Someone paid $1.3 million for a picture of rock


Late Monday
afternoon, on the Ethereum blockchain, a pixelated picture of a rock got sold
for 400 ether or about $1.3 million as per ETH value at press time.
The new price
floor for an EtherRock NFT went to $1.02 million due to the sale of this Clipart
of a rock. The cheapest rock went for $305,294 two days ago. Two weeks ago, it
was $97,716. In 2019, the NFT total market cap was a few tens of millions of
dollars showing itself heated up in a big way. NFT marketplace OpenSea
surpassed $1 billion in monthly trading volume in August 2021 which is up 286%
from July.
Some people are
buying digital images of apes and changing their Twitter images to highlight
membership in the Bored Ape Yacht Club. Last week Tron founder Justin Sun got
one of these JPEGs for over $500,000, one he fashioned with ‘laser eyes’ for
displaying on Twitter.
Other company
purchasing rocks
Payments leader VISA
declared of investing $166,000 for purchasing its first-ever NFT which is in
ether on CryptoPunk #7610. The CryptoPunk which is one of thousands of
NFT-based digital avatars was got from a pseudonymous NFT collector. Visa’s
purchase marks the largest investment in this arena to date. As per Scott
Spiegel, co-founder at BitBasel, a Miami-based blockchain start-up “Visa’s
CryptoPunk purchase is another example of a Fortune 500 racing to incorporate
NFTs into their marketing strategy,”. Brands likes Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and
Pringles have also released NFTs of their own.
What is
EtherRock ?
EtherRock is a
JPEG of a cartoon rock, built and sold on the ethereum blockchain. Since 2017 this
type of crypto collectibles is there hence it is the oldest non-fungible tokens
(NFTs) on the block. Scarcity in the circulating supply led to allure thereby raising
the value as there are only 100 out there.
What makes
EtherRocks so expensive?
It is one of the
earliest and rarest Ethereum assets, hence it gives a strong sense of pride to
the holders owning 1 of the only 100 rocks in the game. According to the
EtherRock website these virtual rocks has no particular purpose other than
being able to be bought and sold.

Indrani Bose
CBW - External Analyst
INDIA