Remember when you were a teenager and had to bag groceries or mow lawns to make some extra money? Well, things have changed. The Gen-Z kids have grown up with technology and many of them have learned how to code and create NFTs. And thanks to the recent NFT and crypto boom, they are making a fortune out of it.
The London-based 12-year old Ahmed is your normal kid who is now an expert in NFTs, smart contracts, collections of code, and the monies that come with them. He started programming after watching his father, Imran, a web developer. Beginning with HTML and CSS at 5-years, the lad perfected his coding skills and progressed to JavaScript and other related programs. Ahmed has created his NFT collection and has over 40 colorful avatars called Minecraft Yee Haa, which he coded independently. On CNBC Ahmed said:
“I first learned about NFTs earlier this year […] I got fascinated with NFTs because you can easily transfer the ownership of an NFT by the blockchain […] I created after spending too many hours playing Minecraft.”
Enough money to help his parents pay off their home and cars
For Washington DC-based 15-year old Jaiden Stipp, the money started flowing in small fragments of Ethereum. From the initial $300, the high school student soon sold a digital illustration of a waving astronaut-like cartoon at 20 ETH valued at $30,000. Stipp says:
“My dad was like, ‘No way this is actual money […] it seems like it’s a lot of fake money being passed around. So we took some of the money out just to see what’s actually real, and then at the bank. I was like, ‘Whoa.’”
The teen started out making and selling logo designs for his buddies for $20 to $70. Making the astronaut cartoon and converting it into an NFT made him a blue-chip artist after putting it on auction. He has since made four more NFTs and made enough money to help his parents pay off their home and cars. He is using the remaining cash to empower other budding artists eager to join the world of blockchain-based arts through non-fungible tokens.
A new class of artists who are barely old enough to drive
NFTs are digital files created using blockchain computer codes. They are bought and sold using cryptocurrency like Ether and exist in a file with a unique code, so they can’t be duplicated. A 40-year old artist called Beeple became an overnight sensation when he sold his NFT for $69 million at Christie’s. However, there is a new class of artists who are barely old enough to drive. They market their works in NFT markets like OpenSea, Atomic Hub, and Nefty Blocks and promote them on social media. 26-year old NFT promoter Griffin Cock Foster told New York Times:
“In the NFT world, anyone can post online, market themselves on Twitter and build a following from a young age […] the comparison I like to make is it’s similar to the way TikTok is causing people to be discovered at a really young age.”
Tom is a long-serving freelance writer who specializes in the blockchain and cryptocurrency niche. You may even call him a crypto-enthusiast with over 10-years’ experience in content creation, blog writing, and SEO. He is a philosophical figurehead who believes that to make our world a better place, we must invest in incorruptible products and procedures, of which Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are leading examples.
