A New York Times journalist recounts the surprising outcome of auctioning their column as a non-fungible token (NFT). Initially expecting a few hundred dollars for charity, the auction unexpectedly garnered a winning bid of $560,000.
The auction, started at $800, quickly escalated with bids surpassing $30,000 overnight. A final bidding war pushed the price to 350 Ether, approximately $560,000. This resulted in nearly $500,000 for the New York Times’s Neediest Cases Fund after platform fees.
The article raises the question of why someone would pay such a high price for an NFT of a column accessible online. The NFT offered some additional perks, like a mention in a follow-up column and a voice message from a New York Times podcast host, but fundamentally, the asset was a cryptographic signature linked to an image of the article.