12-Year-Old Boy Earns IDR 5.7 Billion from Selling Digital Tokens

Saturday, 28 Aug 2021 21:10 WIB Benjamin Ahmed, a 12-year-old boy who earns IDR 5.7 billion from selling NFT A 12-year-old boy earns IDR 5.7 billion from selling an NFT Photo: Screenshot/detikINET Jakarta-

Benjamin Ahmed, a young coder from London, England, is not a random kid. At the age of 12, Ahmed has earned nearly USD 400,000 (Rp 5.7 billion) from his job selling an artwork called Weird Whale as a non-fungible token (NFT). Ahmed started learning programming when he was 5 years old after being inspired by his father, Imran, who was a web developer. He started by learning about HTML and CSS, and continued to hone his skills by learning JavaScript and other programs.

But lately Ahmed's attention has been on the NFT. NFT allows artwork to be converted into tokens to create digital certificates that signify ownership. These certificates can be traded, but the buyer does not own the actual artwork or copyright. "I first got to know NFT earlier this year. I was interested in NFT because it could easily transfer ownership of NFT on the blockchain," Ahmed told CNBC, as quoted by detikINET, Saturday (28/8/2021).

Ahmed then decided to create his own art collection and sell it as an NFT. His first NFT collection launched this summer containing 40 colorful avatars called 'Minecraft Yee Haa'. Ahmed created the artwork and coded it himself after playing Minecraft a lot. The collection did not sell immediately but Ahmed considers the experience a learning process. In June, Ahmed started creating his second NFT collection called Weird Whales. This collection contains 3,350 whales in pixelated style. Each whale has its own color and additional attributes such as a hat.

Ahmed learned how to create this collection through online tutorials and mentors he met on Discord. The collection launched in July and sold out within nine hours. After his Weird Whales collection sold out, Ahmed made more than 80 ether or about USD 255,000 in a day. He then earned another 30 ether, or about USD 95,000, from the proceeds of the second sale as Ahmed earned a 2.5% royalty on each second sale. To date, Ahmed has earned more than USD 350,000 from selling NFT. By the end of August, he projects his earnings will be over USD 400,000. Ahmed's commitment to NFT and blockchain is also evident in his personal life.

He claimed not to have a traditional bank account and only had a digital wallet to store crypto currency. "I plan to keep all the ether and not convert it to fiat money. This could be early evidence that, in the future, maybe not everyone needs a bank account and only has an ether address and wallet," Ahmed said.

Muster Ahmed plans to develop another NFT project. He predicts future NFT collections will have a meme component. Even though he is still very young, Ahmed already has big dreams. "When people buy Weird Whales, they invest in me and my future. If I continue this, I may end up with the fate of other tech entrepreneurs out there like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos," he concluded.