and miner community has spent most of March digesting major upcoming protocol upgrades. One of the largest changes addressing the network’s fee market via Ethereum Improvement Proposal (EIP) 1559 was confirmed to be included in a July hard fork upgrade, per CoinDesk’s prior reporting. 

For some analysts, the longer-term price impact from these changes remains an open question. “Due to the highly experimental and frequently evolving nature of the Eth 2.0 upgrade, it is unlikely that these tentative proposals will have a significant impact on the price of ether today,” according to Christine Kim, research analyst at CoinDesk. 

Read more: Crypto Investor MetaKovan Announced as Buyer of $69.3M Beeple NFT 

But if the planned upgrades “become a reality and Ethereum is able to boast a significantly more scalable and efficient blockchain protocol,” the future is almost certain to be brigh and “more value is likely to accrue on the network in the form of new users and decentralized applications and thereby positively impact ether price in the long run,” Kim said. 

Besides ether, other alternative cryptocurrencies (altcoins) gained on the week but lagged behind bitcoin. Altcoin index futures on FTX have gained less than 2% this week.

Other Markets

Digital assets on the CoinDesk 20 are down on Friday. Notable losers as of 21:00 UTC (4:00 p.m. ET):

• orchid (OXT) – 7.35%
• cardano (ADA) – 6.97%
• tezos (XTZ) – 6.4%

Equities:

• Asia’s Nikkei 225 closed the day up 506 points at 29,717.
• The FTSE 100 in Europe gained 1.7%, reaching 6,798.
• The S&P 500 in the United States rose 0.1% to 3,943.

Commodities:

• Oil slipped half a percent. Price per barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude: $65.58.
• Gold was in the green by 0.12% at $1,724 as of press time.

Treasuries:

• The 10-year U.S. Treasury bond yield climbed to 1.63% Friday, in the green less than 1%.

Related Stories

• Why Binance Is Reportedly Facing a CFTC Probe
• Will the NFT Craze Impact Bitcoin?

This week, two developments point toward continued interest in bitcoin as a medium of exchange, the reason the “commerce on the internet” meme may be more accurate than the “digital gold” narrative. 

One of the developments is the debut of a service allowing use of Lightning – a protocol built to scale transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain – for payments with online merchants that use the Visa network. The company behind the service is called Moon, and it uses a similar mechanism to that used by other bitcoin commerce startups, such as Fold. 

The other is PayPal’s announcement that it acquired Curv, an Israeli startup developing crypto asset custody technology. The PayPal announcement, which confirmed a CoinDesk scoop, may be more about PayPal’s support of bitcoin as an investment, but it’s impossible to separate what PayPal does from commerce, which is the backbone of that company.

Related: Market Wrap: Bitcoin’s Winning Streak Ends as Prices Struggle to Break Record

In this article, I’ll take a look at two data points: one is a metric worth watching as a bellwether for bitcoin’s use in commerce. The other is a macroeconomic indicator that can be instructive for those who are confused about whether bitcoin is money or not, and highlights one of the ways in which bitcoin is nothing like gold, despite the strength of bitcoin’s “digital gold” meme.

LISTEN: Digital Gold: How Should Financial Advisors Be Thinking About Bitcoin?

Lightning Network is a Layer 2 protocol that sits atop Bitcoin, allowing for faster and cheaper transactions. The overall capacity of Lightning – the bitcoin available for use on the protocol – is a good proxy for interest in using bitcoin for everyday commerce. 

Unfortunately for bitcoin’s use in commerce on the internet, this metric remains stuck at a ceiling set in 2019.

Related: NFT Mania Fits With ‘Crippling Inflation’ Fear, but Don’t Call It a Bubble

The chart shows that as bitcoin has appreciated, more dollars are available for Lightning transactions. But in bitcoin terms, capacity is at a ceiling. It remains stuck at about 0.008% of bitcoin’s free-float supply (a Coin Metrics measure that counts bitcoin held by addresses active within the past five years), a high first reached in March 2019. 

This is fodder for cryptocurrency critics like U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, whose remarks on bitcoin last month gained attention for their focus on crime, but were really a slap at bitcoin’s negligible use in commerce. “I don’t think that bitcoin … is widely used as a transaction mechanism,” she said. “To the extent it is used I fear it’s often for illicit finance.”

Read more: Money Reimagined: Bitcoin’s Road to Gold

The $100 bill is not used widely in commerce, either. The estimated lifespan of the average C-note is 22.9 years, nearly three times the life of a $20. “Larger denominations such as $100 notes are often used as a store of value, which means they pass between users less frequently than lower denominations,” the Federal Reserve notes. 

The $100 bill also gets little use in commerce Denomination Estimated lifespan $1 6.6 years $5 4.7 years $10 5.3 years $20 7.8 years $50 12.2 years $100 22.9 years

Source: U.S. Federal Reserve

Nonetheless, the $100 bill in the past 20 years has become the U.S. Federal Reserve’s most popular paper product. As the chart below shows, its popularity has grown. In 1999, the circulating value of the $100 bill was $390 billion, about 3.4 times that of the $20 bill. Twenty years later, the Fed estimates $1.42 trillion worth of $100 bills in circulation, more than seven times that of the commerce-friendly $20 bill. 

The Fed’s most popular product

Bitcoin skeptics who point to its lack of use in commerce are making a mistake comparing bitcoin to the dollar. Bitcoin is not like the $5 bill or the $20. It’s like the $100. Essentially, investors are speculating that, in the future, bitcoin will become like the $100, an asset held as a bearer instrument and a store of value. 

In this way, bitcoin’s usefulness for “commerce on the internet” remains crucial to its value. Like the $100 note, bitcoin isn’t valuable necessarily because it is spent, but because it could be spent. In this way, it is unlike gold. And, in this way, Lightning’s capacity, though limited, remains an important data point for bitcoin.

Related Stories

• Why Binance Is Reportedly Facing a CFTC Probe
• Will the NFT Craze Impact Bitcoin?

Related: Market Wrap: Bitcoin’s Winning Streak Ends as Prices Struggle to Break Record

“NFTs will expand beyond current use cases such as collectibles, art and gaming into more traditional use cases like know your client (KYC), asset-backed loans (i.e., putting the value of your house/car on-chain to collateralize a loan), a fractional ownership of specific properties.”

Jeff Dorman, chief investment officer, Arca Related Stories

• Why Bitcoin Is More Like a $100 Bill Than Gold
• Why Binance Is Reportedly Facing a CFTC Probe
• Will the NFT Craze Impact Bitcoin?

The white-hot market for non-fungible tokens has become so big, NFTs are even showing up in the headlines of mainstream publications like the New York Times and on cable news programs. But can the craze have much of an effect on bitcoin? Probably not, at least for now.

The oldest and largest cryptocurrency, which, at around $57,000, ended a weeklong winning streak Friday, sits at the center of digital-asset markets, accounting for some 62% of the overall industry’s $1.7 trillion market capitalization.

So it would stand to reason there might be some spillover into the bitcoin universe from NFTs, which work atop mainly Ethereum-based blockchain networks, even if the connection might be indirect.

Related: Market Wrap: Bitcoin’s Winning Streak Ends as Prices Struggle to Break Record

“Although NFTs have a different use case than bitcoin, both are part of the same vision for a decentralized digital future,” said Miha Grčar, head of business development at crypto exchange Kraken. “The success of one complements the other.”

Read more: Associated Press NFT Artwork Sells for $180K in Ether

According to the website nonfungible.com, the NFT industry had a market capitalization of $338 million at the end of 2020.

The NFT figure, however, doesn’t include this year’s eye-popping growth, most recently evidenced in Thursday’s $69 million purchase of a digital work by the artist Mike Winkelmann, also known as Beeple. Or the $6.6 million digital token representing an animated clip of a graffiti-covered Donald Trump lying face down in the grass. Or the $1 million batch of 34 “digital collectibles” known as CryptoPunks.

Related: Why Bitcoin Is More Like a $100 Bill Than Gold

Contrast those figures with bitcoin’s market value of roughly $1 trillion. So at least for now, the NFT “industry” might not be enough to make a big difference in the crypto universe, especially with the MicroStrategys and Teslas on Wall Street buying billions of dollars of bitcoin as an inflation hedge or a bet on future payment technologies.

“The relative sizes of the markets means it’s effectively impossible for NFT spillover to have a material price impact” on bitcoin, Piers Kicks, venture partner at the cryptocurrency analysis firm Delphi Digital, said in a Twitter message to CoinDesk.

Read more: Kraken Clients Stake $725M of FLOW Tokens, Buying Into NFT Frenzy

Even so, the NFT market is seen as having vast growth potential for a broad range of things: artwork; video game items including skins, weapons and avatars; music; digital trading cards; tokenized real estate, racehorses and designer sneakers; virtual land; and video footage of iconic sporting moments.

Such widespread use could introduce new people into the cryptocurrency ecosystem. That might lead to investing in bitcoin.

“If you want to buy NFTs, you need to be buying crypto,” Joel Kruger, cryptocurrency strategist at LMAX Digital, told CoinDesk. “And if you’re going to start learning about crypto, you are going to be turned onto the value proposition that bitcoin offers.”

NFTs “introduce a whole new world of people to the possibility of new technology, which happens to be around blockchain and cryptocurrency,” Kruger said. “This is the way adoption should happen. There is an opportunity and solution that is better than what exists right now, and people are drawn to that.”

It’s important to note the majority of NFTs transactions are made with ether, the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum blockchain and second-biggest overall.

Read more: How NFTs Became Art, and Everything Became an NFT

Beeple’s $69 million NFT, for example, was paid for with ether by Metakovan, the pseudonymous founder of non-fungible token (NFT) fund Metapurse.

There are strong linkages between bitcoin and ether because bitcoin’s price usually has a strong impact on ether and other cryptocurrency prices.

As of March 11, the correlation between bitcoin and ether remains strong at 0.70, despite a drop from earlier last year, according to data compiled by CoinDesk.

It’s also possible to convert bitcoin into a tokenized form such as wrapped bitcoin (wBTC) so that it can be transferred over the Ethereum blockchain.

“If you want to buy NFTs, you need to be buying crypto,” Kruger said. “And if you’re going to start learning about crypto, you are going to be turned onto the value proposition that bitcoin offers.”

Watch: What’s Next for Beeple After Dizzying $69M NFT Sale?

In addition, there are indications interest in NFTs be having some kind of effect on the market for ether.

When the volume of NFT buyers and sellers increased dramatically in the fourth quarter of 2020, according to the “Non-Fungible Tokens 2020” report by nonfungible.com, ether’s prices were also moving up quickly to above $1,000 from September’s low around $312. This year, ether has pushed even higher, to an all-time high above $2,000 as recently as last month.

Related Stories

• NFT Mania Fits With ‘Crippling Inflation’ Fear, but Don’t Call It a Bubble
• Why Binance Is Reportedly Facing a CFTC Probe

SushiSwap’s governance token, SUSHI, could be worth $100, up fivefold from current price levels, according to John Todaro, head of business development at TradeBlock, a provider of institutional cryptocurrency trading tools and CoinDesk subsidiary.

SushiSwap is a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange built on the Ethereum blockchain. Its price has skyrocketed to about $19, representing a 30-fold gain from a November 2020 low. The protocol has proven one of the biggest success stories of decentralized finance, or DeFi, generating over $100 million in cumulative revenue since launch, Todaro wrote Thursday in the newsletter Bankless.

And similar to the way stockholders might receive a dividend, holders of the SUSHI get a share of the SushiSwap platform’s fees. “Recently, SushiSwap initiated a process whereby a portion of trading fees across the platform are paid out to token holders,” Todaro wrote.

Related: Market Wrap: Bitcoin’s Winning Streak Ends as Prices Struggle to Break Record

This ownership stake is essentially a dividend, which can be used to value SUSHI, similar to the way a bond’s price is a function of the yield.

• “In traditional equity markets, dividend paying stocks are often valued by discounting future cash flows to the present by and expected discount rate,” Todaro wrote.
• Todaro used historical trading volumes and fees to calculate cash flows.
• Based on his assumptions, Todaro estimates SushiSwap’s intrinsice market value at around $12.6 billion, which equates to a token value of about $100.

Despite the lofty valuation, Todaro cautioned investors about considerable risks in the market, including a slump in DeFi cryptocurrency trading.

This industrywide risk could “severely impact SushiSwap’s volumes and hence trading fees,” Todaro wrote.

Related Stories

• Why Bitcoin Is More Like a $100 Bill Than Gold
• NFT Mania Fits With ‘Crippling Inflation’ Fear, but Don’t Call It a Bubble
• Why Binance Is Reportedly Facing a CFTC Probe

A proposed exchange-traded fund (ETF) would invest the majority of its capital into companies that have bitcoin on their balance sheets or are otherwise connected to the cryptocurrency. 

Valkyrie Digital Assets, which has also filed a bitcoin ETF application, filed a Form N1-A for Valkyrie Innovative Balance Sheet ETF with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday in partnership with KKM Financial, which is acting as the investment advisor to the fund, and institutional asset manager SEI, which is acting as the distributor of the fund.

“The Fund … will invest principally in the securities of operating companies that have innovative balance sheets … [O]perating companies that directly or indirectly invest in, transact in or otherwise have exposure to bitcoin or operate in the bitcoin ecosystem,” Valkyrie wrote in the filing. 

Related: Market Wrap: Bitcoin’s Winning Streak Ends as Prices Struggle to Break Record

Valkyrie defined the Bitcoin ecosystem as the Bitcoin network and “bitcoin trading platforms, bitcoin miners, bitcoin custodians, digital wallet providers, companies that facilitate payments in bitcoin and companies that provide other technology, equipment or services to companies operating in the Bitcoin ecosystem.”

Similarly, last week JPMorgan Chase published a filing that detailed an incoming debt instrument that is linked to cryptocurrency-associated companies such as MicroStrategy, Square, Riot Blockchain and chipmaker Nvidia. 

If the ETF proposal becomes an investment vehicle before the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approves a bitcoin ETF, it could capture the same kind of inflows that Canadian bitcoin ETFs have seen days after approval from the Ontario Securities Commission. 

Earlier this year, analysts noted that MicroStrategy’s stock was being treated as a bitcoin ETF proxy because the stock rallied in tandem with bitcoin. 

Related: Why Bitcoin Is More Like a $100 Bill Than Gold

Investment vehicles that give exposure to companies buying bitcoin may help companies that aren’t allowed to add bitcoin to their own balance sheets, said Jeff Kilburg, CEO of KKM Financial. 

“This is a very complicated, sophisticated approach for some of these multinational corporations that have policies and procedures that currently don’t include the ability to own cryptocurrency,” Kilburg said. “That’s where it gets really challenging to identify not just the existing companies [invested in bitcoin] but to find the companies who are looking to include this on their balance sheet.”

CORRECTED (March 12, 22:03 UTC): The CEO of KKM Financial is Jeff Kilburg, not Jeff Kilgore.

Related Stories

• NFT Mania Fits With ‘Crippling Inflation’ Fear, but Don’t Call It a Bubble
• Why Binance Is Reportedly Facing a CFTC Probe

Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes is the latest professional athlete to pile into the non-fungible token (NFT) craze.

Mahomes said on CNBC Friday he will unveil a “Museum of Mahomes” on NFT platform MakersPlace on March 17. That is where he will exhibit and then offer for sale a series of digital collectibles that cost as much as $15,000 apiece. Some of the proceeds will be donated to his foundation as well as the Boys & Girls Club of Missouri, Mahomes said.

The former league MVP follows Dapper Labs’ NBA Top Shot and, more recently, fellow NFL player, Tampa Bay Bucs running back Rob Gronkowski in minting digital sports collectibles on the blockchain. For his part, Mahomes praised NFTs as another method to expand athletes’ personal brands.

Related: Market Wrap: Bitcoin’s Winning Streak Ends as Prices Struggle to Break Record

He also expressed a fascination with “how blockchain auctions are growing” in his interview with CNBC. On Thursday, Beeple’s NFT sold at auction for a staggering $69.3 million.

Mahomes worked with artists The Impossible Brief to design the pieces. As is the case with the Gronk NFTs, the pieces are not licensed by the National Football League and do not feature team logos.

Related Stories

• Why Bitcoin Is More Like a $100 Bill Than Gold
• NFT Mania Fits With ‘Crippling Inflation’ Fear, but Don’t Call It a Bubble
• Why Binance Is Reportedly Facing a CFTC Probe

MetaKovan, the pseudonymous founder of non-fungible token (NFT) fund Metapurse, is the proud owner of the Beeple NFT auctioned by Christie’s on Thursday for $69.3 million.

“When you think of high-valued NFTs, this one is going to be pretty hard to beat,” MetaKovan said in a press release issued by the 255-year-old auction house.

MetaKovan paid for Beeple’s “Everydays” in ether, Christie’s confirmed, beating out Tron founder Justin Sun in a last-minute bid. The final sale price was 42,329.453 ETH. Appearing on CoinDesk TV earlier Friday, Beeple (aka Mike Winkelmann) said, “I probably will keep a percentage of [my earnings] in ether.”

Related: Market Wrap: Bitcoin’s Winning Streak Ends as Prices Struggle to Break Record

The auction house said its website hosted around 22 million visitors for the final moments of bidding on the most expensive NFT ever sold.

Not much is known about the pseudonymous MetaKovan other than the association with the Metapurse NFT fund, the largest such fund in the world. Metapurse already owns a smattering of Beeple pieces that it has offered to the public in fractionalized form through B20 token sales.

The B20 token surged on the news, shooting up from $16.31 to $26.54 before settling back down to $19.73 as of press time.

Metapurse has previously commissioned virtual reality architecture group Voxel Architects to design virtual art museums in three digital worlds.

Related Stories

• Why Bitcoin Is More Like a $100 Bill Than Gold
• NFT Mania Fits With ‘Crippling Inflation’ Fear, but Don’t Call It a Bubble
• Why Binance Is Reportedly Facing a CFTC Probe

The Associated Press (AP) sold its non-fungible token (NFT) artwork Thursday for a hefty sum only eight days putting it up for auction.

The artwork, titled “The Associated Press calls the 2020 Presidential Election on Blockchain – A View from Outer Space,” sold for roughly 100 ETH ($180,000), according to data from NFT marketplace OpenSea.

Marking the first time a U.S. election was called on the blockchain, AP used an Ethereum address to declare the winner via Everipedia’s OraQle software.

Related: Market Wrap: Bitcoin’s Winning Streak Ends as Prices Struggle to Break Record

The piece of digital art is one of a kind, a 1/1 edition, depicting a visual of the electoral college map from space using election data AP published on-chain at the time.

CoinDesk originally reported on AP’s NFT auction earlier this month when the price was sitting at around $928 in wrapped ether.

The notable rise in value is in line with the recent NFT craze currently sweeping the cryptocurrency markets, with ether being the predominant medium of exchange among NFT marketplaces.

Related Stories

• Why Bitcoin Is More Like a $100 Bill Than Gold
• NFT Mania Fits With ‘Crippling Inflation’ Fear, but Don’t Call It a Bubble
• Why Binance Is Reportedly Facing a CFTC Probe

Kraken, a San Francisco based cryptocurrency exchange, said clients have staked nearly $725 million worth of the digital token FLOW as a growing number of investors look to capitalize on increasing demand for non-fungible tokens (NFTs). It did not detail how many of its clients are involved.

The surge in staking activity – similar to depositing money in an interest-bearing account – reflects the broader NFT frenzy, fueling soaring prices for other tokens such as Enjin and Rarible, which raised $1.7 million in seed funds from Coinbase Ventures in February.

• FLOW tokens are used as a form of payment for applications built atop the Dapper Labs-backed Flow blockchain, including the NBA Top Shot digital collectibles platform.
• Month-to-month NFT sales continue to surge, with February volumes alone hitting a record of $342 million, according to Kraken’s press release.
• “FLOW has become a key avenue for investors to gain exposure to the white-hot NFT space,” said Jeremy Welch, VP of Product at Kraken.
• Nearly $50 million worth of FLOW was traded on Kraken on a single day this week, according to the company’s press release.
• Prices for FLOW tokens have quadrupled this year, for a market capitalization of nearly $1 billion.

Read More: Soaring Prices for Enjin, FLOW and Rarible Reveal Risks of ‘NFT Marketplace’ Tokens

Related Stories

• Market Wrap: Bitcoin’s Winning Streak Ends as Prices Struggle to Break Record
• Why Bitcoin Is More Like a $100 Bill Than Gold
• NFT Mania Fits With ‘Crippling Inflation’ Fear, but Don’t Call It a Bubble
• Why Binance Is Reportedly Facing a CFTC Probe

Bitcoin mining machine manufacturer Ebang will launch its new cryptocurrency exchange in an invite-only beta phase on March 15, according to an announcement.

• By April, Ebang plans to end the beta phase and fully launch its exchange.
• Shares of the company jumped after the announcement, gaining more than 55% since Thursday. Ebang shares were trading above $11 at last check.
• The launch comes less than a year after the Nasdaq-listed company announced plans to launch an exchange that would strictly operate outside of China, per CoinDesk’s prior reporting.
• In December 2020, Ebang set the end of Q1 2021 as the target date to launch the exchange.

Related Stories

• Market Wrap: Bitcoin’s Winning Streak Ends as Prices Struggle to Break Record
• Why Bitcoin Is More Like a $100 Bill Than Gold
• NFT Mania Fits With ‘Crippling Inflation’ Fear, but Don’t Call It a Bubble
• Why Binance Is Reportedly Facing a CFTC Probe

Mike Winkelmann, the digital artist known as Beeple, is under no illusions.

“I think it’s a bubble,” he said of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on CoinDesk TV a day after his  tokenized collage, “Everydays: The First 5000 Days,” sold for $69.3 million. “If it’s not a bubble now, I do believe it probably will be a bubble at some point because there’s just so many people rushing into this space.”

That said, he thinks NFTs will have staying power beyond their current moment of “irrational exuberance.”

Related: Market Wrap: Bitcoin’s Winning Streak Ends as Prices Struggle to Break Record

“It has such a huge potential to be a very transformative technology,” he said, pointing to examples beyond digital art. “I was really all-in since October.”

NFTs have skyrocketed in value in recent months, with “Everydays” now enjoying the company of some of the most expensive pieces of art in the world. The most expensive painting ever sold was a Leonardo da Vinci that went for $450.3 million in 2017.

Beeple told CoinDesk the buyer of his piece will be revealed soon, and that he’s working with the buyer to figure out ways to display the NFT in the real world. He mentioned options such as putting it on large screens in public, making a big print for the buyer’s house or projecting it onto a building at Art Basel.

The buyer was initially reported to be Tron founder Justin Sun, but as CoinDesk first reported Thursday, Sun was actually beaten by a last-minute bid. 

Related: Why Bitcoin Is More Like a $100 Bill Than Gold

Beeple said Friday the sale was made in ether, the native currency of the Ethereum blockchain.

“I probably will keep a percentage of it in ether,” he said. “How much of that, I’m going to be honest, I haven’t really given it that much thought.”

Beeple said he plans to invest his earnings from the record-breaking sale in making bigger and cooler art projects that take more time and resources. “Everydays” was a mosaic of posts he has been making daily since 2007. 

“I look at the people collecting this work as investors,” he said. “I want those people to get a return on their investment. It’s good for them and it’s good for me if their artwork goes up in value.”

And despite NFTs being seen as a way to fundamentally change the economics of the art world, Beeple seemed skeptical.

“I was not making this work for the money,” he said. “To be honest, I don’t think it will democratize the art world that much.”

Related Stories

• NFT Mania Fits With ‘Crippling Inflation’ Fear, but Don’t Call It a Bubble
• Why Binance Is Reportedly Facing a CFTC Probe

Luke Ellis, CEO of U.K. hedge fund Man Group, sees bitcoin as a trading instrument rather than a long-term asset allocation.

• Appearing on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Friday, Ellis revealed that he had “dabbled” in bitcoin but sees himself as a trader rather than a HODler.
• “I see it as a trading instrument, so we trade around it and try to provide some liquidity into the market,” he told CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin.
• Ellis also said he did not think it was necessary for companies to hold bitcoin on their balance sheets, describing this as “confusing” considering the business use case relative to the inherent speculation.

• “I don’t think companies are supposed to be speculate with their cash balances,” he added.
• Large companies such as Tesla and MicroStrategy have disclosed large treasury investments in bitcoin in recent months.
• Man Group is a London-based hedge fund, managing around $123.6 billion for its mostly institutional clients.

See also: Coinbase Has Held Crypto Assets Like Bitcoin on Its Balance Sheet Since 2012

Related Stories

• What’s Next for Beeple After Dizzying $69M NFT Sale?
• Alameda Research Pumps $20M Into Cross-Chain DeFi Platform Reef Finance
• Miner Selling Pressure Declines, Could Fuel Bitcoin Rally, Blockchain Analysis Shows
• Watch Out for These Risks Before Investing in Bitcoin or Ether

Polkadot-based Reef Finance said trading firm Alameda Research has made a $20 million investment by purchasing REEF tokens.

In an announcement Friday, the firm said Alameda Research has become a significant stakeholder in the cross-chain decentralized finance (DeFi) platform. Reef previously announced a $3.9 million funding round last September with backing from NGC Ventures, Kenetic Capital and others.

The Alameda investment represents a significant bet on DeFi traction outside of Ethereum, the leading venue for bank-like financial applications built on the blockchain. Demand for such services has made DeFi a $42 billion concern but has also driven up gas fees on Ethereum to record highs.

Related: What’s Next for Beeple After Dizzying $69M NFT Sale?

Notably, Reef Finance said Alameda, a major backer of the high-throughput Solana blockchain, will help the project build its first bridge between Polkadot and Solana.

“We’re excited to incorporate this investment to further our trajectory and for the development of the Reef chain for DeFi applications of the future,” Reef CEO Denko Mancheski said in a statement.

In February, Alameda Research announced it was leading a $40 million investment in Oxygen, which is built on Solana. Oxygen’s suite of DeFi tools are expected to be built into Maps.me, a widely used travel app in which Alameda is also invested.

A source with knowledge of the Reef Finance investment said Alameda may soon up its REEF holdings beyond the announced $20 million.

Related Stories

• Bitcoin Not a Long-Term Allocation, Says Man Group CEO
• Miner Selling Pressure Declines, Could Fuel Bitcoin Rally, Blockchain Analysis Shows
• Watch Out for These Risks Before Investing in Bitcoin or Ether

Selling pressure on bitcoin (BTC) miners has been declining after a major sell-off in January. This could be a positive thing for bitcoin, seen as a “catalyst for prices to float higher,” according to a report by Stack Funds, a provider of cryptocurrency index funds in Asia.

• Miners’ seven-day outflows are at the lowest level in five years, currently trading around the 1.0 level, according to CryptoQuant, a South Korean cryptocurrency data firm.
• The last time the miner outflow indicator dipped to current levels was back in 2015 when “bitcoin went on a parabolic rise that lasted more than two years,” according to Stack Funds.
• The breakdown in the outflow indicator suggests miner selling pressure will continue to remain low.
• “Overall, most fundamental indicators suggest miners are back into accumulating, and we expect $50,000 to be a strong support handle for bitcoin in the near term,” according to Stack Funds.

Related Stories

• What’s Next for Beeple After Dizzying $69M NFT Sale?
• Bitcoin Not a Long-Term Allocation, Says Man Group CEO
• Alameda Research Pumps $20M Into Cross-Chain DeFi Platform Reef Finance
• Watch Out for These Risks Before Investing in Bitcoin or Ether