Senior officials from Turkey’s presidential administration and Culture Ministry were present at the inauguration of the course, according to a report in the Hürriyet daily.

We are happy to teach about NFT, but our students are happier than we are,” said Necdet Ünüvar, rector of the university, in a speech opening the class. The “Introduction to NFT” course is taught by Buğra Ayan.

Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Özgül Özkan Yavuz and Ali Taha Koç, head of the Turkish Presidency’s Digital Transformation Office, were among the guests at the course’s opening lecture.

During the accompanying ceremony, Yavuz stated:

We believe that NFT will activate artistic creativity, skills and talents among young people. The step Ankara University has taken by expanding awareness of NFT is very important.

The deputy minister added that she is eager to see the results at the end of the academic term. Likewise, she also revealed that all the NFT works produced by the participating students can be presented in a future exhibition.

In turn, Ali Taha Koç, head of the Turkish Presidency’s Digital Transformation Office,announced that his office is working on many other digital projects.

 “Don’t think that NFT is only about technology. There is also a legal dimension of NFT that will make us look at how it will affect our business styles,” he emphasized.

Ali Taha Koç, head of the Turkish Presidency’s Digital Transformation Office, reported that his department is now trying to coin a Turkish term for NFT and urged course attendees to support these efforts with their own suggestions.

“Everyone should join in and add an alternative name to NFT,” he said after announcing his intention to launch a survey on social networks.

Turkey and cryptocurrencies

The Ankara University initiative comes a month after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan instructed the country’s ruling Justice and Development Party to study developments such as cryptocurrency and metaverse.

The move followed his announcement in December that Turkey is ready with a law for cryptocurrencies. He has been changing his mind, as in September 2021 the president was talking about a “war” against cryptocurrencies.

“On the contrary, we have a separate war, a separate fight against them. We would never give support to [cryptocurrencies]. Because we will move forward with our own currency that has its own identity.”

PayPal issued a policy update on February 11, stating that the company will not provide coverage for merchants involved in NFT transactions over USD $10,000.

The new measure will take effect on March 21.

PayPal’s statement said:

“Amendments to the PayPal User Agreement. Effective March 21, 2022, we are:

“Revising the PayPal Seller Protection program to expand the list of ineligible items to include certain Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) with a transaction amount of more than USD 10,000.”

The new policy assumes that the payments company will not provide coverage for merchants involved in NFT transactions greater than USD $10,000, a relatively low figure for the burgeoning market where a single digital collectible can be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars or even several million.

NFTs mentioned in PayPal’s protection policy

PayPal outlined the move in a separate document detailing amendments to be applied to the consumer protection program. As such, the company stated that art transactions, physical or digital, will be excluded from its protection program when the value exceeds $10,000, or the currency equivalent at the time of payment.

“Art, media, antiques or collectibles, in physical or digital form, represented by a non-fungible token (NFT), with a transaction amount of more than US$10,000 or equivalent value in local currency calculated at the time of the transaction,” the company said in a section describing ineligible items and transactions.

It should be noted that PayPal’s seller protection program is intended to provide merchants using the payment service with some protections against chargebacks and other disputes. It may apply, for example, when a buyer pays but does not receive the item negotiated. In such cases, the company may withhold charges to prevent fraud.

In addition to art and NFT, the protection policy also currently excludes transactions involving real estate, vehicles, financial products, among others.

New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) files a trademark with Uspto that would allow it to, among other things, trade NFTs in the metaverse.

The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Uspto, a new trademark application to register the term “NYSE” for various cryptocurrency and financial services products , including downloadable virtual goods, non-fungible tokens (NFT).

NYSE’s application, under number 97261560, expressly states that it is registering such trademark and logo among many other things as “downloadable virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality software; as well as to enable users to experience virtual reality and augmented reality visualization, manipulation and immersion.”

It is also registered as “downloadable software for digital, virtual and cryptocurrency wallets and storage; downloadable computer software and application programming interface (API) to enable users to access, hold, store, display, purchase, sell and trade virtual and digital assets, works of art, collectibles and non-fungible tokens,” among other functions.

The NYSE application expressly states to register such trademark and logo as “provision of an online marketplace for buyers, sellers and traders of downloadable digital assets authenticated by non-fungible tokens (NFT)” and as “Virtual currency financial exchange in the field of digital currency, virtual currency, cryptocurrency, digital tokens, cryptographic tokens, utility tokens and non-fungible tokens (NFTs)-.

The application covers all areas of cryptocurrency, but now in the metaverse.

In a Feb. 15 tweet, trademark attorney Michael Kondoudis revealed that the NYSE had filed an application on Feb. 10 and that the exchange is reaching into the metaverse, writing:

“A new application filed on the 10th says NYSE plans to trademark NYSE for NFTs, cryptocurrencies, digital collectibles and marketplaces to trade and exchange them.”

Kondoudis added:

“This filing is the latest confirmation that Metaverse is real and companies should plan accordingly. Companies no longer need to wonder if it’s going to happen. It’s just a matter of when <…> The NYSE is compensating by taking a proactive and forward-looking approach to ensure that it is the leading financial exchange in the Metaverse….”