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news
colnago c64 nft.PNGNFT digital image of Colnago bike sells for $8,600
An image of a Colnago bike has fetched almost $8,600 at auction, with the Italian bike maker becoming the first – as far as we know – company within the cycling industry to have cashed in on the growing non-fungible token (NFT) trend in which digital assets are stored on a blockchain.
The digital picture of the Colnago C64 bike, which incorporated elements of various historic models from the Italian brand, was put up for sale three weeks ago on the platform Opensea.io.
It attracted just two bids, with the higher coming from user MTD-01, who will now have exclusive rights in perpetuity over the image of the bicycle – but won’t, of course, be able to ride it.
What the buyer does get, however, is a digital image of a one-off design which brings together elements of:
– The Bititan bike that Abraham Olano won the World Championships on in 1995
– Anthony Charteau's Polka Dot jersey-winning C59 from the 2010 Tour de France
– The C35 TTT that won the Team Time Trial World Championship 100km in 1994
– Giuseppe Saronni's Super Profil
– Tony Rominger's Hour Record bike
– Tadej Pogačar's Tour de France-winning V3Rs
– The C40 icon of Team Mapei.
The purchase price was calculated in cryptocurrency – 3.2 WETH (wrapped Ethereum) tokens, which equates to $8,592 (as Bicycle Retailer & Industry News points out, you could save more than two grand and get a real-life C64 with a custom paintjob).
Other digital assets to have been sold as NFTs include Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s first ever tweet on the platform, Mike Winkelmann's digital artwork “Everydays: The First 5000 Days”, which went for $69 million at a Christie's auction and, just this past weekend, the YouTube viral video Charlie Bit My Finger, which sold for $760,999.
Colnago received some backlash when it announced that it was putting the digital asset up for sale, with criticism centred on the environmental impact of the computing power necessary to maintain blockchain technology (rather than the NFT itself).
This article from The Verge explains just why blockchain technology and its use to determine ownership of NFTs has such a big environmental impact, mentioning among other things that Ethereum, the cryptocurrency that the Colnago was purchased in, “uses about as much electricity as the entire country of Libya.”
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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18 comments
Savvy people make money out of suckers.
Create a market, set a price, resell and ramp the price, make sure a few jackpot millionaires make money on the scheme and splash that wealth over social media and before you know it large numbers of people who don't really understand what they are doing but dream of huge unearned profits fuel a market that ultimately syphons money up the chain.
Of course this might be different and anyone who bought into bitcoin at a few $ will laugh at me but history has shown all such pyramid schemes eventually crash and burn.
Maybe, but there aren't many of them, so I think you're fairly safe
When people see those price-tags for digital art assets, they realize that it's pretty easy to start trading those NFTs, and with minimum energy spending, they can simply earn extra money. The top nft collections I could find were here ( site: https://topnftcollections.com/ ). I've simply compared some of them, looked at trading trends, and got some NFTs from it.
The cost to the buyer really depends on how long he's had that ETH. But even at it's lowest price it probably cost him a few hundred dollars which is still more than I'd be prepared to pay for a bike that I can't ride.
I understand almost nothing in this article, but in summary, guy buys a digital picture with digital money and can now charge anyone to display it, digitally.....getting old is tiring.
Sorry, but even that is not correct
All the buyer bought is the ownership of that idigital mage. That doesn't mean there can not be copies of it (on people's computers for example) or that others can not post it (as this article illustrates). Basicly it is bragging rights, not much more. 'See that picture in that article (or that video on YT). I own it!'
But is even that true? My understanding is that the buyer owns a specific copy of this digital image, not necessarily the copy of it used in this article (or is that what you meant?). It seems to be a way of telling people that you've got more money than sense (which isn't necessarily a bad thing, if you can sell your NFT at a profit to someone else with even more money and even less sense).
I'm no techy, but I believe that the one that is used in above may be fundamentally different to the one actually used. 2 different file formats can produce the same likeness, eg by screen shotting a revit image. You might own the Revit, I have a copy of the screen shot. You still have the original unique file,
I'm no techy either, but are you guys discussing the fine textures and subtle colours of the Emporer's new clothes?
I'm clearly going to miss out on this bubble too!
Oh yes, I'm not a flag waver for this (particularly when the environmental effects of NFT, crypto etc is taken into account)
Emperors New clothes? possibly. The "value" seems to be in what we (as in societal "we", mass behavioural "we", or enough "we" for the value to be supported) think of it. Which when all things are considered makes it little different to any form of currency.
now, if someone were to paint thier actual C64 with this painto job, have they breached any copyrights, and what about if they then took a digital photograph of said bike, surely they would own the rights to that as well
Possibly, but an NFT doesn't guarantee uniqueness in a traditional sense.
Any picture certified by an NFT can be copied as many times as you like, although this might breach copyright. What the NFT does do is guarantee originality, so in that way it tells you what is original and what is counterfeit.
I very much hope that in a generation or two, people will look back into history and see how capitalism and greed made idiots of some people.
Of course, that might be wishful thinking, in a couple of generations we could all be on our way to Wall-E land...
"The purchase price was calculated in cryptocurrency – 3.2 WETH (wrapped Ethereum) tokens, which equates to $8,592 (as Bicycle Retailer & Industry News(link is external) points out, you could save more than two grand and get a real-life C64 with a custom paintjob)."
But obviously not that exact paint job as someone else owns rightsto the image.
Does this mean that roadcc have had to pay royalties to use the image on this news story?
No, we're using Colnago's image not the NFT. Make of that what you will!
But haven't Colnago sold the rights? Its not their image anymore. Or have I completely missed the point?
Digital Snake Oil - dont do it kids!
Or about the same price as a full Colnago C60 with decent wheels and groupset.