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

Full triptych of works by John Gerrard sells for $1.5 million at Art Basel

The June sale of a three-part series of works by artist John Gerrard is now officially complete. The works collectively sold for $1.5 million at Art Basel's Zero 10 section, and writer and 24 Hours Art founder Roger Dickerman confirmed the transaction on July 6.

The triptych includes three real-time simulations, which digital art platform Fellowship presented all together for the first time."Western Flag (Spindletop, Texas), 2017" shows smoke rising over the site of the first major U.S. oil strike in 1901. "Flare (Oceania), 2022" depicts gas burning over warming waters near Tonga. "Standard, 2023" is an image of water vapor over Nevada's Mojave Desert.

According to Dickerman, Fellowship co-founder Alejandro Cartagena said presenting all three pieces together at the fair played a key role in the sale, while Art Basel senior advisor Eli Schein said the result shows that digital art fits squarely into the broader contemporary art world.

Beeple's Everydays series begins appearing daily on a Normies character starting this week

Adam Weitsman, a collector and patron of the Normies art project, announced on July 6 that starting the next day, his character, Normie #0, will take on the look of a new image from artist Beeple's long-running “Everydays” series every day going forward. 

Beeple, the artist behind the daily image series, confirmed the collaboration, which the Normies team built using a custom algorithm and trained image model to condense each Everydays picture into a 40x40 grid. The transformation will take place fully on-chain.

“We've barely scratched with what can be done with dynamic NFTs and very honored (sic) to be part of this experiment,” Beeple wrote.

Namesake work from 'dying is not enough' collection sells, rest of series heads to auction

Digital art gallery Glitch announced on July 9 that the title artwork from artist Mark Wilson’s collection "dying is not enough" has been acquired by two buyers—White Walls CEO Blondie and Real Vision co-founder Raoul Pal on behalf of an entity called Something Bigger.

The remaining 75 individual pieces in the collection will go up for auction on July 14 at 9 a.m. PT. 

Glitch described the namesake piece as a single looping artwork that pulls together the collection's central themes of lost memory, medical care and the experience of being remembered after a person begins to fade. 

Claynosaurz launches equity allocation checker and publishes new collector manifesto

Claynosaurz, the digital collectibles brand known for its clay-style dinosaur characters, told holders on July 2 that it created equity options tied to owning its digital collectibles. Eligible collectors are now connected to the company's ownership structure, according to the announcement and the Claynosaurz collectibles manifesto. 

On July 7, the company released a new tool, an equity options allocation checker, for holders to see their tokens’ positions and allocations. To check, users log into the same account tied to Claynosaurz's achievement system and link every wallet that holds Clayno assets.

Doodles announces a Toy Factory that turns any image or idea into a custom toy

Doodles, the digital collectibles company behind the colorful Doodles characters, announced on July 9 that it is building a new tool called the Doodles Toy Factory.

The tool will let users turn an image or idea they submit into a custom toy created in Doodles’ signature cartoon style.

The company said the feature is coming soon and gave no official launch date or further details as of yet.

BNB Chain plans new blockchain built for AI agents and high-speed trading

BNB Chain, the network behind the BNB cryptocurrency, announced that it plans to launch a new blockchain designed to handle rapid-fire trading and payments driven by AI agents, which functionally operate like computer programs that can complete tasks like moving money without a person approving each step. 

The new network will run next to the current BNB Chain. Developers expect a test version by the end of 2026, with a full public release targeted for early 2027. 

The company said its goal is processing more than 100,000 transactions per second, confirming trades in under 50 milliseconds and finalizing blocks in less than a second, putting it close to the pace of traditional financial markets.

BNB Chain also said it started researching protections against future quantum computers, machines that could one day break current encryption methods, though that work remains in an early research phase.

Yield Guild Games shuts down crypto game publishing division, shifts focus to AI

Blockchain gaming collective Yield Guild Games announced Monday that it is closing YGG Play, the division that published its crypto-based casual games, citing a downturn in crypto prices along with wider struggles across the video game industry. 

The shutdown reportedly includes the closure of games like LOL Land and Waifu Sweeper by August 1. Two titles, Gigachatbat and Ragnarok Breaker, will keep running under their original developers. 

Co-founder Gabby Dizon called the closure a market driven decision rather than a reflection on the team's work, and said the company's broader mission remains the same. Dizon also said YGG will now direct its resources toward supplying gaming-related data for AI training.

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