Eliud Kipchoge first set of NFTs fetch Sh4 million
The auction of the first set of Eliud Kipchoge’s non-fungible tokens (NFTs) closed on Thursday night and was sold for a total of 17.9837 in Ethereum currency, equivalent to Sh4,020,842.69 ($37,351.07).
On 3rd April 2021, Eliud Kipchoge, regarded as the greatest marathon of all time became the first Kenyan professional athlete to launch his own set of NFTs.
A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unit of data on a digital ledger called a blockchain, where each NFT can represent a unique digital item, and thus they are not interchangeable.
NFTs can represent digital files such as art, audio, videos, items in video games, and other forms of creative work.
Kipchoge’s first two sets of NFTs included the digital representations of his career milestone on the Ethereum blockchain was digitally signed and officially approved by Eliud Kipchoge himself.
The first set of the NFTs was backed by Momentible.io, which partnered with non-fungible tokens (NFTs) marketplace OpenSea to release Eliud Kipchoge’s digital trading cards featuring his career highlights.
The auction for bidding Eliud Kipchoge’s NFTs ran for 5 days and the first set of the NFTs was sold for 14.8837 in Ethereum currency, equivalent to Sh3,321,018.05 ($30,864.48). This set included the digital representation of Eliud Kipchoge’s 2019 moment when he became the first person on earth to run a full marathon under the magical 2-hour mark.
The second set of the NFTs was sold for 3.1 in Ethereum currency, equivalent to Sh691,663.56 ($6,428.10).
This set of the NFT featured Eliud Kipchoge’s legendary moment when he crushed the old world record on the marathon, one of the oldest competitions in sports history.
The buyer of Kipchoge’s first set of the NFTs was a blockchain investor identified as NoDaoIsLimited on the Open Seas market place. The owner (NoDaoIsLimited) of this NFT will receive the artwork in high quality and a personal video message from Eliud.
The non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are becoming more popular in the sports world and gaining lots of traction as they allow athletes and even artists to claim ownership over specific digital files, be they special moments, songs, videos or even static images.
NFTs use the same principles behind cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin. NFTs have a unique digital code saved on the blockchain that allows anyone to verify the authenticity and ownership of items.
NFTs can be bought and sold like any other piece of property. NFTs can be thought of as an ownership certificate – or a digital signature, much like how a great work of art might bear the artist’s signature as a seal of authenticity.