The images on these NFTs depict Trump as a superhero, astronaut, and western sheriff, and the proceeds from the sale will go directly to Trump. Purchasers can enter a raffle, meet Trump or play golf.
In the resale market, one of the NFTs sold for 0.095 Ether (about $120) and subsequently fell to about 0.0565 Ether (about $71.89), and several other NFTs were similarly priced.
The $99 Trump NFT card features images of him as a super astronaut, baseball player, western sheriff and other cartoon characters.
When former US President Donald Trump announced that a major news would be announced on December 15, people from all walks of life speculated that the news might be related to his campaign or even the election of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and he released a video announcing the launch of the "Donald Trump Digital Trading Card" series.
This set of NFT (non-fungible token) cards includes images of Trump as a superhero, astronaut, western sheriff and other cartoon characters, each priced at $99, and buyers can get benefits such as meeting Trump.
The news was met with a lot of ridicule on social media, with netizens saying that Trump hyped the NFT technology bubble, and the NFT market has now receded. As of now, the price of Trump NFTs on the exchange marketplace OpenSea has fallen. US President Joe Biden also mocked Trump, "I've also had some major announcements in the last few weeks..." Biden tweeted.
One-on-one remote video chat with Trump
NFT stands for Non-Fungible Token (non-fungible token), which is a trusted digital stake certificate with unique characteristics in the blockchain network. An irreplaceable property means that it can be used to represent something unique, such as a Mona Lisa portrait in a museum, or the ownership of a piece of land. Buying an NFT gives you an indelible record of ownership and the right to use the actual asset, such as buying a piece of art, which can be displayed and copied, but only the purchaser is the actual owner.
When announcing the news on the 15th, Trump said that "America needs a superhero", and then showed an NFT card, and the image on the card showed him posing as a superman, tearing off his shirt and revealing a superhero uniform (with a huge T on his chest).
According to the New York Times, Trump has long been fascinated by the idea of being portrayed as Superman. During the 2020 campaign, when he was recuperating from coronavirus at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, he told aides that he wanted to be taken out of the hospital in a wheelchair, wear a Superman T-shirt under a white dress shirt, and planned to stand up and tear the shirt open, which aides advised him not to do.
Some of the NFTs showed Trump posing for a superman, tearing off his shirt to reveal a superhero uniform.
The NFTs sell for much more than the $20 Trump often asks his supporters to donate, but Trump's campaign won't make money from them. Under a licensing agreement, profits from the sale of the NFT would go to Trump's own pocket, and aides worried that the move would dilute small donations to his campaign.
Incentives to buy these NFTs include participating in a series of sweepstakes, meeting Trump or playing golf at one of his properties. Customers who purchase 45 cards receive a ticket to an evening party at the Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
Trump said in the video: "I will also have Zoom calls, one-on-one meetings, autographs for memorabilia, and more. ”
According to public records, the company that sells the cards, NFT INT L.L.C., was founded in Delaware in February this year. The company said on its website that it was "not owned, managed or controlled by Donald Trump" and instead used Trump's name, likeness and image under a "paid license" from a company called CIC Digital L.L.C.
According to public records, CIC Digital was founded in April 2021 at an address that matches the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida. Public records show that a company called CIC Ventures LLC was founded in 2021 and its directors are Nick Luna, a former Trump aide, and attorney John Marion.
The NFT sales company promises that those who purchase the cards will enter a raffle "for a chance to win 1,000 incredible prizes and meet the unique number 45 (Editor's note: Trump is the forty-fifth president of the United States)!" The small print on the website shows that the total value of all prizes is $54,695. The website also said the value of a 20-minute meeting with Trump at the Mar-a-Lago estate was "priceless," noting that winners of face-to-face meetings must pay for travel and accommodation to Mar-a-Lago themselves.
"Whoever told Trump to do this should be fired"
Trump's promotion of the NFT sale as "big news" has confused some of his advisers and drawn criticism from some of his conservative colleagues. "Whoever told Trump to do this should be fired." The two supporters of Trump, stand-up comedian Keith M. Keith Hodge and Kevin Hodge tweeted.
Trump introduced his NFT collection in a video on the 15th.
To discuss the value of these NFT cards, it is necessary to understand the overall state of the NFT market recently. A year ago, the total market cap of NFTs was $23 billion. According to CoinMarketCap, only $2.4 billion remains now. In the last 24 hours alone, it has lost nearly 8% of its value.
As a result, the logic behind the launch of a series of NFTs now has taken American public opinion by surprise, and the quality of the production of these cards looks like a semi-finished product of an AI painting.
According to sales on NFT trading site OpenSea, many Trump NFT bids have fallen. Card 10337, for example, shows Trump tearing open his shirt to reveal a superhero uniform, which was originally sold for 0.095 ether (about $120), and by noon local time on December 15, its highest offer was about 0.0565 ether (about $71.89). Several other Trump NFTs have made similar bids.
Washington Post columnist Philip Bump believes it's not hard to understand why NFTs appeal to Trump, since after all, people are willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for an avatar NFT to gain exclusive ownership of it. But Trump's release of NFTs also faces several problems.
The first problem is that NFT issuances absorb not cash but cryptocurrencies, digital currencies that are only loosely tied to the real economy. A large portion of hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales can lose value and become thousands of dollars.
The second problem is that buying NFTs themselves also loses money. In 2021, cryptocurrencies experienced a boom that helped drive the NFT market. In January of that year, more than 322,000 collectible NFTs were sold every week, generating hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. But by September, trading volumes had fallen by 97%. According to NonFungible, in the most recent week, only about 33,000 collectible NFTs were sold.
Partly because cryptocurrencies themselves have taken a hit, and partly because the NFT craze has subsided. NFTs were advertised as a big innovation in art and collecting, but it soon became clear that "ownership" meant nothing given that images could be shared, and fraud was rampant.
The third problem is that Trump's aesthetic has not been good for a long time, and the images of this set of NFT cards look shoddy, like PS Trump's avatar to a man with a perfect figure, and no one will necessarily think that this is worth the $99 investment, although the value of NFT is more in the incidental rights - may play golf with Trump, but not sure how attractive this is.