Famous Canadian photographer Andrew Miller has announced a special auction featuring the first professional portrait of Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin. The portrait, which will be sold in NFT format, coincides with the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the globally recognized, open-source, and decentralized Ethereum blockchain. The NFT price has already made a mark on the auction!
Gifted to Young Vitalik
It has been reported that the auction will start on the manifold.xyz platform and will continue until July 30th. The opening price for the rare NFT portrait, considered as an NFT, has been set at 333 ETH, which is currently worth almost $640,000.
In an interview with CryptoSlate, Andrew Miller explained the story behind the photograph. The photographer revealed that the auction was a tribute to Ethereum’s past, and he gifted this portrait to Vitalik Buterin, who was a financially struggling young person in the early days of Ethereum. According to Miller, during Ethereum’s incredible rise, Buterin discovered that putting himself forward would gain the trust of investors.
Miller initially gifted these portraits for Buterin’s non-commercial blog, but in 2014, he predicted that the Ethereum team would need high-quality photos for commercial purposes. Anthony Di lorio, a co-founder of Ethereum alongside Buterin, mentioned to Miller at the time that they wanted to pay with ETH, which had not even been produced yet. Miller estimated that the copyright purchase would cost 3225 ETH, but this detail was eventually forgotten.
Miller is Certain the Auction Will Attract Attention
The photographer emphasized that the importance of the auction goes beyond acquiring a valuable NFT. According to Miller, the portraits symbolize a collective effort that shaped Ethereum’s extraordinary journey and success. These portraits have become an inseparable part of Buterin’s identity and have received widespread media coverage. Miller added that Ethereum has now become a leading smart contract platform, and therefore, he expects the auction to generate significant interest in the crypto world.
