The world’s first Microsoft Excel-based NFT art collection has gone on sale as part of a fundraising effort for victims of the war in Ukraine. Created by Datarails, a financial planning platform that closely integrates with Excel, the five pixel artworks feature portraits of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and some scenes from the conflict.
Although Excel artworks are nothing entirely new and spreadsheet drawings have been converted to NFTs in the past, with the sale of Datarails, we see the first time an XLS file (typical Microsoft Excel file format) is tokenized and placed on a blockchain.
NFTs, or immutable tokens, are a type of system that indicates ownership of a particular digital asset, whether it’s an image, video, or piece of music. While this asset itself can be freely reproduced and shared, the associated NFT is unique and can be traded on the secondary market.
However, NFTs have come under a lot of criticism since they became widely publicized last year. Some people bought NFTs at exorbitant prices with the implied promise of capital returns just to lower their valuation, while others had their tokens stolen by scammers and hackers.
The NFT revolution was also supposed to be a new way for aspiring artists to monetize their work. But it has also started to be used by celebrities and other prominent figures as a way to make quick money.
Still, Datarails believes the NFT sale is an ideal tool to raise funds for a good cause. In this scenario, NFTs do not act as investment vehicles, but rather as an added benefit to a traditional donation.
Didi Gurfinkel, co-founder and CEO of DataRails, said: “Excel is the canvas everyone in the financial industry uses to create ideas, innovations and financial models. In this experiment, we took this concept one step further. Excel was used literally as a palette to produce a one-of-a-kind experience for CryptoArt and spreadsheet enthusiasts to have. “We hope this project will help show the broad canvas of Excel while raising funds for Ukraine’s plight.”
Each NFT will be sold at the price of 1 ETH, which currently equates to approximately $1,900. A total of close to $10,000 is expected from the sale, all of which will be donated to the Heart to Heart International foundation, a non-profit dedicated to improving access to healthcare worldwide, and will be used for Ukraine.
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