Feelgood story of the season. Weird Whales is Benyamin Ahmed’s second NFT collection. This 12-year-old sold 3,350 8-bit style whales at 0.025eth per unit in less than a day. At the time of writing, that’s approximately $248000. Considering the NFT collection ’s budget was $300 in Ethereum gas fees, we could say that Ahmed’s in the green and then some. However, that’s not all.
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When CNBC checked on him, Ahmed reported another 30 ETH from commissions for sales in the secondary market. “Ahmed earns a 2.5% royalty on each secondary sale.” That’s $93000 at today’s prices. The 12-year-old told CNBC:
“I first learned about NFTs earlier this year,” Ahmed, who is based in London, tells CNBC Make It. “I got fascinated with NFTs because you can easily transfer the ownership of an NFT by the blockchain.”
And in an interview with Loop News, he adds color to that first exposure to NFTs. “My dad explained NFTs to me and his friend had bought some Rare Pepes,” he said, thus proving he’s old school by referencing the first-ever NFTs.
This was one of the first NFTs that I ever saw. One of my dad's friends bought one for 5 figures. I instantly became fascinated.
#NFT #NFTCommunity #nftcollectors pic.twitter.com/MXsdsoE0ab
— Benyamin | benoni.eth (@ObiWanBenoni) August 19, 2021
Ahmed’s First NFT Collection: Minecraft Yee Haa
At first, he tried to create all of the art pieces and code all by himself. CNBC tells us:
“His first NFT collection, which he launched earlier this summer, consists of 40 colorful, pixelized avatars called Minecraft Yee Haa, that “I created after spending too many hours playing Minecraft,” Ahmed says.”
Here is the fella inside #Minecraft
:#NFTCommunity pic.twitter.com/CC7tUNIC1I
— Benyamin | benoni.eth (@ObiWanBenoni) August 15, 2021
His NFT Collection of Minecraft playable avatars wasn’t an instant success. However, as Benyamin Ahmed’s fame in the NFT space grows, they’re becoming sought-after pieces. The kid told Loop News:
“I created my first collection on OpenSea just for a bit of fun, and then I got more interested in them when BAYC and other avatar projects started coming. I also play a lot of games, so I can see NFTs becoming useful as custom skins and cosmetics. For the whales, I just wanted to play around with the generating images python script, I didn’t expect them to come out looking so clean and nice!”
ETH price chart for 08/26/2021 on Kraken | Source: BTC/USD on TradingView.com
Ahmed’s Second NFT Collection: Weird Walles
For Weird Whales, a phyton script did the randomizing work and created the pieces. To learn how to do so, he found expert mentoring in Discord groups. The NFT community shines in this story. Loop News informs us:
A key thing to mention is that the team over at Boring Bananas helped Benyamin with the python script to put together traits, Vee helped Benyamin while he was setting up the whale project, and supported him all the way till launch.
As we told you, all of the 3,350 whales sold in less than a day. And that NFT collection is just starting its rise in the space.
The Weird Whales floor is moving
, congrats to @ObiWanBenoni! pic.twitter.com/H5hA9v9ee4
— Mike
(@IronMike_13) August 25, 2021
What’s Benyamin Ahmed Going To Do With The Money?
This little man seems to know what he’s doing. “When people buy Weird Whales, they’re investing in me and my future,” he told CNBC. Plus, Ahmed’s a holder.
“I plan to keep all my ether and not convert it to fiat money,” Ahmed says. “It might be early proof that, in the future, maybe everyone doesn’t [need] a bank account and just has an ether address and a wallet.” (However, he may soon create a bank account for tax purposes, he says.)
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His father, also a programmer, is helping him to secure his NFT Collection ‘s intellectual property. “Ahmed’s father has been in contact with lawyers to trademark Weird Whales and other upcoming projects.”
Featured Image: A Weird Whale | Charts by TradingView