On May 9, Yahoo Finance reported that Mr Bean, the mute buffoon from British television co-created and played by Rowan Atkinson, would make his NFT debut in a joint venture between FOMO Lab and Banijay.
"I think that this is a great idea," Atkinson said about the project. "Any initiative which not only draws attention to but actually enables access to the fabulous artwork associated with the Mr Bean Animation series, I welcome with open arms."
The announcement was ill-timed. Cryptocurrencies across the board are precipitously falling in value, including mainstays like Bitcoin and Ethereum, and the so-called stablecoin, Tether, has fluctuated alarmingly.
@MrBean is taking his first steps into the #Metaverse…????We are excited to announce that a collection of 3,333 Mr Bean NFTs will be purchasable from May 25th on the Ethereum blockchain in partnership with @fomo_lab. Visit @yahoofinance to read more????https://t.co/DXilv6TbdN pic.twitter.com/s1USd0bIcyMay 10, 2022
Mr Bean has been given a pass for his antics for far too long, but could this be the funnyman's pièce de résistance: bringing down an entire subset of the economy with a venture so ill-advised it snapped everyone out of their crypto-fever?
OK, probably not. Bitcoin and Etherreum both began declining in value earlier in the month, days before we had any inkling that Rowan Atkinson's character would be making his blockchain debut. It's far more likely that the other, numerous concerns about blockchain-based assets finally broke the spell, shaking confidence in their value and spelling an end for at least the current chapter of crypto-mania.
Still, this poor timing may speak to a greater artistic merit for the 3,333-piece run of non-fungible tokens, even as their monetary value is doomed from the start. Bean famously remains, after all these years, a buffoon, a clown, and a dingus. The numerous NFT tie-ins of the past year have been rightly derided, but what could be more buffoonish, more clownish, more dingusy than lunging for a bite at the apple in this of all moments?
FOMO Lab's official discord has a "#show-us-your-bean!" channel open in anticipation of the collection's release. It remains empty, as prospective Bean-holders can't make their purchases yet, but I still find it ominous, desolate even in the face of current events.
As his NFT collection is doomed to fail, perhaps now Bean will receive a righteous comeuppance for the indignities he's wrought on the good people of England across years of dunderheaded antics.
