A one-of-a-kind digital collectible item created out of a New York Times technology column sold for more than $500,000 in an auction, the first such sale in the history of the newspaper.
An image of the column — titled “Buy This Column on the Blockchain!” — was turned into a nonfungible token, or NFT, and sold in a heated auction that brought in more than 30 bids on the NFT marketplace website Foundation.
The NFT, a unique bit of digital code that is stored on the Ethereum blockchain and refers to a 14 megabyte graphic of the column hosted on a decentralized file hosting service, cannot be duplicated or counterfeited, making it potentially valuable for collectors. Some NFTs have sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars in recent weeks, with one such sale — a collection of art by the digital artist Beeple — bringing in more than $69 million at auction.
Along with the token, the winner of the auction — should they choose to identify themselves — will receive additional perks including a voice message from Michael Barbaro, the host of “The Daily” podcast. All proceeds from the auction will be donated to the Neediest Cases Fund, a Times-affiliated charity.
The winner of the auction, an NFT collector who goes by the handle @3fmusic, placed a last-minute winning bid of 350 ether, a digital currency, which translates to roughly $560,000 at Wednesday’s exchange rates. A link on the user’s profile led to the website of a Dubai-based music studio.
@3fmusic could not be reached as of Wednesday afternoon. The user appeared to be an avid collector of NFT artwork. In addition to the Times token, their collection on Foundation also includes such works as “The result of 2020,” an image of a sad-looking Kermit the Frog, and “Mushy’s Midafternoon Nap,” an image of a cartoon toadstool sitting on a log.