That Tungsten Company Is Auctioning Its Largest-Ever Cube as an NFT

Midwest Tungsten Service will take bids on a 14-inch cube via OpenSea.

AccessTimeIconOct 28, 2021 at 6:23 p.m. UTC
Updated May 11, 2023 at 5:46 p.m. UTC

A key manufacturer feeding Crypto Twitter’s tungsten craze is auctioning off a non-fungible token (NFT) tied to the largest tungsten cube it has ever made.

The NFT’s title says it all: “The Tungsten Cube - 14 inch, ~1,784 lb cube held in Willowbrook, Illinois, USA by Midwest Tungsten Service.” Bidding on OpenSea begins Friday, e-commerce director Sean Murray told CoinDesk.

According to the description on OpenSea, the NFT grants its holder once-a-year visiting rights for the super-dense cube.

The NFT is the latest twist in a weeklong meme saga that turned a sleepy metals manufacturer into Crypto Twitter’s unlikely celebrity, and all because of super-dense cubes.

Traders and journalists and tweeters and moonbois have been acquiring these desk tchotchkes for hundreds of dollars or more. (Disclosure: This reporter has his own Midwest 1-incher. It’s surprisingly dense!)

Keeping the 14-inch cube at Midwest Tungsten HQ might be out of necessity.

Murray previously told CoinDesk that Midwest Tungsten was considering creating a supremely heavy cube but wasn’t sure how to get transportation squared away.

He’d also sworn to keep Midwest Tungsten focused on the metals and not NFTs. But a week of surging sales changed the calculus.

“I wanted to let you know first that we’re going to try an NFT. Swerving out of our lane, I guess,” Murray said. “The Crypto Twitter community’s enthusiasm for cryptocurrency and NFTs is contagious.”

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Danny is CoinDesk's Managing Editor for Data & Tokens. He owns BTC, ETH and SOL.


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