The first NFT batch to include a Japanese classic has sold for $1.9 million

A batch of classic car NFTs has sold for $1.9 million. The fleet, which includes such icons as a 1967 Toyota 2000GT, Series 1 Jaguar E-Type, Shelby Cobra 427, and Lamborghini Miura P400S, was the first-ever sale of classic cars represented in the digital format. The auction house that facilitated the sale deemed it “the future of collecting fine automobiles.”

For those not up to speed on NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, they are essentially digital representations of real-world things. Each NFT is unique, and its proper owners are recorded on a blockchain. They have also been used to create and sell digital art, music, and gifs of NBA videos. So now, whomever owns the 2000GT NFT has the exclusive rights to sell it, display it, or brag about it to other NFT collectors.

Recently, a NFT of LeBron James dunking a basketball sold for $208,000, the NFT of the first tweet sold for $2.9 million, and a work of NFT digital art called Everydays: the First 5000 Days sold for $69 million. While the $1.9 million sale of the classics fleet is still short of what those cars would be worth in real life, values of physical cars and the digital representation of those cars are quickly approaching parity.

Until now, most automotive NFTs have represented the most expensive cars you can buy today, like the Bentley Mulliner Bacalar, Lamborghini Sián FKP 37, and Koenigsegg Jesko. In an ironic turn of events, the NFT for the Bugatti Chiron traded last month for $3.8 million, exceeding the price of the actual supercar.

“It’s better than owning the real thing,” said the Chiron NFT owner. “You don’t have to wash it, maintain it, or fix it.” The unidentified 24-year-old currently wishes to remain anonymous, but says he will reveal the purchase on his YouTube channel soon.

The winning bidder of the classics seemed to agree, saying, “An NFT doesn’t require any garage space, and let’s be honest, I was never going to drive any of these cars in the first place, even if I owned the real thing.”

“Plus, in eight months I can flip them for twice what I paid,” he added. When asked whether this attitude was good for the car community overall, he replied, “How is it different from anything happening on Bring a Trailer right now?”

At least one enterprising owner plans to convert a real car that he owns in to an NFT. The owner says they will take a page from the group that burned a piece of actual art, recorded it, and then sold the NFT of the burning video for nearly four times the original price of the work itself. The copycat car owner has remained anonymous and hasn’t yet revealed what priceless classic car they plan to destroy, only that it’s “all original and super rare.”

The world of NFTs certainly is interesting.

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14 Responses to The first NFT batch to include a Japanese classic has sold for $1.9 million

  1. Nigel says:

    Granturismo with real money !!

  2. Crown says:

    Screw that! If I can’t open the door, put in the key, and start it, I don’t own it.

  3. Anon says:

    Shouldn’t that be $1.4 million? 😉

  4. Anon says:

    $4.1 million I mean 🙁

  5. Jeff Koch says:

    Happy April fools, everybody

  6. Nigel says:

    Sorry I thought was real !

  7. My_Fairlady_ZFG says:

    This makes no sense. That is all I have to say. Not really but I was right if I didn’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it.

  8. Land Ark says:

    I realize what’s going on here, but knowing what people are paying for NFTs is an absolute gut punch reminding me that I am old and what’s “it” seems weird and scary.

    • Ben Hsu says:

      I agree. I thought it was insane when video games began to charge for items that helped you advance in the game. But I guess a generation who grew up with that sees no issue with dropping real money on virtual goods.

    • anon says:

      It’s considerably less “weird and scary” once you realize that people are buying nonsense. Go look up how NFTs are recorded on the blockchain, there is no real proof that your wallet owns anything other than a random link. Many of these are just images hosted on a content distribution network and the link could go dead at any moment: https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/25/22349242/nft-metadata-explained-art-crypto-urls-links-ipfs

      The other problem, one that was discussed in the seminal papers for NFTs, is that there is no correlation between the blockchain and reality. With cryptocurrency the fact that you can exchange the crypto for fiat currency means there is a 1:1 correlation with reality. With an NFT what do you own? You don’t hold any rights to the work, you don’t get to reproduce the work, nobody in any court anywhere will recognize your right to anything in absence of a real contract. Even if the 404 issue is ignored, all you have is some arbitrary bragging right of “owning” a copy of something for private use, which anyone can also do minus the bragging rights.

      NFTs are mostly hype, and until these two core issues are resolved it’s just going to be a huge FOMO trap like cryptocurrency is at the moment.

  9. Ken Graham says:

    One word, NUTS.

  10. Jim Daniels says:

    There is a sucker born every minute. Just because everyone is doing does not mean it is a good idea.

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