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The generative NFT art platform Highlight has launched on Ethereum.

Highlight allows users to create, test and mint computer-generated art as NFTs. It nixes creator fees so that artists keep 100% of the funds from a sale, with buyers paying a small fee.

“Highlight will be the first open platform for generative art on Ethereum,” Highlight CEO Nathaniel Emodi told The Block. “It includes zero creator fees, self-owned contracts, open editions — a first for generative NFTs — and lots more. We’re partnering with some of the world’s best-known generative artists on upcoming drops, including Melissa Wiederrecht, James Merrill, Holger Lippmann, Leander Herzog and many others.”

Highlight funding

Highlight has raised $11 million in funding to date, with a funding round occurring in May of 2022. Katie Haun of Haun Ventures led the round, which had additional participation from 1kx, A_Capital, SciFi VC, Floodgate, Coinbase Ventures, 35 Ventures, Polygon Studios, Mischief VC, DAOJones, Offline Ventures, Gokul Rajaram, Lenny Rachitsky, WME, Method Management and ThreeSixZero.

“Over the next year, we’ll continue to make Highlight the most accessible and inclusive platform for on-chain generative art. This includes providing support for credit card payments, email sign in, physical print orders and other convenient features that grow the overall size of the crypto art community,” Emodi said.

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

The SEC-registered robo-adviser will offer several crypto sector investment solutions, in addition an offering that follows all of the sectors tracked by CDI.

The decentralized finance (DeFi) sector has endured a turbulent month, as transaction volume plummeting alongside a series of hacks and exploits.

Singapore’s High Court has deemed crypto as property in a case involving crypto exchange Bybit and a contractor. A court judgement published Tuesday declared crypto assets are property capable of being held on trust.

Judge Philip Jeyaretnam also ruled crypto assets were things in action; an intangible property type, like a cash balance at a bank or money due on a bond. Specific to the case, the court determined USDT is property capable of being held on trust. However, the judge did not see the need to restrict this to USDT. “Like any other thing in action, USDT is capable of being held on trust,” Judge Jeyaretnam said.

In making his ruling Jevaretnam cited the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (MAS) consultation paper on proposed amendments to the payment services from early July. He stated the MAS proposals showed “it is possible in practice to identify and segregate such digital assets.” This supported his view that “it should be legally possible to hold crypto assets on trust.”

Jeyaretnam concluded that crypto assets were a thing in action, capable of being enforced in court. “The holder of a crypto asset has in principle an incorporeal right of property recognizable by the common law as a thing in action and so enforceable in court,” he added. 

Bybit vs Ho Kai Xin

The judgement involved Seychelles-based exchange Bybit and contractor Ho Kai Xin. Bybit brought a case against Ho in October 2023, claiming that she breached her employment contract to transfer over 4.2 million USDT to addresses owned and controlled by her. After receiving the funds it was claimed that Ms Ho went on a spending spree.

“ByBit had discovered Ms Ho had made several substantial purchases from July 2022 onwards, including a freehold penthouse apartment with her husband, a brand new car, and several Louis Vuitton products,” the court heard.

In her defence, Ho said the alleged fraud was perpetrated by her cousin “Jason,” whom she claimed had gained unauthorized access to her work laptop. However, based on the Balance of Probability standard, the judge concluded “Jason” did not exist, and granted summary judgment in favor of ByBit. 

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

The latest price moves in bitcoin (BTC) and crypto markets in context for July 26, 2023. First Mover is CoinDesk’s daily newsletter that contextualizes the latest actions in the crypto markets.

Wright says he is the true identity of Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto, and took a libel case against crypto podcaster Peter McCormack

Security researchers have identified a new malware called Realst, exposing Apple macOS users to the potential theft of crypto assets and sensitive information.

The malware is distributed via malicious websites promoting fake blockchain games, web3 security firm SlowMist warned — pointing to a blog post from cybersecurity company SentinelOne.

Realst spreads through games, including Brawl Earth, WildWorld, Dawnland, Destruction, Evolion, Pearl, Olymp of Reptiles and SaintLegend. Each fake game version has its own website, Twitter and Discord accounts — creating the illusion of authenticity to trick unsuspecting victims, SentinelOne threat researcher Phil Stokes said in the post.

Written in Rust, the malware attempts to deceive victims through AppleScript spoofing — presenting password request dialog boxes with hidden answers to capture passwords. Sometimes, it also uses Chainbreaker, an open-source project to extract passwords, keys and certificates from macOS keychain databases.

“As soon as the victim launches these fake games and provides the ‘installer’ with a password, their data, passwords and crypto wallets are stolen,” Stokes added.

The malware authors also appear to be testing their creation’s behavior on Apple’s upcoming macOS 14 Sonoma version, with around one-third of the identified Realst samples targeting the release, Stokes said. 

Apple users are urged to remain vigilant

While SentinelOne’s security solution can detect and prevent all known variants of Realst, Stokes added, he urged users and security teams to remain vigilant as “Apple’s malware blocking service ‘XProtect’ does not appear to [currently] prevent execution of this malware.”

Given the rising popularity of blockchain games promising financial rewards, Stokes advised users to exercise extreme caution when encountering solicitations to download and run such games.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Block.

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

A month ago, the company added the Brazilian real and other Latin American currencies to its portfolio.

The move follows reports had been rejected by financial regulators, and a pullback from markets including Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands

Craig Wright, who continues to claim that he invented Bitcoin, has lost his appeal in the libel case against Peter McCormack.

Wright had accused McCormack of damaging his reputation through a series of tweets in 2019, when McCormack claimed that Wright was a fraud and did not invent Bitcoin. In the initial ruling, the court found that McCormack’s comments were defamatory but based on Wright’s conduct in the trial, reduced the damages to just £1.

The UK Court of Appeal upheld the previous ruling, stating that Wright failed to provide sufficient evidence to support his claims, according to a court filing today. 

“The judges agreed with the decision of Justice Chamberlain to reduce his damages to £1 for putting forward “deliberately false” evidence of serious harm,” McCormack said.

Multiple legal battles

This ruling could have further implications for Wright, who has been involved in several legal battles over his claim to be Satoshi Nakamoto, including against Magnus Granath, known as hodlonaut.

The news follows an order by UK judge James Mellor on Tuesday for Wright to deposit $516,000 as security for legal costs to continue his case against crypto exchanges Coinbase and Kraken. The judge said he wasn’t convinced about Wright’s ability to cover legal costs citing previous inconsistent statements about his financial position, and warned that the case would be dismissed within weeks if the security isn’t provided.

© 2023 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.