There’s been some building backlash against NFTs just lately, with Kanye West part of that vibe, but that hasn’t deterred Coachella from moving into non-fungible territory.

The California music festival has revealed it will be auctioning and selling a series of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) featuring festival passes, photos, posters and other various perks.

The NFTs will be issued on the Solana blockchain and will be sold through the crypto exchange FTX – specifically a marketplace set up by FTX.US, which has been growing its presence in US sports and pushes further into the mainstream with this offering.

According to its website, Coachella’s NFT collection will include 10 “key” NFTs that will grant holders lifetime access to the annual festival as well as “virtual experiences”, ie. online concerts.

This particular series will be auctioned and the NFT keys will go to the highest bidders.

The lifetime passes will additionally feature some unique experiences for 2022, such as front-row views at the main Coachella stage, accommodation in the festival’s luxury glamping tents, and a chef-prepared dinner. Similar offerings will be given to key holders for the festival each year.

The festival’s NFT series also includes two larger collections that will be sold at more accessible, set prices. The “Sights and Sounds” collection will include 10,000 NFTs priced at US$60 each and will feature photos and music from past fests.

The 1,000-strong “Desert Reflections” collection meanwhile will feature 10 digital posters from past Coachella concerts. These ones will go for US$180 each.

Buyers within these collections will also be able to redeem their NFT purchase for physical prints of the photos or posters.

Interestingly, Coachella is framing the layer 1 blockchain Solana as an “environmentally friendly” option, probably to counter any negative perceptions people may have about crypto usage taking up excessive energy.

Solana is a Proof of Stake (PoS) blockchain, and also uses a new technology called Proof of History (PoH).

The short story there is that this form of transaction-validating consensus mechanism (the process that helps secure and keep the network running) does indeed use a fraction of the energy of Proof of Work (PoW). PoW is employed by both Bitcoin and Ethereum, although the latter is in the process of switching to PoS this year. 

Sales for the Coachella NFT collections will begin on February 4 at 10am PST (Feb 5, 5am AEDT). A portion of the proceeds will reportedly be donated toward charity.

 

Kanye? Kan-nah

It seems rapper Kanye West won’t be following the likes of Paris Hilton, Jimmy Fallon, Justin Bieber and Ben Simmons in forking out hundreds of thousands of dollars for a Bored Ape any time soon. Or, for that matter a CryptoPunk, Cool Cat, Salty Pirate, CryptoDickbutt or anything basically non-fungible.

In an emphatically expressed Instagram post made earlier this week to his 10.5 million followers, “Ye”, as he’s now calling himself, wrote: “Do not ask me to do a f**king NFT”.

The message, which displayed a photo of a handwritten note, explains that he’s focused on “building real products in the real world.”

“Stop asking me to do NFTs,” the famous hip-hop artist added in a follow-up post. “I’m not finna co-sign… For now I’m not on that wave… I make music and products in the real world.”

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