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Notorious B.I.G. NFT + Coinbase Case Update

The Sky's The Limit: The Notorious B.I.G. NFT Collection

July 27, 2022

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What's Dropping ⚡️

  • One man's dedication to recovering a hard drive he accidentally threw out is making headlines. The drive in question holds 8,000 BTC ($181 million USD), and James has hired a team of people, robotic dogs, and AI machines to help him find it. (BusinessInsider)

  • Nick Tomaino bought a CryptoPunk #4156 for $3.31 Million and he gives an in-depth thread on why he made the purchase. (@NTmoney)

  • More than $200k in crypto is being given out by Chipotle during their "Buy the Dip" game, allowing users 3 chances a day to win. (BuyTheDip)

  • A Solana store will be opening up in NYC, with visual similarities to an Apple store. However, this Solana Space will onboard new users and offer a variety of crypto-friendly activities. (Twitter)

  • Creator of Art Blocks Erick Calderon sits down with Decrypt to share insights on the rapid success of his project and finding balance in an ever-changing market. (Decrypt)

  • Japanese NFT platform becomes one of the best to begin work on NFT insurance built into their app. The concept is interesting and one we may soon see worldwide. (CoinTelegraph)

  • Recur has helped bridge Nickelodeon over into web 3, and now has its eyes set on the classic worldwide icon, Hello Kitty. (Twitter)

  • Voyager Digital tries to call out the investor (Sam of FTX) who came to their aid but to no avail. They've publicly called Sams's offer a "lowball bid dressed up as a white knight rescue". Sam, in a cool response, outlines how his investment can help the damaged company. (Twitter)

Notorious B.I.G. NFTs 🎙

Biggie, Biggie, Biggie can’t you see? Sometimes your NFTs just hypnotize me! Once perennially ranking atop the Billboard charts, the Notorious B.I.G. (Biggie) passed away on March 9, 1997. But that hasn’t stopped his estate from spreading his music and art all over the world. What started with a posthumous album only 16 days after his death, has now transcended into an NFT project that will provide users with the ability to utilize a piece of Biggie’s world.

OneOf, a Web3 music platform, has launched The Sky’s the Limit: The Notorious B.I.G. NFT Collection to give fans the ability to own a piece of the Fulton Street Freestyle, which was recorded in Brooklyn when Biggie was only 17 years old, but was never actually used in any of his music. This project offers anyone the ability to leverage the license in order to use the freestyle in their own works, thus giving life back to Biggie’s craft. If you aren’t an artist that wants to use Biggie’s work, you can use your NFT as membership to the Collective, which is the mechanism that allows holders to account for 80% of the vote when deciding who is able use the freestyle in their published works. The revenue (sales, streams, etc.) generated from the use of the freestyle will be funneled back into the Collective for further Web3 efforts.

With the project selling out, it’s fair to say that Biggie is still, and will always be, regarded as one of the best Hip Hop artists of all time. Even 25 years after his death, people are still keen on propagating his genius. These types of Web3 use cases will definitely continue to be utilized in the future. Think about the sheer amount of artist recordings that have been lost in the ether (pun intended)? That fact, combined with the idea that Web3 allows group ownership and group voting, authorizes holders to have a say in how their favorite artists’ voice is used. Can’t wait to see how the Fulton Street Freestyle is used in practice and the bagners that are produced with it. WAGMI.

Incredible Art 🎨

Coinbase Case Takes A Turn ⚖️

Web3’s internal matters are now increasingly becoming an object of intervention by traditional regulatory enforcers; the SEC is dabbling heavily in regulatory overreach. Former Coinbase employee Ishan Wahi and his accomplices, Nikhil Wahi and Sameer Ramani, have been charged with insider trading by the SEC. For the SEC to bring forth these charges, they had to first reconfigure the classification of the traded assets, so that courts would recognize them as securities. In other words, the SEC is brushing off Coinbase’s own classification of the assets as fiat currencies or commodities, and instead categorizing them as securities, so that they can be regulated in the same manner as crypto. While the nine particular coins that the SEC is classifying as tokens are not significant among the crypto community, the re-classification of the coins has caused a stir in people’s confidence. This is being reflected in the sudden sell-off of Coinbase stock, which saw a Tuesday morning loss of nearly 15% alone.

This loss in confidence stems not from any commitment to the specific coins in question, but rather the realization that the SEC’s overreach and regulation by enforcement is able to disrupt markets without what many would consider due process. For example, none of the issuers of the coins are considered defendants in their lawsuit. This means that the SEC gets to bypass any defense and classify the coins at their discretion. This is a prime example of the type of centralized fiat authority that Web3 development is attempting to get away from. Justice is required in cases of insider trading, there is no question about that, but there are serious questions and solutions we need to generate within the community to self-regulate so that we are not subject to the whims of legacy authority.

Meme Drop 💧

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Disclaimer: The Drop DOES NOT provide financial advice. All content is for informational purposes only. The Drop is not a registered investment, legal, or tax advisor or a broker/dealer. Trading any crypto-related asset is extremely risky and could result in significant capital losses.

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