As threatened back in September, the lovable childhood heroes known as the Neopets have turned to the dark side, transformed randomly into a series of non-fungible tokens and sold to folks interested in owning their own small slice of the death of our planet. Of the 10,000 tokens created less than half were purchased, leaving the rest to be destroyed now that the sale is over. Maybe that’s why so many of the generated NFT Neopets look so sad.
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The Neopets Metaverse officially launched on November 12, when 10,000 Neopets Metaverse Collection Boxes went on sale. Once purchased using Solana cryptocurrency, or SOL, the collection boxes could be redeemed for a randomly generated Neopet NFT. Though an initial allotment of 1,250 collection boxes was sold at a fixed price of one SOL (currently equivalent to $223.33 USD), the average sale price was 2.057 SOL per Neopet, or around $460. The sale ended on the morning of November 15 with 4,233 collection boxes purchased, generating nearly two million dollars for the Neopets Metaverse.
These sales numbers come courtesy of Neopets news source Jellyneo.net, which followed the birth of this metaverse very closely using data gathered by the Neopets Reddit community. Not only did they track sales numbers, Jellyneo also charted the momentum of the sale, noting that the bulk of collection boxes changed hands within the first 24 hours, with only 236 purchased in the final 24. All in all, 4,233 of the 10,000 available NFTs were sold, leaving the remaining 5,767 unsold NFTs to be obliterated from existence.
Even sadder than the sales numbers for the Neopets Metaverse are the Neopets NFTs themselves. Once purchased, a Neopets Metaverse Collection Box is exchanged by the owner for a Neopet token randomly generated from a selection of set attributes, from the background color of the image to the breed, gender, and body type of the portrayed pet. Some pets come with random head or body gear. Others come naked.
Why are so many of the Neopets NFTs sad? Because there are only three possible moods: happy, sad, and neutral. According to data from NFT tracking app Moonrank, 1,839 of the pets redeemed so far are sad, 1,869 are happy, and 226 are neutral. It also bears noting that for some reason all pets with neutral moods are unisex, as opposed to male or female. Read into that whatever you’d like.
Due to the randomly generated nature of the NFTs, many of these poor blockchain Neopets look like garbage as well. Clothing doesn’t quite fit, hair pokes out from clothing pieces in ways that shouldn’t be possible. This poor dead unicorn’s horn should be covered by its captain’s hat, but instead it pokes out the top. Browse the images at the official Neopets NFT secondary market at Solanart to see a parade of sad-looking digital pets.