Fortune’s first-ever NFT Sale closed in a grand fashion after earning 429 Ether or over $1.3 Million. Fortune CEO Allan Murray described it as a crazy “live digital experiment.” The board set up the initiative as an experiment but given the turnout, it’s probable we’ll see more NFT Drops.
Fortune Magazine brought in a whopping $1.3 Million from its first-ever NFT Sale. Credit: Coingape
Last week, we reported that the publication giant officially joined the NFT craze. 256 identical NFTs of Fortune Magazine cover and three special editions NFTs were listed and sold on OpenSea.
The Auction
The auction was actually a two-part event. First, Fortune sold a set of 256 NFTs representing the latest cover art designed by digital artist pplpleasr. The starting bid was 1 Ether or around $3,000. The lot sold out in a few minutes. The NFT holders are in for a treat because the NFTs are now changing hands in the secondary market at around seven times the original listing price.
The second part involved a three-day auction for three 1/1 NFTs featuring in-depth graphics. Fortune and pplpleasr worked with Manifold to stage a gamified bidding experience. Basically, they released 3 additional, special-edition NFTs of the cover. The graphics of these NFTs changed based on whether certain top crypto influencers place the highest bid. In other words, the top bid automatically updated the art to feature the avatar or logo of the respective top bidder.
The gamified version inspired a spirited bidding war between user “lilyatty” and Jamis Johnson, a member of PleasrDAO, an investment club inspired by pplpleasr’s works. User lilyatty confidently said, “I’ll extend the auction for days if I have to.” However, he failed in prolonging the affair. Johnson won out, purchasing the final NFT for 105 ETH, or more than $300,000.
The auction featured an NFT art that changes based on who the top bidder is. Credit: Fortune
Fortune confirmed that they plan to donate half of the amount raised to nonprofit organizations. According to the magazine’s CFO, Anastasia Nyrkovskaya, the team won’t sell its ETH but HODL them.
Tech Hiccups because of OpenSea Glitches
Everyone’s in a celebratory mood because of the results but actually, the auction was met with many tech hiccups. There were some unpleasant mishaps due to OpenSea’s inability to handle the huge number of requests from those wishing to bid. The site started serving up “Error 504” pages to visitors. So many people were unable to place bids.
Alex Atallah, OpenSea’s cofounder and chief technology officer, personally apologized for the issue. He said, “I really want to apologize on behalf of whole company for the downtime. We got flooded with traffic that appears to be somewhat related to the auction, but also related to a couple other changes on the site.”
OpenSea addressed the tech issues and glitches which plagued the auction. Credit: Twitter (@alexatallah.eth)
OpenSea’s team remedied the situation by restarting the company’s servers. In effect, the auction was extended and the bidding wars ensued. Eventually, another technical glitch occurred because of a DDOS attack so one auction concluded prematurely. Even though the top bid on one NFT was 47.4 ETH—and it appeared only to be going up from there—the piece sold for 23 ETH, wiping out at least half the apparent value.
Looking Ahead
According to Robert Hackett of Fortune, “Despite all the hiccups, Fortune is pretty pleased with the outcome.” Fortune is one of the earliest mainstream outlets to dedicate regular space to cryptocurrency with its 2017 launch of The Ledger franchise. So we can view this auction as a natural progression for the company.
