A young man from Indonesia took almost one thousand selfies over the course of five years, and sold them as an NFT collection that is now worth over one million dollars. NFTs have become all the rage over the past year, with just about anything and everything being sold as an NFT. However, it's still a little hard to fathom that nondescript selfie NFTs of an unknown man could be worth so much.
With so much interest in NFTs, celebrities and corporates are also getting in on the act. Buyers can now get their hands on digital Ferrari NFTs, as well as an NFT of Jimmy Wales' first Wikipedia edit, not to mention NFTs of famous photographs, paintings, and more. Movie studios are also selling NFTs of movie posters, while video game companies are adding NFTs to their games.
An Indonesian man named Ghozali Ghozalu took selfies in front of his computer desk almost every day for five years between 2017 and 2021. He then sold each of the selfies as NFTs for 0.001 Ether, which equates to around $3. People kept buying those selfie NFTs, and that's not even the crazy part. The collection, called Ghozali Everyday, has since become a meme and sold for 194 Ether, which is around $560,000. There are 933 NFTs in the collection, and when last checked on Open Sea, the floor price was at 0.42 ETH (~$1,400), putting the value of the entire collection at around $1.3 million. According to The Block Crypto, the floor price even rose to almost $1 at one stage, putting the value of the collection at around $3 million.
NFTs: Changing Lives Since 2022
Ghozali Ghozalu is a college student who says he took the selfies to create a YouTube video for his college graduation. While NFTs were unheard of back in 2017, the recent boom gave Ghozalu a chance to sell the collection. The selfies are literally just the young man sitting in front of his computer in what seems to be his bedroom. In many of the selfies, one can see a calendar and clock hanging from the wall in the background. In the foreground, Ghozalu can be seen sitting on a red and black gaming chair with headphones around his neck.
Ghozalu didn't become an overnight celebrity all by himself, but had help from a number of Indonesian celebrities and public figures, including celebrity chef Arnold Poernomo, who shilled Ghozalu's NFTs to 5 million+ followers on social media, whipping up fascination around the young man and the NFT collection. Although the boom in NFTs has opened the door to scams in recent months, it is nice to see the new technology change someone's life for the better.
Source: Open Sea, Ghozali Ghozalu/Twitter, The Block Crypto