Karmic fortune has arrived to the digital art market, with a kaleidoscopic splash of colors and the face of a revered Thai monk offering portable Buddhist good luck charms to tech-savvy buyers.
Sales of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) — virtual images of anything from popular internet memes to original artwork — have swept the art world in recent months, with some fetching millions of dollars at major auction houses. “CryptoAmulets” is the latest venture to chase the craze, with founder Ekkaphong Khemthong sensing opportunity in Thailand’s widespread practice of collecting talismans blessed by revered monks.
“I am an amulet collector and I was thinking about how I could introduce amulets to foreigners and to the world,” he said.
Photo: AFP
Collecting amulets and other small religious trinkets is a popular pastime in Buddhist-majority Thailand, where the capital Bangkok has a market solely dedicated to the traders of these lucky objects.
Their value can rise thousands of dollars if blessed by a well-respected monk.
Despite being a digital format, Ekkapong wanted CryptoAmulets to have the same traditional ceremony as a physical piece, which is why he approached Luang Pu Heng, a highly regarded abbot from Thailand’s northeast.
Photo: AFP
“I respect this monk and I would love the world to know about him — he is a symbol of good fortune in business,” he said.
AUTHENTIC AND BLESSED
Luang Pu Heng last month presided over a ceremony to bless physical replicas of the digital amulets, which show a serene image of his face.
Photo: AFP
He splashed holy water onto his own visage as his saffron-robed disciples chanted and scattered yellow petals on the altar where the portraits were mounted. One challenge was trying to explain the concept of NFTs to the 95-year-old abbot, who assumed he would be blessing physical amulets.
“It’s very hard so we just tried to simplify it,” said Singaporean developer Daye Chan. “We said to him that it’s like blessing the photos.”
Transforming amulets into crypto art also means the usual questions of authenticity plaguing a talisman sold in a market are eliminated, he added.
“There are so many amulets being mass produced... All the records could be lost and these physical items can be easily counterfeited,” Chan said.
NFTs use blockchain technology — an unalterable digital ledger — to record all transactions from the the moment of their creation.
“For our amulet, even a hundred years later, they can still check back the record to see what the blockchain is,” Chan said.
But founder Ekkaphong would not be drawn on the karmic effectiveness of digital amulets, compared to their real-life counterparts. “They are different,” he said.
‘LUCKY EXPERIENCES’
On the CryptoAmulets Web site online gallery, different inscriptions are written in Thai — “rich”, “lucky” or “fortunate”, for instance — around each of the tokens.
They are priced on a tiered system in ethereum, the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency after bitcoin, and are currently selling for between US$46 and US$1,840. Sales have been slow ahead of Sunday’s purchase deadline, with only 1,500 tokens sold out of the 8,000 available, and with Thais making up most of the buyers.
Thai chef Theerapong Lertsongkram said he bought a CryptoAmulet because of his reverence for objects blessed by Luang Pu Heng, which he says have brought him good fortune.
“I have had several lucky experiences such as winning small lottery prizes... or being promoted on my job,” said Theerapong, who works in a Stockholm restaurant.
“I did not know anything about NFTs before, but I made the decision to buy it as I respect Luang Pu Heng so much,” he said.
But fellow collector Wasan Sukjit — who adorns the interior of his taxi with rare amulets — has a harder time with the concept. “Amulets need to be something physical, something people can hold,” he scoffed. “I prefer the ones I can hang on my neck.”
Earlier this month, a Hong Kong ship, Shunxin-39, was identified as the ship that had cut telecom cables on the seabed north of Keelung. The ship, owned out of Hong Kong and variously described as registered in Cameroon (as Shunxin-39) and Tanzania (as Xinshun-39), was originally People’s Republic of China (PRC)-flagged, but changed registries in 2024, according to Maritime Executive magazine. The Financial Times published tracking data for the ship showing it crossing a number of undersea cables off northern Taiwan over the course of several days. The intent was clear. Shunxin-39, which according to the Taiwan Coast Guard was crewed
China’s military launched a record number of warplane incursions around Taiwan last year as it builds its ability to launch full-scale invasion, something a former chief of Taiwan’s armed forces said Beijing could be capable of within a decade. Analysts said China’s relentless harassment had taken a toll on Taiwan’s resources, but had failed to convince them to capitulate, largely because the threat of invasion was still an empty one, for now. Xi Jinping’s (習近平) determination to annex Taiwan under what the president terms “reunification” is no secret. He has publicly and stridently promised to bring it under Communist party (CCP) control,
On Sept. 27 last year, three climate activists were arrested for throwing soup over Sunflowers by Vincent van Gogh at London’s National Gallery. The Just Stop Oil protest landed on international front pages. But will the action help further the activists’ cause to end fossil fuels? Scientists are beginning to find answers to this question. The number of protests more than tripled between 2006 and 2020 and researchers are working out which tactics are most likely to change public opinion, influence voting behavior, change policy or even overthrow political regimes. “We are experiencing the largest wave of protests in documented history,” says
One way people in Taiwan can control how they are represented is through their choice of name. Culturally, it is not uncommon for people to choose their own names and change their identification cards and passports to reflect the change, though only recently was the right to use Indigenous names written using letters allowed. Reasons for changing a person’s name can vary widely, from wanting to sound more literary, to changing a poor choice made by their parents or, as 331 people did in March of 2021, to get free sushi by legally changing their name to include the two characters