'Most of the city is evacuating': Gridlock on Alberta highway after evacuation order in Fort McMurray
Four Fort McMurray neighbourhoods were ordered to evacuate on Tuesday as a wildfire gets closer to the city.
John Lennon's son Julian is auctioning off pieces of memorabilia relating to the Beatles, including three guitars given to him by his father and handwritten notes about the 1968 song "Hey Jude" -- but not physically.
Instead, the auction is a sale of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), a type of digital asset. Each winning bidder will be able to claim ownership of a digital file described as an "audio/visual collectible" in which Julian Lennon narrates a "specific heartfelt memory."
"I feel incredibly lucky to live in a day and age where innovation allows me to share such personal pieces of my Lennon family history," said Julian Lennon, who is a singer-songwriter, writer and artist.
"Through this NFT collection, I'm able to grant exclusive access to special items that I cherish and carry on the legacy of my father in a new way."
Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) use blockchain to record who owns a digital file, such as an image, video or text.
Although NFTs are sometimes sold alongside physical items, as a sort of digital certificate of authenticity, owning an NFT does not confer ownership of the underlying item -- rather, it can be thought of as a kind of digital bragging rights.
Such sales have nevertheless exploded in popularity, with NFT artworks selling for millions of dollars.
In this case, the buyers of the Beatles NFTs will not receive a guitar or physical piece of paper. What they will get is a unit of blockchain data recording that their crypto wallets own an NFT linked to a digital file showing the item.
So for the "Hey Jude" notes, which show Paul McCartney's doodles and drawings, the buyer will receive an NFT of an image of the object "brought to life in an even more personal way through Julian Lennon's exclusive audio narration," the auction website says.
Bids on this NFT were at US$50,000 as of Tuesday afternoon.
"It really made me learn to love Dad again because I just saw him the way I remembered him back in the day when I was a kid and when I was with him around those years," said Julian in an interview with Reuters on Tuesday.
"So it was very special to me."
The sale also includes an NFT representing an image of an Afghan coat that John Lennon wore on the set of the 1967 film "Magical Mystery Tour" and an NFT of an image of a black cape he wore in the 1965 film "Help!." Bids on these were last at $8,000 and $6,000 respectively.
Surging interest in crypto assets has led traditional auction houses such as Christie's into NFT sales. The Lennon auction is run by Julien's Auctions and YellowHeart NFT and closes on Feb. 7.
Bids can be placed online or at a physical auction in Beverly Hills. Payments are allowed in various cryptocurrencies including bitcoin, ether and dogecoin.
An unspecified portion of the proceeds will be donated to the White Feather Foundation, which Julian Lennon said in a Tweet would "offset" the carbon emissions linked to the auction via a carbon removal marketplace called Nori.
The blockchain technology used for NFTs and cryptocurrencies has been criticized for their large carbon footprints.
(Reporting by Elizabeth Howcroft; Editing by Sujata Rao, Catherine Evans and Karishma Singh)
Four Fort McMurray neighbourhoods were ordered to evacuate on Tuesday as a wildfire gets closer to the city.
Less than a week after two public sculptures featuring a livestream between Dublin, Ireland, and New York City debuted, 'inappropriate behaviour' in real-time interactions between people in the two cities has prompted a temporary shutdown.
Canadian LifeLabs customers who filed an application for a class-action settlement began receiving their payments this week, though at a much lower amount than initially expected.
Saskatchewan RCMP have revealed that a historic sexual assault investigation has led to the discovery of alleged crimes against children dating back to 2005.
Nearly 1,000 wildfires have burned across Canada so far this year. Here's an overview of the situation in Canada.
An American accused of sexually assaulting a Pennsylvania college student in 2013 and later sending her a Facebook message that said, 'So I raped you,' has been detained in France after a three-year search.
The annual list of Canada's top restaurants in the country was just released and here are the places that made the 2024 cut.
Captain John Tavares scored 15 seconds into overtime and saved his teammates some embarrassment as Canada held on for a 6-5 win over Austria on Tuesday at the world hockey championship.
The doctor who led Toronto through the COVID-19 pandemic as the city’s top public health official is stepping down.
A team is ready to help an entangled North Atlantic right whale in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
A $200 reward is being offered by a North Vancouver family for the safe return of their beloved chicken, Snowflake.
Two daughters and a mother were reunited online 40 years later thanks to a DNA kit and a Zoom connection despite living on three separate continents and speaking different languages.
Mother's Day can be a difficult occasion for those who have lost or are estranged from their mom.
YES Theatre Young Company opened its acclaimed kids’ show, One Small Step, at Sudbury Theatre Centre on Saturday.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.
The threat of zebra mussels has prompted the federal government to temporarily ban watercraft from a Manitoba lake popular with tourists.