Now you can have your sandwich and spend it too.
Despite the sandwich’s limited edition status (in the US, anyway), the image of McDonald’s’ McRib will endure for posterity now as an NFT.
The McRib features a boneless pork patty reformed to look like a short rack of ribs, slathered in BBQ sauce and topped with onions and pickles on a sesame seed bun. It’s a polarizing sandwich as some were immediately turned off by a “rib” sandwich without, well, ribs. Nevertheless, since its debut in 1981, the McRib has thrived in cult status as it reemerges on McD’s menu every few years.
In its absence, the fast-food giant has launched a sweepstakes to win a timeless keepsake of the fan-favorite sandwich in the form of an NFT, or non-fungible token.
“Our McRib NFTs are digital versions of the fan favorite sandwich – almost as saucy as the McRib itself – and we’re giving them away to a few lucky fans on Twitter beginning
1 November,” McDonald’s said in a statement.
They are the latest to jump on the NFT bandwagon, which has seen bidders throw tens of millions of dollars in cryptocurrency at digitized images and artwork made available exclusively to the buyer in a blockchain — an internet-based lockbox of sorts. Its non-fungibility suggests the ephemera cannot be replicated or exchanged without the highly secure access key, to which only the owner has access. Content enclosed in the NFT can certainly be shared in the form of secondary copies, but there can only be one owner of the original file — hence their high value.
“I present to u the most important NFT,” the company tweeted Monday.
Cryptoheads hungry for the McRib NFT should follow @McDonalds on Twitter and retweet their Nov. 1 announcement by Nov. 7, which automatically enters them into the sweepstakes.
Only 10 random entries from the US will be selected — all of whom should come prepared with a crypto wallet for distribution of the McRib NFT, according to official rules.
Of course, the crypto market value of the brand-based NFT has yet to be seen, as some have jeered at the news. “Silence, brand,” replied one critic.
Computer artist Mike Winkelmann, a k a Beeple, who set a record earlier this year following the sale of his NFT artwork for $69 million at Christie’s also chimed in: “Whoa
s - - t just go real.”
“With the McRib NFT,” says McDonald’s, “you’ll never again have to say goodbye to the sandwich you love.”