With Trump issuing NFT revenues, the casual debate goes to ‘shit’ and more

Trump started converting ETH from NFTs

Former US President Donald Trump appears to be cashing out the huge amount of Ether (ETH) he made by selling NFTs – starting December 8th, transferring $1,075 worth of Ether (ETH) to Coinbase through the associated wallet.

Trump created ETH from his NFT collection, which recently contained the infamous mugshot he was caught handing to authorities in Georgia in August.

According to the blockchain intelligence platform Arkham, the Trump-linked wallet moved 1,075 ETH, about $2.4 million, to Coinbase in 13 transactions since December 8. Most withdrawals came in 100, 125 and 200 ETH batches.

Looks like Donald Trump is selling his ETH.

3 weeks ago he started sending ETH to Coinbase after collecting Trump NFT royalties for months. The maximum balance was $4 million.

So far he has sold 1,075 ETH for $2.4 million based on deposits. pic.twitter.com/JZzA3cS2je

— Arkham (@ArkhamIntel) December 27, 2023

Trump's ETH balance has been steadily increasing since October, reaching a peak of $4 million before the selloff began.

Years ago, Trump defended the US dollar as the key to the country's economic success in August 2021, referring to cryptocurrencies as a “fake” and a “disaster waiting to happen.”

He is running for president again in the upcoming 2024 election, but his campaign recently hit a roadblock when the Colorado Supreme Court removed him from the state's ballot.

The Bitcoin Ordinals Argument Turns to “Shit” (and Farts).

Analysts of Bitcoin Ordinals have found a new way to describe the ever-evolving orthodoxy argument – ​​and this time, it's a huge one.

Since formal ceremonies began in January, Bitcoin proponents and critics have engaged in heated debate over whether it adds value to the Bitcoin network or is simply spam.

Tomer Strollitt, editor-in-chief of the Bitcoin financial services firm, explained the conflict using a diagram on the X.

“A man yells in the street. He stinks. He encourages others to make fun of him in public, blocking the streets. He says he brings new people to town because they're the bastards he likes. ‘It's okay,' he says. ‘They'll pay you a thousand,' but the garbage everywhere makes everything more expensive.” .

Another Bitcoiner “GregZaj1” said that Ordinals artists are similar to people who pay to “start flirting in the pool”.

“Suppose someone builds a community swimming pool. You must pay for the privilege of using the pool, and pricing is based on market and pool capacity is limited. One day, a bunch of people dressed as witches came, paid an entrance fee, and started frolicking in the pool.

The idea is perhaps that of Taproot Wizards – a collection of digital art created by Bitcoin Ordinals – that played a major role in driving mainstream adoption in 2023.

“It's not funny to me that right now there are legitimate bitcoiners out there suffering every day because they think bitcoin is full of farts and they feel powerless to stop it,” said Eric Wall, co-founder of Taproot. Wizards posted on December 28 at X

Nothing funny to me, now there are legit bitcoiners suffering everyday because they feel like bitcoin is full of farts and they have no power to stop it pic.twitter.com/9otyh8tGjX

– Eric Wall | BIP-2023-50428 (@ercwl) December 28, 2023

The Ordinals craze is still causing heated debate in the cryptocurrency community.

Plaintiffs like OCEAN Mining's Luke Dashjar continue to argue that spam is “spam” and that they are not only clogging up the Bitcoin pipeline, but posing a legitimate security threat to Bitcoin Core.

Dashjar played a role in the addition of Ordinals to the United States' National Vulnerability Database – a US government-run repository of cybersecurity threats.

On the other hand, Ordinals fans continue to argue that it will bring legitimate economic traffic to Bitcoin and encourage miners to stick around for higher payout rewards.

Ordinary fanatics pay $7K to fulfill Elon Musk's NFT request.

An unknown Ordinals genius followed Elon Musk's challenge to encode a video clip onto the blockchain, paying an eye-watering $7,223 to do so.

Musk's challenge came after “DogeDesigner” posted a video on X asking “Does anyone still remember NFTs?” Another X user commented, “Web links link to data you don't have.”

The 1:18-minute long video features a 3D rotating diorama with gold-plated text reading “Computers Don't Sleep” and “HODL” on various plates.

That opened the floor for Musk, who said, “Yeah, at least encode the jpeg on the blockchain!” it has.

Yes, at least encode the jpeg on the blockchain!

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 27, 2023

After 15 hours, 51,887,020 transcripts were added to Bitcoin at block 823,142, showing the video in MP4 format.

According to Ordinals developer Leonidas, it cost 16.9 million sat, or $7,223.

Tesla's CEO recently argued on a podcast with Joe Rogan in October that JPEGs should at least be recorded on the blockchain, bashing NFTs. In doing so, he indirectly argued for the issue of ordinals embedded in Bitcoin's blockchain.

“If the company that owns the image goes out of business, you don't have the image,” Musk explained.

Ethereum's NFT dominance has been waning since the recent rise in Ordinals and Solana.

As NFT activity has normalized and Solana has increased in recent months, Ethereum's dominance in the non-volatile token (NFT) market has “completely disappeared,” according to market opinion.

Bitcoin has added $796.7 million in Ordinals sales of NFT volumes so far this month – crushing Ethereum, which recorded just $319.7 million in the same period. According to data from CryptoSlam, even Solana won $334.2 million worth of Ethereum.

“Ethereum's NFT dominance has completely disappeared this year,” explains Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner at cryptocurrency venture fund Dragonfly.

“It's amazing to see it spread out like this. It goes to show how little you can take in this industry,” Qureshi added.

The most recent statistics actually contradict the period from February to April of this year, when Bitcoin Ordinals was still relatively new.

Ethereum has increased its NFT trading volume to nearly $2 billion.

Related: Are NFT Markets in a Death Cycle or Ready for a Revival?

However, Bitcoin Ordinals has had a roller coaster year. Normal volumes rose to $196 million in May but fell to $11.9 million in August. The following two months were also low, at less than $20 million.

Other Nifty news

All Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) NFTs stolen from peer-to-peer trading platform NFT trader have been returned after bonus payment. About $3 million worth of NFTs were stolen in the December 16 hack. According to public messages, the attacker made the first exploit to another user. “I'm here to take the leftovers,” they wrote, demanding a ransom to return the NFTs.

Coinbase-powered blockchain Base announced on December 19th that it has partnered with blockchain music platform Sound.xyz, which will now allow artists to create music through the Base ecosystem. Sound.xyz says cheap gas payments on the Ethereum layer 2 blockchain will allow artists to upload and spend without buying crypto or settling their funds.

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