Queen Elizabeth II artwork NFTs flood marketplace

A large number of new NFT artworks have been launched in memory of Queen Elizabeth II, who died on September 8 at the age of 96.

The Queen, the United Kingdom’s longest serving monarch, died at Balmoral in Scotland on September 8. People left flowers and personal tributes outside palaces and churches across the country to mourn the Queen. 

Thousands of digital artworks from the Queen’s portraits to pixel images flooded the leading NFT marketplace OpenSea shortly after the news of her death was announced. 

One collection, “RIP The Queen Official,” was released less than an hour after the BBC reported the Queen’s death. It consists of more than 8,000 images of auto-generated combinations of different features and backgrounds.

The existing NFT collection of similar style, the ‘QueenE DAO Collection’, has seen an increase in the sale price and demand. Of its 73 pieces of artwork, eight were sold within five hours, all but one of which sold for a price of more than US$1,000, as opposed to US$97 22 days ago.

Owners of NFTs associated with the Queen have also used NFTs to pay tribute to the Queen. One Twitter user wrote: “Wearing my Queen Elizabeth dress and hat in her memory,” posting an image from the popular NFT project Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) dressed in a Queen-style attire.