04/02/2022 Meet 12-year-old Benyamin Ahmed who made $1 million creating NFTs

All from creating online avatars — when he’s not busy doing math homework.

Benyamin Ahmed, an eighth grader with a knack for coming up with original images known as NFTs, has turned his skill into a massive crypto wallet worth about $1 million. And he did it in less than a year.

His signature collection of 3,350 pixelated images features whales wearing baseball caps or sweatbands, smoking pipes or donning top hats, with a variety of colorful backgrounds.

Plucky grade school boy Benyamin Ahmed created a collection of cartoonish whale avatars -- and sold one for $20,000. Plucky grade school boy Benyamin Ahmed created a collection of cartoonish whale avatars — and sold one for $20,000.NY Post photo composite

These NFTs — short for non-fungible tokens — are cartoonish, digitally copyrighted avatars, which are in high demand among the bitcoin and metaverse set. Some of Ahmed’s “Weird Whales” have sold for $20,000.

“I decided on a whale because someone who owns 1,000 bitcoins is called a whale,” Ahmed told The Post.

He learned about NFTs when a friend of his father, who is a programmer for the London stock exchange, bought aRare Pepeimage for $27,000.

“It sounded ridiculously expensive at the time, but my dad’s friend sold his NFT just a few months later for half a million dollars,” Ahmed said, “I became fascinated that someone was willing to pay this much for a jpeg!”

The eighth grader from London said he hasn't spent any of his $1 million windfall — yet. The eighth grader from London said he hasn’t spent any of his $1 million windfall —yet.Kadir Gold

And that kind of windfall was not unusual. The best known NFTs are from theCryptoPunkscollection, with some avatars going formillions. In 2021, NFT sales totaled$25 billion.

So the plucky tween, who learned the basics of coding when he was just five, taught himself how to use Open Sea, the largest online NFT marketplace, and how to generate his own profile pictures. He released “Weird Whales” in June of 2021.

After his launch, Ahmed posted a Twitter thread about creating his whales. His posts went viral and he became something of a celebrity in the NFT universe. He’s now collaborating on other collections with designers who have worked for Marvel and Disney.

To date, the collections he’s worked on have traded at a staggering $15 million, he says. He’s personally pocketed about $1 million, all of which he keeps in cryptocurrency. He hasn’t converted a penny and doesn’t even have a traditional bank account. He’s bought nothing from his windfall.

The pint-sized tycoon said he learned to write code when he was just five. The pint-sized tycoon said he learned to write code when he was just five.Kadir Gold

“There’s a risk that it could all go to zero, but I don’t need the money yet,” he said. “I’m confident that [crypto] prices will increase a lot more from here.”

The 8th grader, who enjoys swimming and taekwondo when he’s not fattening his crypto wallet, initially wanted to keep quiet about his staggering success. But when his story began to make headlines, friends and family found out and began congratulating him in droves.

His grandparents are especially proud of his successes.

“My grandad is really ill at the moment, so it was heartwarming to see him follow all the coverage with pride,” Ahmed said.

“It’s not the money but the moments like this that bring me the most happiness.”

Arts

https://nypost.com/2022/02/03/meet-the-12-year-old-boy-who-became-a-millionaire-off-nfts/

Interesting NFTs
The River of Emeralds
Golden conditions at one of my favorite locations in the Rockies. The light, the colors, the textures; what more can you ask for? I just loved the way this river flowed into the sunset and the mountains in the background. It's rare you find a scene as perfect as this one. But when you do, you have to take advantage of it.
Who's in control?
In a society where everyone wants to control everyone, who's in control? "Who's in control?" is a mirror of a controlling society, a futuristic vision of a current reality. Artwork with three different states in all Layers (day, night and sunset) allows owners to make different combinations and show who is in control of this artwork! *** Scanning this artwork with the ARize app [https://arize.io/] will trigger an AR video experience*** ***Music used in the videoart by Midranger (feat. Holly Drummond) - "Unrequited" ***
trump 2020
This is a photo i took of my son playing around in one of our cat carriers, redressed to express the concern and damage the continuation of the trump administration could bring to the world in 2020 and beyond. Unlike the majority of my historic work found on opensea, all content was conceived and taken by me, so felt perfect to use as my first piece on Known Origin.
#62732
By OthersideDeployer
The King
Part of a series of three artworks entitled "The Rulers". Inspired by the rulers of the animal kingdom, african mandalas & diamonds. A very complex digital illustration, each lion consists of hundreds of custom diamond shapes. Each background is an intricate custom mandala that compliments the lions facial features.