Aphex Twin drops surprise NFT auction – current bid at $100k

Aphex Twin has dropped a surprise NFT auction. The auction is a 1 of 1 mint of a collaboration with visual artist Weirdcore, with accompanying music and SFX by Aphex Twin. As of Sunday morning, the winning bid stands at 52.77 Ethereum, equivalent to just under $100,000. 

An NFT is a token that defines ownership of a piece of a digital asset such as an MP3, gif, video clip, PDF or any digital file. The concept has exploded recently with artists like Disclosure, Carl Cox, Steve Aoki, Jacques Greene and Richie Hawtin all minting items to sell as NFTs, be it one-off images, tracks or in Greene’s case, the publishing to a new single. 

NFTs have come under fire for their apparent environmental impact – NFTs exist on the blockchain, which is an ultra-secure P2P ledger that requires heavy CPU in order to verify the authenticity of transactions. ‘Miners’ spend time trying to solve complex cryptography in order to verify the blocks, and in doing so use huge amounts of power. Supporters of crypto, NFTs and blockchain technology have played down the impact. 

Aphex Twin addressed the issue by tweeting: “We will spend a portion of the money on planting trees and either donating to permaculture projects or setting them up ourselves, depending on how much we get.” 

You can see the artwork and bid on the auction here.