Trump starts shifting ETH earned from his NFTs
Former United States President Donald Trump appears to be cashing out a great deal of Ether (ETH) he made through selling his NFTs — with his affiliated wallet transferring 1,075 Ether (ETH) into Coinbase since Dec. 8.
Trump made the ETH from his NFT collections, which recently included his infamous mugshot that was captured when he surrendered himself to authorities in Georgia in August.
According to the blockchain intelligence platform Arkham, the Trump-linked wallet has moved 1,075 ETH, worth about $2.4 million, to Coinbase over 13 transactions since Dec. 8. Most withdrawals came in batches of 100, 125 and 200 ETH.
Looks like Donald Trump is selling his ETH.
— Arkham (@ArkhamIntel) December 27, 2023
3 weeks ago he started sending ETH to Coinbase after months of accumulating Trump NFT royalties. His peak balance was $4 million.
Based on the deposits, so far he's sold 1,075 ETH for $2.4 million. pic.twitter.com/JZzA3cS2je
Trump’s ETH balance had been steadily increasing since October, reaching a peak of $4 million before the selling spree began.
Years ago, Trump referred to cryptocurrencies as “fake” and “a disaster waiting to happen” in August 2021 when he defended the United States dollar as a key to the country’s economic success.
He’s running for president again in the upcoming 2024 election but his campaign was hit with a recent roadblock when Colorado’s Supreme Court removed him from the state’s ballot.
Bitcoin Ordinals argument turns to "shit" (and farts)
Bitcoin Ordinals commentators have found a new way to describe the ever-evolving Ordinals debate — and this time, it’s pretty gross.
Since Ordinals launched in January, Bitcoin supporters and critics have been in fierce debate over whether it adds value to Bitcoin’s network or is simply spam.
Tomer Strolight, editor-in-chief at Bitcoin financial services firm Swan, described the conflict using a rather graphic analogy on X:
“A guy shits in the street. It stinks. He encourages others to shit in public, clogging the streets w/ shit. He says it brings new people to the city because they're degenerates who like it. 'It's ok,' he says. 'They pay to shit.' But shit everywhere has made everything cost more.”
Another Bitcoiner, “GregZaj1” said Ordinals artists were akin to people paying admission to “start shitting in the pool.”
“Imagine someone builds a swimming pool for his community. You have to pay to enjoy the privilege of using the pool, and it's a market-based price with limited pool capacity. One day, a bunch of men dressed as wizards come, pay their entrance fee, and start shitting in the pool.”
The comment is likely in reference to Taproot Wizards — a digital art collection inscribed by Bitcoin Ordinals — which has played a major role in driving Ordinals adoption in 2023.
“There’s nothing funnier to me that there’s legit bitcoiners out there right now suffering every day because they feel like Bitcoin has become full of farts and they’re simply powerless to stop it,” said Bitcoin developer Eric Wall, a co-founder of Taproot Wizards in a Dec. 28 post on X.
There’s nothing funnier to me that there’s legit bitcoiners out there right now suffering every day because they feel like Bitcoin has become full of farts and they’re simply powerless 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.
Ordinals critics such as OCEAN Mining’s Luke Dashjr has continued to argue that Ordinals inscriptions are “spam” and that they’re not only clogging up the Bitcoin mempool, but causing a legitimate security threat to Bitcoin Core.
Dashjr also played a role in Ordinals being added to the United States National Vulnerability Database — a repository of cybersecurity risks managed by the U.S. government.
On the other hand, Ordinals fans continue to argue that it brings legitimate economic traffic to Bitcoin and incentivizes miners to stick around for higher fee rewards.
Ordinals fanatic pays $7K to fulfill Elon Musk’s NFT request
An unknown Ordinals pundit has followed through on a challenge by Elon Musk to encode a video clip on a blockchain, paying an eye-watering $7,223 to do so.
The challenge from Musk came after “DogeDesigner” posted a video on X with the caption “Does anyone still remember NFTs?” to which another X user quipped with, “Web links to data you don’t own.”
The video, which lasts 1:18 minutes in length, showcases a 3D rotating diorama with gold-plated text stating “computers never sleeps” and “HODL” on different plates.
That opened the floor to Musk, who said: “Yeah, at least encode the jpeg on the blockchain!”
Yeah, at least encode the jpeg on the blockchain!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 27, 2023
About 15 hours later, inscription number 51,887,020, was added to Bitcoin at block 823,142, featuring the video in MP4 format.
It wasn’t cheap either, costing the inscriber 16.9 million sats, or $7,223, according to Ordinals developer Leonidas.
The Tesla CEO recently slammed NFTs on a podcast with Joe Rogan in October, arguing that JPEGs should at least be encoded on blockchains. In doing so, he indirectly argued the case for Ordinals, which is encoded in Bitcoin’s blockchain.
“If the company housing the image goes out of business, you don’t have the image anymore,” Musk explained.
Ethereum NFT dominance wanes after recent Ordinals and Solana surge
Ethereum dominance in the nonfungible token (NFT) market has all but “completely disappeared” amid a surge in NFT activity Ordinals and Solana in recent months, according to a market commentato
Bitcoin has tallied $796.7 million in Ordinals sales NFT volumes this month so far — crushing Ethereum, which only recorded $319.7 million over the same timeframe. Even Solana has beaten Ethereum with $334.2 million in volume, according to data from CryptoSlam.
“Ethereum NFT dominance has completely disappeared this year,” explained Haseeb Qureshi, managing partner at cryptocurrency venture fund Dragonfly.
“Really striking to see laid out like this. Goes to show how little you can take for granted in this industry,” Qureshi added.
The recent figures starkly contrast the February to April period this year, when Bitcoin Ordinals was still relatively new.
Ethereum tallied nearly $2 billion in NFT trading volume during the period compared to $137.3 million on Ordinals.
Related: Are NFT markets in a death spiral or ready for a resurgence?
However, Bitcoin Ordinals have had a roller coaster year. Ordinals volumes rose to $196 million in May but fell to as low as $11.9 million in August. The two months following were also low, with volumes below $20 million.
Other Nifty News
All Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) NFTs stolen from the peer-to-peer trading platform NFT Trader have been returned after a bounty payment. NFTs worth nearly $3 million were stolen in the hack on Dec. 16. As per public messages, the attacker attributed the original exploit to another user. “I came here to pick up residual garbage,” they wrote, requesting ransom payments to return the NFTs.
Coinbase-powered blockchain Base announced a partnership with the blockchain music platform Sound.xyz on Dec. 19, which now allows artists to mint music via the Base ecosystem. Sound.xyz said the cheaper gas fees on the Ethereum layer 2 blockchain will allow artists to upload and withdraw without purchasing crypto or bridging their funds.
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