There are moments online where two stories come together, kiss, and create a whole new story that looks a little like both and preserves whatever sinister DNA they each have for some time more. To wit, Fyre Festival, an enormous, expensive fuckup that cost Bahamian small business owners tens of thousands of dollars, and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), which cost whatever one is willing to pay and have been called a total “ecological nightmare,” have joined into one tale. (More on NFTs and why everyone seems to suddenly have a new NFT venture here, here, here, and here).
Per Forbes, Ja Rule, one half of the partnership that gave the world Fyre Festival years ago, was selling an original painting that he commissioned from South Carolina–born artist Tripp Derrick Barnes to hang in the Fyre offices, plus a “digital ledger,” which makes it an NFT, at auction. According to Forbes, it had a reserve price of $600,000, though, per a tweet from Ja Rule on Wednesday, it sold for just $122,000.
The discrepancy is probably not a huge loss though; the sale is likely good marketing for his NFT venture Flipkick, which sold the Fyre Festival NFT. Why not spin the biggest failure that you’re known for into the next big thing? Ja Rule also offered to autograph it, and told Forbes, “I just wanted that energy out.”
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