NFT Rock That Doesn't Exist Sells For $1.3 Million

Lulz were had by the lucky winner of an NFT auction for a JPEG of a rock after they bid 420 ETH, the equivalent of 1.3 million dollars, to secure their prize.

EtherRock is a doodle of a rock one can get for free from clipart website goodfreephotos.com. There are 100 such rock doodles on the crypto market right now, and the NFT craze is driving the prices on these images to astronomical heights.

Crypto-trader Tom Osman is the lucky recipient of the ETH. He purchased the rock JPEG for 1.7 ETH before flipping it for over 200x what he paid for it.

1.7 ETH to 400 ETH in 19 days.

Think this goes down as my best trade 🙏 https://t.co/vrgsOuD7ch

— Ozzy (@tomosman) August 23, 2021

Motherboard reported that the rock JPEGs have become a status symbol among NFT traders: while there's no obvious value in the rock JPEG, "The point is simplicity--a pure flex of a purchase, for the truly crypto-pilled," they wrote.

EtherRock was one of the first NFT projects, which is what made Osman think it could be a wise investment.

"I had a hunch it would be something that collectors would want,” Osman told Motherboard. "It's the perfect combo of historic (one of the first [NFT] projects), scarce (only 100, some lost), a meme (literally clipart) and polarising."

In essence, and somewhat maddeningly for the anti-crypto crowd, the fact that people would get very mad about collectors throwing huge sums of money at free clipart is exactly what's driving up the price.