An NFT model of an arrest warrant for anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela has raised US$130,550 (RM550,921) at public sale, with proceeds going in the direction of a museum preserving the historical past of South Africa’s anti-apartheid wrestle.
South Africa’s first democratic, black president was arrested on Aug 5, 1962, and later jailed for 27 years.
The reserve worth on the Saturday evening public sale in Cape Town was 900,000 rand (RM260,317), however the non-fungible tokens or NFT, “offered for 1.9mil rand (RM550,921) by way of a purchaser on-line,” Ahren Posthumus, CEO of the digital auctioneer Momint stated on Sunday.
The purchaser was a foreigner, based mostly within the United Arab Emirates.
“Proceeds for the Mandela NFT will go to Liliesleaf museum, to maintain their doorways open and keep afloat,” Posthumus informed AFP.
Liliesleaf shuttered its doorways in September 2021 resulting from monetary difficulties.
Selling artwork as non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, makes use of the identical expertise as crypto-currencies comparable to Bitcoin. The purchaser receives a verified digital token, which proves the art work is an authentic.
“This is mostly a distinctive and novel method of producing earnings,” Liliesleaf Farm museum founder, Nicholas Wolpe informed AFP.
The authentic doc, dated 1961, now yellowed, with gnarled edges and bearing staple holes on one facet, is handwritten in each English and Afrikaans.
It has been stored on the Liliesleaf Farm heritage web site archives in Johannesburg since round 2006, stated Wolpe.
Between 1961 and 1963, the landmark farm in an upscale northern Johannesburg suburb served as the key headquarters and nerve centre of the then banned African National Congress (ANC), which led the struggle towards white-minority rule.
Mandela hid there for a while underneath the guise of a farm employee, dressing in overalls, earlier than leaving to lift funds overseas. – AFP
