Tired of colonial artefacts being hoarded, Chidi Nwaubani and Ahmed Abokor use tech to redistribute them from museums in audacious digital heists In March last year, two men in tracksuits, wearing hockey masks and carrying matching laundry bags, headed for the British Museum. Just outside, patrolling police asked the two strange-looking men where they were going. “We’re going to the British Museum to loot back stolen goods,” one of them said. “Well, we’ll see you in there then!” the policewoman answered. But no arrests were made, as nothing incriminating happened. What did take place was a “di ..read more

In this week’s newsletter: in early 2022 ‘non-fungible tokens’ were a supposedly revolutionary million-dollar asset. Now, they’re practically worthless • Don’t get TechScape delivered to your inbox? Sign up here A funny thing happened in Hong Kong earlier this month. Well, funny unless you were there. The annual ApeFest, where collectors of Bored Ape NFTs (remember them?) took place in Hong Kong (for the uninitiated, NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, can be linked to products like digital artworks and traded for cryptocurrencies on the open market). Nouveau-riche investors who got rich off the bac ..read more

More than a dozen attenders of NFT group’s festival, which used ultraviolet light, complained of ‘eye burn’ on social media The company behind the Bored Ape crypto art craze is looking into reports that people have been suffering from eye burn, extreme pain and impaired vision after attending one of its events, which was lit by UV lights. The ApeFest festival is held every year for members of the Bored Ape Yacht Club, AKA Bored Apes, who have invested in a collection of 10,000 non-fungible tokens (NFTs) featuring computer-generated profile pictures of cartoon apes ..read more

We only loved non-fungible tokens – now all but worthless – during a pandemic peak of online loneliness. What will the next craze look like? With last week’s report that 95% of them are now worthless, I think it’s just about safe to say that the NFT moment is finally over. Phew. There really was a six-week period at the start of last year when I thought I was going to have to attach my digital soul for ever to a really bad picture of a monkey with a tentacle coming out of its nose and mouth. I kept practising saying, “No, it’s actually quite cool! It’s good. And it only cost me about as much a ..read more

Two years after tech trend that swept up artists and celebrities, researchers estimate 23 million people hold worthless investments Tens of thousands of NFTs that were once deemed the newest rage in tech and dragged in celebrities, artists and even Melania Trump have now been declared virtually worthless. According to a new report by dappGambl that reviewed data from NFT Scan and CoinMarketCap, 69,795 out of 73,257 NFT collections have a market cap of 0 Ether, leaving 95% of those holding NFT collections – or 23 million people – with worthless investments ..read more

Report says people betting on prices of such assets ‘should be aware that all their money could be lost’ UK authorities should regulate cryptocurrency trading as a form of gambling rather than a financial service, parliament’s Treasury committee has said after a fresh inquiry into the industry. The government must avoid wasting more taxpayer funds promoting tech innovations such as digital tokens, without demonstrating the clear benefits to the public, MPs said in a report published on Wednesday ..read more

British watchdog’s ruling that crypto exchange breached ad standards invites scrutiny of its Australian promotions Follow our Australia news live blog for the latest updates Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast The AFL’s crypto exchange partner, Crypto.com, has breached UK advertising standards on multiple occasions and been accused of “misleading” and “irresponsible” behaviour. The UK Advertising Standards Authority rulings may invite further scrutiny of Crypto.com promotions in Australia. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email ..read more

A new service offers a way to offset losses from NFTs during a grim crypto winter that saw demand for digital collectibles vanish Just a year ago, Washington DC’s Hirshhorn art museum – the capital’s preeminent contemporary art museum – was asking whether non-fungible tokens (NFTs) were “fad or the future of art”. Twelve months on, it looks like “tax write-off” might have been the right answer. This year was not just the year that cryptocurrency values were burned by investor fears, rising interest rates, inflation and scandals, it was the year that crypto’s cartoonish art cousin the NFT – an ..read more

App Store update undercuts a key feature of non-fungible tokens by banning their use to unlock content Apple is facing new accusations of anti-competitive behaviour after changing the rules on non-fungible token-powered apps and adding more paid-for promotions to the company’s App Store. Apple introduced the changes as part of a number of updates to the rules it requires app developers to abide by in order to publish software for iPhones and iPads ..read more

The artist is not alone in looking to cash in on content-free art. Only time will separate the stunts from the lasting innovations Questions about the nature and value of art are not new: a century has passed since Marcel Duchamp turned a urinal upside down, signed it R Mutt and presented it as Fountain to the Society of Independent Artists, in response to its promise that it would accept any work of art so long as the artist paid the application fee. New times need new questions, and one was flamboyantly posed last week by the artist Damien Hirst, when he started to burn hundreds of his own s ..read more