Vitalik Buterin Portrait Auctioned as NFT Has $636k Minimum Price

Updated: 19 July 2023

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A portrait of Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of Ethereum, is being auctioned off as a non-fungible token (NFT) with a floor price of 333 ETH, or $636,000.

It was taken 10 years ago, when the crypto entrepreneur was just 19.

Vitalik Buterin Portrait Was Taken by a Canadian photographer

It was taken by a photographer named Andrew Miller. He took to Twitter to announce that his ‘resplendent’ art is now being hosted by Encadrium studio based in Montreal, while the art itself is being auctioned off at Gallery Manifold until the 31st of July.

Encadrium studio here in #Montreal is hosting my resplendent print of @VitalikButerin while my reserve 333 ETH auction is underway at https://t.co/AcnXi0XTY9
Ongoing until end of July. #nft #ethereum #art #history #portrait pic.twitter.com/6EEh86Lr15

— Andrew Miller (@awesomephoto2) July 6, 2023

Why Vitalik Buterin’s Portrait is Being Auctioned as an NFT?

Ethereum has become the world’s leading smart contract platform, used by geeks, gamers, traders, corporate types, and many more. From that whitepaper to a huge global community of Ethereum contributors, it was a long twisted road with challenges, setbacks, and scientific and engineering breakthroughs. To celebrate this historic achievement, the first of his inaugural portraits is now available.

Ethereum is celebrating its 10th year. The NFT sale of Vitalik’s portrait seems to have come out to mark the occasion, as reported by Coin Telegraph.

The said portrait has never been sold before and is an original piece of work. At the time it was taken, Vitalik was not related to cryptocurrency and was so famous.

What Inspired Andrew Millers to Take the Photograph?

The NFT listing shares the story behind this photograph. Photographer Andrew Miller was having a take-out meal outside the Bitcoin Decentral building in Toronto when he first met Buterin.

The 19-year-old Vitalik came across as a normal, naive teenager, but the photographer was able to get a glimpse of a spark in him. As Vitalik went on about Ethereum and cryptocurrency, Andrew was able to see that this teenager holds a great vision for the future.

Andrew wanted to give the young entrepreneur “a strong public image and marketability” and so offered to take a portrait to be used in Vitalik’s blog.

The portrait was never sold or licensed. It is, however, used by Vitalik on his blog. Almost a decade later, the portrait stands as a strong testament to how far Ethereum has come.

What Will the Owner of This NFT Get?

As per the listing, the dimension of this digital asset is 1097px by 1382px and is the highest-quality version of the image available on the internet. The highest resolution file of this image will be privately delivered to the new owner by the photographer after the auction concludes.

In addition to this, the first owner of the NFT will also have “full copyright of the image and retroactive immunity to copyright infringement”.

The bidding for the portrait starts at 333 ETH, which is equivalent to US$636k. Ethereum is currently trading at $1,910.

What is an NFT?

NFTs or Non-fungible tokens are digital assets that have been tokenised through blockchain technology. NFTs hold unique codes and metadata which makes them different from other assets. Thus, NFTs can never be replaced. They are deemed original and one-of-a-kind.

Like any other digital assets, NFTs can be bought and sold for fiat currency, cryptocurrencies, or with other NFTs.

There are several categories of NFTs, such as digital art, photography, collectibles, music, etc.

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