Atari’s corporate zombie raises $ 110,000 overnight from NFT Centipede



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The company that runs the Atari brand (which has only the slightest connection to the original company known as Atari at this point) is the latest company to embark on the speculative mania surrounding non-fungible tokens ( NFT).

Atari SA’s first NFT auction, which concluded Wednesday evening on OpenSea, raised 47,582 ether (around $ 92,000 at current prices) from the sale of 10 cryptographically signed NFTs, each representing a pattern 3D of an Atari 2600 Centipede cartridge. The cheapest of the 10 NFTs sold for 3.25 ether (around $ 6,300), while the most expensive (numbered “1 in 30” in its digital stats, although only 10 have sold so far) has cost a whopping 9.4395 ether (around $ 18,300).

A separate set of 100 NFT representing red Centipede The cartridges also sold in the Harmony One Marketplace for the equivalent of $ 180.78 each, raising an additional $ 18,000 in just an hour and a half, according to a spokesperson.

For the background, a real, factory-sealed copy of Centipede for the Atari 2600 – complete with box, instructions, and a mint condition cartridge that can be used to play the game on real hardware – can be purchased on eBay now for $ 52.99 including shipping.

Each of the 10 ‘cartridge’ NFTs acts as a sort of ‘certificate of authenticity’ for the underlying digital element, with the ownership and uniqueness of the token confirmed by the work of miners on the Ethereum blockchain. The 3D models themselves were created and sold with the help of Animoca Brands and the collection company NFT Quidd, which hosts the relevant files on their servers.

The actual NFT on the Ethereum blockchain simply serves as a transferable, traceable, and “possessed” digital reference to that content hosted on the server. But Quidd promises that in the future, owners of its NFTs will be able to store their items “permanently on the blockchain”. Quidd equates this potential process with “having a physical collectible card of great value, say a rookie Michael Jordan card, and deciding to authenticate and categorize it,” bridle “it to protect it from damage, insure with an insurance company and store it in a safe or other secure space. “

More nostalgic NFTs to come

Atari’s six-figure NFT windfall so far is just the first wave of a larger Atari capsule collection, which will hit and auction various ‘limited edition’ digital collectibles based on Centipede and Pong, to start. This includes 60 other Atari 2600s Centipede NFT cartridges, artist renditions of pixelated game scenes and three NFTs representing “the first quarter inserted into the first Pong Arcade game at Andy Capp’s Bar in 1972, based on the actual physical neighborhood owned by Al Alcorn “(which looks pretty much any other neighborhood, to be honest).

The most exclusive of these upcoming NFTs: a 3D model of a Centipede Arcade cabinet with the digital signature of co-creator Dona Bailey – will come with a “Beautifully restored and functional original Centipede Coin-Op physical cabinet” for the winner of the initial auction. As if that didn’t blur the line between physical and digital collectibles enough, the owner of this physical game will be able to unlock “a unique augmented reality experience” by pointing a smartphone at the cabinet.

It’s not the first fashionable tech trend that the Atari corporate brand has been quick to embrace in recent years. In 2018, the company’s stock jumped 52% on learning that Atari was breaking into the cryptocurrency market with Atari Token (the price of these tokens has risen slightly since they actually started trading. last November). The company is mining this token in its own branded cryptocurrency exchange as well as in its future plans for an online cryptocurrency-based Atari casino. Not to mention other quixotic brand efforts like the crowdfunded Atari VCS microconsole and the Atari-themed hotel and licensed speaker projects.

It’s still unclear if any of these new, purely digital NFT collectibles will actually gain value in the future. Whatever happens, however, Atari has already proven that there is money to be made using NFTs to create artificially “rare” digital items representing well-known video game franchises from the past.

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