Cryptocurrency
Sotheby’s blockchain Gen Art program shows tech taking a back seat to art

Sotheby’s is making moves. The same fine art auction house behind several recent major nonfungible token (NFT) sales has just made the Met Breuer’s old Madison Avenue building its home, and on July 26, it’s launching an on-chain Gen Art Program powered by generative art platform Art Blocks.
A sale of NFTs by early algorithmic artmaker Vera Molnár will christen the program. She worked with artist and coder Martin Grasser to produce Themes and Variations, the sale’s series of 500 unique generative artworks. Altogether, it “expresses the seamless integration of letters as pure abstract forms,” a release says, “as well as Molnár’s affinity for embracing disorder.”
“The Sotheby’s Gen Art Program is powered by Art Blocks Engine,” Art Blocks founder and CEO Erick Calderon told Cointelegraph, “which gives access to Art Blocks’ smart contracts and rendering infrastructure for partners to create their own generative projects.”

“All Gen Art Program sales will be fully on-chain and in ETH only,” Sotheby’s head of digital art and NFTs, Michael Bouhanna, told Cointelegraph. “With the integration of the Art Blocks Engine, the Gen Art Program will mark our first digital art auctions to be held exclusively in ETH. Since moving Sotheby’s metaverse to fully on-chain in May, when we announced our new secondary market, it felt like a natural progression to begin exploring more sale options that can be fully on-chain,” he added. Last week’s announcement also predated a Web3 summit at Christie’s by just days.
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Art Blocks has previously partnered with traditional art heavyweights like the New York gallery Pace. The platform connected with Sotheby’s last fall “but didn’t immediately have a project in mind,” Calderon said. “It came to light that [Art Blocks] Engine would be a perfect fit for building out their [Sotheby’s] generative art platform after they committed to working with Vera Molnár early this year.”
Sotheby’s will conduct this inaugural sale as a Dutch auction for the first time in the house’s 300-year history. Art Blocks has historically used that model across its platform. Unlike a more traditional auction, where prices start low and climb high, a Dutch auction’s prices start high and go low. The first offer wins the lot, so there’s no dramatic bidding wars here. Sotheby’s say the model introduces new psychologies. The ceiling price for works across this week’s Molnár sale is 20 Ether (ETH).

With high-profile strategic partnerships, Art Blocks has built a business strong enough to withstand NFTs’ noted volatility. Sotheby’s, meanwhile, has transformed the downfall of one of crypto’s largest institutions into huge profits. This spring, it hosted a series of sales auctioning off Three Arrows Capital’s fabled blue chip NFT collection, which smashed estimates.
Most notably, Ringers #879 “The Goose” by Dimitri Cherniak — who made his auction debut with Phillips last summer — sold for $6.2 million, despite its $3 million high estimate. Many take those estimates with justified skepticism, but Cherniak’s work proved to be the second-most expensive digital art ever sold. “Editions from the same series sold for less than $200,000 each only moments later,” Forbes pointed out.
This Spring’s financial successes showed that now’s the time to launch the Gen Art Program, Bouhanna said. “We held our first auction dedicated to generative art in April 2022, and given the strong results from that sale, it was clear that collectors could see the art historical lineage of generative art and why it is so important not only to digital art but to contemporary art.”
“The Gen Art Program will open up many new opportunities for us, namely the ability to now work directly with leading artists to present exclusive new sales,” he continued.
The initiative also expands the house’s growing Web3 presence. Specifically, this program will focus on elevating long-form generative art — large series of works from a central algorithm.
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Calderon believes respect for the medium is rapidly increasing across the art world: “Part of the reason for that is blockchain technology itself is taking a back seat to the content that’s being created […] We will see less and less talk about the technology behind generative art and more about the art itself.”
“After decades of exploring how systems and computers can generate artistic outputs, I see this collaboration with Sotheby’s and Art Blocks as a culmination of those efforts,” Molnár herself said, “providing a new way to generate never-before-seen, unique abstract forms that are defined by the controlled randomness of machine programming — the essence of the algorithm.”
Cryptocurrency
Venom Foundation Achieves 150k TPS in Closed-Network Stress Test, Paving the Way for 2025 Mainnet Upgrade

[PRESS RELEASE – Abu Dhabi, UAE, May 23rd, 2025]
The Venom Foundation has successfully completed a closed‑network stress test of its next‑generation protocol, which is capable of completing 150,000 transactions per second (TPS) and finalizing all transfers in under three seconds. The implementation of this upgrade is set to occur in Q3 2025 and make Venom one of the most effective throughput public blockchains in existence.
“Throughput only matters if it can remain reliable under pressure,” said Christopher Louis, Chief Executive Officer at Venom. “Our new stack can handle enterprise‑scale workloads without spiking fees or compromising decentralization, which is exactly what payment providers, exchanges, and game studios need.”
Why It Matters for Markets
- Speed at scale — DAG‑based mempool consensus unlocks headroom for 400,000+ TPS in synthetic benchmarks while maintaining real‑time finality.
- Fair order flow — The distributed sorting layer can convert the DAG into a single linear order, preventing front‑running and other MEV exploits.
- Parallel smart‑contract execution — TVM actor model shard accounts and processes call asynchronously, enabling high‑volume DeFi and microtransactions.
- Deterministic security — Validators can generate identical outputs, meaning finality is reached once 2 n + 1 signatures are collected, making forks virtually impossible.
- Lean networking footprint — Asynchronous block distribution keeps bandwidth costs low for operators and cloud partners.
Path to Production
Testnet (Q2 2025) – Security audits, ecosystem tooling, third‑party audits
Mainnet Migration (Q3 2025) – In‑place hard fork
Ecosystem Expansion (Q4 2025) – Cross‑chain bridges, feature‑complete SDKs
Transparency
All raw data, node configurations, and test scripts will be published to Venom’s public GitHub repository ahead of the testnet launch. Independent auditors are currently reviewing both the security and performance aspects of the upgrade.
About The Venom Foundation
The Venom Foundation consists of researchers and developers from Abu Dhabi, where they built the foundations for the network. The foundation is a Cayman‑registered, community‑driven non‑profit supporting research, development, and adoption for the Venom blockchain.
Website: https://venom.foundation/
https://x.com/VenomFoundation/
Press contact: press@venom.foundation
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Cryptocurrency
On-Chain Data Signals This Bitcoin Bull Run Is Just Getting Started

Bitcoin’s latest surge has sparked renewed excitement across the crypto space.
As the cryptocurrency hovers near its recently set all-time high, new data suggests changes in Bitcoin holder behavior and a strong potential for further gains throughout the week.
Bitcoin Enters “Unprecedented” Bull Phase
According to Santiment’s latest tweet, an important on-chain signal supporting this bullish momentum is the declining Mean Dollar Age of Bitcoin holdings, which reflects a younger average age of coins in circulation. This trend has historically aligned with major bull cycles.
Over the past five years, there have been three major bull runs, and Santiment found that each has been accompanied by a noticeable drop in the average age of held BTC. Since April 16th, this metric has declined from 441 days to 429 days, which indicates that long-dormant whales are beginning to move their holdings.
As these older coins re-enter active circulation, it strengthens the narrative that the market is in an “unprecedented” bull phase. In fact, this phase could possibly be one of the most significant in Bitcoin’s history.
Further supporting this, Glassnode’s analysis revealed that despite Bitcoin’s ATH, realized profit-taking volume was just $1 billion, less than half the $2.10 billion seen when Bitcoin first crossed $100K in December 2024.
Bitcoin Climbs Global Asset Ranks
Coin age distribution shows short-term traders dominating activity, with 6-month-old assets dropped to 13.4% from 24.7%. This indicates that long-term holders are broadly refraining from distributing coins at current levels, which is indicative of a stronger conviction and reduced speculative behavior.
CryptoRank’s latest data highlighted a growing macro correlation. Bitcoin’s price movements increasingly mirror trends in the global M2 money supply. Now the fifth-largest asset by market capitalization, Bitcoin appears to be following broader liquidity patterns more closely.
The chart includes a 10-week forward projection of M2, historically a leading indicator for the cryptocurrency. This suggests that changes in global liquidity precede shifts in Bitcoin’s price. With the current M2 forecast pointing to continued growth, the data signals potential sustained upside for the cryptocurrency in the near term.
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Cryptocurrency
Crypto Price Analysis May-23: ETH, XRP, ADA, SOL, and HYPE

This week, we examine Ethereum, Ripple, Cardano, Solana, and Hype in greater detail.
Ethereum (ETH)
Ethereum continued to consolidate this week and booked a 2% gain. While this appears modest, the longer ETH sits above the key support at $2,400, the higher the chance of a continued rally that can challenge the current resistance at $2,870.
The price action remains bullish and a breakout attempt above $2,870 is likely, which could bring this cryptocurrency closer to $3,000, a key psychological level.
Looking ahead, ETH is looking promising and may follow Bitcoin, which has been making new price records. This ongoing market optimism could spill over across altcoins, including ETH.
Ripple (XRP)
XRP’s consolidation under the $2.6 resistance continues. This is why the price is almost identical to last week. Since sellers appear absent, this could give way for buyers to return and attempt a breakout above $2.6.
The momentum is bullish despite the low volatility. This flat trend could be just a brief pause before bulls gather enough strength to resume the rally towards $3, which is acting as a magnet for the price.
Looking ahead, XRP suffers from low volatility and volume right now, but this can change at any time. It’s quite likely that as soon as the $2.6 resistance falls, the price will rush to $3 in quick succession.
Cardano (ADA)
ADA is making good progress towards the $0.9 resistance and has increased by 5% this week. If this trend continues, a breakout attempt is likely before the end of May.
This bullish sentiment can also be seen on the weekly MACD, which is curving upwards with an imminent cross to the upside. If confirmed by next week, then ADA has a good shot at sustaining this rally to reclaim $1.
Looking ahead, ADA has good support at $0.75 should sellers return. This level was already tested recently, which puts buyers at an advantage right now. This makes a test of $0.9 more likely before any future pullback.
Solana (SOL)
Solana had a good week and booked an 8% gain. This allowed the price to expand and reach the resistance at $186, which is being challenged at the time of this post. If SOL is successful in breaking above it and turning it into a key support, then the next target will be found at $200 and beyond.
The weekly MACD already did a bullish cross two weeks ago. This puts SOL ahead of ADA in terms of its rally. While the price increased, the buy volume remains somewhat low compared to past rallies. This is a sign of weakness, but can quickly change if the asset goes beyond $200 later.
Solana is up by almost 100% since its recent bottom at $95. This is an impressive rally for a coin with such a large market capitalization. Considering the price is making higher highs, there are no signs of this trend changing anytime soon.
Hype (HYPE)
HYPE broke everyone’s expectations this week with an eye-popping 39% price increase. This pushed it to $37 at the time of this post, a new record. This rapid move has created euphoria across the Hyperliquid ecosystem.
The current target for this rally is $40, which is the next major psychological level on the chart. Considering the strength of this rally, HYPE may test that level within 24h. Once the buying pressure subsides, a pullback is likely and may be quite significant considering this rally.
Looking ahead, HYPE is one of the few altcoins that managed to make a new all-time high in 2025, breaking its record of $35 from December 2024. This gives hope that the overall altcoin market may soon recover the losses from earlier this year.
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Cryptocurrency charts by TradingView.
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