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
#2921
By OthersideDeployer
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.
/ TWO BLINDFOLDED EYES /
Trust your Intuition, two blindfolded eyes look much clearer than a blind mind.
Fuku-Shiva
The term “Fuku” refers to fortune or good luck. “Shiva” refers to the Hindu deity who represents strongly polar qualities, both severe and delicate. On a beach inspired by adventures on Phi Phi island in Thailand, three youths cavort. Two are representational figures and the third is psychologically rendered. A dynamic relationship ensues between the triad; a reciprocity of active and passive states. The boy on the right engages in maneuvers of evasion, defense, and is dressed in a speedo which reiterates the colors and symbolism of the caution tape on the left and upper right frame of the composition. In concurrent reaction the psychedelic figure shoots out a rocket powered paper airplane. The nude boy seated in the froth and sand approaches in passive repose, and is met with active attention but equal physical reserve by the psychedelic being. Perhaps the most naked figure is also the least representational. Looming large, dynamic, and active, it engages its companions playfully. Various symbols interject into the otherwise naturalistic scene, most notably a beach ball and two contaminated barrels nested in the sand. The upright barrel reads “FukuShima” in Kanji. The barrel laying down reads “Dharma”. To the left the scene is bounded by caution tape, reiterating the danger of the nuclear waste while also hosting alien archetypes, whose presence, as is the nature of these entities, runs up and just behind the consciousness of the psychedelic figure’s eggshell-like skull.
Wonky Virgin
Shalom! I'm Wonky Virgin. I want to live in a world where people believe the world is flat. I once licked a labradoodle. I don't like to talk about it. We can be friends, but keep the ultra purrsonal stuff to yourself, please.