The Economist sold the cover as an NFT for 99.9 ether

After publishing a themed DeFi cover in the style of Alice in Wonderland, which attracted significant attention from the crypto industry, The Economist took its own advice and jumped into the DeFi 'rabbit hole' by selling the cover as an NFT.

The magazine successfully sold the NFT of its cover from September 18 on October 26 for 99.9 ether, or nearly 419,000 dollars at the time of sale, which is now worth 50,000 dollars more after the price of Ethereum increased.

The cover 'Down the rabbit hole: The promise and perils of decentralized finance' features the original illustration by Sir John Tenniel from Alice in Wonderland, which was reimagined for the Web3 era by digital artist Justin Metz. The sale marks the first entry of the 178-year-old international media outlet into NFTs.

The one-day auction for the piece was opened via Foundation NFT marketplace. Intense bidding led to an increase in the price of the digital cover by more than a quarter of a million dollars within minutes.

The Economist is not the first traditional media outlet to enter the world of NFTs. In March, The New York Times sold an NFT of a column for 562,000 dollars. TIME sold several digital covers earlier this year, and Associated Press sold a piece of digital art.

Lider is the first media outlet in Croatia to create its own NFT. The decision was made to animate Lider’s first cover, which depicts a large beating heart with the title 'Lider becomes Diler' behind it, and vice versa. After just five days from creation and listing on the OpenSea platform, Lider’s NFT was sold for a symbolic 0.0007 ether compared to the million-dollar amounts of global business media.

The Economist views the auction as an experiment that will allow its staff and readership to better understand the promise and reality of NFTs.

– We have always written about the potential of technology to change the world, whether it is self-driving cars or gene therapies. NFTs, and the crypto infrastructure on which they rest, could transform finance. By creating and selling our own NFT, we are experiencing this firsthand – the editorial team wrote in a statement last week.

The Economist will retain 10 percent of the royalty share, with proceeds from the sale and all future sales going to the Economist Educational Foundation, an independent charitable organization.

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