Surprise, surprise: The metaverse isn’t immune to discrimination. Discrimnation based on race, gender and skin color have made their way into the popular collection of NFTs known as CryptoPunks, Bloomberg reports. The collection of 10k digital avatars, each with their unique set of qualities that affect demand (and therefore price), are owned and traded on the Ethereum blockchain. The news outlet did the math, coming to the conclusion that lighter-skinned avatars on average trade higher than the mid- and dark-skinned ones, while male avatars trade higher than female ones, despite female avatars being more scarce than their male counterparts.

Why do NFT buyers favor white, male avatars? Probably because crypto enthusiasts skew white and male as a demographic — and buyers are shelling out for avatars that look like themselves, according to investors. Though they were originally disbursed for free among Ethereum wallet holders back in 2017, CryptoPunks traded at an average price of USD 229.5k per punk over the last year, while listed prices as of December range from USD 400k to USD 24 bn.

Or failing that, aliens: Some investors insist that NFT prices are driven by scarcity and uniqueness — pointing to the fact that the rare alien, ape and zombie CryptoPunks trade far higher than their human counterparts of all genders and ethnicities. London auction house Sotheby’s in June sold one of the nine alien avatars in existence for a staggering USD 11.8 mn.

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The Weyland-Yutani Prologue (featuring Jeff Bezos): Private ventures are set to replace the International Space Station (ISS) as Nasa looks to commercialize outer space. Three private companies — Bezos’ Blue Origin, aerospace and defense giant Northrop Grumman, and Nanoracks — will launch projects to develop commercial, independent space stations after signing agreements worth a total USD 415.6 mn with Nasa, marking a major move towards the privatization of space, the space agency said last week. Nasa hopes to launch Nanoracks’s commercial low-Earth orbit destination Starlab by 2027, which will cater to research alongside commercial industrial activity. Starlab will replace the ISS following its retirement by the end of the decade, and is set to rival China’s Tiangong, which launched earlier this year.

For humanity, Amreeka, and a strong space economy: “The agreements are part of the agency’s efforts to enable a robust, American-led commercial economy in low-Earth orbit,” the statement read, adding that “we are partnering with U.S. companies to develop the space destinations where people can visit, live, and work, enabling NASA to continue forging a path in space for the benefit of humanity while fostering commercial activity in space.”