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Welcome to the OpenSea newsletter, let's recap the most important NFT and web3 news of the week.
Photographer Justin Aversano's global portrait project, which took two years to complete, concluded with 366 NFT images.
Photographer Justin Aversano completed a 366-day portrait series this week, auctioning each 10-second analog film portrait as an NFT to 135 buyers.
In this project starting from April 2025, Aversano traveled across seven continents, photographing strangers including Antarctic explorers and Zambian families, then minting each portrait daily on the Ethereum blockchain.

🔔 Argentina's President Milei launched a memecoin (LIBRA), which lost over $4.4 billion in market cap within 5 hours.
🔔 🇺🇸 US inflation rose to 3%, higher than expectations
🔔 #MicroStrategy bought another 7,633 Bitcoin worth $742 million
🔔 #CZ posted a picture of his dog, named "Broccoli," and multiple meme coins using this name got launched..
🔔 President #Trump's Crypto Czar David Sacks said “some important announcements" on digital assets are coming soon”
🔔 🇺🇸 Fed Chair #JeromePowell said the Federal Reserve won't block banks from serving legal crypto customer
🔔 New York Stock Exchange filed a proposal to allow staking for Grayscale's Ethereum ETF
🔔 Trump Media authorized investing in crypto assets
🔔 #OpenSea will launch the $SEA token
🔔 🇨🇫 President of the Central African Republic launched a memecoin (CAR), the token dropped -98% from it's ATH
🔔 🇦🇪 Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund disclosed $436 million Bitcoin ETF holdings
🔔 🇮🇳 Coinbase plans to re-enter the Indian #crypto market
🔔 🇭🇰 Hong Kong officially recognized Bitcoin & Ethereum as part of its investment visa program
🔔 World's largest custodian bank State Street & Citi bank to launch crypto custody services
🔔 🇺🇸 SEC's crypto task force discusses integrating staking into ETPs with multiple firms
🔔 GameStop $GME considers investing in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies
🔔 🇺🇸 21Shares proposed adding staking to its Ethereum ETFs
🔔 Grayscale filed for spot Cardano $ADA ETF with NYSE
🔔 🇺🇸North Carolina introduced a bill to create a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve
🔔Pump.fun co-founder clarified that there are no plans for a token launch

The brutal crypto winter has all but starved the NFT market - most projects couldn’t withstand the cold, but there is one that seems built for the climate. It’s only fitting that Pudgy Penguins is Decrypt’s NFT Project of the Year.
In mid-2022, the enthusiasm surrounding NFTs gradually froze, and the once lively space became very cold indeed, with prices falling, sales plummeting, and the most important atmosphere in the NFT world becoming increasingly cold as collectors complained and project revenues evaporated significantly.
This was true for the vast majority of notable NFT projects prior to the bear market, but Humpty Dumpty Penguin bucked the trend and appeared to emerge stronger amid crypto’s brutal crash — ending the year in front of millions of people at Walmart stores across the country.

On April 9, 2025, OpenSea – the largest NFT trading platform in the world – strongly pushed back against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), asserting that NFTs are not securities and platforms like OpenSea should not be regulated as stock exchanges. In the context of the NFT market struggling and the SEC showing signs of leniency, does this move open up opportunities for NFTs to regain their luster, or is it merely a desperate legal battle?

Minseok Kang was born in South Korea in 1980 and goes by the stage name KangCar. He has been passionate about cars since he was a child. He studied fine arts at Dong-A University, earning a bachelor's degree in 2007 and a master's degree in 2010.
Speaking of his artistic style, he writes: "Over time, my artwork has shifted from emphasizing the physical beauty of cars to depicting my unique style that incorporates elements of time, space, relationships, and culture."

KangCar currently depicts twisted car shapes that "symbolize the modern generation's pursuit of happiness and the self-made path in the cut-throat competition," using acrylics, employing the technique of scraping paint with a squeegee, and combining faux straight lines, speed, and Time shape embroidery.