An actual NFT success story? Tascha Labs’ shattered diamond

In 2021, during the height of $NFT-mania, an angel investor and macroeconomist named Tascha Che (aka Tascha Labs) announced her plan to buy a $5,000 diamond, create an $NFT of it, then smash it to pieces.

The stunt, intended to prove that, while physical objects can be destroyed, digital footprints can forever retain value, was widely criticized by most outside of cryptocurrency and $NFT circles.

But since the complete collapse of the $NFT markets and liquidity falling to near all-time lows, how has the shattered diamond $NFT performed?

Diamond background

Che came up with the idea after posting a hypothesis to Twitter:

Once the tweet got enough traction, she pursued the concept. In August of 2021 she purchased a 1.3 carat diamond online, had it delivered, and then started to work on ways she could destroy it.

If you make a $NFT of a real diamond, and the diamond itself gets destroyed in a fire tomorrow, you still have the same asset.

Because the token still exists and is in limited supply just as before. Nothing has changed.

What $NFT is doing to the concept of asset, few understand.

— Tascha (@TaschaLabs) August 22, 2021

Her initial plan — to hit the diamond with a hammer — failed miserably, but she was eventually able to go to a mechanic who used some type of drill to obliterate it for free.

The next step was to mint the now-destroyed gem on an $NFT marketplace so that people could bid on it.

This proved to be successful.

In September of 2021 a user purchased the $NFT for 5.5 $ETH, valued at +$17,000 at the time and over three times the price Che paid for the diamond.

While Che instantly took to social media to proclaim that her hypothesis had been proved correct, the reality was that a single sale couldn’t possibly prove that all digitized assets could retain value in spite of their destruction.