Indonesia: Man takes NFT selfies every day for years, makes crypto fortune

Jakarta Post via Asia News Network

17:10 JST, January 26, 2022

A young Indonesian man named Ghozali is making headlines for selling a selfie for 3.1 trillion Indonesian rupiahs ($216 million) as a nonfungible token (NFT). The picture with the ceiling price, titled “Ghozali_Ghozalu #528”, is a part of a selfie collection of 933 photos he took every day from 2017 to 2021. The collection, titled Ghozali Everyday is for sale at NFT marketplace OpenSea.

Initially, every picture of the collection was on sale at a floor price of 0.0001 ETH (Ethereum) or about Rp 48,000. However, the price was consistently driven up, and the cheapest picture from the collection is now priced at 0.3 ETH or about Rp 14.3 million.

The selfies are simply of the man staring blankly and expressionlessly into the camera with variations in hairstyles and interior background. The selfies, taken with minimalist lighting and a carelessly groomed face, were clearly taken inside a home that looks like so many other houses in Indonesia, cramped with the clutter of assorted homemaking equipment against colorful but muted wall paint.

The prized “Ghozali_Ghozalu #528” was bought by an OpenSea user named sonbook, who is now putting it on sale again. Twitter user @Ghozali_Ghozalu, strongly believed to be Ghozali himself, regularly updates about the selling progress of his collection.

“I took those selfies from when I was 18 years old until I was 22 years old. Those are really pictures of me in front of the computer that I took every day,” Ghozali wrote.

On Jan. 12, he announced that from the 933 selfies, only 331 pictures are left for buyers to buy. It was only three days since his initial offering. Ghozali said the buyers are free to do anything they want with his selfies, except to abuse them in disrespectful ways.

“You can do anything [with my selfies] like flipping or whatever but please don’t abuse my photos or my parents will [be] very disappointed [in] me. I believe in you guys so please take care of my photos,” he said.