Sotheby’s relaunch Glitch digital art sale, newbie gamer uncovers $49K NFT and more

Sotheby’s auction house has significantly altered its latest art sale after receiving community feedback regarding a lack of diversity. Meanwhile, a novice player in Illivium: Beyond has made a staggering profit of 140,525% by finding the most elusive character in the game yet.

Sotheby’s reboot Glitch digital art sale after addressing diversity concerns

Sotheby’s has announced that bidding for its upcoming digital art sale, “Glitch: Beyond Binary,” will open on April 19. 

Glitch: Beyond Binary is a reboot of last month’s “Natively Digital: Glitch-ism” auction, which was temporarily paused due to criticism over its lack of diversity.

In an April 13 tweet, Sotheby’s announced the art sale, stating that it would “highlight the diverse artist communities that make up Glitch Art.”

Join us in welcoming the curators of “Glitch: Beyond Binary”, @letsglitchit and @thedinachang, as they highlight the diverse artist communities that make up Glitch Art.

Sale opens 19 April at Sotheby’s. Introduction written by @_menkman. Discover more: https://t.co/PXybAoBKHd pic.twitter.com/SYgMkPdlyk

— Sotheby’s Metaverse (@Sothebysverse) April 12, 2023

In a statement released on the same day, Sotheby’s emphasized that the sale would represent people from all walks of life: 

“These communities do not just identify as male or female but consist of people from every gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, language, neuro-type, size, ability, class, religion, culture, subculture, political opinion, age, skill level, occupation and background.”

Sotheby’s initially paused the sale on March 27 after popular NFT artist Patrick Amadon told his 142,400 followers that he would withdraw his work from Sotheyby’s upcoming “Natively Digital: Glitch-ism” art sale to protest a lack of female representation.

Illuvium newbie uncovers $49,000 NFT

In an April 12 statement, Illivium revealed that a newcomer to its online game Illuvium: Beyond had discovered the rarest Illuvitar yet — the coveted “Holo Blazing Rhamphyre” — and has managed to sell it for an astonishing $49,128.85.

The lucky player found the rare Illuvitar inside a “D1SK,” which is a type of digital loot box containing random illiviators and accessories available for only $32, netting the player a profit of approximately 140,525%.

Have you been watching the #illuvidex ?

Largest single Illuvitar Sale to date!

• T5 Rhamphyre ✅• Holo ✅• T3 Background – Yellow Drones ✅• Rare Expression – Blazing✅• Power – 3620 ✅

Sold for 25.9875 ETH! (~$49,128.85)

Have you got your D1SKs yet anon? pic.twitter.com/hlR3ahtGMv

— Illuvium (@illuviumio) April 10, 2023

Ukraine president signs first NFT in collection supporting military

On April 9, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed the country’s first nonfungible token (NFT) in a collection called “UACatsDivision,” featuring cats of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, with all funds donated to the Ukraine military services.

At the time of writing, 3,026 NFT cats had already been purchased out of the 10,000 available.

Unique NFT from the @uacatsdivisioncollection has been signed by the President of Ukraine @ZelenskyyUa !

Mint your NFT at https://t.co/6F7Br3bXnU and support Ukraine! 100% of funds goes to the Armed Forces of Ukraine#NFTCollection #NFTs #NFTCommunity #OpenSeaNFT #CryptoNews pic.twitter.com/OyXDxi3Fas

— UACatsDivision (@uacatsdivision) April 8, 2023

Other Nifty News

In recent news, Bitcoin (BTC) miners have pocketed over $5 million from creating NFTs inscriptions using the Ordinals protocol.

Dune Analytics data revealed that transaction fees for Ordinals transactions exploded 240% from $1.5 million on March 10 to $5.2 million by April 12.

It was revealed that nearly 1.1 million Ordinals had been inscribed on the Bitcoin network, mainly consisting of jpeg images and text but also PDFs, video and audio formats.

Related: NFT.NYC: Play-to-Earn is not dead, but game publishers are looking for alternatives

In other news, an NFT collector made a costly mistake on April 5, bidding 100 Ether (ETH), worth around $192,000 at the time of writing, for an NFT from the Gemesis NFT collection, which was intended to be free to celebrate the launch of OpenSea Pro.

While some community members believe the transaction was a wash trade, others argued the trader simply made a mistake bidding 100 ETH instead of $100.

Another community member argued against theories that it was a wash trade since it was too risky.

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