I’ve been watching the timeline lately and it feels like we’ve entered a new era of modern survival behavior. Not survival like “hunt mammoth.” Survival like “rent is due, groceries cost a kidney, my group chat is stressed, and now people are trading probabilities on the Super Bowl halftime show.”

And in the middle of that chaos, we’ve got something weirdly fascinating happening:

NFTs are so down bad that people are literally betting on their comeback on platforms like Polymarket.

Prediction markets are exploding in attention and volume—Kalshi reportedly hit about $1B in trading volume on Super Bowl Sunday.

Even Robinhood’s CEO is out here calling it a possible “prediction market supercycle.”

Meanwhile, the global economy is “steady” on paper… but the lived experience is still tight, expensive, and uncertain. The IMF projects ~3.3% global growth in 2026, with inflation easing, but a lot of people still feel squeezed.

This week in the NFT world felt less like a hype cycle and more like a reckoning.

No champagne-spray announcements. No cartoon apes declaring victory. No “we’re so back” nonsense. Instead, we got something rarer — clarity.

Platforms shut down. Markets consolidated. Old assumptions cracked. New directions quietly took shape. The noise dropped just enough for the signal to come through.

Let’s break down what actually happened — without denial, without doom, and without pretending this space is something it isn’t anymore.

We have entered what some are calling the NFT winter, a season of contraction, hardship, and survival tests across the blockchain frontier — and Rodeo is the latest casualty.

In a world that once worshiped NFTs as digital gold, speculative rockets, and cultural badges of honor, the ground beneath many projects has shifted. Rodeo Shuts Down as NFT Platform Closures Accelerate is not just a headline — it’s a signpost in the larger saga of Web3’s evolution.

This week the art world didn’t whisper — it kicked the door open wearing armor, silk robes, and a scandalous grin.

At the center of the noise? Erotic Samurai art. Ancient Japanese imagery. Warriors with blades in one hand and desire in the other. And suddenly, the internet remembered what it does best: argue, panic, moralize, and misunderstand history in real time.

Let’s talk about it. Not the polite, museum-placard version. The real one.

Another week. Another crack in the glossy illusion of the NFT dream.

This time, the story doesn’t come from Twitter spaces, influencer drama, or a rug-pull Discord vanishing overnight. It comes from the Netherlands, where authorities arrested four individuals connected to a €1.4 million ($1.6 million) NFT theft—a reminder that the digital art world has officially crossed into the same dangerous territory as traditional high-value assets.

NFTs are no longer “just JPEGs.” They are targets.

And that changes everything.

Another headline made the rounds in the NFT world, and this one hit quietly. No chaos. No meltdown threads. No panic in the streets. NFT Paris has been cancelled.

For some people, that sentence alone is enough to shout “NFTs are dead.” I don’t see it that way. Not even close. What I see is a market finally being honest with itself.

Another door just closed in the NFT world, not with fireworks, not with a dramatic collapse. But with a quiet announcement that still echoes loud if you’ve been here long enough.

Nifty Gateway — one of the earliest mainstream NFT marketplaces — is shutting down its platform. For many, this is just another crypto headline. For OG collectors and artists, it feels like watching an old battleground fade into memory. Let’s talk about what this really means.

Some artists whisper through history. Others bleed into it.

This year, Houston becomes sacred ground as a major Frida Kahlo retrospective opens at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston—and I’ll say this plainly, from the heart and from the battlefield of art.

I love Frida Kahlo. Not in the polite, academic way. Not in the museum-label way. I love her because she was a warrior, long before Instagram quotes tried to soften that word.

Every so often, the art world does what it has always done best — it presses its finger directly onto society’s most sensitive nerve.

This time, the spark came from Vienna, where a museum exhibition featuring contemporary interpretations of religious imagery ignited backlash from religious groups, conservative commentators, and cultural critics. Accusations flew fast: blasphemy, disrespect, provocation for provocation’s sake.

Some demanded removal.

Others demanded apology.

Others demanded silence.

And art, as usual, refused.

If this feels familiar, it should. Because this isn’t really about Vienna. It’s about something much older — and much deeper.

This is about why art and religion have always collided.

Why museums become battlegrounds.

And why artists keep walking straight into cultural lightning storms even when they know the fire is waiting.

Of course it happened on New Year’s Eve.

Of course it happened at Mar-a-Lago.

And of course it involved Donald Trump, art, religion, money, and controversy — all colliding under crystal chandeliers as champagne glasses clinked and the calendar flipped to 2026.

While most of the world welcomed the new year quietly — reflecting on loss, hope, survival — Trump did what Trump does best: he turned the moment into a spectacle. Not just political. Not just cultural. But symbolic.

At a lavish New Year’s Eve gala hosted at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, Trump presided over a charity auction that would soon ripple through headlines and art circles alike. The centerpiece? A freshly painted, live-created portrait of Jesus Christ, completed in front of the audience and sold for $2.75 million.

This wasn’t just an art sale.

It wasn’t just charity.

It was a mirror held up to our age.

And Warriors — the reflection was uncomfortable.