New York photographer Aimos is releasing his iconic photograph of the late XXXTentacion as an NFT that will be sold at auction on May 25th. X uploaded the portrait to his Instagram in 2018.
The highly-coveted NFT will be released on the Blockparty marketplace.
“NFTs are a very exciting new medium for photographers,” Aimos said. “We now can create additional resources for young photographers and for those who aren’t as well-informed, and moving forward, we’re creating a system to give artists more opportunities. The end goal would be for photographers to be able to handle their business and to not be afraid of the threat of copyright or credit. NFTs solve this issue, and I’m thrilled to start this off by releasing my work on Blockparty.”
A portion of the proceeds from the auction will support #HalfTheStory, a non-profit organization that seeks to improve young people's relationship with social media, through advocacy, education, and providing access to resources. It also supports the National Domestic Violence Hotline.
NFT's have seen a boom in popularity in recent months with rap mogul Jay-Z recently making a massive $19 million investment into the movement. A series of unreleased XXXTentacion songs from SoundCloud have also been made into NFTs.
[Via]