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a day ago
- Entertainment
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Still Loving My ‘If It Went to Zero' NFT
During the NFT boom of 2021, NFT-aficionados said 'I'd love it even if it went to zero' as a tongue-in-cheek countercultural declaration that meaning and membership mattered more than profit. It became kind of like a punk rock ethos in Web3. Burning money (figuratively or literally) was a flex to signal individual belonging to an in-group that positioned itself as the moral antithesis to the speculative frenzy that defined the time. Like the early cypherpunks who fought for freedom and autonomy, or the Bitcoin maxis who held through multiple crashes, the next-gen NFT degens threw eyewatering amounts of magical internet monies at otherwise right-click-and-savable JPEGs to prove they understood the deeper layers of internet culture and crypto ideology. But even the most ardent believers in blockchain's promise are not immune to doubt when a long, cold Crypto Winter drains both capital and conviction. And the NFT bear has been grizzly. Despite a flutter of activity in recent weeks—someone picked up 45 CryptoPunks for nearly $8 million, someone else grabbed an Ether Rock for over $300K, the Pudgy Penguins' floor doubled, Moonbirds tripled—for the most part, the NFT market is down bad. At $156 million for July 2025, we're nowhere near the crazy highs of August 2021 when OpenSea reported over $3 billion in NFT trading volume. For NFT art specifically, trading is down 93% since its 2021 peak. So, assuming your beloved NFT is nearing its rock bottom, it's time to check in and see: do you actually still love it? If so, why do you still love it? And you can't just say: Oh, I love the art, otherwise a screenshotted JPEG would suffice. Because to still love these things at their rock bottom, firstly, you have to be content with the value you paid in relation to the value you still get out of it. Second, there has to be a reason for it to be an NFT. If it were just a pretty picture that can be saved, copied or shared without consequence, there's no point in it being an NFT and no sacrifice in watching it go to zero. As everybody's favorite media theorist, Marshall McLuhan, would argue: the medium is the message. You don't love the image more because of its content. You love it more because as an NFT, the image is something else. The NFT reprograms your role from mere viewer of the image to participant in a medium that tracks ownership, identity, value and status. McLuhan believed every medium is an extension of ourselves. A book extends the eye. A phone extends the voice. Likewise with an NFT, we are in relation to an object in a way we could not have been if it were just a JPEG. Bert Is Evil With this in mind, let me present to you a case study for my beloved NFT: Bert is November 2022, I bought an NFT that is very probably worth zero today. Called Bert is Evil, this was one of the first-ever viral internet memes (circa 1997), minted as an NFT by its original creator 25 years later. Despite its rich history as an early online joke, it failed horribly as an NFT collection. Which is a very big part of why I love it. For me, the NFT is a priceless artifact that you could be marveling at in a museum. It is an historical residue; an immutable memory from a failed crossing between two eras of the Web. It revealed the limits of translation between networks, eras and cultural grammars and how meaning and value in Web3 is not guaranteed by the act of minting. The OG Meme Before Pepe the Frog and Trollface, Wojak, LOL guy and GigaChad, there was: Bert is Evil. Prefaced perhaps only by Mr. T Ate My Balls and Dancing Baby, the early internet meme exposed the sordid secret life of one-half of the Sesame Street duo, Bert and Ernie. Photoshopped into a series of mock photographs, the Muppet was pictured alongside history's most infamous, from Jeffrey Dahmer and Lee Harvey Oswald to Hitler and the Ku Klux Klan. There was 'evidence' of Bert smoking marijuana, fondling a young Michael Jackson's crotch, and forcing Ernie to get a lap dance. Another 'photo' referenced an alleged deleted scene from Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee's leaked sex tape where the newlyweds had engaged in 'a torrid orgy' with Bert. Spawned in 1997 while he was still a student of Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines, the website was just a thing that twenty-something Dino Ignacio did to make his friends laugh. Armed with a hand-me-down 14.4 baud modem and a magazine collection spanning Omni Heavy Metal to Mad Magazine, Ignacio was a disciple of mashup culture at the internet's dawn. Bert quickly went viral, traveling through nascent internet forums, email chains and blogs. Back then, the web was participatory and anarchic. Remixing was rampant and authorship blurred, privileging circulation over provenance. Anyone could edit Bert; no one owned him. He mutated endlessly at the hands of Photoshop pirates long before terms like 'fake news' entered our lexicon. When Bert won a Webby, his popularity exploded. The website became so popular that Ignacio could no longer afford to run it on his own. Rather than shut it down, he zipped it up and offered it to others to mirror in exchange for hosting the original site. After decentralizing, hundreds of mirrors popped up across the world, increasing Evil Bert's reach and notoriety. Then, in 2001, an altered image of Bert and Osama Bin Laden appeared on protestor signs at a pro-Taliban rally. Ignacio felt it had gone too far. He shut down the website out of concern. But the meme had a life of its own. It lived on. The NFT A quarter-century later, Ignacio had the idea to immortalize Bert is Evil as an historical, ownable object of record. Minting the meme as an NFT consciously resurrected an icon from a previous technological rupture. The gesture was not meant to be commercial but cultural: an act of media continuity. Initially, my affection for the NFT was grounded in nerdy McLuhianism. But, as Bert failed to attract fans, my relationship to the NFT deepened. I had learned about it by reading the maiden edition of Philippines Vogue (September 2022), where Ignacio had been profiled by the glossy in recognition of his impact on the technology industry. While Vogue is not the obvious place to get your NFT alpha, I was intrigued, thinking this unsold, unknown NFT might have been overlooked and undervalued. In the story, the journalist probed Ignacio as to why he thought his NFT project was a flop. 'Maybe I just don't understand NFTs,' he said. If I were a better investor, I would have recognized this as the red flag it was and continued to flip through my magazine. Instead, I jumped onto Foundation and bought the first of four in the collection. Within hours, a mutual friend had seen the transaction on-chain and connected Ignacio and I on Facebook DM. Ignacio was shocked that one of his NFTs had finally sold, almost a year after the mint. His friend told him that I was someone in crypto so he agreed to a phone call and then, I heard the backstory. Ignacio said he felt like an imposter in Web3, disingenuous, foreign. While he was confident amongst his existing Web2 spheres orbiting game design, software development, VR, avatars and more, he didn't feel the same credibility in Web3 and he blamed himself for not doing enough to publicize the mint. Some of his friends offered advice on how to build hype, like diving into Discords, shitposting on Twitter and doing some Spaces. But Ignacio spent only a couple weeks before giving up. Admission Requirements While crypto is technically permissionless, the culture is less so. As much as the Web3 community loves to bang on about onboarding the next billion, and insists on branding itself as inclusive and empowering, for the most part, it is a clique with its own meeting places, rituals, language and admission requirements. In Ignacio's case, his Web2 pedigree — having held senior roles at Electronic Arts, Oculus, Facebook and Roblox — earned him few reputational points in Web3; sliding into Discord to rattle off those roles conjures that Steve Buscemi 'How do you do, fellow kids?' meme. The Bert NFT failed because Ignacio brought a Web1 artifact into a Web3 context using Web2 assumptions about reputation, attention and status. Ignacio was rightly respected in early internet circles. But he didn't go to the effort to establish a presence in Web3 spaces. Web3 is tribal and tight-knit with a bullshit detector fine-tuned to outsiders who haven't done the time. Web3 doesn't care who you were on other versions of the internet. Web3 gives zero fu*ks what you listed on your LinkedIn. You can't just show up and expect your legacy to mint itself. Web3 wants to know what NFTs you're collecting, what shitcoins wrecked you, what DAOs you've contributed to. Wallets tell stories. And without real, verifiable involvement with crypto, the network sees you as read-only, not write-own. I mean, Ignacio admitted that he couldn't even get into Crypto Twitter. My guess is that he was quickly labeled an extractor rather than a value-add. Which is, perhaps, the fastest way to kill an NFT project before it's even launched. For that reason, I wonder if Ignacio actually dodged a bullet. He never had to have that conversation with his patrons about why those Bert NFTs went to hell instead of the moon. In a final, tragic, oh-so-crypto twist in the story, Ignacio was scammed when he clicked on a malicious link sent by email; a phony inquiry looking to buy one of the other Bert NFTs. Ignacio DM'd me for help and after briefly looking into it, all I could tell him was that the 1 ETH I paid for Bert #1 was gone forever. This was particularly painful since Ignacio had committed to donating 50% of the proceeds of the collection to the Seattle affiliate of the Public Broadcasting Service. The only reason he hadn't made the donation already was because I'd told him (back in 2022) it was better to wait til the whole collection sold, and in that time, the value of his ETH treasury would surely increase. In hindsight, that was the worst advice ever. Not Yet Dead And so, I thought, that was the end of the story. Bert was rich in meaning but poor in bids, had not sold by now, he was never going to sell. I wrapped my faithful homage to this market-resistant NFT, sent the article to my editor, and shot a DM to Ignacio to let him know something was coming out. 'Were you the one who purchased the second one?' Ignacio replied, with a link to a tx hash from a couple days ago. Umm, what?! No! I did not buy Bert #2. So who did? Searching the wallet address, I discovered it belonged to the Bureau of Internet Culture (BIC)—crypto's historic immutable meme treasury, as described at their X profile. Browsing their collection valued over 900 ETH, I saw they held iconic internet memes as creator-minted NFTs including Me Gusta, Baton Roue, Vibing Cat, Unimpressed Nightclub Girl and Kevin, and had paid as much as 11.11 ETH for Dancing Baby and 36 ETH for Keyboard Cat. I couldn't believe it. These guys got it; this was the museum I always knew Bert belonged in. I wondered: If Ignacio had known there was an on-chain collective that actually 'got' Bert, and who recognized Ignacio himself as a visionary whose online legacy deserved a place in a blockchain-based hall of fame… Then maybe, he wouldn't have felt so alone in Web3? And then I wondered: what if I was right in my original thinking that Bert was undervalued at 1 ETH? All it took was for this external body to agree that the NFT was worth buying and suddenly it was. Belief in value needs to be validated—through price action, cultural narrative, influencer support and community hype. And when that happens, the thing does indeed become valuable. But hey, maybe I loved it even more when it was at zero.
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Polygon Labs and market maker GSR launch DeFi-focused blockchain
Polygon Labs became a darling of the 2021 and 2022 crypto boom when it partnered with corporate stalwarts like Starbucks and Meta on various blockchain projects. But, as those brand-name companies quietly dropped their experiments amid the ensuing 'Crypto Winter,' Polygon Labs searched for other ways to popularize its network. On Wednesday, the company, along with the crypto market making firm GSR, announced the launch of the newest blockchain it's helped incubate: Katana. Instead of catering towards corporate clients, Katana is aimed at 'degens'—crypto slang for traders with a high appetite for risk who often use DeFi, or decentralized finance, platforms. Those platforms offer decentralized versions of traditional banking services like lending and borrowing. Rather than borrowing money from JPMorgan Chase, for example, DeFi users borrow from a decentralized pool of funds fronted by other crypto traders. Katana is the latest sign from Polygon Labs, founded in 2017 and one of the marquee companies of the last crypto cycle, that the firm is more explicitly focusing on crypto traders rather than brand names. Polygon's tie-ups with Meta, which focused on NFTs, and Starbucks, which built out a blockchain-based loyalty program, attracted widespread acclaim from the crypto industry in 2022. But, in 2023 and 2024, the two Fortune 500 companies abandoned their experiments with the blockchain company, respectively. Since then, Polygon Labs has built out its DeFi team, and Marc Boiron, the CEO of the company, has even branded himself 'the degen CEO' on X. 'The key is: What are people actually doing on chain, rather than what looks good because it's a big name?' Boiron told Fortune. And what users are doing 'on chain,' or on blockchains, are trading, lending, and borrowing. To that end, Katana has brought on Morpho, a decentralized borrowing and lending protocol; Sushi, which lets users swap and buy cryptocurrencies; and Vertex, an application for trading crypto futures, or bets on the upcoming prices of cryptocurrencies. Boiron said that Katana's biggest differentiator is how it prioritizes its core DeFi applications over competitors. On other blockchains, user funds may be split, for example, across several competing lending and borrowing applications. When funds are divided, users face markets where prices rise or fall abruptly in a matter of seconds. Katana, a layer-2 blockchain on Ethereum, aims to combat this through incentivizing only a handful of DeFi applications in its ecosystem. To do this, the blockchain will distribute fees generated from users on the protocol back to the users of its preferred DeFi applications—among other incentives. The blockchain is currently open to select users and will go public in late June. This story was originally featured on
Yahoo
24-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Coinbase, MicroStrategy, and more crypto stocks popping today
Leading cryptocurrencies gained, with some of the biggest crypto stocks following suit as the broader market rose on Monday after reports that the Trump administration may narrow the scope of its impending April 2 tariffs. Bitcoin was up 2.7%to $88,418.31, Ether was up about 4.2% to $2,088.88, and Ripple's XRP was up more than 1.1% to $2.47 as of around 11:15 a.m. New York time. Deutsche Bank (DB) Research analyst Marion Laboure told CNBC Monday that crypto's hot-and-cold 2025 is partly linked to unknowns around the Trump administration's planned reserve. There's also 'a lot of momentum these days regarding the tokenization of finance.' Bernstein analysts said they anticipate growing ties between crypto and traditional finance. 'We see a world where crypto exchanges will offer spot crypto, crypto derivatives, and tokenized equities, while broker platforms will also scale up their crypto services,' they wrote. Here's a closer look at how some of the top crypto company stocks are faring: Coinbase (COIN) rose 5% to more than $200 per share. Earlier in March, Rosenblatt analyst Chris Brendler called Coinbase 'the clear blue chip' in crypto, citing its non-trading revenue growth and saying 'the stock will prove more resilient in the next Crypto Winter.' Still, the stock remains down about 22% year-to-date. MicroStrategy (MSTR) shot up 7.3% after it snapped up about half a billion dollars of Bitcoin, pushing its total supply beyond 500,000 BTC. Robinhood (HOOD) climbed 9.6%, recouping some of its recent losses. A week ago, the company debuted a prediction markets product within its app. Hut 8 (HUT) stock rose more than 7.3%. Earlier this month, the cryptomining firm said it secured '592 acres in Louisiana' for a new $2.5 billion, 300MW data center. For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Yahoo
10-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Sam Bankman-Fried is angling for a pardon from President Trump. Insiders call it a long shot
Just three years ago, Sam Bankman-Fried was the crypto king of Washington, D.C., establishing himself as a fundraising force after becoming one of the top donors to Joe Biden's 2020 presidential campaign. After a swift fall from grace, and a 25-year prison sentence following the collapse of his crypto exchange, FTX, Bankman-Fried is changing his tune and appealing to President Trump for a pardon. But despite his new right-wing press tour, which included an unsanctioned appearance on The Tucker Carlson Show that landed Bankman-Fried in solitary confinement, political insiders characterize the bid as a long shot. When asked about the probability that Bankman-Fried's campaign will yield success, one crypto lobbyist—who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly—answered: 'zero.' 'Sorry, it's Trump world … near zero,' they added. As the founder of FTX, a crypto empire once valued north of $30 billion, Sam Bankman-Fried was briefly at the top of the blockchain world. He parlayed his growing riches into an influence campaign in D.C., funneling tens of millions of dollars in donations, mostly to congressional candidates, with the goal of advancing different policy issues, from crypto regulatory reform to pandemic preparedness. Publicly, Bankman-Fried's cohort of twentysomething employees affiliated with the 'effective altruism' philanthropic movement seemed to lean left, mostly donating to Democratic candidates. But after the bankruptcy of FTX and his arrest, Bankman-Fried claimed that he had donated just as much money to Republicans, albeit through 'dark money' channels that could not be traced. During Bankman-Fried's trial, prosecutors' evidence included a document where the crypto founder listed ways to potentially fend off his company's impending collapse. 'Go on Tucker Carlson,' read the third item. 'Come out as a republican [sic].' Over a year after his guilty sentence, Bankman-Fried appears to be deploying the playbook. The New York Times reported that, along with speaking with the Trump-friendly Carlson, Bankman-Fried is also consulting with a lawyer with ties to the president. His father, Stanford Law professor Joe Bankman, also cowrote an opinion piece in the Washington Post last month lauding Trump's plans for a sovereign wealth fund. The moonshot idea to procure a pardon from Trump is not out of the bounds of possibility. Notably, the president embraced crypto during the election campaign, and then pardoned the founder of blockchain-powered dark web marketplace Silk Road, Ross Ulbricht, just a few days after taking office. But while Ulbricht was a popular figure in libertarian corners of the crypto industry, and his release a long-standing political goal, Bankman-Fried is still reviled among much of the sector, especially after the fraud that he perpetrated at FTX caused a prolonged Crypto Winter. A different crypto lobbyist told Fortune that Bankman-Fried's odds of a pardon are increasing because of Trump's increasing ties to the industry and his willingness to use his pardoning power freely. 'That said, it doesn't feel like the broader crypto community has made SBF a priority like it did with Ross Ulbricht,' said the lobbyist. 'Until that happens, the pardon probably doesn't occur.' This story was originally featured on
Yahoo
25-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Bitcoin price continues dropping despite recent talks of largescale Texas investment
This story has been updated to add video. A groundhog somewhere might just be indicating an elongated Bitcoin winter as the fortunes of the online currency continue to trend downward after a triumphant moment after the presidential election. While the current downturn is far from the infamous Crypto Winter of 2022, the price of Bitcoin is down another five percent today as it struggles to rally. This downturn is only an exaggerated microcosm of how bitcoin has been trading in the last month. In that timeframe, the coin, which is the poster child for cryptocurrency, has plunged more than 16% and is now priced at 87,234 USD per coin. While this number is still very impressive for the space it is a far cry from the 106,490 USD peak that the coin experienced in December of last year. The recent drop in the price of Bitcoin can be attributed to two main factors. First, its peak of over $100,000 in December led investors to fear overinflation, especially after the significant drop in 2022. This prompted some investors to cash out and sell for profit. Second, floundering stocks have been a trend this week, with market favorites like Walmart, Tesla, Nvidia, and Palantir all experiencing drops amid fears of economic uncertainty. These fears can be traced back to widespread tariffs, threats of tariffs, geopolitical tensions and cuts in federal spending. During the campaign trail and early into his second administration, marked by strategic chaos, Donald Trump floated the idea of a U.S. cryptocurrency stockpile. As a recent ally of the crypto industry, Trump has already ordered the creation of a crypto task force to explore new regulations and envision what a U.S. cryptocurrency stockpile would entail. Since then, two Texas bills filed this session have sought to lead the conversation surrounding the establishment of a strategic Bitcoin reserve for the state. The two bills, one filed by state Rep. Giovanni Capriglione, R-Southlake, and the other by Sen. Charles Schwertner, R-Georgetown, seek to establish a strategic reserve for the cryptocurrency in the state, allowing corporations and individuals to donate or use Bitcoin as a form of payment. If the bills were to come to fruition, this would not result in the state outright buying Bitcoin using taxpayer funds. Rather, they would create the reserve to be used in emergency situations, for government philanthropic spending and more at the discretion of the Legislature and comptroller. 'The beauty of a Texas strategic Bitcoin reserve (through these bills) is it's primarily driven by donations, and there's really no risk to the Texas taxpayer. It's only a net positive,' said Lee Bratcher, founder and president of Texas Blockchain Council told the American-Statesman in a previous report. Karoline Leonard contributed to this report Beck Andrew Salgado covers trending topics in the Austin business ecosystem for the American-Statesman. To share additional tips or insights with Salgado, email Bsalgado@ This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Bitcoin price dropping amid talks of largescale Texas investment
