Sam Bankman-Fried eyeing bid for bankrupt Celsius assets

Sam Bankman-Fried eyeing bid for bankrupt Celsius assets

After winning Voyager bid, a Bloomberg report suggests that Sam Bankman-fried may scoop up bankrupt lender Celsius' assets. However, ever since the speculations of Bankman-Fried buying its assets surfaced, the Cel token has incrementally jumped to 16% on Wednesday morning.

Prior to the reports, the token was trending on a 24-hour low and was trading around $1.52 at press time.

Lender of a last resort:

Since the collapse of stablecoin TerraUSD, the industry is being battered by snowballing issues. Companies closely associated with Three Arrows Capital (3AC) — found themselves on the brink of bankruptcy. This year, FTX and its sister company Alameda Research invested in firms that were on the verge of bankruptcy and issued millions of dollars to support the firms.

Earlier this week, crypto exchange FTX secured the winning bid for the assets of bankrupt crypto lender Voyager Digital. In July, the firm also provided the struggling lending firm BlockFi with a $250 million.

However, during this market downturn, crypto billionaire, Sam Bankman-Fried has emerged as the lender of last resort in the crypto world.

Are NFTs dead? or are they here to stay?

There’s no doubt about it: Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) are in trouble. The bull run that existed all throughout 2021 has long been left behind in the dust. The Non-Fungible Token (NFT) market has crashed in recent months, leading to the question, are NFTs finally dead?

As of September 26, NFT sales per day were recorded at below 30,000 while daily sales volumes stood at $9.2 million. This is a sharp drop compared to the markets’ strongest months—January and May—where daily sales volumes frequently topped $150 million.

Fractionalising NFTs:

Things turned for the worse as OpenSea  laid off about 20% of its workforce in July to tide through the adverse market conditions. Those who entered the market at this juncture are left wondering where their profits are.

While those running NFT projects have woken up to the reality that this doesn’t work. Anticipating liquidity to dry up, some have resorted to experimenting with fractionalising to increase demand.

Industry experts believe that this new class of NFTs could unlock transformative potential of blockchain-based digital asset ownership and rekindle NFT revolution.

Invest in fractional NFTs of fine art

Buying fine art can get quite complicated, from shelling out an exorbitant sum of money to paying upkeep charges. Take, for instance, the sale of a rare painting by India’s foremost abstract artist VS Gaitonde.

In February this year, it was sold for Rs 42 crore at Pundole’s (an auction house) in Mumbai, making it one of the most expensive pieces of modern or contemporary Indian art globally.

Early stage startup Artfi is building a new way to own a piece of fine art. Launched by art entrepreneur Asif Kamal, the startup is working on a platform for purchasing and selling NFTs representing an investment in iconic blue-chip artworks of renowned Indian artists such as VS Gaitonde, Sacha Jafri, and more.

What does Artfi do?

Once the startup receives physical artwork via consignment—a process involving trusting an art gallery or auction house with a piece of art to be sold—the startup then tokenises it and then fractionalises the painting.

This can be anywhere between 5,000 pieces to 10,000 pieces. It then opens the NFTs up for sale to anyone interested.

JetSynthesys acquires Metaphy Labs

New-age digital entertainment and technology company, JetSynthesys on Thursday, announced the acquisition of Metaphy Labs, an end-to-end solution provider that helps brands create their own metaverse.

JetSynthesys was launched in 2014, under the leadership of Rajan Navani. The firm focusses on three key sectors including gaming and esports, digital entertainment, wellness and livelihoods. The firm is known for its advanced capabilities in AI/ML, AR/VR/XR.

Future plans:

With the acquisition the firm intends to facilitate ‘metaverse as a service’ (MAAS) to brands.

In a conversation with The Decrypting Story Rajan Navani, Founder and CEO of JetSynthesys, said "We will now look at how we can use MAAS not only for Jetverse but also to the world, and this acquisition was our first step in this strategy. We now have a majority stake in Metaphy Labs, but the team will continue to operate in its capacity."