'President' Biden? Not Yet, According to Election-Themed NFT that Fetched $66,666.60

An NFT designed to mutate into one of two animations, depending on the outcome of the General Election in the U.S., is awaiting the final certification of the electoral college votes before irrevocably anointing Joe Biden or Donald Trump president.

The unusual piece, by Mike Winkelmann, a crypto-artist from Charleston, South Carolina who goes by “Beeple” online, was sold nine days ago to an anonymous buyer, “Pablo,” for $66,666.60 and depicted the presidential candidates, naked and swirling in amniotic fluid. “Pablo” purchased the piece nine days ago on behalf of the Museum of Crypto Art.

CROSSROAD
by @beeple

Initial state of our first EVER dynamic Nifty. The final animation will be decided by the outcome of the US Presidential Election. If Trump wins, it will switch to the Trump animation. If Biden wins, it will switch to the Biden animation. pic.twitter.com/ldjcMBycfH

— Nifty Gateway (@niftygateway) October 30, 2020

If Trump somehow overcomes the Biden’s apparent victory, the NFT will irreversibly turn into an animation of a storming hunk of Trump muscle—no fat on this warrior—with a crown on his head, wading through flames and past air raid sirens to save a divided nation from disaster and collapse.

But if Biden’s electoral college win survives the various recounts and lawsuits mounted by the GOP, the animated NFT will forever display an image of a decaying Tump corpse slumped next to trash, defaced with “Loser,” among other epithets, as oblivious, fresh-faced yuppies stroll by.

Trump win

Goes live TONIGHT at 7 pm ET.https://t.co/YnND6LHYwI pic.twitter.com/yIxmVGSdoy

— Nifty Gateway (@niftygateway) October 30, 2020

Sean Lenehan, a spokesman for Nifty Gateway, said that Beeple was being especially cautious about prematurely declaring a winner since the NFT’s final rendering is irrevocable. “We’re calling on a chain function that will change the IPFS hash of the image that is encoded to the Biden victory image,” Lenehan explained. “Then we’re updating the metadata that gets served from the token URI endpoint. The chain function can only be called once in either direction.”

Lest there be any confusion about who the artist favors in the election, Beeple issues a caveat emptor on the page listing his creation:

“PLEASE FUCKING NOTE: If trump wins, this token will change to that video of sexy boi king trump stomping through hell FOREVER. I don’t want you coming back to me bitching that you spent $2M* on this and now it’s a video of orangeman going HAM and it’s keeping u up at night popping mad boners.”

Beeple later defended his digital masterpiece in the mosh pit of Twitter, where some users appeared to be flabbergasted at the price his piece(s) fetched: “Stfu that this isn’t gonna be worth a fuckton more when I hit 30 years of everydays and have a permanent collection in the MOMA,” he tweeted.

holy fuck, i hope this picture stands the test of time. pic.twitter.com/EX1WrTAoqL

— beeple (@beeple) November 4, 2020

Meanwhile, Pablo has already put the piece up for sale. He’s asking $666,666.00.

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