Old Chimp Creates NFT Art

Just as we begin to understand the fundamentals behind cryptocurrency, we are tasked with wrapping our heads around non-fungible tokens, or NFTs.

That may take a while, but we can confirm that the first nonhuman primates to create NFT art are three chimpanzees named Cheetah, Tootie, and Clay. Last summer, Save the Chimps, a refuge in Fort Pierce, Florida, created a series of NFTs based on scanned paintings by the three amigos and listed them for auction on NFT marketplace Truesy.

Save the Chimps set up its NFT to provide a royalty to the refuge when the artwork is sold and resold. To date they’ve raised a few hundred bucks, but they are enthusiastic about this novel fundraising. “The exciting part was they were all first-time donors,” Sara Halpert, the group’s marketing director, told the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

One downside to crypto-philanthropy is that the computing processing behind it consumes a lot of energy. Save the Chimps lists its NFTs on Truesy, which trades on Tezos, a digital-currency network that claims to use less energy than other networks.

Watch Cheetah, who is 46, create art here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlArYBxIt4g.

Photo credit: Save the Chimps