Legendary Skateboarder Tony Hawk to Auction NFT of Trick Footage
Tony Hawk joins a growing list of celebrities digitizing and selling their collectibles as non-fungible tokens. The skateboarding icon plans to auction a film of the last time he performed the Ollie 540 – the trick he first mastered 32 years ago.
Ethernity Chain to Mint and Auction the Digital Collectible as NFT Boom Accelerates
On the heels of numerous blockbuster NFT auctions by artists, celebrities, entertainers, and crypto evangelists, professional skateboarder Tony Hawk is set to auction his digital collectible at a still-unannounced date and time.
The 52-year old pop-culture icon announced on Instagram that he had completed his final performance of the 540-degree “Ollie” that he landed first in 1989, underlining the scare and danger of doing the trick. On Twitter, he added, “Did my last ever ollie 540 today. You can compare it with my first one 32 years ago. This one meant a lot to me.”
Did my last ever ollie 540 today. You can compare it with my first one 32 years ago. This one meant a lot to me https://t.co/tExDDRFzb4 pic.twitter.com/Ggql2uADtg
— Tony Hawk (@tonyhawk) March 18, 2021
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According to the pro skateboarder, @tweestophers, angle of the shot of him completing the trick would be minted as an NFT on the Ethernity Chain and auctioned. Ethernity, a rapidly-expanding NFT blockchain network, is known for its social bent, given that all NFTs auctions donate a portion of the proceeds to charitable causes. The network has recently been tasked with building a collection of Muhammad Ali NFTs to benefit the Ali Center.
Growing Chorus of Celebrity NFT Sales Echo Big Auction Results
Hawk’s decision to turn to Ethernity for this event highlights the network’s growing cache following the launch of a 2500-piece lineup of Bosslogic’s NFT images specifically for Ethernity’s community.
Bosslogic’s sales, while significant, were dwarfed by Beeple’s recent results in a Christie’s auction, which saw the artist sell one single JPEG made of 5000 smaller images for an eye-watering $69.3 million by Singapore-based cryptocurrency investor Metakovan. Beeple has also auctioned NFTs for charity.
The NFT-craze has attracted many other celebrities, including Lindsey Lohan, Grimes, and key cryptocurrency evangelists like Twitter’s Jack Dorsey and Gemini’s Winklevoss twins. Still, some are more hesitant to embrace the movement, like Litecoin’s Charlie Lee, who likens the auctions to the speculative ICO bubble.
Tony Hawk hasn’t been as vocal as some of his celebrity counterparts in talking up cryptocurrency and NFTs, yet he’s been a surprisingly long-time advocate of Bitcoin. Tweets in past years establish that he’s “hodled” Bitcoin since 2013. Hawk was also slated to present at the Bitcoin 2020 conference in San Francisco last March before it was canceled due to the pandemic.
Are NFTs turning into a go-to quick-cash machine for celebrities, or are they seeing it as a legacy-cementing instrument? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.