Welcome to the OpenSea digest. Let's look back through the biggest NFT and web3 news of the week.

Centre Pompidou forms a Digital Art Committee to support onchain and generative art

The Centre Pompidou, the Paris museum, announced a "Digital Art Committee," a five-year sponsorship program running from 2026 to 2031 that brings together French and international patrons to support the institution's work in digital art, according to its press release.

The committee will fund acquisitions for the Centre Pompidou - Musée National d'Art Moderne collection, support publications, research programs and exhibitions, and back conservation work. The museum said the committee will pay particular attention to works created and registered on the blockchain, known as "onchain" art, as well as new forms of generative art.

Ismail Tazi and Benjamin Gross are the committee's founding patrons. The museum said it became the first museum of modern and contemporary art to acquire a set of blockchain-related works in 2023, and it has since added works by Robert Alice, Rhea Myers and Anna Ridler to its collection.

Art Basel and UBS launch a five-part film series on art in the digital era

Art Basel and its global lead partner, UBS, released the first episode of "Decoding Art in the Digital Era" on Sept. 30, a five-part film series exploring how technology is reshaping art.

Episode 1, "What is Art in the Digital Era?," places digital art within six decades of artists experimenting with computers and code, a practice that dates to the 1960s, according to Art Basel.

The episode features artists Beeple, Manfred Mohr, Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst, and Sougwen Chung, along with curator Christiane Paul, gallerist Sofia Garcia, critic Shumon Basar and UBS art advisors Matthew Newton and Carola Wiese.

Art Blocks Marfa Weekend returns to West Texas Oct. 22-25

Art Blocks, a digital platform where generative artists publish artworks using creative code, will host its 6th annual Marfa Weekend from Oct. 22 to 25 in Marfa, Texas, bringing together artists, collectors and the broader generative art community, according to the event's registration page.

The event is free and open to all, with an individual RSVP required for each attendee. Art Blocks has released the full schedule, which includes an Artist Fair at Saint George Hall on Friday and Saturday, with talks, screenings and panels at the Crowley Theater.

Exhibitions at the Art Blocks Gallery include "EMULATION: Selections from the Art Blocks 500," curated by the Museum of Art + Light, and "Synthetic Topographies," curated by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. A Friday panel on how art institutions are adapting will feature participants from LACMA, the Museum of Art + Light, NODE and the Centre Pompidou.

Announcing the Marfa Weekend run of show, now live on our new Art Blocks mobile app!Find all the information you need about Marfa, and much more. The app puts the whole Art Blocks ecosystem at your fingertips.Important Marfa tips below 👇 pic.twitter.com/rKo2UrKEQ0— Art Blocks (@artblocks_io) October 1, 2026

Announcing the Marfa Weekend run of show, now live on our new Art Blocks mobile app!

Find all the information you need about Marfa, and much more. The app puts the whole Art Blocks ecosystem at your fingertips.

Important Marfa tips below 👇

Artist 0xfff opens debut New York solo show at Nguyen Wahed

Nguyen Wahed, a gallery with spaces in New York and London, is presenting "1 BILLION DOLLAR SHOW," the debut New York solo exhibition of artist 0xfff, through Oct. 19.

The show centers on 0xfff's "Transaction Sculptures" (2018-2026), works built from arrangements of smart contracts that receive value and pass it between them. The gallery describes the contract itself, rather than an image or object it might certify, as the material of the work.

The gallery places the practice in a lineage that includes Sol LeWitt's wall drawings, Yves Klein's "Zones of Immaterial Pictorial Sensibility" and Hans Haacke's "Condensation Cube." The Sept. 25 opening featured a performance lecture by the artist, co-hosted with Rhizome on the occasion of its 30th anniversary, alongside Kim Asendorf's concurrent basement residency.

1 BILLION DOLLAR SHOWLast week, @0xShiroi passed USD $1 billion through a smart contract at the opening of his exhibition featuring his 'Transaction Sculptures' (2018–2026). These works propose that the contract itself, not the image it might certify nor the object it might… pic.twitter.com/gxaArMg7Y1— nguyenwahed (@nguyenwahed) September 29, 2026

1 BILLION DOLLAR SHOW

Last week, @0xShiroi passed USD $1 billion through a smart contract at the opening of his exhibition featuring his 'Transaction Sculptures' (2018–2026).

These works propose that the contract itself, not the image it might certify nor the object it might…

Ethereum Foundation launches zkAPI to let users pay for AI services without revealing their identity

The Ethereum Foundation and the Open Anonymity Project launched zkAPI, a system that lets users pay for AI models and other metered services without linking their identity to their usage, according to a Foundation blog post published Oct. 1. The system is live on Ethereum mainnet.

Users deposit funds such as ETH or USDC into a vault contract on Ethereum, a blockchain network. Software on the user's device then generates a zero-knowledge proof, which shows a request is backed by a funded balance without revealing which deposit paid for it. The client works with existing apps that use the standard OpenAI and Ollama APIs, according to the post.

The Foundation noted two limitations: zkAPI does not provide network anonymity, and sessions can be re-linked through the content of prompts. The system implements a design published by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin and Davide Crapis, who leads the Foundation's dAI team.

Today the EF and OA announce zkAPI—a new means for private AIPicture this: deposit ether into a vault, sign a zk proof, get a fixed amount of private inference. Advances like these help us move past middlemen's requirements that we link our data and identities.Read more below https://t.co/LBy0Xz6cyi pic.twitter.com/7tOHRmXM4r— Ethereum Foundation (@ethereumfndn) October 1, 2026

Today the EF and OA announce zkAPI—a new means for private AI

Picture this: deposit ether into a vault, sign a zk proof, get a fixed amount of private inference. Advances like these help us move past middlemen's requirements that we link our data and identities.

Ethereum layer 2 network Blast is winding down, with an Oct. 26 withdrawal deadline

Blast, a layer 2 network that runs on top of Ethereum, announced Oct. 2 that it will wind down because the costs of operating the network exceed the revenue it generates, and it sees no credible path to making the chain economically sustainable.

Blast is asking users to withdraw their assets to Ethereum mainnet. It will first withdraw its assets from Lido, a liquid staking protocol, a process expected to take about a week, during which withdrawals will be temporarily unavailable. Once that is complete, withdrawals will resume with a 24-hour delay, and users can withdraw through Blast's interface until Oct. 26, reported Decrypt. After that date, funds will remain withdrawable only by interacting directly with Blast's bridge contracts on Ethereum, and Blast said it will publish instructions before then.

Blast launched in November 2023 from the team behind NFT marketplace Blur, ahead of its mainnet launch in February 2024. The network held more than $2 billion in total value locked ahead of that launch and now holds about $32 million, according to DeFiLlama data cited by The Block.

Blast will be shutting down.We launched Blast with the goal of building a self-sustaining chain for users and developers. Unfortunately, the economics of operating the chain no longer make sense: the ongoing costs of maintaining Blast exceed the revenue generated by the L2, and…— Blast (@blast) October 2, 2026

Blast will be shutting down.

We launched Blast with the goal of building a self-sustaining chain for users and developers. Unfortunately, the economics of operating the chain no longer make sense: the ongoing costs of maintaining Blast exceed the revenue generated by the L2, and…

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