Fyre Festival is back in the news but it’s not the failings of a massively hyped, absolute disaster of an event grabbing the headlines. It’s a top 5 NFT sale. In the last 24-hours F.or Y.our R.eal E.ntertainment, an NFT representing a physical item of an oil on canvas painting commissioned by organizer and naughties rap star Ja Rule has sold for 71 WETH or over $120,000 at the time of writing.
The prolific artist Tripp Derrick Barnes‘ painting was hung on the wall of the office of Fyre Inc, in New York, NY at the time of the failed festival, and rapper, actor, and entrepreneur Ja Rule stored the original painting since the collapse of Fyre Inc. Furthermore, Ja Rule released it to the world with the pointed note: “Fuck this painting.” Interestingly, the painting is also available for signature by the rapper and entrepreneur upon request.
The sale is in the top 5 NFT sales ranked on price at the time of writing and although a high amount, small when compared to sales occurring within Somnium Space where NFT collectibles are changing hands for more than $200,000.
For those that have not heard of the Fyre Festival, it is well worth revisiting the horror show event thrown together by Billy McFarland, CEO of Fyre Media Inc, and rapper Ja Rule. Fyre Festival was a joke, a fraudulently-marketed luxury music festival created with the intent of promoting the company’s Fyre app for booking music talent.
There is even a Netflix documentary about the entire thing, detailing lies, money-grabbing, and greed. This wasn’t a normal festival. It was sold as an ultra-luxurious event with guests led to believe they would be accommodated in gorgeous sea-facing cabins with the world’s finest DJs on hand only to arrive and find refugee tents and a deserted island.
Buyers and Sellers
Using the Dappradar Portfolio Tracker we can look into the wallets of the NFT buyer and seller to get a more granular look at the transaction. Firstly the buyer.
This wallet appears to only contain this one single NFT asset, some WETH and ETH assets are also present. This doesn’t mean the person behind the purchase has never bought an NFT before they could have simply created a new blockchain wallet for this purchase. But, it’s looking likely given the state of the wallet that this person is a newbie but also has some purchasing power.
The seller on the other hand has 24 NFTs in their wallet including three more Fyre Festival-related NFTs. One showing the creation of the sold painting itself and the others showing Ja Rule and artist Tripp Derrick Barnes holding the just completed painting of the Fyre Inc logo. Is it possible this wallet holder is Tripp Derrick Barnes?
One thing is certain. The would-be party-goers that paid for tickets to the washed-out Fyre festival won’t be seeing any of the proceeds of this NFT sale any time soon. Moreover, while the sale has made the top 5 for today it will be interesting to see the potential backlash and possible further sales in the coming weeks or whether this sale will fade to insignificance like the festival and organizers themselves.
Useful Links
- Top NFT Sales
- What are NFTs?
- Look at your wallet holdings
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