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.
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.