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Womp, Womp: Melania Trump’s NFT Hat Auction Doesn’t Go as Planned | Vanity Fair

Womp, Womp: Melania Trump’s NFT Hat Auction Doesn’t Go as Planned | Vanity Fair

When a young Slovene model named Melania Knauss boarded a plane bound for the United States in 1996, it’s probably safe to say she had no idea the twists and turns life had in store for her. Could she have imagined she would don a $100,000 wedding dress to marry one of the worst people in the world? That she would live in a gilded penthouse in the sky where good taste went to die? That she would help her husband peddle racist birtherism claims about the country’s first Black president? That she would wear a jacket with the words “I really don’t really care” emblazoned on it to visit children separated from their parents, as a result of her husband’s policies? That she would take nearly a week to release a statement about a violent insurrection incited by her husband, and that the thesis of the statement would be that she was the true victim of January 6? That she would leave the White House and get into…the blockchain business? No, we’re guessing she did not, but here we are.

And, unfortunately for Melania Trump, things are not going as well as she’d presumably hoped.

Per The Guardian:

What do Melania Trump’s wide-brimmed white hat, a painting of her wearing the hat and an NFT of an animated version of the hat have in common? They were all put up for auction by the former first lady—and as of early Wednesday, failed to rake in the target price of a $250,000 opening bid. Trump announced earlier this month that she would auction off the autographed hat, which she wore to meet the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and his wife during an official state visit in 2018. The auction also included a watercolor painting of herself wearing the hat and a non-fungible token, or NFT, of the painting. She insisted that all bids be made in Solana tokens, a cryptocurrency. 

When the auction concluded on Wednesday there were only five bids on the items, each around the minimum requirement of 1,800 Solana tokens. Although the minimum number of tokens was met, a steep dive in the crypto market over the last two weeks resulted in the final bid being approximately $170,000—about $80,000 short of the opening bid threshold.

When Trump initially announced the auction, she said a “portion” of the proceeds would go to charity, so it is a legitimate shame that the whole thing didn’t raise more money—made even more of a shame by the fact that the former first lady’s team has steadfastly refused to say exactly how big that portion will be, with her office choosing not to respond to direct questions about it. (According to CNN, it “sought clarity numerous times from Trump’s spokesperson about the ‘portion of the proceeds’” that will go to charity, requests that apparently went unanswered.) As a reminder, Donald Trump’s longtime outlook on charity has historically involved bold claims “that don’t always add up” and “persistently illegal conduct.” So, there’s that.

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Soooo…not a guy who spends his entire confirmation hearing screaming about his love of beer and denying allegations of sexual assault?

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You’ll never believe it, but conservatives have a problem with Biden vowing to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court

Weirdly, they had no problem with their current lord and savior, Donald Trump, pledging to nominate a woman, or their original lord and savior, Ronald Reagan, doing the same. Which means either they are partisan hacks who simply oppose anything any Democrats do ever, or they don’t like the “Black” part of the “Black woman” equation. Either or both of which could be true! Per The New York Times:

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