Two years after going viral on social media, the popular pallbearers have successfully auctioned a meme NFT for 327 ETH.
The NFT meme craze may be here to stay, a notion that the sale of the viral Ghanian Pallbearer dance meme suggests. Last week, Benjamin Aidoo, leader of the famous coffin bearing troupe, tweeted an appreciation to parties involved in the successful sale of the viral meme as NFT.
According to reports, the video meme was minted on April 7 by the Dancing Pallbearers team on Foundation App. The app is a self-described platform aiming to build a new creative economy, where creators can use the Ethereum blockchain to value their work in entirely new ways and make stronger connections with their supporters.
Afterwards, the NFT was placed under auction and sold for 327 ETH($1,047,806) after an intense bidding process two days later. The successful bid was from 3F Music, a Dubai-based recording agency known for purchasing meme-inspired NFTs. Details of the mint have indicated that Aidooh intends to donate some of the proceeds to charity.
NFTs Sales Becoming Popular In Africa
The popularity of NFTs continues to rise in Africa. Aside from the pallbearer’s meme NFT sale, several other interesting items have recently been converted and sold as NFT.
One of such items is an arrest warrant for anti-apartheid icon and former President of South Africa, Nelson Mandela. The Digitised version of this document raised $130,550 at an auction, with proceeds going towards LiliesLeaf Museum– a museum preserving the history of South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle.
The NFT was sold on Momint, a South African digital auction and NFT marketplace, to a foreigner based in the United Arab Emirates. Several apartheid-related NFTs have been created and sold with the proceeds donated to the Liliesleaf Museum. The museum shut down operations in September 2021 due to financial difficulties.
Similarly, Adisa Olashile, a Twitter user and phone photographer who mints and sells his work as NFTs, went viral recently in Nigeria. He posted a tweet featuring photographs of an elderly drummer who frequently visits his Community Development Sevice venue to entertain serving corp members. He promised to mint the photographs as NFTs and share the proceeds with the older man.
True to his words, Olashile minted two photographs as NFTs, titling them The Drummer and The Drummer Smile on OpenSea. He sold each of the minted pictures for 0.3ETH (₦1 million) and proceeded to keep his promise, giving the elderly drummer the sum of ₦600,000.
Subsequently, the video of the entire event shared on Twitter sent the whole space into a frenzy. Some praised Olashile’s kindness, while others started to ask questions about how they could mint NFTs and sell them.
According to Google Trends data, there has been a noticeable spike in interest for NFTs in Nigeria since the start of April. The chart above shows the interest which has been relatively stable, increasing from near 25 to 100 in the first few days of the month.
NFT Interest Pushes Transaction Count To All-Time High
The interest in NFTs saw the transaction count on Ethereum reach a new weekly all-time high last week. Reports suggested that on-chain metrics showed that transaction count could reach 1.4 million to surpass 1 million recorded in January.
However, Dune Analytics data shows that transactions reached the projected number, with a total of 1,424,555 recorded on Ethereum last week.
Source: Dune Analytics
Furthermore, the data projects a transaction count of about 1.2 million for this week. So far, over 590,000 transactions have been recorded with a further 60000 expected to be confirmed.
The opportunities provided by the blockchain have been utilised succinctly by Africans. As the industry grows and evolves, Africans would continue to find ways to build the ecosystem into a formidable and lucrative one.
Do you think the NFT craze would be sustained over time in Africa? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Chris is a crypto enthusiast and a firm believer in the blockchain’s ability to create a new financial paradigm. Through writing, Chris hopes to expose the intricacies of this disruptive technology and how it is beneficial to Africans and developing countries. He aims to give readers a rational and unbiased outlook of the industry by equipping them with the necessary information to make enlightened investment decisions.
