Taco Bell Launches NFT Of Potato And Twitter Goes Crazy

The latest NFT to cause ripples across the digital space comes from the popular American fast-food chain Taco Bell. The boom of non-fungible tokens has seen anything from a domain name to a video of a NBA highlight, being tokenized and sold.

In what was an excellent marketing move, the Taco Bell NFTs went on sale on the Rarible platform, and sold out in 30 minutes. The food chain put up five versions of digital art pieces under the name ‘NFTacoBells’. It should be noted that 100% of the profits earned from the NFT sales went to Taco Bell's charitable foundation. 

With a major food-chain moving into the NFT phenomenon, this begs the question of whether anything can, or should, be tokenized. 

But is Taco Bell jumping into a culture that they know little about? Not everyone thinks that the Taco Bell NFT is a good move by the fast food chain, with one Twitter user commenting on the tweet announcement:

“You jumped into a trendy space too soon without understanding the nuances of the culture. NFTs are an artist-first culture - we buy NFTs to support the artists. This is one time where you could have let them step out and rep you instead of placing a corp stamp on it”.

Taco Bell is the most recent major entity to join the digital collectibles ecosystem, that already has names such as Grimes, Kings of Leon, and Daft Punk to its roster. Kings of Leon were the first to tokenize their latest album, and Grimes made headlines when she tokenized and sold a portion of her soul.

While the rising popularity of NFTs bodes well for mainstream adoption, the over saturation of this market could lead to them being regarded as gimmicks, or a digital trend that will eventually drop in popularity and value. 

Nonetheless, this million dollar market doesn’t look ready to halt any time soon. In 2020 these digital assets became a $250 market, and in 2021 NFT sales have been noticeable, not only for the high prices they have been going for, but also the speed at which they are sold out. Taco Bell is an early adopter of this digital market, and while not everyone may agree with their recent move, their popularity could be a sign of increasing consumer adoption of digital currencies.

The Taco Bell response to the current market demand for NFTs, shows that the food chain is aware of the value of being one of the first to react and respond to emerging consumer trends. Launching their NFT sale at the same time as they announced they are bringing back potatoes onto the menu, with a digital artwork of a potato to celebrate this. 

Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.