Avalanche launches initiative for digital artists, NFT creator protests Sotheby’s gender bias and more

In a March 30 blog post, The Avalanche Foundation announced the launch of Avaissance, an initiative designed to support digital artists and accelerate the growth of the Avalanche nonfungible token (NFT) ecosystem.

Avaissance has two main components, an Artist in Resident (AIR) program for over 50 artists and the Mona Lisa Initiative (MLI) to curate digital art and grow the collections of art-focused Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs).

AIR will provide artists “regardless of skill level” with funding, mentorship and virtual workshops for six months, while MLI will work with DAO’s curatorial team to promote new Avalanche NFT artists and establish an “Avalanche Permanent Collection”.

Ticketmaster introduces new feature for artists to reward fans who use NFTs

On March 27, US ticketing company Ticketmaster announced a new feature of token-gated ticket sales, which allows artists to reward NFT holders with exclusive benefits, including “special pre-sales, premium seats, customized travel packages and access to unique concert experiences.”

The ticketing giant developed the functionality after being approached by American heavy metal band Avenged Sevenfold (A7X) and its Web3 team, Bitflips, to help implement a service to offer holders of their NFTs – Deathbats Club, a collection of 10,000 unique Deathbat NFTs – ability to unlock perks and access events.

The feature currently works with tokens minted on Ethereum (ETH) and stored in decentralized application (DApp) wallets, including MetaMask or Coinbase.

NFT artist withdraws work from Sotheby’s due to lack of female representation

Popular NFT artist Patrick Amadon has told his 142,400 Twitter followers that he will be pulling his work from major auction house Sotheby’s Natively Digital: Glitch-ism sale to protest a lack of female representation.

Sotheby’s responded the next day to say it will pause the sale to “correct the imbalance of representation in the sale” and will relaunch at a later date with a “more equitable and diverse group of artists.”

Related: The Indonesian government looks to NFTs to preserve cultural heritage

NFT artist Beeple is opening a massive 50,000 sq ft studio in South Carolina

Mike Winkelmann, aka Beeple, shared a video with his Twitter followers on March 12, revealing his new 50,000 square foot studio in South Carolina.

According to Beeple’s website, he will use the space to create his artwork and host events to “showcase the very best of art and communities.”

“We look to partner with the most cutting-edge artists and communities to put on events that aren’t possible anywhere else,” the website says.

Other good news

On March 25th, an NFT from the popular CryptoPunks collection, valued at approximately $135,000, was accidentally burned by an investor attempting the process of NFT wrapping to potentially borrow liquidity from it.

Sony Interactive Entertainment, the video game giant behind the PlayStation brand, recently filed a patent for a framework that allows users to transfer and use NFTs across multiple gaming platforms, titled “NFT Framework for Transferring and Using Digital Assets Between Gaming Platforms.”

Once implemented, Playstation 5 users will be able to explore NFT use cases via popular game titles.