24/08/2021 Somebody just paid $1.3 million for a picture of a rock

Clip art of a rock just sold for 400 ether, or about $1.3 million, late Monday afternoon. The transaction marks the latest sale of EtherRock, a brand of crypto collectible that’s been around since 2017 – making it one of the oldest non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on the block.

EtherRock is, as the name implies, a JPEG of a cartoon rock, built and sold on the ethereum blockchain. There are only 100 out there, and that scarcity is part of what’s driving up its value.

So, what are these rock pics good for? According to the EtherRock website, “These virtual rocks serve NO PURPOSE beyond being able to be brought and sold, and giving you a strong sense of pride in being an owner of 1 of the only 100 rocks in the game :)”

Following this latest sale, the new price floor for an EtherRock NFT has been raised to $1.02 million. Two days ago, the cheapest rock went for $305,294. Two weeks ago, it was $97,716.

The run-up in sales price coincides with a wider surge in NFTs, which are blockchain-based tokens signifying ownership of a digital asset. For example, some people are buying digital images of apes and changing their Twitter images to signify membership in the Bored Ape Yacht Club.

Following a dip in demand this spring, the overall NFT market staged a massive comeback, starting at the end of June.

For instance, NFT marketplace OpenSea surpassed $1 billion in monthly trading volume in August, according to data compiled by The Block, up 286% from July.

Even Visa has jumped into the NFT craze. The payments processor announced Monday that it had spent $150,000 in ether on a “CryptoPunk” – one of thousands of NFT-based digital avatars.

 

Visa’s CryptoPunk purchase is another example of a Fortune 500 racing to incorporate NFTs into their marketing strategy,” said Scott Spiegel, co-founder at BitBasel, a Miami-based blockchain start-up. “Brands such as Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and Pringles have released NFTs of their own, but Visa’s purchase marks the largest investment in the space to date.”

Arts

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/23/people-are-paying-millions-of-dollars-for-digital-pictures-of-rocks.html

Interesting NFTs
CryptoKitties
Aloha! Kitty #445069 here. I'm here to enjoy staying woke and being a nevernude. I'm often described as smelly, and I own it. In time you'll learn how purrfect I am.
taNNa
conceptual art. drawing and digitally processed.
#47849
By OthersideDeployer
Ethboy
Young Vitalik takes on the role of Picasso’s son Paulo dressed as Harlequin in this artwork but the octahedron Ethereum logo replaces the chequered pattern of the original jester outfit. Leaning against a large chair, the boy genius fiddles with his fingers in a somewhat nervous manner; nevertheless, he stares directly at the viewer with what appears to be a confident, ‘Mona Lisa-like’ smile. Vitalik has no idea what the future has in store for him, but he’s prepared to face any obstacle ahead as he begins life's adventure.
The Scion
A young figure caught in a moment of distraction, aware only ephemerally of his unconscious being, as it engages in psychological and psychedelic layer spaces. His right arm casually cradles a moray eel; the figure is comfortable but not truly aware of the potentials for danger in such negligence. His shirt reads “Bello” in Pokemon style font, harkening back to a childhood straddling the millennial threshold. To his right side, out of the unconscious deep, shrouded alien heads propagate as a fractal totem, each new iteration a more sophisticated rendering of emotional masking over the cold mystery of the greys. As the scion of the Budgie-Sattva, the young man, in his distraction, is also simultaneously aware of higher levels of self discovery. To his left a psychological topology sets beneath the oracle side of an 8 ball ,hovering; its message a purest concept of acceptance. The “Scion” lettering is in 80’s HeMan style bold declaration. The lower right side of the painting is like a hybrid of melon, feathers, and seeds. The crystals in the background bring light; conducted, refracted, reflected, and dispersed, to balance the dark shadow of the figure’s physical body. The aura of the scion succeeds in layers to point, with a finger, and the crown chakra, toward a center of a mandala existing as nigh pure application of strokes, in essence painterly abstraction, but also revealing hints of the Aura of migraine, and the bi-hemispherical nature of the brain–noting concerns of the possibility of inherited mental disease. Yet the flourish of chakra as it sets against that center is robust, active, coherent, and reveling against all fear. Fundamentally, the piece speaks to the activation of one’s potential to begin to “Know Thyself”, and find greater awareness out of the enigmas of the mind–as an inculcated seed given to the rich soil of one’s own birthright.