Megadeth is one of the latest artists to hop on the Non-Fungible Token (NFT) trend, and they’ve already made a significant amount of money off of it. The band auctioned off their first NFT on Monday, April 12, and it sold for 8.4 WETH, which comes out to just over $18,000.
The NFT they sold is called ‘Vic Rattlehead: Genesis.’ It’s a 5 second GIF of a rotating skull wearing futuristic glasses and headphones, with the Megadeth rotating in the opposite direction above it. The skull is a variation on the skeleton that appears on the cover artwork of the band’s first four albums.
Rarible, the site where the auction took place, shows an NFT creator and collector named Adrian Woodward as the man who bought Vic Rattlehead: Genesis. The bid was made using WETH, or Wrapped Etherium, which is cryptocurrency that is worth the exact same amount as normal Etherium. Woodward’s 8.4 WETH bid was worth around $18,000 USD at the time of the sale, but is worth $20,512 USD at the time of this story’s publication. According to the NFT’s listing, only 20% of the sale will go to Megadeth, who are listed as the NFT’s creator.
For those who aren’t familiar with the idea of NFTs, they’re a ‘blockchain standard,’ which is a type of system that records cryptocurrency transactions. They attribute rights to digital artwork and other unique items by using smart contracts so that each NFT can be purchased, sold and/or traded like physical artwork and retain certification of its provenance trade after trade.
Other artists to have sold NFTs include Grimes, who reportedly made over $5 million as one of the first musicians to sell some of her artworks as such, and Kings of Leon, who sold their most recent album When You See Yourself as an NFT. The late rapper MF DOOM’s estate also sold few, as well as Aphex Twin and Rico Nasty. Artists including Taylor Bennett and Big Zuu are even selling some of the rights to their music as NFTs.
According to Music Business Worldwide, musicians have made over $25 million in the first month of the NFT boom alone. Unfortunately, NFTs have found considerable backlash as well. As people such as ambient artist Nils Frahm have stated, Bitcoin mining uses an incredible amount of electricity, and there’s even Bitcoin mining facility in Iceland that uses more electricity than all the homes in the country combined.
Photo credit: Marv Watson
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