26/10/2022 New NFT Rules Possible if Lawmakers Ask, EU Official Says

The treatment of non-fungible tokens wasn’t fully resolved by Brussels’ landmark Markets in Crypto Assets regulation.

CDCROP: European Parliament building in Brussels (Getty Images)

The European Parliament could prove key to new NFT rules for the EU. (FrankyDeMeyer/Getty Images)

Further European Union legislation on non-fungible tokens could be issued if requested by lawmakers, an official from the bloc's executive arm said on Wednesday.

"The parliament is working on a resolution on NFTs,” said Peter Kerstens, head of the European Commission’s financial technology task force, while speaking of a procedure under which members of the European Parliament choose to set out their wishes on a particular policy issue.

The EU’s Markets in Crypto Assets law (MiCA) left the treatment of NFTs, which offerdigital proofs of ownership, somewhat ambiguous. But that uncertainty could leave the door open for further policy actions, said Kerstens, who is also a senior advisor at the commission department responsible for financial services.

While, legally, the commission isn’t obliged to comply with lawmakers' wishes, “if there is a strong political indication or wish for an initiative, that may move the Commission into presenting it,” Kerstens said. “If we don't act on it, we'll have a lot of explaining to do, and I think we'll end up having an unhappy parliament. We don’t like an unhappy parliament.”

Later at the same event, EU lawmaker Eva Kaili confirmed she will be holding the pen on the parliament’s new report – and she wants to avoid the controversies of MiCA, which focuses on regulating individual entities such as crypto wallet companies.

“We need to rethink the regulatory approach and move towards implementing activity-based regulation… rather than an entity-based one for NFTs,” said Kaili, a Greek left-wing lawmaker, adding that she wouldn’t seek to constrain the sector too much.

“It should not be in just one box of media… it deserves a custom regime... they can be used in many industries,” she said, adding that the final report would take as long as six months to draft.

MiCA requires crypto companies to register with the authorities and meet consumer protection and financial stability norms. But officials also worry that, although NFTs ostensibly represent articles like artworks, they are prone to the same kind of abusive behavior that plagues more conventional financial markets, such as price manipulation.

While, in principle, MiCA applies only to fungible tokens, there’s a “lot of prose” in the final draft concerning exactly when self-proclaimed NFTs might actually fall under the law – and the framework doesn’t always get it right, Kerstens said.

The legislation “has a very peculiar sentence in there which says that, if an NFT is part of a large series or a collection that’s an indicator that it’s fungible, which is actually incorrect,” Kerstens said.

Whether or not it’s right, there’s great confusion about exactly what NFT creators and exchanges like OpenSea will be expected to do once the law takes effect in 2024.

“We haven't seen a case where existing NFTs in the market would fall into MiCA," Gabriel Cumenge, deputy assistant secretary at the French Ministry of Economy, told the same conference hosted by Blockchain for Europe on Tuesday.

Cumenge's view appears likely to be disputed by other crypto experts. Patrick Hansen, previously a venture advisor at Presight Capital and now employed by stablecoin issuer Circle, has previously argued that MiCA could end up capturing95% of the marketas NFTs are often issued as collections.

Arts

https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2022/10/26/new-nft-rules-possible-if-lawmakers-ask-eu-official-says/

Interesting NFTs
Lim Hedra #1/20
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YouTube logo factory. 10-second loop, 30 fps. Created using Cinema4D, X-Particles, TurbulenceFD, Octane, and After Effects.
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Beautiful Worlds
Welcome to the ‘Beautiful worlds’ where nature and technology have merged into a single entity. These are Ai generated and hand finished visions of solarpunk future in which I would really like our future generations to live and prosper: the future we might have if we took the very “alternative route” which now lies before us: replacing states and corporations which free federations of communities and cooperatives, using decentralist and ecological technologies to create a world beyond economic scarcity and social hierarchy, defined by autonomy, mutual aid, diversity, and inclusiveness. The long-term goals of solarpunk are freedom and well-being for all by adopting and developing such ecological technologies as: solar, wind, wave and geothermal energy rather than oil or gas to generate electricity; a world of decentralized eco-cities, permaculture and vertical farming, free and open-source software, open-source hardware, small-scale fabrication laboratories, micro-manufacturing, 3D-printing, and countless examples of commons-based peer-production online: meeting the maximum amount of needs, in the shortest time, using the minimum possible amount of energy. It’s a world of decentralized and confederated eco-communities, using technology for human-centric and eco-centric ends rather than for accumulating power and profit – mending the metabolic rift between first nature (the natural world) and second nature (human culture) – and where social hierarchies of race, gender, sexuality, and disability are considered horror stories from the past “oil age”. Solarpunk desires societies of polycultural ethnic diversity and gender liberation, where each person is able to actualize themselves in societal environment of free experimentation and communal caring; This philosophy proposes that in order for the social and natural worlds to reconcile, humans must first transform their relations to each other – recreating society along egalitarian, cooperative, and democratic lines – and then transform their relations towards nature – adopting an attitude to cooperation, rather than domination, towards the planet and its nonhuman forms of life. Text by Connor Owens. This artwork took me a year to create and for you it will take a year to discover. Master autonomously updates once a day at 12am with one of 366 original artworks. Enjoy!
Mars House
Mars House is the first NFT digital house in the world. Upon purchase of Mars House NFT, 3D files will be sent to the new owner by Krista Kim Studio Inc. for file upload to the owner’s Metaverse. Technical support for Mars House integration on Metaverse is provided. (Architectural Digest, March 14, 2021) “Kim ventured into NFTs while exploring meditative design during quarantine; her hope was to use the influx of digital life as an opportunity to promote wellbeing. Comprised entirely of light, the visual effects of her crypto-home are meant to omit a zen, healing atmosphere. The artist also partnered with musician Jeff Schroeder of The Smashing Pumpkins to create a calming musical accompaniment. So what makes the file a compelling purchase? Beyond the promise of buying into the lucrative NFT market, the home and all of the furniture in it can be built in real life by glass furniture-makers in Italy, as well as through MicroLED screen technology. Kim also has a strong visions the art being projected, as well. “Everyone should install an LED wall in their house for NFT art.” says the artist. “ This is the future, and Mars House demonstrates the beauty of that possibility.” The owner is in agreement to the following terms and conditions upon purchase of Mars House (hereby referred to as Mars House NFT): The collector agrees to own one copy of Mars House NFT on a single Metaverse platform. The collector is required to register Mars House NFT ownership with Krista Kim Studio Inc. Krista Kim Studio Inc. will provide technical support to upload and integrate Mars House NFT on a Metaverse platform. If/when Mars House is resold, the collector is required to delete all Mars House NFT 3D file(s) from his/her Metaverse, and provide verification of deletion to Krista Kim Studio Inc. before new 3D files are transferred to the new owner by the artist. The new owner is required to register Mars House NFT ownership with Krista Kim Studio Inc. Krista Kim Studio will send Mars House NFT 3D files directly to the new owner and provide support for Metaverse integration. This verified ownership transfer system will be appointed to Krista Kim Studio Inc. trusteeship, after 40 years of the date of the sale. Krista Kim Studio Inc. retains ownership of Mars House NFT copyright. All rights reserved. All reproductions of Mars House (NFT) in both digital and physical formats, are restricted. Mars House NFT physical furniture pieces, made of tempered printed glass in Italy, may be commissioned by the collector as NFT physical pieces.