The New York Times (NYT) has sold a non-fungible token (NFT) for more than $500,000, according to the Foundation page for the NFT. Columnist Kevin Roose entered his own column as the NFT for sale.
NFTs have been surging in popularity lately as a type of digital asset tracking uniquely virtual items like pieces of art or sports trading cards.
Roose, seeing the parade of celebrities and artists selling their work as NFTs, wrote in the column that he thought “Why should celebrities, athletes and artists have all the fun? Why can’t a journalist join the NFT party, too?” So, he turned the column into an NFT.
According to the Foundation page, bids went for up to 350 ETH, which amounts to $568,123.50.
Proceeds will be donated to the NYT’s Neediest Cases Fund, which was founded 110 years ago and works with a variety of charitable causes, according to Roose’s column.
In other news, venture capitalists (VCs) are gearing up for big NFT spending, according to CNBC.
Last year, NFT values quadrupled to $250 million. But in the past month alone, the NFT sales totaled over $220 million, CNBC reported.
Now, the investors are coming. According to CNBC, they’ve so far dumped $90 million into NFTs and digital collectibles in 2021. That’s almost triple what the number was last year.
The largest deal was for Sorare, a blockchain-based fantasy football game that raised around $50 million in February, with VC heavy-hitters like Benchmark and Accel participating. Soccer star Rio Ferdinand also partook.
Lastly, the Indian government has ruled that companies have to disclose crypto holdings, according to government documents.
The ruling stated that if a company has traded or invested in cryptocurrency in the past year, profit or loss involving crypto or virtual currency must be taken into account, along with the amount of currency held at the reporting date and the deposits or advances from any kind of person for the purpose of trading or investing in cryptocurrency.
