NFT artist blows Lamborghini to 999 pieces — now stands to make at least $1 million

• An NFT artist blew up a Lamborghini to protest crypto investors’ “get rich quick” mindset and is now poised to get rich fairly quickly himself.
• Shl0ms plans to auction off recorded imagery of the Lamborghini's 999 separate pieces on February 25, each of which is likely to sell for at least 0.5 Ether.
• This comes to at least $1 million for blowing up a car that was bought for $250,000.

If you can blow up a Lamborghini, protest a “get rich quick” mindset in crypto, then sell the pieces a week later as NFTs to potentially make a million-dollar profit, would you do it?

Shl0ms, an NFT artist, is on track to-do just that by February 25, with his ‘$CAR’ collection of NFTs.

The first step was purchasing a second-hand Lamborghini Huracan car at $250,000.

The second was to blow it up with the help of an explosives expert, filming it along the way.

The third step was to state in an interview, that this action is a protest against the short-term outlook and “get rich quick” mindset among many cryptocurrency investors.

The fourth and final step was to turn the car’s charred remains into an NFT collection comprising 999 pieces, with nothing left to do but watch the money come in.

Shl0ms did the math

Despite their ostensible “crypto believer” protest against investor mindsets, the artist seems to have done the math.

Keeping in mind that Shl0ms is a recognisable NFT artist, their work is likely to command between 0.5-1 Ether for each NFT item.

The upcoming $CAR collection sale consists of 888 items. At current exchange prices, that would mean mopping up between $1.12-2.24 million in total. So even if the artist had spent a million dollars upon the Lamborghini project in total, their profit is a minimum of 12% well above bank interest rates.

If you hate Lamborghinis enough…

Shl0ms initially tweeted the idea of ‘physically fractionalising’ a Lamborghini in September 2021, with followers choosing to destroy the car chaotically. The artist further clarified in a tweet that he wanted “to be clear” that he “hates” Lamborghinis, which is why wants to destroy one.

To make the idea a reality, the artist funded most of the project from their own pocket with one other entity who backed it. The goal was to blow up the Lamborghini car, but not incinerate it — ensuring that there was enough left behind to sell.

Accordingly, after building out a 100-member team, they blew up a different car first, for practice. To handle the significant firepower that can blow up a car, the team hired a licensed explosives engineer, who reportedly said this was his most challenging detonation thus far.

The Lamborghini was eventually detonated on February 2, with the video being uploaded to Twitter on February 18, and NFT sales planned for February 25.

So, what exactly is selling as an NFT?

After the explosion, the team claims to have picked up the pieces and recorded each one at 4K video quality.

The NFT collection will consist of 999 items. Of that, 111 items will be granted to the team and initial fund provider. The remaining 888 will be put up for sale.

Sale proceeds will be used to form a decentralised autonomous organisation (DAO). In stark contrast to the “when lambo?” credo of those who want to get rich quick through crypto, Shl0ms claims that, the DAO will only allow people “who hate lambos” and be ethically minded, because “crypto technology is incredibly promising, there are so many good things we could do with it.”

Who is Shl0ms?

In an interview with The Block, Shl0ms claims to not have a ‘traditional artist background’, but has an artistic flair, a penchant for conceptual thinking. They have been familiar with the crypto industry since 2016.

The artist has previously raised $500,000 from their $FNTN collection of NFTs in 2021. Their artwork is available for trade on OpenSea and Foundation. At least one of their NFTs had last sold for $80,000, with many other thought-provoking NFTs like the captcha that last sold for over $9000.