Former first lady Melania Trump announced Tuesday that she would be auctioning off a hat that she wore to meet with French President Emmanuel Macron (and his wife Brigitte Macron) during a state visit to White House 2018. The auction includes a water color as well as a token that is non-fungible (NFT), which will be mint by SOL. The Independent reported.
The auction begins Jan. 11, and the opening bids begin at $250,000, or 1415.86 of cryptocurrency Solana (SOL), according a press release that Trump posted to Twitter.
Each of the three items will be signed and dated by Marc-Antoine Coulon, artist Marc Trump. She will receive a portion of the funds raised. “Fostering the Future”Initiative that provides scholarships in technology and computer science to foster children.
Solana describes themselves on its websiteAs “the fastest blockchain in the world and the fastest growing ecosystem in crypto, with over 400 projects”This includes NFTs. According to their website, the company is proud of its speed in mining crypto. “Solana is all about speed, with 400 millisecond block times.”They also prefer to keep their costs of buying currency low. “Solana’s scalability ensures transactions remain less than $0.01 for both developers and users.”
Solana, now the fifth largest cryptocurrency in value, has seen a 6,500% increase in its value over one year. Forbes reported.
Forbes says that Solana, along with many other crypto-companies, has been losing around $1 trillion since November.
“The bitcoin price has crashed from a peak of almost $70,000 per bitcoin less than two months ago to lows of just over $40,000 today—a decline of around 40%. Meanwhile, other major cryptocurrencies ethereum, Binance’s BNB, solana, cardano and XRP have all lost a similar amount,” Forbes reported.
The $1 trillion combined losses of the companies is not being considered a loss. “temporary setback”Forbes reports that traders are the most common.
Mrs. Trump’s recent auction announcement is not her first foray into NFTs and crypto.
She debuted an NFT in December. “Melania’s Vision,”Washington Post reported that it featured an illustration of her eyes on Solana. One SOL was the price, at that time worth about $150. Washington Post reported.
A Washington Post op-ed called Mrs. Trump’s dip into NFTs as a “grift.”
“NFTs are the new hot thing, although as wits on Twitter are known to point out, investing in a Beanie Baby also once seemed like a can’t-miss bet. Nevertheless, many investors are jumping in without asking much in the way of questions — if they ask any at all,”Washington Post published an article about Trump’s sudden involvement in NFTs.
In recent years, non-fungible tokens are gaining popularity. Forbes last year reported that an NFT is a digital asset which represents real-world objects such as art, music and video. They can be bought and sold online with cryptocurrency.
Print money and cryptocurrencies can be considered. “fungible”These NFTs can be exchanged for each other and considered equal in value. NFTs can’t be traded in equal amounts, so they are not interchangeable. “non-fungible.”
Other NFTs may exist in many mediums such as collectibles and virtual avatars, art and GIFs, video and sports highlights, music and designer sneakers.
NFTs can only be owned by one person at a given time. This makes each NFT unique and extremely valuable.
