[Aransentin]

Who are buying these things? The only plausible explanation to me is that the NFT exchange owners are selling to themselves using sockpuppet accounts to drum up media attention.

The article even mentions that they are keeping the profits as Ethereum, which would be necessary as he can't cash out since the money isn't actually his.

[jaclaz]

The article seems to miss one (IMHO) important detail, are the 290,000 £ made out of 290,000 1 £ each "sales" or of 29 10,000 £ each?

Or what?

The collection is of 3,350 whales, according to this other source:

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/25/12-year-old-coder-made-6-fig...

the collection was sold in 9 hours for 255,000 US$, that makes a whale sold for around 76 US$ apiece?

EDIT:

Another question being:

>He then earned an additional 30 ether, worth over $95,000, from the resale market, since Ahmed earns a 2.5% royalty on each secondary sale.

30 ether (so we remain in this realm) corresponds to 2.5%, it should mean that secondary sales were worth 1,200 ethers.

What?

[lotsofpulp]

> the collection was sold in 9 hours for 255,000 US$, that makes a whale sold for around 76 US$ apiece?

According to the CNBC article, it was sold for 80 ether. Big and important difference than being sold for $255k.

[jaclaz]

Not really, you can use any real (fiat) or virtual (cryptocoin) unit you want, conversion at a given time is always possible, my question was whether the "collection" was sold as a whole (be it 80 Ether or US $ 255,000 or whatever) and bought by a single buyer, or if each whale was sold separately (and then we would have 3,350 buyers) or what?

[lotsofpulp]

It is a notable distinction when the currency’s volatility looks like this:

https://www.tradingview.com/symbols/ETHUSD/

Also, important distinction because this could easily be the dad and kids moving ethereum around between their own accounts.

Saying it was sold for $255k conveys a much stronger probability of it not being fake or a fraud than saying it was sold for 80 ether.

[jaclaz]

Ok, if you like it better, "sold for an amount of around 80 Ether valued at the time of the transaction around US $ 255,000 (but the virtual currency is characterized by a high volatility)".

But this doesn't change the question, was it a single buyer, 3,350, or what?

BTW, if the sale happened within 9 hours it smells fishy anyway (to me).

[lotsofpulp]

I agree it is fishy, that is why I was nitpicking about it selling for ether and not USD.

I do not have any interest in figuring out if it was lots of buyers or 1 buyer, so I cannot address that.

[rualca]

> the collection was sold in 9 hours for 255,000 US$, that makes a whale sold for around 76 US$ apiece?

That's an interesting point. It would be interesting to trace those payments to hear back from these customers, or even check if they actually exist at all.

[tiku]

Or people with way to much ETH/BTC from the starting days. You would not buy a NFT for so much if it was your half portfolio.

[jacknews]

Exactly, people are 'diversifying' their ETH etc into NFTs.

I do not believe anyone is spending millions of actual hard-earned cash on these digital works, let alone just the NFT, which amounts to a 'digital autograph'.

[WalterSear]

It's great way to launder money, transfer it across international borders or pay for shipments of illegal goods. In other words, the same thing all the other high ticket collectable markets are used for.

To be clear, nobody is being paid in NFTs: gangsters are 'buying' NFTs from the people they owe money to.

[pentae]

Speculators. It's not so hard to imagine people lining up to be first to buy whatever the latest crazy NFT there is at the chance of a 10x-100x return