Bidding on the Quartz article as an NFT is now $1,800+

The article from financial news site Quartz that is being sold as an NFT, or nonfungible token, has reached $1,814, writes Joshua Benton of Nieman Lab.

Benton writes, “But then came bidder n00bmind, who put up 0.04 wETH (wrapped Ethereum tokens), equal to about $71.

“And then came bidder jarzod, who scrounged up the crypto equivalent of pocket change to raise the bid to 0.042 wETH, equal to about $75.

“And then came bidder zonted, who — in profound violation of the game theory of auctions — bid a remarkable 1 wETH, which is right now worth about $1,814. Eighteen hundred bucks for a busted screenshot of a news story.

“It appears zonted the bidder is also zonted the digital art gallery, ‘the premier digital art gallery in contemporary digital art with ownership stored on non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on cryptocurrency blockchains.’ Which means it has its own interest in pumping up the value of NFTs — especially NFTs it might then be able to resell to a greater fool. Opaque self-dealing seems to be a thing in this ‘space.’

“And hey, in any event, any money Quartz raises is going to a great charitable cause; charity auctions are already divorced from the rules of the marketplace, as any hacky sitcom writer can tell you.

“But no matter how absurd this sale, or how high the final price, it’s a reminder: The value of news as a product only rarely lines up with what the market will pay for it. Our new friends n00bmind, jarzod, and zonted are apparently willing to pay good money for a screenshot of a news story. But what are the odds they also complain about the $10/month paywall they hit the other day clicking a link on Twitter?”

Read more here.