30/08/2023 The SEC brings its first NFT enforcement action

Illustration of a museum frame with a crypto block in it falling off a wall and tipping over forward.

Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios

U.S. regulators continue to hammercryptofirms with enforcement actions, the latest of which dragsNFTsinto the mix.

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Driving the news: The Securities and Exchange Commission on Mondaysued Los Angeles-based podcasting firm Impact Theory for allegedly offering securities in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), raising more than $30 million through sales in late 2021.

Background:Impact Theory offered 20,000 NFTs at three levels of rarity ina 2021 offering. The tokens gave buyers "levels" of access to things the company would create, such as to discounts and events.

  • Of note: Impact Theory is not really an NFT company, rather it appears to be a bare-bones entertainment shop centered around entrepreneur Tom Bilyeu.

The intrigue: The SEC's action Monday comes in spite of the company's attempt to remedy the allegations, repurchasing the NFTs, calledFounder's Keys, in the months following the sales, and returning roughly $7.7 million worth of ETH.

What they're saying: Without admitting or denying the SEC's allegations, Impact agreed to destroy the NFTs in question and pay combined penalties of more than $6 million.

What others are saying: SEC commissioners Hester Peirce and Mark Uyedadissentedin the enforcement action, explaining they disagreed, in part, with the application of theHowey analysis.

Arts

https://www.axios.com/2023/08/28/sec-nft-podcasting-impact-theory

Interesting NFTs
Punk #56
Inscription #581
Classical Collage
voronoi fun with some well known art
#61301
By OthersideDeployer
CryptoPunk #9052
The CryptoPunks are 10,000 uniquely generated characters. No two are exactly alike, and each one of them can be officially owned by a single person on the Ethereum blockchain. Originally, they could be claimed for free by anybody with an Ethereum wallet, but all 10,000 were quickly claimed. Now they must be purchased from someone via the marketplace that's also embedded in the blockchain.
Who Is The Creator 2
The idea for this piece was borne out of a tweet of mine that caused a bit of a stir. I’d posted a link to a blog article I’d written a number of months previous titled ‘Who is the Creator’ discussing various types of creative collaborations and why I hire people to work on my animations. It generated a lot of debate around creation and attribution with the community split on whether it’s right or wrong for an artist to hire other professionals to help them realize their art projects. I decided to push the boundaries even further and see how the cryptoart community responded. What if I quite literally had nothing to do with the physical or digital elements of the work other than coming up with the concept and coordinating it? I decided there was one artist in the space who could add huge value to this idea on levels that none other could and so I gathered my courage and contacted the great José Delbo to ask him if he’d be interested in a very unique collaboration. I explained to him that to make this piece ‘work’ he couldn't have any say in what I produced and moreover, he wouldn’t even be allowed to see the animation until it was dropped on MakersPlace. To my surprise, Mr Delbo agreed to my proposal. The animation tells the story of the creative process, which includes my roles as writer, director, and producer working with a team and making edits and changes ‘in real time’. The dialogue between myself and my ‘hired guns’ plays out in front of the viewer. The music written for the piece adds to the nostalgia of the comic book superhero theme but other elements such as the snapping and kicking of the pencil and the signing of my signature at the bottom incorporates further layers and challenges the viewer to ask important questions, such as, is the ‘Art’ the final animation (the creation) or is the ‘Art’ the concept/credit for the creation itself?