Ozzy Osbourne is jumping on the digital art bandwagon to cash in on his infamous bat-biting.
The Black Sabbath veteran, 73, has announced a collection of 9,666 ‘CryptoBatz’ will be available as non-fungible tokens from January.
He said his range is a nod to one of his most notorious moments, when he bit the head off a bat on stage in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1982.
Parkinson’s sufferer Ozzy added the project came after his wife Sharon, 69, refused to buy him one of the world’s most popular NFTs, from the Bored Ape range, for Christmas.
He said: “I’ve been trying to get in on the NFT action for a while so when I asked Sharon for a Bored Ape for Christmas after several failed attempts of buying my own and she said no, I decided to create my own.
(Image: Getty Images North America)
“CryptoBatz is a f*****g mental project for NFT collectors and fans.
“The design pays tribute to one of my most iconic onstage moments and is a chance to acquire a rare piece of art history. I love it.”
A press release for Ozzy’s NFTs said each of his CryptoBatz will have the ability to “bite” another NFT in a user’s digital wallet and mutate with it to create another token.
The resulting ‘MutantBatz’ will apparently allow customers to combine with NFTs from companies including the Bored Ape Yacht Club, SupDucks, Cryptotoadz and others.
A treasure hunt called AncientBatz will also let CryptoBatz holders search for tokens around the world.
The AncientBat NFTs are said to have the power to bite other tokens up to 100 times and breed 100 MutantBatz.
(Image: Getty Images)
Ozzy joins a crew of celebrities who have tried their hand at selling and trading in digital art, from Paris Hilton and Damien Hirst to Snoop Dogg, Lindsay Lohan and John Cleese.
In July, it was estimated NFT sales in the first half of 2021 rose by nearly £1.5billion.
Two months earlier, cryptocurrency firm Injective Protocol paid £71,000 for Morons, a physical artwork by Banksy.
It showed an auctioneer flogging a framed picture bearing the words: “I can’t believe you morons actually buy this s**t.”
The image was then burned before a digital token of the work was sold for £283,000.
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
