Amitabh Bachchan emerged as one of the first major Indian celebrities to announce his series of non-fungible token (NFT) earlier this year. Excited fans of the Bollywood actor purchased digital collectibles from his NFT series for a total amount of $966,000 (approximately Rs. 7.18 crore). The items in Bachchan's series included a recital of his father's famous poem “Madhubala”, autographed vintage posters of himself, as well as other items associated with his identity, work, and stardom. The bidding for this collection began on November 1, and closed on the day of India's biggest festival, Diwali, on November 4.
“In this world of digitisation, NFTs have opened a new realm of opportunities to engage with my fans even more than before. The successful auction of my NFTs, some of the most treasured and personal moments of my life and career were so well received and invested in by my supporters,” the 79-year-old actor said in a statement, commenting on the development.
The veteran actor who is famous for his systematically numbered tweets had been expressing excitement around his NFT collection on the micro-blogging site from his handle @SrBachchan.
NFT exchange platform Beyondlife.club that auctioned the NFTs also took to Twitter to share the raging success of Bachchan's NFT collection
The highest-auctioned item from the series was the “Madhushala” poem recital, recorded in the actor's own voice, which crossed a total of $756,000 (roughly Rs. 5.5 crore) by the time the bidding closed. It had garnered bids up to $420,000 (roughly Rs. 3 crore) on the first day of the auction.
A special “Loot Box” was also announced by Beyondlife.club for the Bachchan's NFTs to let buyers of this “Loot Box” win NFT gifts as well as a chance to get bonus art pieces and vintage posters of the Sholay film actor. The 5,000 LootBox NFTs were sold within the first 54 minutes of them going live and received bids worth $50,000 (roughly Rs. 37 lakh), Beyondlife.com revealed.
Furthermore, the limited-edition vintage posters with digital NFT certificate of authenticity as well as BigB Punks and NFT Arts fetched $94,052 (roughly Rs. 69.8 lakh) and $66,900 (roughly Rs. 49.6 lakh) respectively.
The NFT trend is gradually picking pace among other Bollywood celebrities as well.
In October, Indian fashion designer Manish Malhotra had also released a five-piece NFT series on WazirX crypto trading platform.
Actress Sunny Leone also reportedly invested in NFTs last month, becoming the first Bollywood actor to have done so.
Earlier in September, NFT trading platform Colexion roped in Indian artists including Suniel Shetty, Aamir Ali, Mika Singh, and Sidhu Moose Wala among others to be part of its marketplace as well.
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