Unfoldable Tales: This Week in Bitcoin, Crypto, and NFT

Hello again, and welcome to CNET’s second edition of Nonfungible Tidbits, where we’ve rounded up some of this week’s most interesting happenings in the cryptocurrency, NFTs, and related worlds.

Other than Bitcoin slowly making its way above $40,000 for the first time since November, the biggest story this week was 324 million dollars on crypto platform Wormhole, which the company confirmed on Wednesday. In an interesting turn of events, a company called Jump Crypto stepped in the next day and paid Wormhole – but no word from the hackers yet. in other news, Jim Stop It announced a partnership with a blockchain startup on Thursday and confirmed plans to create an NFT marketplace. Here are some other stories that caught our eye this week.

NBA player Jimmy Butler says in Binance’s new ad campaign: “Trust yourself, not celebrities

The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange has partnered with NBA player Jimmy Butler for a New advertising campaign With a deceptively simple message: “Trust yourself, not celebrities.” Binance’s campaign is somewhat ironic – Jimmy Butler is a five-time NBA All-Star – and comes at a time when popular influencers are under increasing criticism for promoting cryptocurrencies and NFTs to their audiences. A lawsuit alleging a pump-and-dump scheme was recently filed against Kim Kardashian, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and others by a group that bought cryptocurrency promoted by celebrities.

However, celebrities and cryptocurrencies are still intertwined. Crypto.com and FTX, the two major cryptocurrency exchanges competing with Binance, have both bought ad time for this year’s Super Bowl, which is less than two weeks away. Crypto.com recently launched an advertising campaign in which Matt Damon participated.

Picasso’s ownership is not acceptable with the NFTs of his art

Two weeks ago, Pablo Picasso’s granddaughter, Marina Picasso, and her son, Florian Picasso, displayed a ceramic bowl that they said was a piece of art created by Pablo Picasso. The mother and son told the Associated Press that they plan to make the NFTs for sale online. However, a lawyer representing the Picasso Department, which is run by three children and two Picasso grandchildren and who manages the late painter’s estate and intellectual property, made it clear that no licensed Picasso teams are on the way. Business Manager at Marina Picasso and Florian Picasso then remarked that the NFTs for sale were based on the work of Florian – not Pablo – Picasso. So if you find an NFT for Guernica online, feel free to save the JPEG – but don’t buy it.

Anonymous Internet group wants scientists to do crazy things with mice

BitMouseDAO is an online group that is raising funds for a very 2022 project: integrating bitcoin code into mouse DNA. Let’s go back for a moment. DAO stands for Decentralized Autonomous Organization, which is basically a group of crypto-savvy people online who use digital tokens to vote on what they do as a group. A BitMouseDAO spokesperson, who declined to be identified, told Motherboard that “BitMouseDAO is an art project that connects the crypto world with the art world as well as the biological field through the bold idea of ​​putting bitcoin in [a] the mouse.”

The group appears to have nine investors and a few thousand dollars in funding. BitMouseDAO says its art project is inspired by the work of Eduardo Kac, an artist who combined rabbit and jellyfish DNA to create a green glowing rabbit in 2000. Perhaps to avoid confusion, a BitMouseDAO spokesperson told Motherboard, “We’re exploring consensus around the value of crypto and our vision for the future of technology. We are not making a biochemical monster.”

That’s it for the stories this week. Thanks for reading. If you’re so inclined, here’s last week’s edition of Non-Foldable Tales. We’ll be back with a lot to talk about next week. In the meantime, check out this story on quantum computing and cryptocurrency by Stephen Shankland of CNET. see you soon.