United Cigars has launched what they are calling the first NFT (Non-Fungible Token) cigar. NFT is a unit of data on a digital ledger called a blockchain, where each NFT can represent a unique digital item, and thus they are not interchangeable. In other words, this isn’t an actual cigar you can smoke, it is a piece of digital artwork. NFTs can represent digital files such as art, and other forms of creative work. United Cigars Director of Operations, Oliver Nivaud came up with this notion of “Concept Cigars.”
The company describes a concept cigar like a concept car, made to showcase new styling. Concept cars are often shown at motor shows to gauge customer reaction to new and radical designs which may or may not be produced. This idea is a similar premise, it may never go into production directly, but possibly could. In time, a concept cigar could undergo many changes before the design is finalized and produced. This is not necessarily a production-intent prototype, just a concept cigar for now with future projects in the works.
Nelson Alfonso of Selected Tobacco and Golden Age Visual Developers (www.gavd.com) was tasked with the creation of the first NFT for this project. The conversation led to the idea of Atabey Black, an Ecuadorian maduro wrapped Ritos with the Atabey blend. Only 10 virtual boxes have been produced as NFT’s. An 11th box of Atabey Black Ritos will be available as singles, 25 singles available for sale as a single cigar NFT.
“The Atabey Black Ritos NFT is just a concept and not in actual production yet. For now, it’s only available to be seen and purchased on Ocean Sea.
Oliver Nivaud
Profits from Atabey Black Ritos NFT’s will go to Cigars Rights of the World (www.CigarRightsOfTheWorld.com), a global platform whose goal is protecting cigar smokers’ rights. “You cannot smoke an Atabey Black Cigar or any future NFT Concept Cigars” said Nivaud, “but I hope they can help the cigar industry.”
These digital cigars can be purchased here for just less than $1000.