The lowest price of this classic NFT project in 2017 is even comparable to CryptoPunks.
Original title: “The lowest price is more than $200,000! How did these “stones” sweep the NFT circle? 》
Written by: Francois Lord
Editor: South Wind
This summer, the price of NFTs (non-fungible tokens) soared, and cryptocurrency enthusiasts invested huge sums of money in everything from digital transaction cards to virtual property.
Now they have added the “digital stone” to their portfolio.
Critics of NFTs refer to this year’s NFT market boom as a fad craze, or a short-lived bubble about to burst. The same is true of the recently popular NFT collection EtherRocks, but these NFT holders are making a lot of money.
EtherRock, created on the Ethereum blockchain, is a set of NFT collections with the theme of “stones”, limited to 100 pieces. Except for the different colors, each EtherRock stone image has the same design pattern, inspired by the classic Pet Rock toy popular at the end of 1975. However, they are not just launched, nor are they designed to cater to this year’s NFT market frenzy: EtherRock was launched as early as the end of 2017.
However, these “stones” were not popular at the time, and most of these NFTs have been unclaimed for many years. But this neglected early NFT project was recently rediscovered. As Ethereum users cast the remaining “stones”, these NFTs have received a lot of attention since last week. Even Coinbase investor, social media influencer and NFT entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk posted the news on Twitter while discussing its value-added benefits as an early NFT project.
All these 100 “stones” have been sold, and now the second-hand prices of these NFTs are skyrocketing. Last weekend, two EtherRocks NFTs were sold for more than 100,000 U.S. dollars, of which EtherRock #21 sold for 45 ETH (approximately 135,240 U.S. dollars) last Sunday, as shown in the picture below:
The price of EtherRocks doubled last weekend and doubled again this Monday! According to the data of the Twitter account @EtherRockPrice that tracks the price of EtherRocks, as of the time of writing, the cheapest EtherRock stone on the market has reached 78 ETH, which is approximately US$246,722! Some stones now sell for 99 ETH (approximately US$320,000 at the time of writing). Just a few days ago, the price of these stones was only about 50,000 U.S. dollars.
NFT is like a contract that represents the ownership of digital products. These digital products can be a video clip, a digital painting, or an image of a stone, etc. Although some NFTs may have additional functional uses , such as game items in interactive video games, EtherRocks does not have these additional uses. EtherRock official website wrote
“These virtual stones can be used for trading and give you a strong sense of pride in owning one of the 100 stones you only have. There is no other purpose.”
A person claiming to own EtherRock NFT tweeted that he used 15 ETH (worth US$46,300) to purchase an EtherRock “stone” numbered #74 (see picture below) last weekend, and explained why he thought This will be “one of the best investments” he has made in the field of encryption. He wrote:
“As we enter the era of digital collections, (EtherRock) as one of the earliest (digital collections) art forms has brought them a source of value. There is also a nostalgic side. Collectors will look for early works with historical significance. .”
Although NFTs have existed for many years, NFTs suddenly became popular during the epidemic earlier this year and after digital artist Beeple sold an NFT collage at Christie’s auction house for $69.3 million.
The sudden increase in demand for EtherRocks coincides with the surge in the NFT market at the end of the summer. In the first half of 2021, the NFT market generated $2.5 billion in transaction volume, although the hype surrounding NFT seems to have subsided in the late spring and early summer of this year. However, recently, the volume of NFT transactions has soared, and its high price has once again made headlines.
As mentioned earlier, EtherRocks has been around since 2017 and was created almost at the same time as CryptoPunks (one of the earliest NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain).
CryptoPunks (cryptopunk) is one of the biggest beneficiaries of this year’s NFT boom, and the value of NFT pixel avatars in this series has risen sharply. Last week, the lowest market price of CryptoPunks exceeded US$100,000 (39 ETH) for the first time. According to the official tracker of Larva Labs, the team behind it, as of the time of writing, the current minimum price of CryptoPunks is 47.7 ETH (approximately US$153,400). . See below:
Picture source
In recent weeks, the sales price of CryptoPunk has also reached millions of US dollars, including at the end of July, the CryptoPunk NFT avatar number #5217 was sold for 2,250 ETH (valued at about 5.4 million US dollars at the time) (see the figure below) ); Almost at the same time, Gary Vaynerchuk bought the CryptoPunk NFT avatar #2140 for 1,600 ETH (worth about 3.7 million US dollars at the time). Last week, a CryptoPunk NFT avatar that was purchased for only US$443 in 2018 was sold for 1,500 ETH (worth about US$4.38 million at the time).
NFTs can be purchased on different third-party trading platforms, the most popular of which is OpenSea.io. As for EtherRocks, it can only be purchased on the project’s website.
According to CryptoBriefing, some of these 100 EtherRocks have been lost, and the limited quantity has caused the price of these “stones” to soar. Collectors are particularly keen on “stones” of different colors, including four rare blue stones, which contrast sharply with most other stones with gray shades.
Some EtherRocks buyers believe that they bought these “stones” because the value of EtherRocks is more than that of CryptoPunks.
For example, EtherRock holder LilMoonLambo said that there are currently thousands of NFT avatars of CryptoPunks. Compared with CryptoPunks, these EtherRocks “stones” are more valuable because they are more scarce. He said: “We live in a meme economy, and now these stones outperform gold. In an inflationary world, digital scarcity is a trend.”
LilMoonLambo is currently preparing to sell an EtherRock “stone” he holds for 500 ETH (valued at more than $1.6 million at the time of writing). He said: “In the field of crypto art, 500 ETH is just a drop in the bucket.”
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