Matrix actor Keanu Reeves is a cryptocurrency HODLer, wants a non-Facebook metaverse, and thinks NFTs are LOL

• In an interview with The Verge, Keanu Reeves found ‘scarce’ NFTs to be a funny concept.
  According to him, the metaverse as an idea is older than Meta, formerly known as Facebook, and shouldn’t have to be invented by them.
• Reeves hasn’t ever bought any cryptocurrency for himself, but he is HODLing the tokens gifted to him by friends.

Keanu Reeves HODLs cryptocurrency, but none that he’s bought personally. And, he really doesn't want Meta, formerly known as Facebook, to create the metaverse. Moreover, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) make him laugh.

In an interview with The Verge last week, Reeves — who plays a central part in the Matrix movie series — looked concerned when asked about the metaverse. According to him, the concept of the metaverse is much older and doesn’t need to be in the hands of Mark Zuckerberg’s social media empire.


Reeves believes that the metaverse holds promise. “It is content creation, it’s economic creation [in terms of] cryptocurrency,” he said.

The man who’s starred in other popular films like the John Wick series, Speed, Point Break, Constantine and others, is a cryptocurrency HODLer. Even though he hasn’t bought any cryptocurrency personally, Reeves revealed that a friend of his bought some for him a while back — and it’s just sitting there. “Yeah, I have a little HODL,” he said during the interview.

The actor, however, did not reveal which cryptocurrency and how much is in his portfolio. An independent tracker online notes his net worth to be $380 million, although he is known to quietly donate to charity.

NFTs make Keanu Reeves LOL

When the topic of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) came up, Reeves broke out in profuse laughter. In response to a question about digital scarcity and NFTs, Reeves replied, “That are easily reproduced?”

This could be chalked up to a misunderstanding around NFT’s providing proof of ownership – or to how at least a few NFT projects sell nothing more than pixelated image art that can be right-clicked and saved by those who want to copy it.

Back in November, a website was launched offering free downloads of ‘pirated NFTs’. Such websites and the ease of saving individual image files in a browser, may reduce the appeal of image-only NFTs in the long term.

However, NFTs are more than just the image seen in a browser, they represent ownership of unique items using the security of blockchains. For instance, NFT-based art could be used as a player’s ‘avatar’ in a metaverse game. Moreover, in recent months NFTs have been evolving to have innovative purposes or bestow members-only club benefits to NFT holders.

Matrix Resurrections’ NFTs

One such innovative use of NFTs was by the Warner Brothers studio last week to promote the upcoming movie Matrix Resurrections. They sold 100,000 avatars created using a game engine, priced at $50 each, and the opportunity to be a unique character in the Matrix universe. The servers were overwhelmed at launch, with over 300,000 fans queueing up for them.

After they were sold out, a secondary market was made available for interested people. Perhaps not surprisingly, the minimum resale price now is $120 — a 140% profit over the $50 initial price — with some avatars asking for as much as $99 million.

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