Nelson Mandela’s Arrest Warrant Auctioned As NFT Dor $130,000 

At auction, a non-fungible token (NFT) designed for anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela’s 1961 arrest warrant sold for $130,000.

By Omotayo Olutekunbi

The money will go toward maintaining the Liliesleaf Museum Heritage Site, a farm where Nelson Mandela and other anti-apartheid activists hid from authorities in the 1960s. However, the funding will not be sufficient to reopen the museum, which has been severely harmed by the lack of visitors caused by the COVID outbreak.

Nicholas Wolpe, the museum’s founder, estimates that the museum will need roughly $1.7 million (R25 million) to reopen.

“Based upon all historical figures to clear all the debt and to provide for at least for the next year or two,” he said. “There need to be repairs, exhibits need to be fixed, and then the day-to-day operations, paying for salaries and getting the place back on its feet.”

One of the founders of Momint, the business that runs the NFT marketplace, approached Wolpe last year, according to Wolpe. They stated that the museum’s antiques may make money while remaining on the premises for security and preservation concerns.

Wolpe believes it is an ideal chance for Liliesleaf to develop a new stream of revenue.

“He explained the process of NFTs to me and I said this is a wonderful opportunity for not only Liliesleaf but for historical sites around the world because we currently live in an environment where the reality is that government funding is not what it used to be,” he said.

NFTs, which employ blockchain technology, are a way of putting a value on material on the internet, according to Momint CEO Ahren Posthumus. He claims that the buyer of the warrant receives enormous long-term benefits.

“So, they are the only person in the world who will actually have the original of what’s called the Alpha File of the scan of the document. So, you can view the document online and it’s incredibly high detailed. You can see the ink bleeding through the paper but the owner of the document is the only one who will have the fully uncompressed version of this 3D file. It also gives the buyer access to the physical document as well as a five per cent royalty in perpetuity. So, as a buyer if they resell the piece and if the piece gets sold 10 or a hundred times, they will receive a royalty on the piece which is amazing. Liliesleaf Museum will equally be getting a royalty on the resale of the piece,” he said.

Mandela, the first democratically elected president of South Africa, was released from prison in 1990.

Following the NFT auction of a pistol pen owned by Nelson Mandela’s fellow liberation leader Oliver Tambo, his arrest warrant was auctioned. The museum also benefited from the NFT sale in November, which raised $50,000.

According to Wolpe, the Momint team has photographed a number of additional significant objects.