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Bernard Arnault’s son, Alexandre, is jumping into Cryptopunks with a new profile picture NFT, just days after the billionaire LVMH chairman signalled wariness over the metaverse “bubble effects”.
The 29-year-old scion, who heads up product and communications at Tiffany & Co., now has his own Cryptopunk PFP (profile picture), a beanie-wearing pixelated face with an earring, knitted cap and 3D glasses on both his Twitter and Instagram profile photos. A bot tracking Ethereum purchases said the NFT, called Punk 3167, was purchased for Eth 160 (around $416,400). LVMH confirmed Alexandre Arnault’s profile picture change was legitimate.
NFT profile picture owners often use the avatar on social media to signify membership in the Web 3.0 community, with Cryptopunks and Bored Ape Yacht Club, which has partnered with Adidas, among the most recognisable.
“I am happy to welcome @alexarnault from @TiffanyAndCo to the #PUNK club! The future is bright. WAGMI,” tweeted Thibault Launay, the founder of Exclusible, which has built an NFT marketplace for luxury brands. WAGMI stands for “We are all gonna make it,” an acronym used by the community to build motivation. LVMH’s former head of digital and now advisor Ian Rogers, and chief experience officer at Ledger, also tweeted “GM fren” to Arnault’s account, code for “good morning, friend.”
The executive’s embrace of PFPs and NFT purchase marks a new era for the younger generation of the family behind LVMH. Arnault also retweeted a 10 December Tiffany account tweet, promoting a set of 501 unique NFTs by Urs Fischer reinterpreting Tiffany’s famous Jean Schlumberger brooch “Bird on a Rock”. The Swiss contemporary artist created a 3D sculpture called Chaos#101, representing the brand’s iconic brooch colliding with an orange habanero pepper. Tiffany then purchased the NFT, the brand confirmed. It sold for $182,000 on the Makersplace platform.
“The fact that Bernard Arnault pronounced the word metaverse and NFT is encouraging for our industry,” says Pierre Nicolas Hurstel, CEO and co-founder at Arianee, the French blockchain specialist. “And Alexandre Arnault changing his profile picture is probably also a good signal,” Hurstel adds.
Chairman Bernard Arnault likened the metaverse to the early 2000s internet boom during the LVMH annual earnings call last week. “Let’s be wary of bubble effects,” he said, adding, “It is not our objective to sell virtual sneakers at €10.”
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