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Markets


HOW A 12-YEAR-OLD EARNED 106 ETHERS BY CREATING AN NFT COLLECTION AND SELLING IT
OUT WITHIN A DAY

Laila Maidan
Aug 21, 2021, 11:00 AM MESZ
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Angle down icon An icon in the shape of an angle pointing down. Benyamin Ahmed,
creator of Weird Whales. Benyamin Ahmed
This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an
Insider and start reading now. Have an account? Log in.
 * Benyamin Ahmed created Weird Whales out of a learning experience. 
 * He used python code from another NFT project called Boring Bananas to
   generate 3,350 Weird Whales.
 * He continues to collect commissions from the secondary market where NFTs are
   resold and bought.

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Non-fungible tokens are skyrocketing in popularity. What started out as a way
for artists to digitize their work has turned into a lucrative investment
opportunity for those who buy and sell digital assets.

While the trend still isn't fully mainstream, those who are hopping on early are
realizing the technology's potential. NFTs are digital assets that can be in the
form of images, audio, or even tweets. They allow the original creator to sell
their content on a blockchain, mostly Ethereum's, and even collect commission on
the secondary market every time they are resold. 

This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Become an
Insider and start reading now. Have an account? Log in.

Benyamin Ahmed is only 12 years old, but an NFT collection he created called
"Weird Whales" has already managed to rack up 106 ethers, according to his
digital wallet. His collection features pixelated images of whales against
solid, brightly colored backgrounds. And what initially started off as a fun
learning activity turned into a very profitable project that sold out in nine
hours. 

One ether was trading at around $3,041.24 on Thursday. That meant Ahmed's
earnings were worth about $322,346. What's more, he's never had a bank account
and told Insider that for now, he's not planning on flipping it into fiat but
would rather hold crypto. 

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FROM 'BORING BANANAS' TO 'WEIRD WHALES'

"Weird Whales" was his second attempt at building a collection of artsy and
flashy NFTs. He originally started by creating artwork on Photoshop that he
could later flip to an NFT. But after creating 40 images, he realized it was too
much time and effort. 

He later learned from his dad, Imran Ahmed, that there's an easier way to create
tons of NFTs using a python script. Imran is a web engineering lead at the
London Stock Exchange, and has been instrumental in guiding Benyamin on how to
code. 

"So, I researched into that and found "Boring Bananas," another NFT collection,
which had released all their code. And I managed to use their code to create
3,350 'Weird Whales'," Benyamin told Insider. 

Related stories



Benyamin said that Vee, a Boring Banana digital research team member, sent him
the code which allowed him to generate the NFT collection. He then customized it
to handle his different trait layers and backgrounds. Once he was done, he took
to his Twitter account, @ObiWanBenoni, to share his process.

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"I wrote a tweet about how I was able to do it at the age of 12 and then Boring
Bananas kind of tweeted about it. And he has a large follower base on Twitter.
So it kind of just went viral. So that's why the second NFT collection I did
kind of increased in sales," Benyamin said. 

He launched his "Weird Whales" on the Ethereum blockchain on July 19 at a mint
price of 0.025 ETH and within nine hours, they had sold out. 

"Most of the projects were selling at 0.08 Ethereum. And so he just priced it
lower than the other ones," Imran said. "And we never knew that it's going to
sell out straight away. So I was trying to prepare him as well, like 'look you
might sell one or two, and then it might go quiet for a bit', but it just went
viral and it just sold out in the same day."

But his profits did not stop there. The NFTs remained tied to their original
creator, which means Benyamin is still collecting commissions, a percentage
point set by the original creator, on the secondary marketplace. Benyamin has
set his at 2.5%, and to date, 1,000 ETHs worth of "Weird Whales" have been
resold on OpenSea, a peer-to-peer marketplace for NFTs.

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LEARNING TO CODE 

While he's seen amazing success, coding isn't a job for this 12 year old. It's
something he loves doing as a hobby. His father would come home from work and
sometimes code at home. Benyamin and his brother would poke around him while he
was on his computer. 

"So, I set him and his brother up with a couple of laptops and I started
teaching them. Then they got kind of really absorbed into it," Imran said. "And,
I just thought, okay, this is going to be a good skill set. And I used to joke
with them, 'oh in 20 years' time, you'll probably thank me that I taught you how
to code'."

To Imran's surprise, it took less time than that. Even during family trips,
Benyamin and his brother would enjoy a day of fun at the beach and then be eager
to hop on their laptops and code in the evening. 

"It started as a learning experience, and we want to keep it as a learning
experience because it is an educational project before it's anything else,"
Imran said. "It was never supposed to be like a huge commercial venture. It just
went viral because people got attracted to his stories."

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The project was launched for about $300 and it was mainly on Ethereum gas fees
to deploy the contracts on the blockchain. 

Benyamin hosts a YouTube channel under the username Benoni, where he shares his
coding journey mainly through a game called Code Wars, built by an educational
community for computer programming. His advice to others is to do what you love
because anything other than is a waste. 

"My advice is to just do what you like. So, if you like cooking or something, do
that, don't just try and force yourself to do something else Just because maybe
your friend does it, or you're peer pressured into doing it. And always have fun
while doing something. Treat it as a learning experience," Benyamin said. 

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