Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, can be weird, and some of them seem to be getting weirder. It's crazy to hear that someone actually paid over $760,000 for an NFT of the “Charlie Bit My Finger” video of a little boy biting his brother’s finger.
NFTs are digital assets that represent real-world items like art, music, videos, or collectibles. They are typically one-of-a-kind items held on the Ethereum blockchain with unique identifying codes.
Although NFTs have been around since 2017, their popularity has grown within the last couple of years. In 2021, the NFT market was worth $41 billion, which is in line with the conventional art market.
If you are an artist or creative person, NFTs could offer a unique way to make some extra money. Buyers can even purchase an NFT with a rewards credit card if they don’t have a crypto wallet.
Here are 10 super-weird NFTs that actually exist.
Rock clip art
The collectible pet rock of the 1970s has evolved. EtherRock is an NFT on the Ethereum blockchain that features a cartoon image of a rock. The original image is free clip art; each of the 100 available NFTs is shaded slightly differently.
Initially created in 2017 by an anonymous developer, the EtherRock NFTs were virtually unknown until August 2021, when media personality Gary Vaynerchuk tweeted about them. The shout-out drew a flurry of buyers and sent the price of one EtherRock up to at least $300,000.
The idea of spending thousands of dollars on a rock image is ridiculous. Even crazier is that after all 100 EtherRocks were sold, knockoff rock image NFTs started showing up in the marketplace. There are Fast Food EtherRocks, 3D EtherRocks, and Baby EtherRocks.
Toilet paper
In March 2021, Procter & Gamble came up with an unusual marketing campaign for Charmin by creating a toilet paper NFT. Playfully called NFTPs (non-fungible toilet paper), the brand offered only five NFTPs, each with a unique design. Buyers received the decorated toilet paper digital art images as well as images of the Charmin’s bear mascots.
The NFTPs sold for as much as $4,100. Charmin reported that all but 0.01% of proceeds from the sale of the NFTPs would be donated to the medical nonprofit Direct Relief.
Farts
New York City resident Alex Ramire-Mallis and his friends must have been pretty bored during the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown because they started recording their farts and sharing them with each other on WhatsApp.
Thinking he hit a gold mine, Ramirez-Mallis compiled all the recordings into a 52-minute fart symphony and turned it into the NFT “One Calendar Year of Recorded Farts.” According to a March 18, 2021, New York Post article, the highest bid the fart symphony NFT received was $183. Ramirez-Mallis also offered the individual fart recordings for $85 each.
Surprisingly, Ramirez-Mallis isn’t the only one trying to profit from flatulence. Reality star Stephanie Matto of TLC’s “90 Day Fiance” decided to turn her “fart jars” into an NFT. Matto had already made about $200,000 selling her farts in Mason jars.
She turned the business into an NFT after her doctor warned her that all her farting was hurting her body. About 5,000 Fart Jars NFTs were available, each priced at $186.
A twig
Who says NFTs are only for humans? A New York husband and wife, who sell wearable objects for dogs through their business Between Two Naps, created the first NFT for dogs.
Twig, 2021 is a digital image of a twig which is “one-of-a-kind, original artwork curated by a dog for dogs.” There is only one Twig, 2021 available, and the price starts at $1,200. Whoever buys the NFT not only gets the digital image but also will receive the actual twig, a presentation stand, and a homemade aluminum display case.
A virtual bag of weed
There are several states in the U.S. where it is still illegal to buy marijuana, but there aren’t any laws against buying cannabis NFTs. Several marijuana and hemp companies are looking at NFTs as a way to build interest in their products.
Pot entrepreneur Jessie Grundy, founder and CEO of The Peakz Company brand of legal cannabis, created Lava Coin, the world’s first digital bag of weed. There was only one Lava Coin available, and anyone could buy it no matter where they lived. A buyer from Oregon or California would also get some real marijuana if they purchased the NFT.
The Lava Coin NFT sold for about $1,936
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A virtual home
With the real estate market’s low inventory, you may have difficulty finding a home to buy, but you can buy a virtual NFT home.
Canadian artist Krista Kim created Mars House, the first NFT digital house in the world. Mars House is a 3D digital file that needs to be viewed via virtual reality. It sold in 2021 for over $500,000.
Virtual furniture
If you buy a virtual home, you may also need some virtual furniture. An Argentinian designer created 10 virtual “impossible” furniture NFTs and sold them in less than 10 minutes for more than $450,000.
The NFTs were 3D images of surreal furniture pieces created by Andrés Reisinger that can be shared in virtual reality. Five virtual furniture pieces will be turned into real pieces for their buyers.
Self-destructing forest
Global warming is a growing concern, and scientists predict temperatures could rise by 2 degrees by 2062. The Two Degrees NFT is designed to self-destruct if and when that happens.
The NFT features a 20-second 3D video of a forest in southern Germany and monitors NASA's annual reports on the global temperature. The NFT warns that if global warming reaches 2 degrees centigrade above average, the NFT will burn itself.
“Just as the real forest will disappear as soon as a certain threshold in global climate change is passed, so will the NFT,” creators terra0 say about the NFT. It sold at Sotheby’s for $37,800.
Secret artwork
It can be hard to understand why people pay so much for NFTs, but at least they seem to know what they are getting in most cases. The buyer who paid $63,000 for Artist Rhea Myers’ Secret Artwork (Content) NFT, however, will never know what the art will look like.
The buyer got a tokenized contract that says they own the art, but the art itself has yet to be created. “There’s nothing rarer than something that doesn’t actually exist,” says Myers.
Body advertising
There are numerous methods of advertising like billboards, grocery carts, city buses, and even the back of bathroom stalls. Now some NFTs enable you to advertise your message on someone’s body.
Croatian tennis player Oleksandra Oliynykova created an NFT that gave its buyer the lifetime ownership of her right arm to display whatever message they wanted. The NFT sold for over $5,000.
And she’s not the only one using the body. Jason Festa, who works for the cryptocurrency game Uplandme, tattooed 34 squares on his back and sold each square as an NFT. Buyers could choose what is tattooed on their “plot” on Festa’s back.
Bottom line
When it comes down to it, owning an NFT sounds fun, but it may not necessarily be the best investment or the smartest way to build wealth.
The NFT world is also filled with scams and fraud, so it's important to research before investing your money in an NFT. If you are going to buy an NFT, make sure to do so through reputable NFT marketplaces such as OpenSea and Rarible.
However, if you are the NFT creator, even the wackiest idea may turn into a gold mine.
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