Non-fungible tokens or NFTs have become increasingly popular recently. Recently, an artist blew up an Italian supercar, filmed it, and is now asking people to pay for videos of the fragments.
The artist who goes by the name of Shl0ms, worked with a team of around 100 people to destroy a Lamborghini Huracan with explosives. 999 fragments from the explosion were then retrieved and filmed to create a rotating video for each one. NFTs were then created for purchase, which allows buyers to say they “own” the video in question. 111 of those NFTs have been given to people involved with the project. 888 of them are still available for auction.
Critics have said that the technology is enabling money laundering and it can be used as an explanation for why buyers would pay huge sums of money for apparently valueless certificates of ownership for random drawings. A recent example is the Melania Trump NFT, which appeared to have been purchased for a huge amount by its own creators.
Bidding on the Lamborghini explosion NFTs starts at 0.01 Ether which is the equivalent of around $25 USD in Ethereum cryptocurrency at current exchange rates. The auction begins on the 25th of February and Shl0ms will release the full video of the actual explosion for public viewing.
The NFTs relating to videos of the largest bits of shrapnel are considered the most prized and will go to the highest bidders on the auction.
The video for the project shows a gloved hand retrieving a single dusty camshaft from the ground. It’s difficult to imagine any explosion neatly blasting the camshaft out of a Huracan’s V10 engine.
Single frames from the promotional film appear to indicate that NFTs are available for videos of the camshaft (numbered #0017) or a single valve (#0922).
The used Huracan that was blown up was around $200,000 in typical condition. It was blasted as a “more general criticism of greed and short-termism in crypto,” referring to the cryptocurrency market.