12-Year-Old Schoolboy From West London Builds An NFT Collection Worth £3 Million

12-year-old Benyamin Ahmed is a schoolboy but is also currently sitting on a £3 million cryptocurrency empire; he learned to code from his dad at the young age of five and last July in 2021, he released his own whale-themed collection of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). After building and releasing the whale collection of digital art, Benyamin Ahmed quickly earned a fortune of £750,000 in a matter of months – and he does not even have a bank account yet.

The whale-themed one-of-a-kind digital artworks can be bought and sold online through cryptocurrencies; the young schoolboy Benyamin Ahmed featured 3,350 NFTs of pixelated whales that were initially sold for $60 each. However, the value for each rose quickly and some were being sold for as high as $20,000.

After the first sale, Benyamin Ahmed ended up making £110,000, which “combined with his other ventures, has grown to £750,000, most of which is held in Ethereum, a cryptocurrency. The 12-year-old even gets commission, royalties, every time they are re-sold; this combined with trading other people’s NFTs, as well as the increase in the value of Ethereum, Benyamin Ahmed has gained a lot of money all sitting in cryptocurrency.

Being a schoolboy at the age of 12 from Pinner in west London means that he also does not have a bank account, so would not be able to withdraw any of that money just yet. When speaking of crypto and NFTs, Benyamin said he sees a “bright future”, and added, “My friends at school know what I do and they have congratulated me. Although I don’t think everyone really understands it. But lots of people now know my story and it makes me happy to see lots of people are learning about NFTs because of me. I want to continue to introduce lots of people into the NFT space. I think with every industry, the digital versions of things always perform the best. With digital art it has a lot more utility and certification. I can just hop online and see where anything came from.”

His father Imran Ahmed said, “It was never really about the money, it was about gaining knowledge but of course the money is a bonus. He’s never actually cashed out any money so there is a risk that it could go to zero. However, most analysts believe that not to be the case as it largely held in the blue-chip cryptos, bitcoin and Ethereum.”