Selfie-themed NFTs on the rise? IG influencers Irene Zhao, Indonesian student Ghozali, Japanese bento uncle

The NFT market is heating up, with "celebrity" NFTs from stars, artists, YouTubers, and other influencers continually being released. These NFTs often combine avatar-style PFPs with limited edition releases and unique functionalities, which help drive speculation. Recently, there have been more cases of NFTs becoming popular on Instagram, sparking enthusiastic responses from meme enthusiasts and indicating the high demand for NFT projects.

Here are three selfie-themed NFTs compiled. Have you come across any unusual NFTs? Feel free to share with us!

IG Influencer Irene Zhao

People who frequently browse through tweets about cryptocurrencies are no strangers to this name. Irene Zhao joined Twitter in March 2021. In addition to regularly posting glamorous photos, she actively engages in cryptocurrency discussions on Twitter, with many followers being prominent figures in the crypto community, mostly from the Chinese-speaking sphere. Renowned NFT and animation creator pplpleasr has also taken notice of Irene Zhao's presence:

Irene Zhao, an Instagram influencer with nearly 400,000 followers, reportedly originally worked in mining finance products. Her influencer activities were a hobby until the end of 2021 when she began to focus full-time on the blockchain industry, serving as the marketing director for Konomi Network.

Recently, she launched an NFT series under the name IreneDAO, featuring her personal beauty photos as the theme. The prices quickly surged from an average sale price of 0.2695 ETH on 1/14 to an average sale price of 2.3 ETH before the deadline, with a floor price of 3.3 ETH.

Despite these synthetic photo stickers, some of which were not cleanly edited, they generated a lot of discussion and ranked 36th on the daily OpenSea trading volume chart. There even emerged a copycat collection called "phireneDAO," which simply flipped the original images and still performed decently on OpenSea.

OpenSea trading volume ranking:

This NFT series consists of 1107 pieces, serving as a community pass for IreneDAO, leaning towards fan economy applications, with little explanation on the official website.

The main purpose behind the IreneDAO NFT series may be to promote SO-COL social collectables, co-founded by Irene Zhao. The platform aims to become a decentralized version of OnlyFans, Twitch, Patreon, and will adopt StarkWare as one of the L2 solutions.

Furthermore, the founder of Galaxy Digital even expressed his honor in becoming a member of Irene Zhao's team, sparking comments from the founders of Terra and Paxos.

Indonesian Student Ghozali

22-year-old Indonesian student Ghozali Ghozalu released the "Ghozali Everyday" series on OpenSea, featuring his selfies from age 18 to 22, spanning from 2017 to 2021, consisting of 933 photos issued on Polygon with lower costs.

These seemingly ordinary personal photos have attracted 498 owners with a total transaction volume of 360 ETH. The base price before the deadline was 0.439 ETH, equivalent to 1400 USD. These photos seem to resonate with the crypto community, with many creating memes based on Ghozali. He even appealed to netizens, saying, "You can use my photos for anything, like creating memes. But please do not misuse them, or my parents will be very disappointed. I hope you will treat these photos with kindness."

Following the launch of IreneDAO, she extended a collaboration invitation to Ghozali Ghozalu, who responded with a humorous composite image, saying, "Why not?"

Itadakimasu Man: Let's Eat Uncle

Lastly, sharing the selfie series of a Japanese uncle who goes by the name Itadakimasu Man, who releases an NFT on OpenSea daily, focusing on himself and his bento meals.

This content resembles an NFT version of a food diary, where he describes the contents of his meals for the day and the process of eating his bento:

Although not very popular, with a base price of 0.09 ETH, the total trading volume is 14.6 ETH, held by 284 addresses. Initially listed at 0.001 ETH, if all 283 are successfully sold, it would amount to 0.283 ETH, approximately 900 USD. For creators who simply document their lives, this represents a decent income.

Privacy, Monetizing Social Content

From the above three cases, it is evident that NFTs are being applied more similarly to Instagram lifestyle records, allowing individuals to trade and monetize personal content while uploading photos. Whether for speculative purposes, this trend could attract more people through cheaper blockchain applications.

Furthermore, platforms similar to OnlyFans, which have long been associated with adult content fan economies, are a natural application scenario for membership token NFTs. Whether future regulatory pressures will increase and affect platform content moderation policies, regardless of decentralization, is an area worth monitoring. Additional information: Challenges of Adult Content on OnlyFans