NFT gone wild: These clip art bricks cost millions
The Etherrock project consists of 100 very similar looking cliparts of stones. They exist as NFT on the Ethereum chain and have been traded for years. Some cost millions.
No, it’s not an April Fool’s joke and yes, this project really exists. on Ether rock you can look at 100 stone cliparts. Some of these are offered for sale by their current owners, and most are not.
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Horrible prices for bad clip art
The prices, which you can only see when you have connected your Ethereum wallet to the site, are between 100 and 1,000 ETH, i.e. between 320,000 and 3.2 million US dollars at the current rate. For this you get the NFT version of the respective clip art, so you can prove that the “Rock” with the “ID 0” belongs to you. The clip art is not even drawn in a particularly elaborate manner or looks good in any other way. It is simply a drawing of the same stone outline with differences in coloration – even that is schematic. In short, from the point of view of the non-NFT fan there is absolutely nothing to be said for buying one of these stones.
NFT bargains look different – usually better too. (Screenshot: t3n / Etherrock)
NFT fans, on the other hand, have more imagination. They know that the prices of the etherrocks that have been circulating since 2017 will rise steadily as long as it is possible to keep demand high and supply low. When the anonymous developer behind the project first launched these collectibles in 2017, he created a total of 100 Etherrocks and limited the offer to this initial set.
This is a classic collector’s offer. This is not unusual. It seems unusual that it is very clear that people find each other who are already willing to pay the exorbitant prices that are necessary to bring about a change of ownership.
Virtual stones without a purpose
The project can hardly be blamed for this. On Etherrock it is said truthfully: “These virtual stones serve no purpose whatsoever. They are only there to be bought and sold and to give the owner a strong sense of pride in being one of only 100 owners. “
Started shortly after the famous Cryptokitties, Etherrock is now one of the veterans on the NFT market. More and more crypto collectors are becoming aware of the offer. Gary Vaynerchuk, who had become a crypto investor, tweeted the mere existence of the Etherrock project to his followers two weeks ago. With this, Vaynerchuk had apparently set fire to the prices of the Etherrocks. They heated up accordingly.
Since Vaynerchuk’s tweet was posted, transaction records show that the price of a single NFT brick has increased from 1.2 ETH ($ 3,900) to 32 ETH ($ 104,000) and 80 ETH ($ 258,000). As of this writing, there is no rock that would change hands for less than $ 320,000.
Why do people buy the public domain clipart?
Twitter user Z stated in a thread that he wanted to own a piece of NFT history with his purchase for $ 46,300.
“As we enter an age of digital collectibles, the fact that they were among the earliest forms of art and were the first to make something gives them an origin that is valuable,” he wrote. “The Rocks are the perfect shock value, they’re so stupid that they’re perfect. Fate loves irony. “
Z is certain that he has made one of the best investment decisions ever. According to him, the developer is still active. It is now being considered to bring the Rocks to the important NFT marketplace Opensea. There is also talk of breaking up the rocks so that the values ​​can be split from rock to pebble size. This would mean far more interested parties than with the previous concept.
That is all well and good, but does not explain why the originally royalty-free clip art of a simply drawn stone can cause such a sensation. After all, the developer could have brought something onto the market that had at least a certain artistic intrinsic value.
It is not the case that people buy everything if only NFT is on it. Rammstein frontman Till Lindemann recently had this experience.
