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
Genesis
José Delbo sent me his striking pencil sketch and powerful inked work, which I then interpreted in oil on canvas. I wanted to create a very painterly piece with obvious brush marks etc, but I was also aiming for a nostalgic feel, a kind of 1980’s superhero comic book look, the kind I grew up with. My goal with this animation was to try to recreate, in part, the creative process that both artists went through with the visual information I had. I was able to showcase my painting process more accurately as I could take photographs of my progress throughout. Consecutive images could then be layered like brush strokes over José’s drawing to create the impression that this was one continuous artwork from pencil, to ink, to completed painting. The representation of the line sketch at the beginning, then pencil/ink and lastly the paint layers being applied demonstrate both artists’ struggle for the right lines, tone, form, and colour until the work is finally completed. As the oil was still wet with each photograph the glare of my studio lights can be seen in the brush strokes. Eventually, the figure emerges and as it does, our hero comes to life, looking directly at the viewer -- but is he grimacing in approval or disgust? We will never know for sure as just before he can say anything, white paint is brushed across the canvas entirely and the process begins again. Only the bat is quick enough to escape.
#15093
By OthersideDeployer
Stay Free (Edward Snowden, 2021)
This unique, signed work combines the entirety of a landmark court decision ruling the National Security Agency's mass surveillance violated the law, with the iconic portrait of the whistleblower by Platon (used with permission). It is the only known NFT produced by Snowden. Produced using open source software. This auction is on behalf of Freedom of the Press Foundation. https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/appeals-court-strikes-down-nsa-phone-spying-program-aclu-lawsuit
Right Place & Right Time (bitcoin hourly price offset)
Each day, a new composition for the Master is generated autonomously using a data feed of Bitcoin's last 24 hours of price action. Each hour's price programmatically controls rotation, scale, and position of a correlating layer. Astute viewers will surmise the day's price volatility simply by examining the artwork. While the daily image generation is the result of autonomous API calls, utilizing an algorithm the artist wrote, the artist has chosen to retain a control token. This token allows him to fine-tune variables associated with his algorithm, in addition to addressing aesthetic concerns within the life-cycle of the artwork. Layer state, alpha, hue, saturation, and brightness are elements the artist has retained control of in order that this artwork remain a living work-in-progress. An earlier iteration of this artwork was featured as a nightly projection mapping video on the face of the Daniels Fisher Clocktower, as part of ETH Denver 2020. Access to this and additional exclusive content awaits the master token owner at the artist's NFT Portal: https://collect.mattkane.com/minted-works/right-place-right-time-bitcoin-hourly-price-offset/
Bojo
Moonfae are a race of outlandish creatures in the world of The Beacon. Settlers named them so because of their otherworldy nature and their apparent relation to the moon.