Tarantino NFT #1 from SCRT Labs Sells at Auction for $1.1 million

SCRT Labs announced yesterday that the first of its Quentin Tarantino NFTs sold at auction for a whopping $1.1 million. The NFT is titled, “Royale with Cheese”, which relates to a written scene from Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction screenplay. What’s more, the hugely successful auction went ahead as planned despite protests from the Pulp Fiction production company Miramax.

Quotes condensed and edited for clarity.

Secret Network’s first NFT DAO won the Tarantino NFT auction

The four-day auction for “Royale with Cheese” took place between January 17th and 21st. Afterward, SCRT Labs confirmed the winning bid on the first of the Tarantino NFTs on Jan. 24.

Importantly, SCRT Labs announced that the winning auction bid for the Tarantino NFT belonged to AnonDao. Fittingly, AnonDao is made up of holders of Anon NFTs – the first PFP collection on Secret Network.

NFT Evening interviewed SCRT Labs’ founder and CEO, Guy Zyskind about the historic sale and what it meant for the Secret Network as a whole. He noted the poetic nature of that group putting together the winning bid for the first Tarantino NFT.

“It’s amazing that they amassed an amount of money that puts them in the same league as Pleasr DAO. And I don’t know if many NFT DAOs exist outside of Ethereum, so it’s really amazing to see something like that.”

In addition, while the auction took place on the Ethereum blockchain, bidders were able to bid using $SCRT, the native token of SCRT Labs’ Secret Network. Zyskind said that the decision to allow bidding using $SCRT was a last-minute change. It was a way for SCRT Labs to reward their community members for their support throughout the auction announcement and process.

“Our community has been so much behind us and so much behind Quentin. It just felt like the right thing to do.”

What does this sale mean with regards to the Miramax lawsuit?

Without a doubt, the Tarantino NFT auction had gotten a lot of attention from people outside the NFT space. This came as a direct result of a lawsuit that Miramax filed against Tarantino back in November.

But Miramax’s attempts to derail the Tarantino NFT auction didn’t stop there. On the contrary, after first going after Tarantino, they later put SCRT Labs in the crossfire. To explain, Zyskind posted a letter from Miramax on Twitter on Jan. 11th, exposing what he calls their “bullying” tactics.

He explained his take on what Miramax is doing, “If they thought they had a legal case, then they could file for an injunction. They’ve never done that. They’ve just tried to bully Quentin, bully other people, tried to bully us. And the craziest part is that they tried to bully the buyers.”

Nevertheless, the moves from Miramax haven’t made Zyskind and the SCRT Labs team any less supportive of Tarantino, or any less protective of the Secret Network community. Indeed, Zyskind alluded to the importance of the Tarantino NFT sale going on during his last interview with NFT Evening.

Asked this time around about SCRT Labs finding itself in the middle of this dispute, he had the following to say:

“I am more than happy to play the role that we’ve been put in. We’re trying to build a better internet, and those fights – whether in this case or others – are going to happen. I hope that anyone else from the crypto/Web3 movement would have acted in the same way had they been put in that position. As long as we’re on the right side of history, we will fight it and do what we can.”

Huge auction adds to an incredible week for SCRT Labs

The Tarantino NFT sale wasn’t the only big news of late for Zyskind and SCRT Labs. In fact, on Jan. 19th the company announced that it had raised $400 million in funding for its ecosystem.

This comes in the form of a $225 million funding pool, and a $175 million accelerator pool. All of which will go towards founders and developers building in the Secret Network ecosystem.

All things considered, it’s been a strong start to the year for SCRT Labs and its network. With the remaining six Tarantino NFTs on auction sale every day until Jan. 31st, they will likely have even more good news coming.