Dutch DJ Don Diablo has sold what is thought to be the first-ever full-length concert NFT (non-fungible token) for cryptocurrency to the value of $1.2 million.

The hour-long show, ‘Destination Hexagonia’, was created exclusively for the auction and sold within four minutes for 600 Ethereum (the second-largest cryptocurrency on the blockchain) on the SuperRare marketplace.

Destination Hexagonia was filmed over a year with videographer Paul Snijder, using green screen FX and 3D-rendered characters and sets to align with Don’s sci-fi aesthetic.

The Destination Hexagonia NFT will be delivered to the auction winner in a unique handcrafted box with a hard drive containing the only copy of the concert’s high-quality file.

“We didn’t just want to create the world’s first-ever DJ set NFT, we also wanted this to be a next-level, sci-fi animated live concert experience,” says Don Diablo.

“We almost feel like this particular piece has become priceless because we worked on it for nearly a year”

“At this point, we almost feel like this particular piece has become priceless because we worked on it for nearly a year and put an incredible amount of love and effort into it.”

Money from the auction will be invested back into Don Diablo’s Hexagon Foundation, which he founded to help artists create, share and sell their art in the NFT space.

Don Diablo previously sold an unreleased song titled Genesis as an NFT for around $200,000, which came with a holographic synthesizer and a physical hand-built hologram cabinet and cartridge to display the art.

The groundbreaking sale of Destination Hexagonia follows a recent boom in artists selling NFTs, which reached a peak when Kings of Leon generated more than $2 million from their NFT collection, ‘NFT Yourself’.

Grimes, Shawn Mendes, Steve Aoki, Quavo, Lil Baby, 2 Chainz, Jack Harlow, Tory Lanez, Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda, 3lau, Ozuna have also released collections recently.

GET Protocol’s Olivier Biggs recently told IQ how the live business can harness non-fungible tokens, particularly with ticketing.

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American rock band Kings of Leon has generated more than $2 million from ‘NFT Yourself’, a collection of non-fungible tokens the band put up for sale through blockchain technology company YellowHeart.

A non-fungible token (NFT) is a form of cryptocurrency asset; a spendable token that you can exchange for other cryptocurrencies, or spend on goods where they’re accepted, on the blockchain (a Cloud for financial assets).

The ‘NFT Yourself’ sale, which ran from Friday to Monday, included the band’s new album ‘When You See Yourself’ as an NFT, as well as an auction of six different ‘Golden Tickets’.

Each ‘Golden Ticket’ would give the successful bidder four front-row seats to one show of every Kings of Leon headlining tour for life.

Of the Golden Tickets, ‘Bandit #3 Grid’ and ‘Heads in the Clouds’ sold for $91,000; ‘Golden Cherry Echo’ sold for roughly $95,700; ‘Bandit #1 Red’ and ‘Couch Distortion’ each sold for close to $97,000; and ‘Bandit #2 Wave’, which also included audio, sold for roughly $162,000.

Kings of Leon previously announced that Live Nation’s Crew Nation would receive the proceeds of both ‘Bandit Wave #2’ and the album tokens, which are priced at $50 each and include limited-edition vinyl and a digital download of the album.

The band has confirmed that $500,000 of the $2m has been donated to Live Nation’s Crew Nation fund

The band has confirmed that $500,000 of the $2m has been donated to Crew Nation fund to support live music crews during the pandemic.

The Golden Ticket auction was originally scheduled to end on Sunday but Kings of Leon ended up extending that deadline to give fans who are first-time NFT buyers a chance to partake.

“Breaking new ground is never easy….if it were, it wouldn’t be groundbreaking,” the band wrote in a since-deleted statement on YellowHeart’s website. “Many fans are first-time NFT buyers and are experiencing a learning curve. We hear you and are going to extend the ‘NFT Yourself’ Collection for an additional 24 hours, in hopes that more time allows more fans to participate in this historic offering.”

‘When You See Yourself’ can still be purchased as an NFT on YellowHeart’s website until 19 March but any limited-edition collectable NFTs that are not sold at the end of the sale will be deleted and no more will be made.

While Kings of Leon are reportedly the first act to release a new album as an NFT, a number of artists including Grimes, Shawn Mendes, Steve Aoki, Quavo, Lil Baby, 2 Chainz, Jack Harlow, Tory Lanez, Linkin Park’s Mike Shinoda, 3lau, Ozuna have released collections recently.

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