Grimes made over $5 million selling her NFT crypto art collection

Karma Oak

Self-described "Crypto Queen" (it's in her Twitter and Instagram bios) Grimes revealed a collection of NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, on Nifty Gateway on Sunday (2/28). They're rapidly gaining popularity in the art and music worlds, and if you're not familiar, Forbes describes them as "an entry on a blockchain... But unlike most bitcoin–which is fungible, meaning that one coin is essentially indistinguishable from another and equivalent in value–tokens on these blockchains are non-fungible. That means they are unique, so they can represent one-of-a-kind things, like a rare William Shatner headshot or even the title to a piece of real estate."

Grimes' collection, "WarNymph," is a collaboration with her brother, Mac Boucher, and includes still images, as well as a few animations, "Death of the Old," "Earth," and "Mars," that are set to unreleased music -- "Death of the Old" features a demo of "Anhedonia," "Earth" features "Ærythe," and "Mars" features "Mars Theme." From the description:

WarNymph is the Goddess of Neo-Genesis. She battles the destructive force of obsolete ideas and systemic decay that threatens the future. She embodies the power of perpetual regeneration that manifests in a state of infinite infancy where she sheds her old skin of corruption.

The first of her kind, WarNymph is a digital entity spliced from a pixel DNA of the organic human, Grimes. Merging the raw images of a photogrammetry scan, enunciating her iconic tattoos, with a retopologized mesh that was sculpted, modelled, and morphed into a variety of forms before being permanently sealed into the body of a baby angel, a cherub. She exists in the liminal state of the virtual world, a Grimes narrative universe, within an alternate history of mythology and the infinite fragments of the future. She is a pioneer in the rapidly expanding metaverse.

Grimes, with the WarNymph project, explores the fluidity of identity in the virtual age: the ability to create, augment, and splinter ourselves into unlimited avatars, create boundless worlds, and build rich, complex lore.

Of the 10 pieces in the collection, seven were limited editions, two were "open editions," that anyone could purchase and "mint" an edition of during a set period of time, and one, "Death of the Old," was an auction, that went for $388,938. Business Insider reports that Grimes' 10 NFTs brought in $5.8 million in under 20 minutes, and one piece, "The Newborn 2," has already been relisted with an asking price of $2.5 million.

Grimes says "A percentage of the proceeds" from her NFT sales will go to Carbon 180, "a NGO dedicated to reducing carbon emissions."

See some of the collection below.