Andy Warhol’s portrait of Marilyn Monroe broke auction records for American art after selling for USD 195 mn in an auction at Christie’s yesterday to an unknown buyer, reports CNBC. While the price tag fell short of the USD 200 mn estimate for the artwork and the USD 250-300 mn whispered about among dealers, the sale signals a renewed optimism for the art scene and a boost of confidence for wealthy buyers. This comes as Christie’s and Sotheby’s plan to sell more than USD 2 bn worth of art in the next two weeks. The Marilyn, known as “Shot Sage Blue Marilyn,” was one of five versions in different color schemes that Warhol painted in 1964 that became some of his most iconic and famous images. An orange version was recently privately sold to hedge fund bn’aire Ken Griffin for around USD 200 mn.

Crypto for life on Mars: LedgerX co-founder Paul Chou is raising capital for a new kind of interplanetary cryptocurrency that can settle transactions on any planet in the solar system, Forbes reports, tapping into a global space economy that Morgan Stanley estimates will reach USD 1 tn by 2040. “Mars is a unique, blank slate starting point where we can try something from scratch,” says Chou. Some of the unique challenges Chou’s team will take on include tackling the double-spend problem: making sure the same cryptocurrency isn’t spent on two planets at the same time, since it currently takes an average of 28 minutes for a signal to reach Mars.