In a recent development in the NFT world, a CryptoPunks NFT has been sold to a buyer who swapped testnet ethertokens to fund the purchase.
Buying a CryptoPunk NFT with worthless tokens
The buyer, whose identity remains undisclosed, reportedly swapped goerli ether for actual ether to buy the NFT.
CryptoPunk #9682 was accepted for 72.72 ETH ($111,600) earlier Thursday, with on-chain data showing the buyer swapped 527,281 Goerli ether for ETH to fund the purchase.
‘Worthless’ tokens used for the purchase
Goerli is an Ethereum test network (testnet) created to help developers test upcoming products or features to be deployed on the mainnet. It provides a testing environment that mimics real-world blockchain usage, allowing developers to find and patch critical bugs before deploying these products on the mainnet. This crucial step helps prevent unintended damage that could lead to monetary losses or a technology breakdown.
Tokens on a testnet are usually free since they don’t have any market value. Goerli ETH, like other testnet tokens, is expected to come from faucets that provide a small number of tokens to users for free.
However, a shortage of Goerli ether led to a market for it, allowing holders of the testnet tokens to swap them for actual ETH. The emergence of a monetized testnet market has caused Ethereum developers to state that they will gradually sunset Goerli.
For a ‘worthless’ token, Goerli has made a considerable market cap
For now, 1 Goerli ETH is worth $0.23 and has traded at $1.69, reaching a market capitalization of as much as $15 million. The Goerli price spike has attracted criticism from the crypto community.
A renowned developer Mudit Gupta tweeted: “Testnet ether is meant to be free but is being marked up by speculators.” He went on to clarify that although keyboard warriors could try to convince you otherwise, the developers disagree with them. Maybe 0.1% of consumers are consumers.
He continued by stating that the Goerli testnet was about to cease and suited them well.While the criticism is warranted, markets attract speculators, which also holds for the crypto world. For some on Crypto Twitter, betting on Goerli is a way to invest in the base roots of applications meant to be built on Ethereum – a sort of leveraged bet on ether.
As a result of the monetized testnet market, there is now a non-fungible token (NFT) collection built on the Goerli network, as well as a Shiba Inu-themed Goerli Inu meme coin. This has caused many in the crypto community to question the relevance of Goerli as a testing ground for Ethereum developers.
Source: nft.news
This news is published and verified by the NFT News media team.
