• Melania Trump's much-discussed online auction, featuring a hat she wore at the White House during a 2018 visit by President Emmanuel Macron of France, is turning into a potential victim of the crash in the cryptocurrency market. Trump decided to hold an online auction pairing the white, broad-brimmed hat and a watercolor of her wearing it, along with a virtual piece of art, called a nonfungible token, or NFT, which shows an animated version of her wearing the hat. The three-piece package, called "Head of State Collection, 2022," was intended to open with a minimum bid of about $250,000, according to a news release from Trump in early January announcing the sale. But bids were only accepted in the cryptocurrency of the Solana blockchain called SOL, which was then trading at a price of about $170 per token. But in the weeks since, SOL, along with most other cryptocurrencies, has suffered major declines in value. On the evening before the closing of the auction Tuesday, each SOL was worth about $95. Only a few bids appeared to have been made on Trump's items as of early Tuesday evening, and the value in dollars of the highest bid was around $170,000, with the exact dollar value fluctuating along with the volatile crypto market. The auction closed at 2:59 a.m. Wednesday. The winning bid could still exceed the value in dollars that Trump had targeted. But it will start from a much lower opening bid, in terms of dollars, than she had set. Trump has said that "a portion" of the proceeds will be used to help provide children in foster care with access to educational programs focused on computer science and technology. But she has not said how much of the proceeds she will keep herself.
• It's Neil Young vs. Joe Rogan for the allegiance of Spotify. Or is it? The veteran rocker fired off a public missive to his management on Monday, demanding that they remove his music from Spotify in protest of Rogan spreading misinformation about the covid-19 vaccine on his popular podcast, "The Joe Rogan Experience." But the letter soon disappeared from view on Young's website, and on Tuesday afternoon music fans could still listen to "Heart of Gold," "Rockin' in the Free World" and other Young hits on the streaming site. Representatives for Young and Spotify have not returned repeated requests for comment. In his letter, Young made the request because Spotify "is spreading false information about vaccines -- potentially causing death to those who believe the disinformation," according to Rolling Stone magazine. Young said Spotify "can have Rogan or Young. Not both." Rogan provoked anger within the past month for interviewing Dr. Robert Malone, an infectious-disease specialist who has been banned from Twitter for spreading misinformation but has become a hero in the anti-vaccine community.
Neil Young poses for a portrait in Santa Monica, Calif. on Sept. 9, 2019. Spotify says it will grant the veteran rocker's request to remove his music from its streaming platform. Young made the request as a protest to what he called the company's decision to allow COVID-19 misinformation to spread on its service. (Photo by Rebecca Cabage/Invision/AP, File)