Queen Elizabeth—the longest reigning monarch in the United Kingdom—recently passed away, causing a mound of tributes and projects honoring her legacy. These projects—many employing blockchain technology—are offering pictures to the public of the Queen, as the project from Nouns demonstrates.
NFT Artwork of the Queen at OpenSea
Queen Elizabeth II’s recent death at 96 years old has created deep sadness and loving memories not only in the United Kingdom but throughout the world. In honor of the memory of the UK’s longest reigning monarch, many companies have launched projects using blockchain technology—many of which involve NFTs.
Leading NFT marketplace, OpenSea, has listed thousands of NFTs since the official word of the Queen’s death was announced. These NFTs display various pictures and artwork of the Queen. Even art pieces and photographs are being displayed.
OpenSea also features a “Long Live the Queen” theme called “RIP The Queen Official.” This collection boasts over 8,000 NFTs—all differing in colors, shades, and background photos.
Buyers can visit the website and choose different variations of the Queen. If they decide to purchase, each individual will own a one-of-a-kind NFT of the UK’s former Queen.
Describing the NFTs
Each NFT of Queen Elizabeth is unique. For instance, some NFTs of the Queen shows her with earrings in different colors, and her smile only sometimes shows her teeth.
While her hair in the NFTs seems consistent, the background pictures are always unique. Examples of backgrounds include Big Ben, the United Kingdom flag, snow, stars, and solid colors. Some NFTs show the Queen in glasses. Others are close up of her face.
Nouns: The Project Behind Queen Elizabeth II Tribute
Nouns is a unique entity and different than the other Ethereum-based projects. As a starting point, Nouns produces and auctions “just one-pixel character NFT per day, which consistently sells for hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of ETH.”
After the sale, the funds are transferred to a shared treasury that the NFT holders of Nouns “collectively oversee.” Another differentiating feature of Nouns is that it does not lay a claim to the brand or characters shown in the NFTs. Anyone can use the Nouns, names, and characters to basically “create anything.” After all. It is in the public domain.
The Queen Elizabeth II NFT Tribute Project
Within the last two months, Nouns NFT has announced closing its initial collection of Queen Elizabeth II. Specifically, this Ethereum NFT project started by releasing 73 pieces of Queen Elizabeth II NFT artworks.
The purpose of this project is to celebrate “her life and longevity.” After releasing many pixel pictures, now, with the Queen’s passing, the NFT tribute project hosted its final auction. The QueenE auctions took place every few hours but consistently occurred once daily.
The project was created by Web3 builders Fabio Sevá, Vinícius Rodrigues, Everton Matumoto, and mladen.Eth (pseudonym).
On its Twitter account, the QueenE DAO (@QueenEDAO) noted that “Mint is closed after that. Gen2 follows later.” The Twitter account reads, “Resting in Ethereum, forever.”
Interestingly, secondary sales for the QueenE NFTs also increased. For instance, the current floor price—referring to the cheapest available item currently listed on the marketplace—on OpenSea is 0.88 ETH, which is around $1,450.
The Auction: Explained
The project was designed to launch a new artwork of the Queen on a steady basis for the rest of her life. The Queen Elizabeth II NFT project forked from Nouns’ original code and format. While the Nouns project has been auctioning one picture a day as well as including the collector in an “exclusive club,” the new code has a “royal twist” by creating “lo-fi” renditions of the Queen.
As mentioned, this involved releasing one NFT a day—with the 73rd Ethereum NFT the last in the auction. A Gen2 collection was mentioned as a teaser by the QueenE DAO’s Twitter account.
As of yet, whether there will be another rendition or project in memory of Queen Elizabeth II has not been disclosed. This remains to be seen.
Conclusion
Nouns released dozens of pixels of the late Queen. Its project was to remove about one NFT a day. But with news of her passing, the Nouns NFT fork will be closing its initial collection and holding its last auction.
