I am %99 sure this is money laundering. I mean that %1 is because I have absolutely no proof of that, but "innocent until found guilty" is when we are talking about a courtroom, not public opinion, and I can have my own opinion on the matter without needing proof. If they could provide proof who bought it and where they found the money and it turns out its some accountant who invested in apple early on and made some wealth and gave his teenage son some money to spend for college and that kid invested into this, yeah then I will believe it. But until someone offers me some proof, I will keep thinking that these are all money laundering and nothing else. That, or someone created this, and bought his own thing himself with different account, to get some media coverage about it to make others want to buy it too.

There are early Bitcoin or some altcoin holders that have hundreds of coins worth millions of dollars, and they can easily afford to gamble with these pixelated garbage, because even if those crash to zero, those guys will still be rich. I seriously doubt that anyone from outside of the crypto ecosystem is coming with their $$ to invest big money into NFTs - maybe it happens occasionally, but it looks like most of the investors are crypto whales.

first of all the ordinals are not NFT's

secondly
i am 99.99999% sure the pixel creator published the pixelated image and then self bought his own scam. just to set a market rate
and because he paid himself.. it cost him nothing bar the market fee(0.x%)to set a market rate

now he just has to wait for an idiot to want to buy the scam

simply because thats how this fake scam market works

..
everyone has seen it done before..
years ago scammers would advertise a UK 50pence coin on ebay, but using another account they would buy the coin for £500 to set a market rate and get viral advertising on media that the 50p is worth £500.. but the buyer/seller are same person so it didnt cost £500, it lust cost the £0.20 ebay fee

now they just wait for idiots to buy a £0.50p for £500+

OP has become duped into becoming part of the viral advertising campaign the scammers were hoping for

..
how to swindle sotheby's..
scammer employs a friend to finance the auction bid(name separation from buyer/seller) and scammer will re-imburse the friend after the auction
it only costs the scammer the sotheby commission
but the hope it "legitimises" their scam to sucker in victims on next round

Yea sounds like a great plan if you have the funds and are a scammer, creating your
own market value for your scam.

TBH, I dont get the NFT/Ordinals craze or is it more realistically a fad?

I have to commend the legitimate 'artists' and 'creators' who have created work and
were able to monetise it but yea I think a lot of people will get have gotten scammed
thinking they are investing into something for the future.

With an announcement like this, I expect this transaction to be subject to tax. If it is, it will reduce the possibility of scam by purchasing from a friend, but it does not negate the possibility of money laundering occurring (although I rule it out because of the hype that occurs behind such matters and the existence of better ways to launder money).

If there is a fool who buys several Super-Mario-Style Mushroom Characters for $500,000, do not buy them for $5, otherwise you will be like that fool, but on a lower level.

It's just a way to get people used to paying higher fees, whether it's miners, altcoins, or people who don't like the increased adoption of Bitcoin.

I remember in 2019 or 2020 or so when Ethereum NFTs were introduced. And we were getting some crappy jpeg sell for like $10K. Back then i assumed it has to be money laundering because it made no sense.

Then a year or so later, some of these jpegs were going for millions. Was it laundering? Maybe for some but it turned into speculation pretty much. People flipping NFTs left and right. And the same thing is happening here. They are buying it to sell it for a higher price in the future.

Everybody, normal people and bitcoiners, are all tired of the NFT hangover. Most people's NFTs have gone down since 2021, and that is exactly what will happen with these fool's gold coins once the effects of bitcoin halving commences in full effect, because then people will rush to buy real bitcoins.

Or maybe they will keep buying $ORDI and get crushed in 2026. I don't know.

YEah, more like making black money white using that process.

I  alsoagree it's either money laundry or both buyer and seller actually same person. I don't see any sane person willing to spend $450K just for that when AFAIK the creator isn't famous or well-known.


And these days you could just use AI which generate image from text.

I guess it's not always a kind of money laundering because there are many people who want to earn a lot of money investing in stupid NFTs. I remember the times when people bought NFTs for millions and they can buy those for millions once again.

A money launderer would do something else rather then buying a $450k ordinal. The ordinals are a new craze for many people and they will continue for sometime. We may see ordinals lovers more likely than the NFT lovers because many people believe in Bitcoin and the ordinals are working on Bitcoin blockchain.