Donald Trump breaks silence on Instagram to promote his NFTs – but critics say the art is ‘cremely’ | US News

by James · April 21, 2023

Donald Trump has released a second collection of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as the 2024 presidential election heats up.

The surreal pieces of digital art depict the former president as George Washington, a chess piece and a lion fighter… but not at the same time.

A total of 47,000 NFTs were made available and cost $99 (£80) each – and the collection sold out in under 24 hours.

But their arrival has caused the value of NFTs from the first collection to drop sharply.

Trump promoted his new collection on Instagram, in what was his first post on the social network since his ban was lifted after the Capitol riots.

In a video, he described the NFTs as “beautiful” and “the greatest trading cards in history” – with “amazing artwork” depicting him as a rock star and a truck driver.

But not everyone was blown away by the quality of the non-fungible tokens, with some describing the artwork as “cringey”.

Anyone who bought 47 of those NFTs – at a cost of around $4,700 (£3,800) – would have been eligible for dinner with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

Estimates suggest that Trump made up to $1m (£800,000) through the sale of his first collection – and he could get a similar windfall from this second release.

Molly Jane Zuckerman, opinion editor at crypto news site Blockworks, told Sky News: “Anyone who says the NFT market is dead is quite wrong.

“The fact that this particular collection sold out as quickly as it did is proof that people are still willing to buy literally anything if it’s an NFT.”

All this comes weeks after Trump became the first former US president to be charged with criminal acts.

Earlier this month he appeared in court and pleaded not guilty to 34 offences. He has been accused of using hush money to cover up alleged affairs.

How do these NFTs work?

NFTs took the world by storm in 2021.

“Non-fungible” effectively means that each piece of art is unique, or that a small number of them were made.

An example of an exchangeable item is a bill – if Kate gives Gemma a ten, Kate would not be upset if she later got another bill back.

Airline tickets are a good example of something that cannot be exchanged. Although they may look the same, each has a seat number, class and destination. If Kate gave Gemma a first class ticket to Sydney, she might be upset if she got an economy ticket back.

In the case of Donald Trump’s NFTs, no more than 10 copies of each trading card design have been made – and some are unique.

This scarcity could cause the value of digital art to increase – but given that a total of 92,000 Trump NFTs now exist, there could be downward pressure on prices.