The NFT revolution has arrived, and celebrities and creatives are flocking with actress and artist, Lindsay Lohan leading the pack.
Lohan dropped a new NFT this past weekend on the Tron network in a group bid along with artists like Tyga and Swae Lee.
Lindsay On Board
For many, NFT's wild popularity seemed to spark out of nowhere, and many are still confused. It all started in February for Lohan when she first started investigating NFT's and praising Tron founder Justin Sun.
NFT's are non-fungible-tokens that are minted or authenticated by Blockchain and exchanged via cryptocurrencies. The non-fungible element indicates only one NFT can exist, creating scarcity that doesn't exist without this digital form of authentication. Danny Nelson for Yahoo Finance describes NFT's as "digital bragging rights." They exist as numbers and letters on a blockchain ledger indicating who owns the digital asset, who sold it and when it was sold.
Lohan's involvement comes after an understandable gap in her resume since her dance track Back to Me her first single in twelve years, which was released April 3, 2020, by Casablanca Records. Billboard called it a "'chill track with an upbeat club vibe'" and noted that the lyrics provide Lohan a chance to confront. "her difficult years growing up in the public eye and how she's become stronger from experience." More recently, Lohan has been promoting a jewelry collaboration with designer Lily Baker. The collection includes the set of lightning bolt chain earrings among metallic stars and coins recently debuted in Lohan's first NFT.
Catching Lightning
The NFT in question, "Lightning," sold for $50,000 on the Tron network in a group sale last weekend. The NFT depicts a red and black graphic portrait of Lohan wearing the earrings mentioned above. She underwrote the post, "I believe in a world which is financially decentralized and the power of dreams to be the core lightning network of humans."
Users noted that the lightning imagery might reference the Lightning Network. However, Market Musings clarified, "Many of her followers tweeted about the fact that Rarible uses the Ethereum network," not lightning, "but it didn't seem to affect the sale of her token. It was snapped up for 33 ETH — worth a cool $58,947 at the time of writing." It seems unlikely that Lohan was intentionally signaling a partnership with the lighting but rather was simply trying to promote her existing collaboration with her foray into NFT's. Lohan has worked predominantly with Tron and Rarible to sell her NFT's and has been linked to Tron and its founder Justin Sun since NFT's sparked her interest in back in February.
In March, Lohan spoke with media outlets about taking NFT to the next stage on the app creator-focused app Clubhouse. She participated in a similar event Friday, March 26, on the site FanDoa to discuss bridging the gap between celebrities, artists, and their fans to promote "exclusive connections."
Lohan has been working the perimeter of entertainment since her "Mean Girls" era peak. It makes sense that Lohan would find her place in the NFT story as an artist seeking to reinvent herself in an industry that dismissed her value due to human error.
Herbie The NFT Bug
Earlier this month Lohan also sold 100/100 editions of an NFT sold on Rarible.com composed of a graphic, luminescent image of Lohan holding a metallic diamond over her left eye. Lohan noted on Twitter that she used the funds to donate to Save The Children and gave $10k to one of the bidders. She also sold another NFT also on Rarible, calling it "super special as it is a concept from the most iconic work of my career." This NFT depicted Lohan leaning against a yellow Volkswagon bug with the Bitcoin symbol embellishing the hood, akin to the iconic one featured in Disney's Herbie Fully Loaded.
For creatives whose work is often replicated endlessly without compensation, NFT's are incredibly alluring as they create the scarcity that didn't exist previously. If Lindsay opts to decide to sell a song next time as an NFT, she will make a secure Blockchain with ledgers for each of the creatives who participated in the song, from producers, musicians to writers, and editors. The platform is incredibly logical for the music industry, where creatives are cut out of revenue streams early and often and incredibly practical. Blockchain serves as an automated bookkeeper for the NFT's revenue. This way, as the song accrues value over time, the percussionist gets his hypothetical cut every time there is a sale, and it's all a secure encrypted transaction. Though it's important to note specific selling platforms are more secure than others, and there is potential, at least at this juncture, for someone to falsely authenticate an NFT that is not, in fact, the original. But these kinks in the system have not scared away artists like Lohan, who are fixated on the increased agency NFT's allow creators over their work. If Lohan makes music into an NFT, she will determine the NFT's sale point for CDs versus digital downloads and have a direct hand in all such decision-making. The band Kings of Leon plans to release their next album as an NFT, serving as a bit of a guinea pig, and will hopefully bring more clarity to how this will all unfold for artists.
. Thursday, Lohan released a promotion for her brand-new NFT titled "#theFandao." Lohan's tweet shows the NFT obscured by a pulsating purple cloud backed by choir chamber audio, sparking hype and perhaps the dawning of a new era, or maybe just a Da Vinci Code remake.
If Lohan's success so far is any indication, creatives and finance minds alike might want to start taking her and NFT's more seriously.
Sources: Pyments.com, Bitcoin.com, Decrypt.co, Slate.com, WSJ.com, Rarible, Billboard, Coinmarketcap.com