Comedian Robin Williams once called cocaine “God’s way of telling you you are making too much money”. This role may now have been overtaken by non-fungible tokens, the blockchain-based means to claim unique ownership of easily copied digital assets.
The latest NFT mania involves fantastic amounts of money being paid for “Bored Apes”, 10,000 avatars featuring variants of a bored-looking cartoon ape. Last month rapper Eminem (real name Marshall Mathers) paid about US$450,000 in Ethereum cryptocurrency to acquire Bored Ape No. 9055 – nicknamed EminApe, because its khaki and gold chain resembles what Eminem wears. It purportedly joins more than 160 other NFTs in the rapper’s collection.
The Bored Ape character seems derivative of the drawings of Jamie Hewlett, the artist who drew Tank Girl and virtual band Gorillaz. According to to the creators, each variant is “generated from over 170 possible traits, including expression, headwear, clothing, and more”. They say every ape is unique “but some are rarer than others”.
So what does Eminem now own? He has an electronic version of an image, which he is using for his Twitter profile. But then so does anyone who copies it from the internet. The only difference is that he has a record in a blockchain that shows he bought it. He also gets to be a member of the “Bored Ape Yacht Club” a members-only online space whose benefits and purpose beyond being a marketing gimmick are unclear.
That’s about it. The intellectual property (such as it is) remains with the creators. He is not entitled to any share of merchandising revenue from the character. He can only profit from his purchase if he can find a “greater fool” willing to pay even more for the NFT.
Which is unlikely. While publicity given to the rapper’s purchase certainly seems to have boosted demand, the average price paid for Bored Ape NFTs so far in 2022 is about 83 Ether (currently about US$280,000). Eminem may have been prepared to pay much more for the one that looked more like him; but would anyone else?
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