Kevin Abosch, a portrait photographer whose subjects include Johnny Depp, Malala Yousafzai, Bob Geldof… and a potato, has sold today the world’s most expensive tokenized artwork: Forever Rose.
In collaboration with Gifto, an ethereum based platform that facilitates the tokenization of gifts, Abosch sold the artwork to a group of ten collectors, selected out of 150 potential buyers, who paid $100,000 each.
“I believe blockchain technology has a huge potential to transform the entire charitable world, bringing transparency and accountability to projects worldwide,” Mori Wang, Founder of Project Caring Chain, one of the ten collectors, said.
Some of the Forever Rose proceeds will go to CoderDojo, where young kids can learn computer programming for fully free.
“A huge thank you to both Kevin and the GIFTO team for choosing the CoderDojo Foundation to benefit from this historic project,” Ms Giustina Mizzoni, Executive Director of the CoderDojo Foundation, said before adding:
“Technology is rapidly changing the world we live in. We have a duty to ensure that the next generation can not only seize the opportunities presented by this, but also influence and shape its future.
Thousands of volunteers around the world are working to ensure this by creating opportunities for young people to code and create through the global CoderDojo movement.”
Forever Rose is an ERC20 token called ROSE on the Ethereum blockchain that is based on Mr Abosch’s photograph of a rose, we are told. With the smart contract address of the Rose already live on ethereum’s public blockchain.
The buyers each receives 1/10 of the ROSE token, as ERC20 tokens are divisible. They can then choose to hold their portion, sell it, or give it as a special gift for Valentine’s Day or any other special occasion.
“I’m delighted that the crypto world has come together around The Forever Rose to further demonstrate the elegant power of the blockchain as a technology, but more importantly, as an instrument through which goodwill and humanity can be amplified,” Kevin Abosch, the artist, said.
Tokenized goods is increasingly growing as one popular use case for ethereum’s blockchain, with projects like Cryptokitties bringing them to some of the mainstream.
Art-works, licenses, real estate, and pretty much everything, can be turned into an ethereum based record, allowing for easy transferring of ownership while also making it possible to buy 1/1000th of something.
Forever Rose is the most expensive such token to date, and it’s the latest sign that not only artists have come, but the mainstream is starting to be very much here too.
