In brief
- Nifty's is a newly announced social media platform for NFTs.
- It's hired Olta Andoni, an intellectual property lawyer who focuses on blockchain technology, as CLO.
Nifty’s, an upcoming NFT social media platform backed by Mark Cuban, has hired its first chief legal officer.
The startup announced today that Olta Andoni, an intellectual property lawyer who focuses on cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, will take the role.
Nifty’s, not to be confused with Nifty Gateway, was announced on March 23. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and ConsenSys CEO Joseph Lubin were among those to invest in the startup in a pre-seed round.
Nifty’s, which is set to debut this spring, is billing itself as a platform that “enable[s] anyone to access, share and enjoy digital collectibles while connecting directly with creators and other community members.”
Andoni, formerly with the Chicago-based law firm of Zlatkin Wong, recently appeared on the Unchained podcast with Laura Shin alongside fellow blockchain IP legal experts Stuart Levi and Tonya Evans.
Mark Cuban, Joe Lubin Invest in New NFT Social Platform Nifty's
Nifty’s, a new social media platform focused around the surging world of crypto art collectibles sold as NFTs, announced its launch on Tuesday with pre-seed funding from a handful of well-known investors. Billionaire tech investor and Dallas Mavericks team owner Mark Cuban leads the list alongside Ethereum co-founder and ConsenSys CEO Joseph Lubin. DeFi investor and NFT whale collector 0xb1 also participated in the pre-seed round, along with Tim Draper’s Draper Dragon, Polychain, Liberty City Ve...
“Under US copyright law, the buyer of the NFT is just purchasing that NFT,” she told Shin. “They’re not getting ownership of the underlying asset or underlying work. And I have to emphasize this because I think there is a lot of misconception out there.”
Solving NFT’s intellectual property puzzles—and making sure the platform is framing them correctly for consumers—will be a huge part of Andoni’s role at Nifty. The platform was built by meme lovers familiar with the fair use doctrine, which allows copyrighted material to be reproduced in certain circumstances, such as for parody and commentary. But NFTs, or unique digital assets backed by a blockchain, open up new copyright questions.
As Decrypt reported in March, NFT buyers are essentially getting “a license that lets them do little beyond display or transfer the work.” Modifications and iterations are usually of the question, something for a fast-moving social network to consider.
The NFT Craze Offers Easy Money—And Hard Copyright Questions
If there was a contest for acronym of the year, "NFT" would be the clear favorite for 2021. Short for non-fungible tokens, NFTs are having a moment as fans scramble to "own" pieces of digital art or pop culture moments. While many people are baffled by the trend, no one can deny it's been lucrative. In recent weeks, buyers have laid down millions of dollars to acquire NFTs issued by the likes of the artist Beeple and the musician Grimes. But along with the money and hype, the NFT craze has spurr...
Nifty’s is partly an outgrowth of $MEME, a DeFi project led by Jordan Lyall, Chris Your, and Eric Tesenair.
$MEME, you might remember was a joke. Lyall brought it to life while making fun of meme coins in August, as decentralized finance transitioned into a multi-billion dollar business with hockey-stick growth and new projects popping up every day. Lyall’s “The Degenerator” promised to let users “spin up a new #DeFi project in as little as 5 minutes.” Someone then minted a token based on the joke. A day later, it was doing $1.2 million in trading volume, and selling for $40.
The Meme protocol evolved into a platform for staking tokens and earning rewards points that can be redeemed for NFTs.
Lyall, Your, and Tesenair will serve as CPO, VP of design, and VP of engineering, respectively. While MEME provides the technological basis, Jeff Marsilio, the NBA’s former head of digital licensing who played an active role in making NBA Top Shot a reality, will be chairing the company.
