Chevrolet is the latest car company to start using non-fungible tokens, but it does things a little bit differently. Chevy has said it will auction off an NFT that looks like a Corvette. The winner of the auction will also get the real sports car that the artwork was based on.
Nick Sullo, who goes by the online name xsullo, is the artist who made the NFT. It shows a lime green Corvette Z06 racing through a cyberpunk world. Sullo’s NFT will be auctioned off with a 2023 Corvette Z06 that has been painted to match the work.
In case you missed it, the new Z06 is Chevy’s shot across the bow at all the other supercar makers with Italian names. It’s the first Corvette to have a mid-mounted, naturally aspirated 5.5-liter V-8 engine right behind the driver. It’s also a tougher, more focused sports car than the ones that came before it. Production of the Z06 will begin in the summer of 2022, and it will go on sale in 2023.
The winning bidder will get not only xsullo’s NFT but also the “Minted Green” Corvette, which will be the only vehicle painted that color. Chevy has said that the Minted Green color will not be used on any other production Z06. Also, the car will be marked with the option code RFN, which will “link” the car “forever” to the NFT auction. Since NFTs are digital and computers use binary, the VIN number for the Corvette will also be in binary.
The auction, which will be run by the NFT marketplace SuperRare, will run from June 20 to June 24. Only Ethereum bids will be accepted. (Ethereum is the most common way to buy NFTs.) Chevy says that all of the sales will go to the group DonorsChoose, which helps schools.
The NFT auction is happening at a time when cryptocurrencies are very volatile. Both prices and the value of NFTs are going down. Since April 1, Ethereum has dropped by 64 percent, while the floor price of the most well-known NFTs has dropped by more than 70 percent. The floor price is the lowest price on the market. As a result, a number of cryptocurrency companies are cutting back. For example, Coinbase said it would lay off 18% of its employees.
Scams have also become more common, and some people fall for phishing schemes that try to steal their NFTs. And because both the blockchain and Web3 are decentralized, victims don’t have much they can do.
But it doesn’t look like market changes bother Chevy. Steve Majoros, vice president of marketing at Chevrolet, says that the “Own the Color” NFT is “essential for Chevrolet as we move forward with digital efforts for our customers.”
xsullo thinks that the Z06 is what drew him to the project. “The Corvette Z06 is an ambitious car, and I can really relate to that,” he said. “I’m interested in how technology can change how we feel, and I know the people who made the Corvette Z06 are too.”
Web3 is being tried out by more than just Chevy. Lamborghini and Hyundai are two other companies that have tried NFTs in the past few years. Barrett-Jackson raised money for charity by auctioning off four NFTs based on cars it sold the year before.
