This week NFT Steez spoke to award winning artist Victor Solomon about basketball, the Metaverse, Web3 and his unique NFT collection. On Dec. 2, NFT Steez hosts Alyssa Expósito and Ray Salmond chatted with Victor Solomon to discuss his journey into bridging his in-real-life artwork into NFTs and how he cultivates the community and culture that surrounds it. Solomon’s work centers around basketball, not just the object, but the sport itself. For Solomon, the inspiration for his work comes from his early childhood of wanting to play hockey, a sport that was not accessible for him, and his eventual discovery of basketball which he discovered to be more accommodating. Solomon said: “Basketball was such an inspirational platform for me since there’s no barrier to entry.”Solomon says that the open nature of basketball is an “incredible parallel for everything that’s happening in Web3” and throughout the episode he explains the symbiotic relationship he has experienced in building out VesselVerse, the basketball of the Metaverse.Bridging the gap between real life and digital spacesWhen asked about the liberating elements of creating and iterating in Web3, Solomon drew attention to the “invigorating” nature of being able to create things that cannot exist in real life, like a “planet inside a hollow basketball,” but also the process of taking the physical elements into digital renderings and composites. For Solomon, building a collection and a community to rally around it was second nature. His extensive experience in the traditional art world gave him the same insight and structure on how he releases digital collectibles. Drawing inspiration from other NFT projects like Nouns, Solomon’s digital collection, VesselVerse operates similarly to his real life pieces, except one “vessel,” or basketball is auctioned off every hour. Contrary to physical installations or show pieces in a gallery, Solomon noted that creating within…

Judge Hong Jin-Pyo reportedly said there was little risk of Shin Hyun-seong or other Terra associates destroying evidence related to the case against the platform. A judge with the Seoul Southern District Court has reportedly set aside arrest warrants for Terra co-founder Shin Hyun-seong along with those of 3 Terra investors and 4 developers.According to an Dec. 3 report from South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency, Judge Hong Jin-Pyo said there was little risk of Shin or the Terra associates destroying evidence related to the case against the crypto firm, and dismissed warrants that the Seoul Southern District Prosecutors Office issued on Nov. 29. The report added that Terra co-founder Do Kwon, also facing legal action in South Korea for his role in the firm’s collapse, was unlikely to return to the country. “The Seoul Southern District Court’s ruling on Dec. 3rd to reject South Korean prosecutors’ detention warrant requests for former Terraform Labs employees once again illustrates the unfounded nature of the prosecutors’ claims,” a Terra spokesperson said to Cointelegraph.Authorities in South Korea arrested Terraform Labs’ head of business, Yoo Mo, in October, but Judge Hong dismissed the warrant in a similar manner within 48 hours, saying it was difficult to see the “necessity and significance” of the arrest. In contrast, Kwon was still the target of lawmakers and regulators, having his name added to Interpol’s Red Notice list and no longer holding a valid South Korean passport for international travel.Related: South Korean prosecutors accuse Do Kwon of manipulating Terra’s priceKwon has continued to be active on social media following the collapse of Terra despite many crypto users directly blaming him for their loss of funds and the events surrounding the current bear market. In September, the Terra co-founder said he was “making zero effort to hide” from authorities. He…

Top-100 DeFi tokens saw a bullish wave with the start of the new month, but many DEX platforms are still haunted by FTX contagion. Welcome to Finance Redefined, your weekly dose of essential decentralized finance (DeFi) insights — a newsletter crafted to bring you significant developments over the last week.The FTX contagion that started in the second week of November is still haunting various crypto protocols in the DeFi ecosystem. The latest to fall prey to the contagion includes the Solana-based decentralized exchange (DEX) Serum, of which Alameda and FTX were backers. Another DeFi crypto trading firm Auros Global missed its principal repayment on a 2,400 Wrapped Ether (wETH) DeFi loan.Looking at some other key news in the DeFi ecosystem, popular DEX protocol Uniswap launched its nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace aggregator, allowing users on the platform to trade NFTs.Ankr became the latest victim of an exploit, with reported losses of nearly $5 million. The decentralized-finance protocol said it is working with exchanges to immediately halt trading of its BNB staking rewards token, aBNBc.The demand for liquid Ethereum staking has hit new records, seeing the biggest surge post Merge.The top 100 DeFi tokens saw some relief rally after nearly three weeks of bearish dominance. The majority of the DeFi tokens traded in green, with many hitting double-digit gains.Serum exchange rendered ‘defunct’ following the collapse of Alameda and FTXSolana-based DEX Project Serum has notified its community that the collapse of its backers — Alameda and FTX — has rendered it “defunct.” The team behind the project shared that “there is hope” in spite of its ongoing challenges because of the option available to “fork” Serum. According to the announcement, “A community-wide effort to fork Serum is going strong.” OpenBook, the community-led fork of the Serum v3 program, is already live on Solana…