Saudi Press

Saudi Arabia and the world
Monday, Oct 06, 2025

Money for nothing: inside the high-stakes world of NFTs

Money for nothing: inside the high-stakes world of NFTs

You’ve probably spent the past few months reading about the rise of NFTs with one eyebrow raised. Want to own a digital racehorse to run in an online race on Zed Run, a racing platform?

You buy an NFT. Buying a digital artwork? Again, that’ll be an NFT. Non-fungible tokens, as they are technically termed, have become big business for investors and artists of all stripes. At the cutting edge of tech, they are being embraced by early adopters keen to make millions — and ignored by the rest of us.

But your time is up. NFTs are here to stay. Ignorance is no longer bliss. NFTs are virtual “tokens” attached to items that are often, but not always, digital. “An NFT is a certificate of ownership,” says Brendan Dawes, a British artist who has dabbled in NFTs since July 2020. “What you’re buying is the provenance, the authentication that you own the work as a collector. The actual work itself is not an NFT.”

They are the digital equivalent of a scrap of paper proving a painting’s provenance. Although digital items can be regularly copied, and often are, the NFT token is the proof that in a sea of counterfeits what you own is the real deal.

Forgeries aren’t possible because the tokens are stored on the blockchain, a technology for recording transactions that is most associated with cryptocurrency, which is distributed among many users. Because many people have a copy of the blockchain, it’s not possible to amend it without being caught out.

You’re buying the “token” of “non-fungible token” when you choose to invest in an NFT. The “non-fungible” bit refers to its uniqueness: cash is fungible, as is bitcoin, which is a distant cousin of NFT, running on the same blockchain technology that records transactions.

An NFT isn’t. It’s one of a kind and irreplicable. Think of the unique one cent magenta stamp from British Guiana due to go on sale at auction next month with a listing price of $10 million. Like NFTs, it is non-fungible. The item attached to the NFT isn’t always unique; like all digital files, you can copy them. But just as a forgery of a Michelangelo isn’t worth the same as one by the master, so an NFT-less digital file is just that: a cheap copy.

You may blanch at paying big money for digital items. “In Fortnite and other places like that, people are used to paying money for digital assets,” Dawes says. “To those people it’s nothing new. People say, ‘Why would I pay for a digital thing?’ Well, you do that every time you rent a digital movie.”

What’s got the technorati so enthused is the idea that NFTs could be the next cryptocurrency, a valuable, vastly ballooning investment opportunity — if they get in on the ground floor.

If you too want to get involved, here’s what you could buy.

Kittens and punks


Not real ones, but virtual ones. Every technology needs a proof of concept to convince people it works. Gaming needed Pong to prove it could be big; online retail needed Amazon. In the same vein, NFTs needed CryptoKitties.

The curiously titled game was released in 2017 and was a bit like a tech-enabled Tamagotchi. Kittens were digitally birthed with unique characteristics in 12 different “cattributes” — never say nerds don’t have a sense of humour.

Genesis, the first cryptokitty, a white moggy with blue feet, ears and tail, was sold for about $117,000 in 2017. You can’t buy Genesis, but its owner is offering three of its 11 cryptokitties for sale at about $10,650 (£7,670). The average Brit would have to save up three months of their salary to buy all three of them.

Similarly mind-boggling amounts are transacted on CryptoPunks, another early proof of concept, where you can buy computer-generated pixel art characters. In the past month CryptoPunks transactions topped $107 million.

Wine and beer


If you’re after the allure of being a wine collector, but don’t have the space in your poky home for a well-stocked cellar, make do with the next-best thing: owning NFTs of images of wine bottles. Château Darius is selling images of its bordeaux wine bottles for £300 and more.

Confusingly, the owner of the vineyard told a newspaper that the goal was to make wine “accessible everywhere”, which seems odd when you’re asking people to fork out more than most wines available at Waitrose for proof of ownership of a digital photograph. Château Darius does promise to send bottles to random investors, though.

Horses


A better bet might be online racing platform Zed Run, which allows you to buy an NFT horse and race or trade it for profit. It’s like CryptoKitties, but with added competition. One high-ranked horse with good form on Zed Run recently sold for $125,000.

Art


The art world is one of the most advanced NFT spaces. An NFT work by the 38-year-old digital artist Mike Winkelmann, better known as Beeple, sold at Christie’s in March for $69 million, with more big-money sales planned. A 38-year-old British expat based in Hong Kong who goes by the name Whale Shark is one of the world’s biggest NFT art collectors. More than 210,000 pieces are in his collection, including Dawes’s first NFT work. Dawes has continued producing pieces, saying he’s done “really well” out of the NFT world.

Newsletter

Related Articles

Saudi Press
0:00
0:00
Close
Syria Holds First Elections Since Fall of Assad
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
UK, Canada, and Australia Officially Recognise Palestine in Historic Shift
New Eye Drops Show Promise in Replacing Reading Glasses for Presbyopia
Dubai Property Boom Shows Strain as Flippers Get Buyer’s Remorse
Top AI Researchers Are Heading Back to China as U.S. Struggles to Keep Pace
JWST Data Brings TRAPPIST-1e Closer to Earth-Like Habitability
UAE-US Stargate Project Poised to Make Abu Dhabi a Global AI Powerhouse
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Kuwait opens bidding for construction of three cities to ease housing crunch.
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Indian Student Engineers Propose “Project REBIRTH” to Protect Aircraft from Crashes Using AI, Airbags and Smart Materials
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
Turkish authorities seize leading broadcaster amid fraud and tax investigation
Qatari prime minister says Netanyahu ‘killed any hope’ for Israeli hostages
Apple Introduces Ultra-Thin iPhone Air, Enhanced 17 Series and New Health-Focused Wearables
Big Oil Slashes Jobs and Investments Amid Prolonged Low Crude Prices
Social Media Access Curtailed in Turkey After CHP Calls for Rallies Following Police Blockade of Istanbul Headquarters
Did the Houthis disrupt the internet in the Middle East? Submarine cables cut in the Red Sea
Gold Could Reach Nearly $5,000 if Fed Independence Is Undermined, Goldman Sachs Warns
Uruguay, Colombia and Paraguay Secure Places at 2026 World Cup
Trump Administration Advances Plans to Rebrand Pentagon as Department of War Instead of the Fake Term Department of Defense
Tether Expands into Gold Sector with Profit-Driven Diversification
Trump’s New War – and the ‘Drug Tyrant’ Fearing Invasion: ‘1,200 Missiles Aimed at Us’
At the Parade in China: Laser Weapons, 'Eagle Strike,' and a Missile Capable of 'Striking Anywhere in the World'
Information Warfare in the Age of AI: How Language Models Become Targets and Tools
Israeli Airstrike in Yemen Kills Houthi Prime Minister
After the Shock of Defeat, Iranians Yearn for Change
YouTube Altered Content by Artificial Intelligence – Without Permission
Iran Faces Escalating Water Crisis as Protests Spread
More Than Half a Million Evacuated as Typhoon Kajiki Heads for Vietnam
HSBC Switzerland Ends Relationships with Over 1,000 Clients from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Qatar, and Egypt
Sharia Law Made Legally Binding in Austria Despite Warnings Over 'Incompatible' Values
Dogfights in the Skies: Airbus on Track to Overtake Boeing and Claim Aviation Supremacy
Tim Cook Promises an AI Revolution at Apple: "One of the Most Significant Technologies of Our Generation"
Are AI Data Centres the Infrastructure of the Future or the Next Crisis?
Miles Worth Billions: How Airlines Generate Huge Profits
Zelenskyy Returns to White House Flanked by European Allies as Trump Pressures Land-Swap Deal with Putin
Beijing is moving into gold and other assets, diversifying away from the dollar
Cristiano Ronaldo Makes Surprise Stop at New Hong Kong Museum
×