There has been a rise in digital technology which have prompted an adaptation of cryptocurrency as well as blockchain technology.
Artists have adapted to the changes in tech and have started to produce and sell their art digitally as non-fungible tokens. Some Malaysians have even made millions in the process.
Pushing the boundaries of “art” is Indonesian man Ghozali , whose everyday selfies have proven a hit in the NFT community.
The 22-year-old from Semarang, Central Java also known as @Ghozali_Ghozalu on the NFT trading platform OpenSea, snapped selfies of himself “standing in front of the computer day by day” for five years from 2017 to 2021.
His collection of selfies is well on its way to surpassing US$1 million in volume, as 293 ETH or US$986,485 (RM4,126,790) in sales have taken place so far at the time of writing.
today sold more than 230+
and until now I don't understand why you want to buy #NFT photos of me !!!but i thank you guys for 5 years of effort paid off pic.twitter.com/nHZJnowCMC
— Ghozali_Ghozalu (@Ghozali_Ghozalu) January 11, 2022
Ghozali had priced the NFTs at US$3 (RM12.5) each when he first launched the collection on Sunday, (9 January).
Why the popularity?
Some reports state that his NFT collection was promoted by Indonesian celebrities such as chef Arnold Poernomo, and Indonesian sneaker and streetwear entrepreneur Jeffry “Jejouw” Jouw.
Poernomo said that he and other investors “bought in planning to help Ghozali Ghozalu earn extra income.”
The “Ghozali Everyday” collection was never intended to be such a hit, as Ghozali explained via Twitter that before he minted his selfies as NFTs, he was merely using the photos to make a video edit.
my goal of taking pictures of myself for 5 years is just for this video
and in the future for this year hopefully I will graduate from college and be able to take my graduation photo, it will be a cool triphttps://t.co/sBdKmtzvXe
— Ghozali_Ghozalu (@Ghozali_Ghozalu) January 12, 2022
Ghozali has also told the NFT community to take care of his photos.
“You can do anything like flipping or whatever but please don’t abuse my photos.”
“Or my parents will be very disappointed at me,” he added.
It's been 3 days and left 331 NFT
sold out now because for the next few years I won't be listingYou can do anything like flipping or whatever but please don't abuse my photos or my parents will very disappointed to me
I believe in you guys so please take care of my photos. pic.twitter.com/oyGGR2Aben
— Ghozali_Ghozalu (@Ghozali_Ghozalu) January 12, 2022
Kudos to Ghozali for the out of the box thinking! We can’t wait to see what else he does in the future.
You can checkout the collection here, and watch the video edit below:
Would you buy a selfie NFT? Let us know in the comments.
