British tween earns almost $400K on NFT sales without a bank account

A 12-year-old boy from London reportedly earned nearly $400,000 by selling a series of nonfungible tokens (NFT) during the school holidays.

In an interview with Geo.tv, Benyamin Ahmed shared his excitement about being able to make money online by selling NFT artworks “without having a bank account.” Ahmed’s artwork caught attention on Twitter and eventually went viral.

Ahmed used his school holidays to create and tokenize digital pictures of whale emojis branded as “Weird Whales,” which were then sold in the form of NFTs online. Previously, the child had tokenized a Minecraft-inspired art set, which did not sell on the market due to low popularity.

Imran Ahmed, the father of the young boy, reportedly taught Benyamin and his brother to code from the age of six. Despite his son being unable to open a bank account due to age limitations, Imran said:

“He’s highly creative, has no bank account and no accountant, therefore, he keeps his money in an online blockchain.”

Moreover, the father clarified that the reported earnings made through NFT sales have been converted to Ether (ETH), regardless of the price fluctuations.

Related: Minting, distributing and selling NFTs must involve copyright law

The recent NFT boom has unknowingly reintroduced uncertainty to the crypto ecosystem. As discussed in an opinion piece, the NFT landscape is yet to establish an infrastructure that respects copyright laws — for both the creators and purchasers.

One of the long-term solutions for this issue can be involving organizations that specialize in copyright knowledge in NFT development. However, experts argue that this move will end up hampering the accessibility of NFT sales for both artists and purchasers.