Popular French Magazine Paris Match Converts Iconic Photos Into Ethereum NFTs, Puts Them For Sale In Auction

Paris Match, considered one of the best outlets for photojournalism, plans to auction some of the most iconic photos from its archives as non-fungible tokens.

What Happened: The French weekly news magazine said that the auction, beginning Monday, will have 75 NFTs for sale, all of which were created on Ethereum ETH/USD, the blockchain known for housing some of the biggest collections like CryptoPunks and Bored Ape Yacht Club, reported Decrypt.

Some photos selected for Monday’s auction included The Rolling Stones, Jack Nicholson, Orson Welles, and John Travolta. News reports on watershed events like the Berlin Wall were also included.

The opening bid for photos began at 0.3 Ether, worth $1,148 at the time of writing. Along with the NFTs, the owners will also get physical prints of the photos.

As with other assets in this category, Paris Match NFT owners will have full digital license rights to the photos.

Why It Matters: The development coincides with an increased desire to convert entities with important historical and artistic significance to NFTs.

Earlier this month, digital asset investment firm Galaxy Digital announced the tokenization of a nearly 300-year-old vintage violin once owned by Russian royalty. The tokenized version was used as collateral for a loan.

The global NFT sales volume surged 45% to $19.25 million in the last 24 hours, according to CryptoSlam. The total number of sales rose 11% to 193,714. 

Ethereum clocked the highest sales at $7.19 million, followed by Polygon MATIC/USD and Bitcoin BTC/USD.

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