Donald Trump Surreal Line of NFT Portraits Sold Out Within a Day After Going on Sale, Giving Its Creators a Nearly $4.5 Million Windfall.
Donald Trump NFT collection sold out within 24 hours. All 44,000 of the 45th president’s available NFTs sold for more than $4 million by 1:30 p.m. Friday, according to their promotional website. Nft‘s depict the 76-year-old as a cartoon cowboy, a sheriff, race car driver and in other fantastical outfits.
Buyers of the Trump-themed non-fungible tokens gain ownership of a specific digital copy of the image. However, as with most digital art, you can easily copy them. They can also be easily displayed by anyone, not just the NFT’s purchaser. Trump rolled out the “Trump digital trading cards” on Thursday in a widely hyped announcement.
“This is Donald Trump, hopefully your favorite president of all time, better than Lincoln, better than Washington,” Trump, who recently declared himself a candidate for president in 2024, says in the video. The video opens with an animated image of Trump dressed in a superhero outfit shooting laser beams out of his eyes.
There is also one rare version of the non-fungible tokens, featuring Donald Trump holding a torch in front of the Statue of Liberty. On the list, the token had a “floor value” of almost $24,000, according to coindesk.com. In total of 45,000 digital cards, 44,000 made the sale. At $99 each, the NFTs generated about $4.3 million in sales.
The crypto community reacted with amusement. Especially given Trump’s prior statements berating crypto as a “scam”. Donald Trump also said Bitcoin and cryptocurrency are threatening the dominance of the U.S. dollar. Nevertheless, he was supportive of his wife’s NFT foray last year. “I don’t want to have all these other (cryptocurrencies)”, he said. “There could be an explosion someday, the likes of which we’ve never seen. It will make the big tech explosion look like baby stuff. I think it’s a dangerous thing”.
At least 115 customers bought 45 of the digital coins. This is the minimum number that guarantees an invitation to dinner with Trump. Also, 17 people bought at least 100, according to the outlet. Mike DuHaime, a GOP strategist, called the former president’s new hustle an embarrassment.
“It just seems humiliating and beneath him to be hustling action figures trading cards of himself,” DuHaime said. “He was president and a billionaire celebrity real-estate developer, and now he’s selling pictures of himself for 100 bucks”.
Far-right personality Anthime Joseph Gionet, who pleaded guilty in connection with taking part in last year’s Capitol riot, wondered why he was doing time for a digital huckster. “I can’t believe i’m going to jail for an NFT salesman”, Gionet tweeted following the announcement.
Trump and his crew commissioned Clark Mitchell to provide the artwork for the series. Mitchell is arguably most recognized for his Star Wars-related creations. He also approved graphics for Pepsi and Hasbro crossover advertising. CNN senior political analyst John Avlon also commented on Trump’s project.
“It’s another cheesy grift, him trying to monetize his hardcore supporters”, he said. “It shows how fundamentally unseriously he’s taking this run for president.” One Twitter user pointed out that the collection failed to crack the top 10 on OpenSea, being outsold by something called “The Legend of Cockpunch”.
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By Angela DavicNews, Discoveries, In-depth Reporting, and AnalysisAngela is a journalism student at the Faculty of Political Science in Belgrade and received a scholarship for continued education in Prague. She completed her internship at the daily newspaper DANAS and worked as an executive editor at Talas.
