China shutdown protests NFTs emerge, Candy Digital cuts staff and more

by · November 28, 2022

China’s COVID-19 protests cemented as NFTs

Nonfungible tokens (NFTs) depicting the ongoing protests in China against the country’s harsh zero-tolerance COVID-19 policy have found their way to NFT marketplace OpenSea.

At least two collections have been created in November, the first is a polygon (MATIC) based collection called “Silent Speech” with 135 NFTs showing images of protesters, signage, graffiti and even social media screenshots related to the ongoing protests that are put up for auction. starting at 0.01 Ether (ETH), or just under $11.50.

A Silent Speech NFT titled “Beihang University” (translated) shows an image of several tea lights in surgical masks. Candles are a commonly used symbol of memory.

Another collection titled “Blank Paper Movement” of 36 Ethereum-based NFTs with a floor price of 10 ETH, or nearly $11,800, has a more artistic feel as the images of the protests appear to be painted.

Holding a blank sheet of paper has emerged as a symbol representing the suppression of speech in the rare and widespread protests that have erupted across China since November 14, starting when residents of Guangzhou, one of China’s largest cities, tore down police barricades in response to COVID-19-related measures.

The protests intensified on November 24 when a fire that day in a high-rise in the northeastern city of Urumqi killed 10 people.

Some Chinese netizens believe residents were unable to escape due to extreme lockdown measures that have included government wiring or welding doors.

Candy Digital lays off 100 employees

NFT company Candy Digital has reportedly laid off a significant portion of its workforce amid turbulent crypto market conditions and a massive decline in NFT trading volumes this year.

More than a third of the company’s roughly 100 employees were cut, according to a Nov. 28 report from sports industry outlet Sportico.

It is unclear the reason for the layoffs and whether any particular departments were affected, as Candy Digital has not publicly addressed the layoffs. Former head of community content at Candy Digital, Matthew Muntner, publicly confirmed in a November 28 Twitter post that he was part of the staff cuts:

Cointelegraph reached out to Candy Digital for comment, but did not immediately receive a response.

Candy Digital launched in June 2021, backed by sports e-commerce store Fanatics, crypto-friendly entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk and Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz.

The company quickly gained partnerships with sports leagues including Major League Baseball, NASCAR’s cooperative Race Team Alliance and several college athletes. It was valued at $1.5 billion in October 2021 after a $100 million funding round.

Candy Digital’s layoffs follow others across tech firms, such as NFT protocol Metaplex’s Nov. 17 cut of “several members” of its team, Meta’s Nov. 9 layoff of 11,000 employees, and Flow blockchain developer Dapper Labs’ Nov. 2 layoffs of approximately 130 employees.

Bored & Hungry restaurant runs pop-up at Philippine blockchain week

Long Beach-based NFT-themed burger restaurant Bored & Hungry has set up a pop-up shop at Philippine Blockchain Week which started on November 28 local time.

It is the first time the restaurant has operated in Southeast Asia, the brand as well operated a pop-up fries stand at NFT.London in early November.

The restaurant first opened in April and is themed using the owner’s intellectual property of his owned Bored Ape Yacht Club and Mutant Ape Yacht Club NFTs and accepted ETH and ApeCoin (APE) as payment.

Around two months after opening, in June, the store inexplicably stopped accepting cryptocurrency as a payment method, likely due to the drop in crypto prices.

Ripple’s XRP Ledger hits new record in NFT sales

Ripple’s XRP Ledger blockchain has registered a new record NFT sale, with an XPUNK NFT – a clone of the popular Ethereum-native CryptoPunk NFTs – selling for 108,900 XRP (XRP), roughly $44,000 at the time of sale on November 25 .

The sale was the result of an open auction with over 20 people in a Discord voice chat according to XPUNK’s official Twitter account. It declined to reveal the buyer, but said “the community knows who it is.”

Related: The Metaverse is a new frontier for earning passive income

The XRP Ledger introduced NFTs on October 31 with the introduction of the XLS-20 standard first proposed on May 25, 2021, the NFTs have “automatic royalties” for creators.

More good news

The community-led decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) made up of ApeCoin holders launched its own NFT marketplace on November 24 with only Yuga Labs-backed collections.

Following the Saudi Arabian soccer team’s surprise FIFA World Cup victory over Argentina on November 22, the floor price of a Saudi Arabian-themed NFT pool unrelated to the team surged 52.6%, with some appearing to view the tokens as an indirect way to bet on the success of the football teams.