Budweiser Bought a Beer-Themed Ethereum Domain NFT

Budweiser has bought the Ethereum domain name “beer.eth” along with an NFT bottle rocket from the Tom Sachs Rocket Factory collection. 

Budweiser Buys NFTs

Another multi-billion dollar company has bought into NFTs.

The @budweiserusa Twitter account changed its profile picture to a Budweiser-themed rocket from the Tom Sachs Rocket Factory NFT collection Monday evening, indicating that it had bought the piece. The same address that owns the rocket had also recently purchased the ENS domain “beer.eth” for 30 ETH, or almost $100,000.

The move comes days after the financial services giant Visa announced it had purchased a CryptoPunk for $150,000. 

ENS stands for Ethereum Name Service. The app allows anyone to register a custom website or wallet name on the Ethereum network. Similar to how domain names can be bought and sold on the internet, ENS domains can also be bought and sold as NFTs. 

In addition to the “beer.eth” ENS domain purchase, the company also appears to have registered the “beyondbeer.eth” ENS domain, and bought a Tom Sachs Rocket Factory piece for 8 ETH. 

The Budweiser Twitter account has not officially announced buying the NFTs but did tweet out three rocket emojis as news of the company’s purchases spread.

🚀🚀🚀

— Budweiser (@budweiserusa) August 24, 2021

Tom Sachs Rocket Factory launched at the start of August and allows collectors to build NFT bottle rockets using various branded components. Along with Budweiser, rocket parts in the collection also use branding from 7-Eleven, Nissin Cup Noodles, and McDonald’s, as well as cartoon characters such as Lisa Simpson and Hello Kitty.

The non-fungibles space has grown exponentially in August, with the NFT marketplace OpenSea approaching $2 billion in trading volume over the past 30 days. Some are describing the phenomenon as “NFT Summer,” referencing the explosion of decentralized finance on Ethereum, which became known as “DeFi Summer,” last year. As NFTs gain wider adoption, more companies are likely to see buying NFTs as an important marketing opportunity. 

Disclaimer: At the time of writing this feature, the author owned BTC and ETH.