Aping into NFTs: Here's Why You Should

A 12-year-old coder from north London has made headlines around the world selling nearly $400,000 worth of programmable NFT artwork. The success of Benyamin Ahmed has now won positive press from major outlets including The New York Times, Business Insider, CNBC, The Telegraph, BBC, ITV News, Mirror, NY Post, Bitcoin.com and Decrypt.

The visual style of Benyamin’s artworks - a total of 3,350 ‘Weird Whales’ - shares similarities to Crypto Punks, but switches punk characters for kawaii crypto whales. The project began as something to keep the whizz kid occupied during his Summer holidays, but a simple and compelling idea, and the buoyant nature of the market, helped the boy turn a 6-figure profit. 

Now the boy genius, who has never owned a bank account, is sitting on a sizable Ethereum nest egg for his future. Better still, trading of the whales on the secondary market provides the boy with steady income, as a small percentage from each sale is diverted into Benyamin’s Ethereum crypto wallet. 

The success of Benyamin is another bullish indicator for the NFT market, and provides a wake up call for anyone who hasn’t yet realised what industry insiders already know: there has never been a better time to create, sell or buy NFTs.

Weird Whales by Benyamin Ahmed

The $400,000 which collectors spent on Benyamin’s pixelated cetaceans is a relative drop in the NFT ocean. 

According to data from CoinMarketCap (CMC), the Crypto Punks collection of NFTs is now worth over $1 billion. A number of other projects are also highly sought after and much in demand. The ArtBlocks collection is currently worth $697 million, and Bored Ape Yacht Club is not too far behind at $433 million.

NFT Trading is also incredibly healthy, with seven day sales figures for the market at $5.8 billion. Chart data on NonFungible.com shows that the market is smashing records left and right, surpassing the previous high water mark for the industry which was back in May. NFTs are now big business and the potential rewards for projects which can capture the imagination of investors is massive.

The health and dynamism of the NFT market is reflected in the marketplaces which have sprung up to facilitate the trade of NFTs. Some of the names which have already established themselves in the industry include OpenSea, Rarible and SuperRare.

Big name players such as Binance have also entered the NFT market, launching not one, but two NFT marketplaces. Binance NFT is a centralized NFT market hosted on Binance.com, while Featured by Binance is a decentralized, non-custodial NFT market hosted on Binance Smart Chain. When Binance moves in hard on any one sector in the market, it’s time for everyone else to sit up and take notice.

At the same time there are small, emerging marketplaces that are seeking to distinguish themselves by focusing on a specific niche, such as OneOf, which bills itself as a ‘green’ music NFT platform. 

At the other end of the market Artify has a different philosophy entirely, as it focuses on bringing the many disparate NFT niches together under one roof. The project is building a community hub that supports art, music and gaming NFTs. In this way Artify can become a one stop shop for the entire industry. It’s a strategy which could prove to be wise in the long run, as the NFT market continues to grow far beyond art and collectibles.

While the NFT sector may be generating billions of dollars and growing apace, it still retains a sense of camaraderie and community among its members. When Benyamin Ahmed was creating his Weird Whale collection he found there was no shortage of people willing to help him achieve his goals.

One of the companies which assisted him the most was Boring Bananas. In a remarkable display of kindness the company gifted Benyamin the scripts they used to create their own programmable NFT collection. Try to think of another billion dollar industry in which the major players freely give away their intellectual property to 12-year-olds. Boring Bananas now offers their full GitHub repository through their Discord, helping anyone get a leg up into the industry.

Art may have been at the vanguard of the NFT market for some time now, but there are strong signals that as the market matures, other use cases are emerging and increasing in importance. Axie Infinity, a Pokemon-style gaming project, now supports an NFT collection worth $1.2 billion. That places it ahead even of Crypto Punks in terms of value.

Everywhere there are positive signs for the NFT market and lots of reasons to get involved. With a strong sense of community, a great deal of fun to be had, a range of marketplaces to suit all tastes, and the chance to make considerable profits, the NFT market has a lot to offer.

We’re still in the early days of this industry, but there’s never been a better time to get involved than now.