Welcome to another edition of Crypto NFT today! If you like cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and riding emotional and sometimes rickety roller coasters, you've come to the right place. So put some relaxing music on and let's go!
Dogecoin Soars After Musk Replaces Twitter's Blue Bird With Doge Dog
Dogecoin (DOGE) surged in value by more than 35% after Elon Musk replaced Twitter's familiar blue bird logo with the cryptocurrency's Shiba Inu dog logo. According to CoinDesk, DOGE it rose as high as $0.1046 from about $0.077 just before the logo change.
Musk has frequently promoted DOGE, even suggesting that the meme coin has better payment functionality than bitcoin (BTC). Last January, the Financial Times reported that Twitter would create a system that would allow payments on the platform. Musk has maintained that Twitter would be "first and foremost" a platform for fiat currencies, he has also worked to incorporate cryptography.
Shortly after posting the logo change, Musk tweeted what appeared to be a AI generated meme with dog DOGE.
Senator Elizabeth Warren goes to war against cryptocurrencies
Last week, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), tweeted from her campaign account that she was building an "Anti-crypto Army."
In the debate between central bank digital currency and blockchain-based cryptocurrencies, Warren sides with the government-controlled CBDC. This turns her against republicanslike Governors Rod Desantis of Florida and Kristi Noem of South Dakota, who have warned of threats to the freedom and privacy of retail CBDCs.
Appearing on NBC's Meet the Press last year, he told host Chuck Todd:
"Instead of bitcoin, we could be talking about digital currency, that's a totally different thing, because it's a government-backed wire transfer... but it's got something backing it." He later added: โIf you think: Can we improve that in a digital world? The answer is, sure it could, but in that case, let's do a CBDC."
Like most issues, a retail CBDC has become a blue vs. red issue, with Democrats favoring government control and Republicans favoring deregulation, with very little in between.
OpenSea's advanced NFT marketplace received mixed reviews
In his latest attempt to win back the users of NFT Market Competitor, Blur, OpenSea has rebranded Gem V2 as OpenSea Pro. The new platform introduces new features and tools with an introductory offer that allows users to quote without fees.
In a tweet, OpenSea bragged that its new NFT aggregator is best-in-class, prompting a less-than-impressed response wondering when OpenSea would be better at supporting artists.
OpenSea acquired the Gem platform last April to attract more regular NFT traders. Gem enabled NFT transactions across multiple markets and collections, with a single transaction. This drastically reduced the marketing or "gas" fees.
Blur has been steadily eroding OpenSea's market share with business incentives that reward asset turnover. In February, Blur surpassed the trading volume of OpenSea. Critics have accused Blur's incentives of encouraging fake trades.
Users reject images of Xi Jinping banned mid-trip
After AI imager Midjourney banned the creation of images of Chinese President Xi Jinping, undeterred users are creating a solution with deepfakes produced by sophisticated machine learning techniques. Although Midjourney allows imagery for other world leaders, Xi is excluded from the practice.
Xi is notoriously sensitive to depictions of his likeness, even banning cartoons depicting him as Winnie the Pooh.
Midjourney founder and CEO David Holtz claimed that the platform banned other image words from using the image creation, based on local complaints about "various issues in different countries."
He further stated that responding to the complaints was not out of fear of being blocked from the Chinese market: โOur decision was not motivated by financial gain and, in this scenario, it is clear that ensuring access to this technology for Chinese people is for the common benefit."
