The Non-Fungible Token (NFT) craze has hit the roof as people are increasingly spending millions on digital collectibles that the mainstream media and people unaware of the NFT craze find bizarre. The latest NFT phenomenon is a rock, yes a JPEG photo of rock has fetched $1.3 million in the auction after someone paid 420 ETH for the NFT.

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The virtual collection of rocks are popularly known as EtherRocks or ETH rocks which were first created in December 2017 but have only gained mainstream attention during the ongoing frenzy around the NFT market. There are only 100 of these virtual rocks and the price floor for purchase has been increased to 730 ETH or nearly $2.3 million dollars.

Current #EtherRock Price Floor: Ξ730 Ether ($2,274,139)

Rock ID 92 Ξ730 Eth
Rock ID 38 Ξ750 Eth
Rock ID 65 Ξ1337 Eth
Rock ID 8 Ξ1413 Eth
Rock ID 29 Ξ1555 Eth
Rock ID 28 Ξ1777 Eth
Rock ID 89 Ξ2000 Eth

Recent Sales
Ξ420 Eth 23 hrs ago
Ξ420 Eth 1 day ago

ATH
Ξ420 Eth 23 hrs ago pic.twitter.com/2jBXGy180F

— EtherRock Price (@etherrockprice) August 26, 2021

In the first phase of the NFT craze, most of the high-value NFTs included digital art, meme, or memorabilia, however now it seems old NFT collectibles with limited supply have caught the eyes of investors. Other digital collectibles that have been making a lot of noise because of the hype are CryptoPunk, another JPEG collectibles.

Visa Enters NFT Space

The craze of NFT can be understood from the fact that VISA, the payment processing giant also focused on building crypto spending infrastructure made its first-ever NFT investment in CryptoPunk. Visa paid $150,000 in ETH to buy the NFT and also suggested it would buy more. The payment processing giant also showed keen interest in joining the Metaverse and becoming a gateway for NFT transactions as well.

Over the last 60 years, Visa has built a collection of historic commerce artifacts – from early paper credit cards to the zip-zap machine. Today, as we enter a new era of NFT-commerce, Visa welcomes CryptoPunk #7610 to our collection. https://t.co/XoPFfwxUiu

— VisaNews (@VisaNews) August 23, 2021

CryptoPunk like ETHRocks was first created in 2017 with a 10,000 limited series and it has been exchanged for millions in the past couple of months. The likes of Logan Paul also hold one of these digital collectibles and recently was offered nearly a million dollars for his digital avatar. The NFT hype could accelerate further with the second leg of the crypto market and we may come across much more unknown collectible series whose valuation would grow into millions within days.

About Author

Prashant Jha

An engineering graduate, Prashant focuses on UK and Indian markets. As a crypto-journalist, his interests lie in blockchain technology adoption across emerging economies.