Yup, Again: Nobody Wants to Buy Rockefeller Center's Christmas Tree... as NFT

The fad of creating and marketing non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, has become a dominant trend online over the past year. Global works of art, memes, luxury goods and even people can all be turned into NFTs, often looking like ordinary gifs, but sometimes sold at cosmic prices.

Even if lately it seems to many that NFTs have become too much, there will always be those willing to sell a digital unique copy of a real object for fabulous amounts of money.

Tishman Speyer, the real estate firm that owns NYC Manhattan's landmark Rockefeller Center, jumped into the NFT market this week, placing the iconic Rockefeller Christmas Tree in the same group as some recently minted NFTs, such as Marvel's famous late mastermind Stan Lee, resurrected in such a form.

The tree's NFT creator minted an animated GIF of a cartoon tree, which more closely resembles some of the postcards shared by people on Facebook, topped with a banner stating "79 feet," which is the reported height of the actual tree.

Before placing the NFT on OpenSea on December 13 for an auction that will run until January 1, the Rockefeller Center appears to have done very little in the way of promotion, according to The New York Post's report.

And it seems that virtually no one was interested in such a successful investment of crypto capital, since on Friday night, the NFT of the Christmas tree collected only three bids from the initial price of $500 (or 0.13 in Ethereum,) 153 views and only six likes.

As for the real deal, the actual tree, which has been brought to the plaza since 1932, is a giant spruce looming over an ice skating rink, dazzling with 50,000 brilliant lights. According to reports, this year it is crowned with a 3 million crystal-covered 900-pound (400 kg) star.

"We’re always looking for new, creative ways to spread holiday cheer and offer further support for Habitat for Humanity through the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree,” the company's spokesperson told the NY Post. "The NFT, which just launched this week, is a natural extension of our collaboration with artist Lisa Congdon who created our annual holiday map. We’re looking forward to see how this first experiment with it goes, and will be grateful for any additional support it generates for Habitat for Humanity."

So far this year, apart from Lee who recently became an NFT, former First Lady Melania Trump's collection of artworks featuring her voice, Harry Style's cardigan, and Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen's prison badge have all been auctioned, and McDonald's McRib has also entered the crypto market.