20/09/2023 Mila Kunis' Stoner Cats Banned From NFT Marketplaces After SEC Charges

OpenSea and Rarible both confirmed that they blocked Stoner Cats NFT trades, while Blur shows no active listings after the SEC settlement.

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TheStoner CatsNFT project can no longer be traded at prominent marketplaces like OpenSea, Blur, and Rarible. The moves follow last week’s announcement that the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) hadcharged the creatorswith selling unregistered securities.

TheEthereumNFTs—which are tied to a celebrity-packed animated series—wereinitially sold in 2021and have been available to trade across various marketplaces since then. But as of this writing, bothOpenSeaandBlurdo not show any active listings for Stoner CatsNFTs, whileRaribleno longer lists the project on its site.

OpenSea still shows the project page, but a representative for the marketplace confirmed toDecryptthat Stoner Cats NFTs can no longer be bought, sold, or transferred via OpenSea. On itsCommunity Standardspage, OpenSea notes that because the site is also used as a blockchain explorer for NFTs, it prefers to keep project pages online even if trading has been disabled.

Rarible confirmed toDecryptthat the marketplace “blocked them based on our market monitoring of recent events.” Blur did not immediately respond toDecrypt's request for confirmation of a trading ban.

While the NFTs are no longer listed on Rarible and cannot be transacted on OpenSea, they still remain on the blockchain and in the wallets of holders. And they can still be sold at marketplaces that list them—bothLooksRareandX2Y2, for example, have active Stoner Cats NFT listings as of this writing.

Stoner Cats was co-created by actress Mila Kunis, whose Orchard Farm Productions studio developed the project. The project sold Ethereum NFTs that enabled access to the six-episode web series, which centers on the exploits of cartoon cats who get high.

Kunis voiced one of the cats, as did her husband Ashton Kutcher and other notable celebrities like comedian Chris Rock, actress Jane Fonda, “Family Guy” creator Seth McFarlane, and even Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin.

Stoner Cats sold 10,420 NFT passes in July 2021, netting over $8 million from the primary sale. The creators also took a cut from the over $20 million worth of secondary market sales that followed, per data from the SEC.

The creators settled with the SEC over allegations of selling unregistered securities and agreed to pay a $1 million civil fine, which will be used to establish a Fair Fund to reimburse investors. Eligibility details have yet to be announced. Stoner Cats’ creators also agreed to destroy any remaining NFTs in their possession, according to the agency.

Sales of Stoner Cats NFTsspiked last weekafter the SEC news came out, and prices climbed as well—jumping from a floor price (the cheapest listed NFT) of 0.019 ETH ($30) on Wednesday to a recent peak of 0.082 ETH ($131) early Thursday, per data fromNFT Price Floor. The NFTs were still being traded on OpenSea and Blur as of last week.

But the price has settled substantially since then as the NFTs have disappeared from major marketplaces. The current floor price sits at 0.037 ETH, or about $61.

Arts

https://decrypt.co/197622/mila-kunis-stoner-cats-trading-banned-nft-marketplaces-sec?amp=1

Interesting NFTs
#65952
By OthersideDeployer
The Harvest
An anthropomorphic figure stands, wide eyed, staring at the viewer; its body masculine, muscular, and humanoid. Its “mind” dissociates into a conglomerate of structures resembling feathers, grain, teeth–as well as a radial flower “node”, casting linear rays throughout the composition. To his left, a vat of bodies gesture and writhe in a kind of amniotic soup, attended by a video game robot. The bot's red display reads “uWu”. Behind the robot and filling the left side of the composition is an archaic figure composed of a variety of vintage objects and symbols. Among them are a hardbound book with ancient cuneiform scripts, indicating barley, beer, bread, ox, house, and sky, behind which is a grimacing, salivating jagged toothed maw; and an old Commodore floppy drive. The figure’s head tilts toward an illuminated crescent moon, suggesting the Egyptian Sacred Bull. The archaic figure is composed of a variety of mutating cells, which shift in color, and pattern; eventually breaking free into an ephemeral broadcast of bubbles which move across the background. The work came into being against a psychological introspection, which included associations to pop culture such as alien abduction and pod people, as well as quite a bit of reflection on grains as a symbol of civilization, agriculture, sustenance, life, and imbibing (mainly whiskies).
Another Day In Paradise
Just as the book speaks to intelligence, the image in all its muteness speaks to the heart.
SkullPix #427
4999 SkullPix living on the ethereum 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 JosĂ© 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?