Author: The Associated Press (AP)
Former Treasury Department officials and sanctions experts expect Russia to try to mitigate the impact of the financial penalties by relying on energy sales and leaning on the country’s reserves in gold and Chinese currency. Putin also is expected to move funds through smaller banks and accounts of elite families not covered by the sanctions, deal in cryptocurrency and rely on Russia’s relationship with China. Right now, “the biggest two avenues that Russia has are China and energy,” said John Smith, former director of Treasury’s financial intelligence and enforcement arm. The U.S. and EU have levied sanctions on Russia’s biggest…
Benevolence toward fans one day. Making money off them the next day. Champions League organizer UEFA faced criticism on Tuesday for monetizing supporter engagement by partnering with a company that sells fan tokens through largely unregulated cryptocurrencies. The commercial deal was announced a day after the Football Supporters Europe group praised UEFA for giving away 10,000 tickets to the Champions League final this season, with thousands of fans also able to attend the other European club competition finals for free. England’s Football Supporters’ Association said Tuesday’s announcement showed the “good and bad of UEFA summed up in two days.” Socios…
A small group of cryptocurrency enthusiasts has an offer that they’re hoping U.S. cities can’t refuse. The group City Coins is asking Miami and New York to accept the equivalent of millions of dollars in a new cryptocurrency, and at least some of the money is real: Last week, Miami Mayor Francis Suarez announced that City Coins had transferred $5.25 million to the city. The dizzying proposal has leaders in other cities, like Philadelphia and Dearborn, Michigan, clamoring to get in on a deal they hope might patch budgets, similar to how some cities and states had hoped lotteries or legalized gambling would be…
A home along Florida’s Gulf Coast will be auctioned off in the upcoming week as a “non-fungible token” in what is believed to be among the first such transactions in the U.S. Non-fungible tokens – or NFTs – use a version of the encryption technology employed to secure cryptocurrencies to create one-of-a-kind digital objects. The technology provides digital creations a kind of certificate of authenticity, allowing ownership of something that could otherwise be replicated endlessly. In the case of the four-bedroom home in Gulfport, Florida, a California-based real estate technology company, Propy, will mint the property rights into a digital…
Pablo Picasso’s family is not selling a digital asset linked to one of his works after all. An intra-family disagreement has cropped up over it. After a granddaughter and great-grandson of the artist trumpeted the upcoming sale, lawyers for the family said Thursday that his heirs have not authorized the launch of any such “Picasso NFT.” Marina Picasso, and her son, Florian Picasso, showed a ceramic work to The Associated Press this week in Geneva that they said was a piece by the Spanish great that would be linked to a “non-fungible asset” being sold online. They and their managers…
Heirs of Pablo Picasso, the famed 20th-century Spanish artist, are vaulting into 21st-century commerce by selling 1,010 digital art pieces of one of his ceramic works that has never before been seen publicly — riding a fad for “crypto” assets that have taken the art and financial worlds by storm. For an exclusive interview before the formal launch this week, Picasso’s granddaughter, Marina Picasso, and her son Florian Picasso opened up their apartment — which is swimming in works from their illustrious ancestor — in an upscale Geneva neighborhood. There they offered up a glimpse, however tantalizingly slim, of the…
In April, Brazil’s federal police stormed the helipad of a boutique seaside hotel in Rio de Janeiro state, where they busted two men and a woman loading a chopper with 7 million reais ($1.3 million) in neatly packed bills. The detainees told police they worked for G.A.S. Consulting & Technology, a cryptocurrency investment firm founded by a former waiter-turned-multimillionaire who is the central figure in what is alleged to be one of Brazil’s biggest-ever pyramid schemes. Police say the company owned by 38-year-old Glaidson Acácio dos Santos had total transactions worth at least $7 billion ($38 billion reais) from 2015…
The Associated Press will launch a non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace built by blockchain technology provider Xooa, where collectors can purchase the news agency’s award-winning contemporary and historic photojournalism. The marketplace and first NFTs are set to debut on Monday, Jan. 31. This image of a home covered in ash from a volcano erupting on the Canary island of La Palma, Spain, on Nov. 1, 2021, will be available as an NFT on AP’s NFT marketplace. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti) This Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of a Jewish settler challenging Israeli security officers in the West Bank settlement of Amona, Feb. 1, 2006, will be…