Welcome to the OpenSea digest. Let’s look back through the biggest NFT and web3 news of the week.

Sotheby’s Digital Art Day sale showcases blue-chip and emerging digital artists

This week Sotheby’s auctioned a curated collection of works by boundary-pushing technologists during its Digital Art Day sale. Bidding opened August 15 and ran through August 22. The auction featured works by the likes of acclaimed generative artist and painter Tyler Hobbs, digital folklore artist Emily Xie, and Seneca, the lead designer behind Bored Ape Yacht Club’s recognizable characters. 

Bidders also had the chance to acquire pieces like CryptoPunk #491, which first minted in 2017, and pieces from generative artist Dmitri Cherniak’s Ringers collection, which made headlines in 2023 when Ringers #879, known as “The Goose,” sold for $6.2 million.

Warpcast introduces new Explore feature and NFT-gated chat improvements

Dan Romero, co-founder of the social protocol Farcaster, and Warpcast, an app built on Farcaster known as a decentralized take on X, announced two key updates this week.

First, Warpcast’s new Explore feature makes it easier for users to discover apps, actions and frames. Developers can submit their apps for listing, making it easier for users to find them.

Warpcast also just improved NFT-gated group chats. Updates included better support for contract addresses in the CAIP-10 format and automated member removal for non-holders. Now, if a user loses the NFT required for access to a group chat, the system will automatically remove them. Removal checks will happen daily at 12 a.m. PT. This update is compatible with Ethereum, Base, Zora, Optimism and Arbitrum blockchains. Solana and Polygon, along with ERC-20 tokens, are not yet supported.

Unstoppable Domains partners with Farmsent to launch .farms domains

Decentralized domain platform Unstoppable Domains has partnered with Farmsent, a collaborative agricultural ecosystem, to make .farms domain names available. Members can now secure a web3 domain name that signals their belonging to the Farmsent community and create a custom page that showcases their products. 

Confiction Labs introduces 'Proof of Exposure' to combat bots

Singapore-based game developer Confiction Labs has rolled out a new in-game solution for combating what they view as the rise of bots in the web3 gaming space.

Dubbed “Proof of Exposure,” the process appears in Confiction Labs’ multiplayer shooter game, “Riftstorm.” Players will now encounter NFTs woven into the game’s storyline that require them to pass a vetting process involving third-party data, user-submitted data and large language models. 

Uprising's genesis NFT collection sells out in two hours, bypassing the need for a public mint

Uprising, a layer 2 gaming blockchain that runs on validators owned by Sega, Ubisoft and other industry players, dropped its NFT collection Uprising Genesis: Origins on August 14. In what was planned to be a three-phase rollout, all 1,111 free-to-mint NFTs sold out within two hours. 

Uprising NFTs will operate as Game Passes and grant players access to upcoming web3 games on the Uprising platform. They will also reportedly provide the possibility of unlocking various utilities, bonuses and points in the future.

BitMEX’s Arthur Hayes to launch new Bitcoin Ordinals collection

On August 15, Arthur Hayes announced Airheads, a new collection of 10,000 Ordinals for which the artwork attached to each digital item demonstrates the amount of Bitcoin (BTC) the buyer holds.

The collection encourages holders to “embrace [their] financial success without shame.” The characters depicted in the artwork will balloon to a size based relatively on the amount of BTC in someone’s wallet. Buyers holding a lot of BTC will receive “fat” Airheads, while those with less will have less inflated ones.

The Airheads allowlist will last for four to six weeks. A leaderboard displaying the top 10,000 spots will determine who is able to mint.

Subjective Art Festival dates announced

The first Subjective Art Festival will take place in Tribeca from September 27 through 29. The event will feature panels and exhibitions that celebrate and showcase today’s leading digital artists and collectives. Expect to see and experience immersive artforms from varying disciplines, including generative art, AI art, glitch, video, photography and animation.