Mandela Arrest Warrant NFT Auctioned to Help South African Museum

A non-fungible token (NFT) created for the 1961 arrest warrant of anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela has been sold for $130,000 at auction, Vicky Stark reports for Voice of America.

The funds will help maintain the Liliesleaf Museum Heritage Site, a farm where Mandela and other leaders of the anti-apartheid movement in the 1960s hid from authorities. But the funds will not be enough to re-open the museum, which has been hit hard by the lack of tourism during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The founder of the Liliesleaf Museum, Nicholas Wolpe, says the museum still needs about U.S.$1.7 million before it can reopen. "Based upon all historical figures to clear all the debt and to provide for at least for the next year or two," he said. "There need to be repairs, exhibits need to be fixed, and then the day-to-day operations, paying for salaries and getting the place back on its feet."

Wolpe says last year he was approached by one of the owners of Momint, the company that runs the NFT marketplace. They explained that the museum's artifacts could earn cash while staying on site for security purposes and preservation.

According to Wikipedia, a NFT is a unit of data stored on a blockchain, a form of digital ledger, that can be sold and traded.[1] Types of NFT data units may be associated with digital files such as photos, videos, and audio. Because each token is uniquely identifiable, NFTs differ from blockchain cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin.