The 20-year-old rapper appears to be following the Lil Yachty crypto playbook: a token sale on Fyooz and a subsequent non-fungible token (NFT) auction on the Winklevoss-owned Nifty Gateway.
Lil Pump, whose real name is Gazzy Garcia, is banking on his 25 million social media followers to take ownership of a “PumpCoin,” which, similar to a recent string of experiments with social tokens, will give fans exclusive access to the Colombian-American singer.
“There has never been a greater need for artists and fans to find a new way of engaging given the lack of industry events from COVID-related shutdowns,” Remo Prinz, co-founder of the Zurich-based Fyooz, said in a statement. “Social tokens are a way for artists and other personalities to potentially monetize fan engagement.” Fyooz token sales are not open to U.S. investors.
The YachtyCoin sale last week raised at least $276,000 for the Atlanta-born rapper. Lil Yachty’s digital collectible sold for $16,050 this week to Bill Lee, a general partner at early-stage VC firm Craft Ventures who sniped the NFT from “bitcoin billionaire” Tyler Winklevoss at the last minute.
This follows a trend of flashy NFT auctions by high-profile musicians. Canadian DJ Deadmau5 launched a series of digital collectibles this week, RAREZ, worth around $100,000. On Wednesday night, a piece of the collection named “In Titan’s Light” sold for 78 ETH ($50,039) on NFT platform SuperRare.
