06/09/2024 OpenSea receives SEC Wells notice, monthly NFT sales fall below $400M: Nifty Newsletter

OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer said that the NFT marketplace received a Wells notice from the SEC, suggesting potential enforcement action from the agency.

OpenSea receives SEC Wells notice, monthly NFT sales fall below $400M: Nifty Newsletter

In this week’s newsletter, find out how former United States president Donald Trump’s fourthnon-fungible token (NFT)collection performed, and read about the US Securities and Exchange Commission sending a Wells notice to NFT marketplace OpenSea. Take a look at how crypto advocates reacted to the notice, and check out Cointelegraph’s interview with a Web3 executive explaining how NFTs could potentially be classified as securities. In other news, the monthly sales volume of NFTs fell below $400 million for the first time in 2024.

Trump’s fourth NFT collection sees $2.2 million in sales

Former US President and current presidential candidate Donald Trump released his fourth dive into the world of NFTs with a trading card collection called America First. The collection gained massive support upon its launch, earning Trump $2.2 million in crypto.

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However, some community members were not happy with Trump’s NFT project. A community member said the NFT project makes the former president’s crypto push feel like a “grift.”

OpenSea marketplace receives Wells notice from the SEC

NFT marketplace OpenSea received a Wells notice from the SEC, suggesting that the agency might take action against the company in the future. OpenSea CEO Devin Finzer said that the SEC alleged that NFTs on the platform may be unregistered securities.

The OpenSea CEO said targeting NFTs would “stifle innovation” and put creatives at risk. Finzer also said that many of these artists don’t have the resources to defend themselves should the SEC take action.

Crypto advocates criticize SEC notice to OpenSea

Following the SEC’s Wells notice to OpenSea, crypto advocates went online to show their support and question the regulator’s move. Ji Kim, the chief legal and policy officer at the Crypto Council for Innovation, described the SEC’s assertion that NFT platforms should be regulated as a securities exchange as “utterly ridiculous” and “legally flawed.”

North Carolina Representative Wiley Nickel said on X that it is disappointing to see the SEC’s continued enforcement of regulation. The representative said that the SEC should instead work with Congress to establish fair and clear regulations to foster innovation.

NFTs can be securities, but SEC Wells notice to OpenSea “not productive” — Lawyer

While the SEC’s allegations may not be “productive,” a lawyer suggested that NFTs can be securities in some cases. In a Cointelegraph interview, Oscar Franklin Tan, the chief legal officer of Web3 organization Atlas Development, explained that some use cases for NFTs resemble investment products.

Tan said that minting stock certificates of NFTs and offering dividends will sound like they are securities. However, Tan believes these aren’t the NFTs people expect on a platform like OpenSea.

Monthly NFT sales fall below $400 million, marking yearly low

The monthly sales volume of digital collectibles fell to $374 million in August, marking its lowest point in 2024. Data from CryptoSlam showed that NFTs fell by 76% compared to its highest monthly sales record of $1.6 billion this year.

In August, NFTs also had a 31% drop in the number of transactions. Despite this, the average value of an NFT sale increased from $39.93 to $50.74, showing a 27% increase.

Arts

https://cointelegraph.com/news/opensea-sec-wells-notice-monthly-nft-sales-400-million-newsletter

Interesting NFTs
GS05
"I wanna be adored" is a collection that explores the concept of adoration and religion through the artistic glorification of popular icons such as Elvis, David Bowie or Marilyn Monroe, elevated to the category of gods and virgins, from where they claim their right to be worshipped. They occupy in their own right a sacred place, traditionally reserved exclusively for biblical figures. Faith, forgiveness, sanctification and finally glorification are omnipresent concepts in these pieces, which explore not only the need to worship, but the desire to be worshipped ourselves. As a way of vindicating a more human concept of the divine, the protagonists of the collection reign from a more earthly heaven, more within reach of the viewer, illuminated by neon lights, like a heavenly Las Vegas where virtue and sin go hand in hand. VIEW IN OPENSEA
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?
Metarift
∟ 2160 x 2160 px, Video (46.5 MB)
Block Chain Dungeon
Once upon a time... a little boy named Leo loved to paint, draw and experiment. He also loved to play with blocks and chains, which drew him again and again into the rooms of his friends Michel and Angelo. Often they also met in virtual rooms of Cryptovoxels, Decentraland, Somnium Space or Sandbox to create new inventions, read books about new technologies, or just swing the brushes. But on this day something gigantic happened. A good friend of Leo came to visit and brought his girlfriend Mona, who wanted a piece of Leo's art on her skin. This was the birth of the NFT's, as Leo developed Non Fungible Tattoos in the Block Chain Dungeon of Michel and Angelo. From that day on people from all over the world came to get NFT's from Leo or one of his students, like "Skeenee the rat", who controls the NFT machine with his laptop. A new age began.
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Things are not always as they seem. Living in poverty is like serving a sentence in a prison with invisible bars. The keys are in plain sight, yet impossible to reach. Screen time captivates us with its addictive dopamine triggers, plucking at our attention span until we are no longer aware of the present... What if both worlds collide? Hand-rendered acrylics on bristol board scanned and converted into a digital image.