Aphex Twin Releases Surprise NFT

Renowned electronic musician Aphex Twin surprised fans by releasing an NFT on Saturday night on NFT platform Foundation. 

Entitled  “/afx\/weirdcore\<blockscanner>,” the piece is a glitchy, animated rendering of the artist’s face—a motif that has also appeared on cover art across his discography.

Aphex Twin, whose real name is Richard D. James, shared the news in a tweet:

He also wrote that he plans to offset the ecological footprint of the NFT: “We will spend a portion of the money on planting trees and either donating to permaculture projects or setting them up ourselves, depending on how much we get.”

NFTs or non-fungible tokens are blockchain-based tokens that represent ownership of a collectible, and are being used for everything from digital sports cards to NBA highlight videos to albums to artworks. Last week, an NFT work by the artist Beeple sold for $60 million at auction through Christie's.

Can NFTs Change How We Value Music?

Last week, the Tennessee rock band Kings of Leon announced they’d be releasing their new album, When You See Yourself, as a non-fungible token (NFT) —a digital, blockchain-based collectible. In this case, it works a little like a deluxe edition or a bundle; the NFT comes packaged with a set of MP3s and an animated version of the cover art, as well as a physical copy of the vinyl. These perks aren’t nothing, but it’s tempting to view the whole rollout as a cynical attempt to cash in on the hype a...

The auction is set to run until Sunday evening, and the high bid is already 30 ETH—over $57,000—and rapidly climbing.