New York’s Emily Xie is exploring the new frontier of digital art by combining her skills and passion for computer science and generative art. 

In a little under two years, since she minted her first NFT in March 2021, she has caught the attention of prolific collectors, such as Punk6529, DC Investor and Bob Loukas, and recently left her software engineering job to pursue life as a full-time artist. 

“I studied art history, took studio art courses, but also studied computational science and engineering. I made all sorts of art growing up, but it was more in a traditional media way. As a software engineer, I was always hoping to combine my love for programming as well as my love for art and creativity,” says Xie. 

Discovering generative art

“I found that desire in generative art in around 2015–2016. It made a lot of sense making art with code. You don’t get any more of a direct and elegant combination than that of those two fields.”

“It’s so full of exploration. You’re engaging with technology in a way that’s creative because it exercises both sides of the brain, and that’s a rare thing to encounter.” 

Xie attributes her love for making generative art to the freedom it gives her to let her creativity loose, and she gets lost in the process. 

“Generative art is meditative for me. Whenever I made it, I got really sucked into it. The world around me would just disappear, and I would spend hours just programming and seeing what the algorithm might do.”

“Prior to NFTs, there was not very much opportunity to actually make a living out of it. When NFTs did come along, it was the first time where I actually saw a pathway for myself to be making a living as an artist.” 

Inspired by East Asian art, Xie’s collection “Memories of Qilin” was launched via Art Blocks a year ago and has now seen over 4,400 ETH ($7.4 million at the current ETH price) in secondary sales.

In July 2022, Xie teamed up with Bright Moments for her 100-piece collection “Off Script,” which is an algorithmic representation of a 20th-century modern art collage. 

Just recently, the New York resident engaged in a collaboration with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and she also has worked with SuperRare and Objkt (Tezos). 

Influences

Xie takes influence from many artists and styles but specifically singles out Japanese ukiyo-e artist Hokusai, best known for the famous big wave woodblock print, and Spanish painter Picasso who revolutionized abstract art with cubism. 

“For me, I love abstract expressionists and early modern collage artists, but a few names that come to mind are Hokusai and Picasso,” she says, also referencing the “Fidenza” NFT artist Tyler Hobbs.

Read more: Tyler Hobbs wrote software that generates art worth millions

“There’s a lot of generative artists that have inspired me over the years. Tyler Hobbs is one of those. I’d also say Zach Lieberman has been a huge inspiration,” says Xie. 

“In general, the genre influences for me are collage and textiles. I draw a lot of real-world inspiration from them.” 

Personal style of generative art

Xie’s aesthetically pleasing style takes inspiration from traditional East Asian art, and she has a knack for creating pieces that can be studied with the naked eye at length. 

“I would say that my personal style is very influenced by textiles, patterns, collage and wallpaper. This idea of bringing together a lot of different patterns and putting them into one piece and seeing how that can create something so cohesive — that’s really interesting to me,” Xie states.

Her work brings human warmth to what could be a sterile nature of computer-generated art. 

“I would say that, a lot of times, my artwork tends to have a very organic feel. It explores this tension between what is handmade and appears very human versus what is computational and somewhat cold and robotic.”

“It’s very fascinating to me to bring in a sense of organic and human into a medium that’s inherently digital with the code I use.” 

Notable generative art sales to date

NFT artists to watch

Xie points out a number of up-and-coming NFT artists she’s excited about. 

William Mapan — An artist who works with code and has been featured on Art Blocks, Bright Moments and at Sotheby’s. 

“William is an incredible artist. He has all these beautiful, hand-drawn-looking works. His series ‘Anticyclone’ is just stunning, and I’ve collected one. I think he really loves drawing inspiration from traditional media as well.” 

Iskra Velitchkova — A computational generative artist who’s also been featured at Sotheby’s. 

“Her work has a very digital quality to it. Whilst digital, it’s also deeply atmospheric. Her style is so consistent. If you see an Iskra Velitchkova piece, you know it’s hers.” 

Sasha Stiles — A metapoet and AI researcher.

“Sasha is doing some amazing work around artificial intelligence and poetry. It’s very cutting edge in my opinion.” 

Generative art process 

Using a combination of traditional sketching, photoshop and writing algorithms, Xie’s process can be quite time-consuming and detailed. 

“Programming is a pretty intensive process, so you want to visualize what you’re trying to program as concretely as possible before doing it. I typically do that in Photoshop and sketch out what happens if I add a line to a given element. I’ll look to see if that makes sense. If it looks good, I will then program it out and see where that takes me,” says Xie. 

“Often, it starts with a pretty extensive mood boarding process where I’ll go and collect a bunch of images that I love that I’m inspired by. That gives me an idea of what I’m interested in at that moment. Sometimes, I can’t articulate or vocalize that myself; it’s a very subconscious thing.” 

Once Xie has an idea of what she wants to make, she starts to code to create the output. 

“When I’ve got my inspiration, I then start tinkering around with algorithms. Sometimes, that means revisiting an algorithm that I’ve already written or learned about, for example, flow field. From there, it’s a matter of trying to draw inspiration from other elements and attempting to recreate them using code.”

“Typically, what that means is you’ll lay down some lines of code and then you’ll see what it produces, and it’ll render on your screen. From there, it becomes an iterative process of playing with parameters. For example, if you constrained one parameter, you might get wavy lines instead of something else. You’re constantly going back to your code, editing it and rendering it, and then repeating that process over and over again until you get something you like.” 

“Throughout my programming process, I actually try to prototype rapidly as much as possible because you can also run into the problem where you have an idea and spend all day programming it out, but it looks bad, and you’ve wasted all that time.”

Physical-to-digital art paradigm shift

Xie says that tokenized digital art is turning the traditional relationship between original and reproduction on its head. 

“It’s interesting because, in the past, the “Mona Lisa” physical object is the true piece. Then every other picture of it you find floating around on the internet is just a manifestation of it. In this paradigm, it’s the complete opposite, which is really funny. I think it’s really important because, for the longest time, the traditional model left digital artists without a real way to assign originality and collectibility to the artwork,” Xie says. 

“In the past, there wasn’t an easy way for my generative art to be collected. How do you collect something that sits on your computer but could be transferred to any computer all around the world with a click of a button? It required a way to assign rarity to a JPEG. NFTs are it. If people really think about it, it makes so much sense, and it opens up digital art to be finally appreciated and collected.” 

Favorite NFT you own

“I would have to say ‘Anticyclone’ by William Mapan and ‘Folio #22’ by Matt DesLauriers. I love both of those pieces that I’ve collected.” 

Links: 

Lynkfire: linktr.ee/emilyxxie 

Twitter: twitter.com/emilyxxie 

Memories of Qilin website: memoriesofqilin.com/ 

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Greg Oakford

Greg Oakford is the co-founder of NFT Fest Australia. A former marketing and communications specialist in the sports world, Greg now focuses his time on running events, creating content and consulting in web3. He is an avid NFT collector and hosts a weekly podcast covering all things NFTs.

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On the evening of Jan. 7, Anatoly Legkodymov, founder of the cryptocurrency exchange Bitzlato, was arrested in Miami. The following day, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) unsealed a complaint in federal court charging him with “conducting a money transmitting business that transported and transmitted illicit funds.” According to the DOJ, Bitzlato failed to meet U.S. regulatory safeguards, including Anti-Money Laundering requirements. 

Less than a month earlier, former FTX CEO Samuel Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas. In a statement, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said, “The Justice Department has filed charges alleging that Samuel Bankman-Fried perpetrated a range of offenses in a global scheme to deceive and defraud customers and lenders of FTX and Alameda, as well as a conspiracy to defraud the United States government.”

Garland stated, “The U.S. Department of Justice will aggressively investigate and prosecute alleged criminal wrongdoing in the financial system and violations of federal elections laws.” But is it really a new day? Will U.S. law enforcement be able to go after alleged crypto criminals at home and abroad?

According to Oberheiden PC attorney Alina Veneziano, who represents executive clients under criminal investigation against U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission subpoenas and DOJ fraud allegations, the answer is yes.

“Attempts to reign in this new, unrestrained industry were inevitable,” Veneziano tells Magazine. She believes that federal government agencies are increasing their investigative efforts toward crypto crime and will utilize all the tools at their disposal — subpoenas, summons and inter-governmental sharing of information.

 “For example, only last year, the SEC increased the size of its Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit in an effort to investigate more fraudulent crypto asset schemes and better protect investors in the crypto markets.” Veneziano also believes the Internal Revenue Service will further enforce U.S. tax laws for cryptocurrencies. 

Former federal prosecutor Grant Fondo also sees an increase in activity. Now a trial attorney and founder of the Digital Currency and Blockchain Technology practice at Goodwin, Fondo believes that this is the result of the current bear market, widespread acceptance of cryptocurrency and the government’s obligatory focus on crime.

“I think anytime there is a course correction and/or an economic event like a crypto winter, that can also increase activity […] When assets go down, people get hurt, and if people are mixing funds and things, it can create problems,” Fondo tells Magazine. Add to that the prolific global adoption of crypto, more people involved and the DOJ’s concern about any asset used for illicit activity, and Fondo sees beefed up enforcement as an inevitability.

In 2021, the DOJ created the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team (NCET) to handle investigation and prosecution of criminal misuse of cryptocurrency. NCET would combine the expertise of the agency’s Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section and the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section. In 2022, the DOJ also created the Digital Asset Coordinator (DAC) Network. Under the leadership of NCET, designated federal prosecutors from U.S. attorney’s offices around the country would be assigned to the DAC Network. Each office’s DAC will be the digital asset subject matter expert and the first, investigative source of information. 

What types of crimes аre they going after?

According to a DOJ report submitted to the presidential administration in September, the agency believes that cryptocurrency is the preferred payment method for ransomware and other digital extortion activities. As an example, the DOJ referred to a ransomware attack in May 2021 on the Colonial Pipeline. According to the report, the attack forced the company to shut down a gasoline and jet fuel pipeline for days. This resulted in fuel shortages around the country, including several airports. The attackers demanded and received a ransom paid in Bitcoin. 

The report also says, “Cryptocurrency is used to raise funds for terrorist organizations and other nation state threat actors.” The DOJ states that its largest cryptocurrency seizure disrupted the funding campaigns of ISIS and other terrorist groups. The agency took down a fraudulent ISIS website operation that purported to sell N95 masks and other protective equipment during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Department of Justice released photo of a group posting a request for donations and claiming to be a Syrian charity, but allegedly sought funds to support “the mujahidin in Syria with weapons, financial aid and other projects assisting the jihad.”

Veneziano believes that these crimes are not new — they’ve just adapted to cryptocurrency. “We are likely not looking at the creation of brand new crimes but are instead more likely to see the crypto element incorporated into other offenses, such as crypto tax evasion, crypto theft, unregistered crypto offerings, crypto money laundering, etc. Due to the nature of the blockchain, it is likely to be confined to federal offenses as opposed to state crimes,” Veneziano says.

Fondo suggests that wire fraud is also a big factor. “So, you’ll notice in a lot of the criminal indictments, they allege wire fraud. Wire fraud is agnostic to the type of asset, whether it’s a security, a commodity, whatever — doesn’t matter.” Historically, criminals would use the telephone, aka the wires, to commit fraudulent acts. Today, wire fraud refers to crimes committed using any type of telecommunications technology. According to Fondo, if you move digital assets around using the wires, and you commit fraud, it’s a crime, and most indictments in the crypto space fall into that category. 

For example, in a statement on Dec. 14, 2022, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams “announced charges in two separate indictments against the founders and promoters of two cryptocurrency Ponzi schemes known as IcomTech and Forcount,” both with conspiracy to commit wire fraud. 

According to the DOJ, victims purchased IcomTech and Forcount investment products using cryptocurrency, cash, checks and wire transfers. They were then given access to an online portal where they could monitor dubious returns. “While Victims saw ‘profits’ accumulate on the schemes’ respective online portals, most victims were unable to withdraw any of these so-called profits and ultimately lost their entire investments.” All the while, IcomTech and Fourcount’s promoters skimmed hundreds of thousands of the victim’s funds, withdrew it as cash and spent the loot on promos for the Ponzi scheme, luxury goods and real estate. 

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What other agencies are involved?

Venziano believes that collaboration between government agencies on crimes is nothing new and should be expected in the crypto sphere. Venziano says, “Consider a crypto fraud scheme involving a new token. The SEC will be involved if the token is unregistered and satisfies the definition of an ‘investment contract’ under the Howey test,” an analysis based on a Supreme Court decision.

She continues, “The IRS will also be involved where there is tax evasion or the failure to report crypto sales and dispositions. Further, the DOJ may initiate an investigation where money laundering or other illicit activity is present. There is even a call for greater collaboration from the private sector to combat crypto fraud.” Additional agencies, including the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Secret Service and the Department of Homeland Security have all participated in cryptocurrency investigations. 

In the Bitzlato case, the DOJ teamed up with the Department of Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. In a joint press conference with officials from the DOJ, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo said that FinCEN is officially identifying Bitzlato as a “primary money laundering concern” in connection with Russian illicit finance. Adeyemo thanked the DOJ “for being such great partners” on this action but also on “going after this ecosystem more broadly.”

Do politics affect who the government investigates?

According to Fondo the answer is yes and no. The DOJ is part of the Executive Branch of government and the president nominates its leader, the Attorney General. The U.S. Senate is tasked with confirming the president’s nominee.

“Generally, it is an agency that is agnostic in a sense as to who the president is,” Fondo says. When he was a federal prosecutor, Fondo believed that he was completely immune to whoever was in the White House. On the other hand, whenever national actors are involved, Russia or China for example, Fondo says that a potential case escalates in significance. Since the DOJ gets lots of leads and complaints, so they have to prioritize resources and decide which ones to pursue.

“A case that involves a national actor, stealing trade secrets, stealing assets, funneling assets (to Russia) to fight, say, the war in the Ukraine, that will rise well above something else that’s an otherwise more typical crime. So, in that way, the DOJ is more political.”

Fondo also believes that when there is a national scandal, like Enron, Bernnie Madoff or the fall of FTX, the government is more apt to jump in and get more involved. “When something hits the press, like a major incident, there is more pressure to get charges more quickly,” Fondo says.

Venziano points out that crypto activity isn’t limited by geographic borders and can affect overseas markets in a matter of seconds. “Crypto activity can certainly affect international politics, demanding cooperation between the United States and enforcement agencies in other nations. Take the Bitzlato case as an example. The DOJ received significant operational and informational assistance from other agencies — both domestic and international — including Customs and Border Protection and also EUROPOL and Dutch and Belgian authorities,” Venziano says.

In the U.S., there are no federal laws on the books specifically regulating the use of cryptocurrency. Different regulatory agencies have taken responsibility and have written rules for the oversight of different digital assets. Sooner or later, Congress is expected to move legislation to the president’s desk, formally defining cryptocurrencies and how they are to be regulated.

In the meantime, Fondo believes that the lack of clarity, and even disagreement among regulators, leads to ambiguity that crypto-centric companies struggle with. In essence, it’s hard to follow the rules if you don’t know what they are, especially on the civil, as opposed to the criminal, side of things.

Nonetheless, he believes that the industry has matured in recent years, and “there are a lot of great actors out there trying to do the best they can with regulatory uncertainty, but also trying to meet the demands of the market. But, when there’s a situation, a crime is a crime is a crime. If the government sees something that looks like fraud, it doesn’t really matter what the asset is, and they think it’s significant enough and worthy of chasing, they’ll do it.”

Mitch Eiven

Mitch is a writer who covers cryptocurrency, politics, the intersection between the two and a handful of other, unrelated topics. He believes that crypto is the future of finance and feels privileged that he has opportunities to report on it.

Top Stories This Week

Coinbase could face SEC enforcement action for ‘potential violations of securities law’

Crypto exchange Coinbase received a Wells notice from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) suggesting an upcoming enforcement action. According to Coinbase, the “legal threat” could potentially target its staking program, listed digital assets, wallet or Coinbase Prime services. The exchange’s chief legal officer, Paul Grewal, said the warning “comes after Coinbase provided multiple proposals to the SEC about registration over the course of months, all of which the SEC ultimately refused to respond to.” Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong renewed calls for crypto users to “elect pro-crypto candidates” after the development.

FTX debtors agree to $95M sale of stake in Mysten Labs

As bankruptcy proceedings for FTX move forward, debtors of the defunct crypto exchange have approved an agreement seeking to sell $95 million worth of its preferred stock in Mysten Labs, the company behind the Sui blockchain. Court approval is still pending, as is the potential for other bids on the stocks. In a related headline, FTX is seeking to recover $460 million of allegedly misappropriated customer funds from venture capital firm Modulo Capital, which received a sizeable investment from Alameda Research last year. The investment was reportedly directed by Sam Bankman-Fried, who faces multiple counts in federal court related to alleged fraud during his time as CEO.

Do Kwon faces fraud charges from US prosecutors hours after arrest

Just hours after being arrested in Montenegro, Terraform Labs CEO Do Kwon was charged with eight separate counts by United States prosecutors in New York, including commodities fraud, securities fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy to defraud and engage in market manipulation. According to reports, Kwon is also facing criminal charges in Montenegro for allegedly forging travel documents. Prosecutors in South Korea issued an arrest warrant for Kwon in September last year, followed by a red notice listing from Interpol weeks later. The charges laid against him are in relation to his alleged role in the collapse of the $40 billion Terra Luna Classic token and TerraClassicUSD stablecoin in May 2022.

Mastercard to settle transactions for stablecoin wallet in APAC

Mastercard is launching a stablecoin digital wallet integration to allow retail customers in the Asia-Pacific region to spend U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoins anywhere Mastercard is accepted. The international payment company plans to convert the USDC stablecoin into fiat and settle on its network by partnering with Australian stablecoin platform Stables. The service will be initially available for users based in Australia before expanding to Europe, the United States, the United Kingdom and most of the Asia-Pacific.

Celsius custody account holders can receive 72.5% of their crypto, says bankruptcy judge

The judge overseeing the bankruptcy case for crypto lending firm Celsius Network has approved a settlement plan that allows custody account holders to get back 72.5% of their crypto assets. Holders will have 30 days to review the terms. If they opt in, the assets will be returned in two distributions — 36.25% up front and 36.25% upon plan resolution (or at end of year). The defunct platform announced in February that NovaWulf Digital Management would act as a sponsor for its restructuring plan, claiming that more than 85% of Celsius customers would recover roughly 70% of their crypto..

Winners and Losers

At the end of the week, Bitcoin (BTC) is at $27,157, Ether (ETH) at $1,734 and XRP at $0.41. The total market cap is at $1.15 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.

Among the biggest 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoin gainers of the week are Mask Network (MASK) at 24.22%, Flare (FLR) at 22.23% and XRP (XRP) at 11.89%.

The top three altcoin losers of the week are Arbitrum (ARB) at -89.76%, Immutable (IMX) at -25.82% and Toncoin (TON) at -15.12%.

For more info on crypto prices, make sure to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.

Most Memorable Quotations

“What is happening in these months is just demonstrating that the Bitcoiners and Bitcoin maxis were right all along.”

Paolo Ardoino, chief technology officer of Tether

“It’s not crypto versus Goldman Sachs or crypto versus institutions. It’s a race to who can do crypto better.”

Oliver Linch, CEO of Bittrex

“Stablecoins will play a pivotal role in the new financial system and will be core to bridging the worlds of traditional and decentralized finance.”

Daniel Li, chief operating officer of Stables

“What the central bank digital currency is all about is surveilling Americans and controlling behavior of Americans.”

Ron DeSantis, governor of the U.S. state of Florida

“Bitcoin was designed in reaction to Lehman Brothers in the 2008 crisis. It was designed because you can’t trust central authorities.”

Pascal Gauthier, CEO of Ledger

“We are in serious risk of seeing an entire strategic technology arena slip away from US leadership.”

Jeremy Allaire, CEO of Circle

Prediction of the Week 

Bitcoin likely to outperform all crypto assets following banking crisis, analyst explains

The banking crisis could be the spark that will kick off the next crypto bull run, in which Bitcoin is likely to outperform all other cryptos, according to Mike McGlone, senior commodity strategist at Bloomberg Intelligence.

According to McGlone, the United States Federal Reserve’s unwillingness to ease monetary policy despite the banking crisis is driving the U.S. economy into a recession. This macro environment will ultimately favor Bitcoin, which is going to outperform all other cryptocurrencies. 

“The more the Bitcoin can sustain above $25,000, then the more the S&P 500 potentially pressures below 4,000, you’re going to have an indication that Bitcoin is going to take off,” McGlone pointed out. “I think Bitcoin will outperform virtually all cryptos, including Ethereum,” he concluded.

FUD of the Week 

US Senator Ted Cruz tries again with new bill to block CBDC

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz has introduced a bill to block the Federal Reserve from launching a “direct-to-consumer” central bank digital currency as it “could be used as a financial surveillance tool by the federal government.” According to Cruz, the federal government has “no authority to unilaterally establish” the digital dollar. A similar bill was introduced by Cruz with other senators on March 30, 2022, seeking to prohibit the Fed from issuing a CBDC directly to individuals. Nearly 12 months later, the bill still hasn’t moved past the introduction phase.

Hindenburg Research reports Block short position, claiming fraud facilitation and inflated metrics

A report following a two-year investigation from Hindenburg Research claims digital payments company Block has “systematically taken advantage” of its users, alleging the firm inflated its user metrics and facilitated fraud. According to the report, Block’s practices allowed users to set up fraudulent accounts, catering to many criminals who used the platform to steal funds. Block labeled the report “factually inaccurate and misleading,” declaring it intends to take legal action against the research firm.

European banks head into another weekend of uncertainty as default risks surge

European banks faced another weekend of renewed fears surrounding their future, as shares of Deutsche Bank plunged on the New York Stock Exchange on March 24, after a down day on Frankfurt’s markets. Shares of the German bank were impacted by an increase in the cost of insuring against its potential default risk, with its five-year credit default swaps climbing during the week and closing at 222 basis points on Friday. Fears about European banks are not limited to Deutsche Bank. European shares of Commerzbank, Société Générale, and UBS also fell in European trading.

Best Cointelegraph Features

Best and worst countries for crypto taxes — plus crypto tax tips

Resident tax expert Elias Ahonen looks at the best and worst countries in the world for crypto taxes. Where do the U.S. and U.K. rank?

Creating ‘organic’ generative art from robotic algorithms: Emily Xie, NFT Creator

When creating generative art, the world just disappears for this Harvard graduate living in New York.

US enforcement agencies are turning up the heat on crypto-related crime

Recent high-profile indictments by the Department of Justice and collaborative agencies suggest that the federal government intends to aggressively go after alleged crypto criminals in the United States and abroad.

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Editorial Staff

Cointelegraph Magazine writers and reporters contributed to this article.