Galaxy securitizes violin to loan, NFT sales fall: Nifty Newsletter
In this week's newsletter, read about Galaxy Digital's use of historical violin-proof tokens (NFT) to access loans and how NFT sales fell in May. See what the US Treasury Department thinks about NFTs and how Bitcoin NFTs have reached a new milestone. In other news, after settling the NBA Top Shot moments lawsuit, Dapper Labs CEO Roham Gargozlow said NFTs are not securities.
Galaxy uses historical violin NFT to secure digital credit
Yat Siu, founder of Michael Novogratz's Galaxy Digital and Animoka Brands, has attested to a 300-year-old violin as collateral for a loan. Galaxy loaned Siu an undisclosed amount, and to secure the loan, Animoca executive NFT used his historic Stradivarius violin and physical possessions as collateral.
The violin once belonged to Catherine the Great of Russia. Musical instrument auction house Tarisio traces the origins of the violin back 300 years. Siu bought the violin in 2023 at an auction of $9 million.
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NFT trading volume down 54% in May: CryptoSlam
NFT sales declined in May despite a recent increase in April. According to CryptoSlam, NFTs had a turnover of over $1 billion in April. However, the amount fell to $624 million in May, a month-on-month decline of 54 percent.
Bitcoin-based NFTs recorded a 68% drop in sales in May. Other top NFT blockchains such as Solana and Ethereum also recorded downward trends. Solana-based collections were down 48%, while Ethereum NFTs were down 55%.
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A US Treasury report outlines the potential financial risks of NFTs.
The US Treasury Department has issued a risk assessment for NFTs to provide insight to regulators. The department has highlighted several security concerns, including the possibility of terrorists using NFTs to finance operations.
In addition to terrorist financing, state actors may use NFTs to finance nuclear proliferation and money laundering, the Treasury said. In addition, the government agency said there are concerns that investors may be robbed.
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The all-time sales volume of Bitcoin NFTs has reached 4 billion dollars
The all-time sales volume of NFTs based on the Bitcoin blockchain has been recorded at $4 billion. Data from NFT tracker CryptoSlam showed that on June 4, Bitcoin-based NFTs had an all-time volume of $3.97 billion and a wash volume of $82 million.
Bitcoin-based digital collections also recorded $171 million in sales, the highest in the past 30 days. Meanwhile, Ethereum-based collections had only $159 million in sales last month.
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Dapper Labs' $4 Million Payment Proves NBA NFTs Are Not Securities: CEO
Dapper Labs, the company behind NBA Top Shot Moments NFTs, has reached a $4 million settlement to end a lawsuit alleging that the NFTs were sold as unregistered securities.
The issue is that NFTs on the decentralized public network are not securities, “in the same way that business cards are not securities,” said Roham Garegozlu, CEO of the organization.
The settlement agreement shows that Dapper Labs has agreed to pay $4 million if the plaintiffs stop that the NFTs are securities. Flow also involves ensuring that the blockchain is sufficiently decentralized and outside of the company's control.
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Thanks for reading this recap of the week's most notable developments in the NFT space. Come back next Wednesday for more reports and insights into this actively growing space.
