#651 Meet the 12-year old whiz kid selling NFTs

Benyamin Ahmed is a 12-year old from London who has made more than $400,000 selling NFTs in the last few weeks. He is incredibly smart and was a joy to speak with. In this conversation, we discuss NFTs, booking $400,000 in revenue, being 12 years old, teacher’s reaction, potentially buying the school and renaming it, and what Benyamin is planning next. ======================= Okcoin is one of the most popular licensed exchanges. Okcoin is the first to bring new cryptos to market, offering some of the lowest fees in the industry, an easy to use app, and Earn feature--you got to check out their brand new, beautifully designed app! And as of today, they also became the first US exchange to list NEAR. It’s easier than ever to sign up, buy and trade crypto in just 2 minutes on Okcoin with credit & debit cards or just link your bank account to the best new crypto assets. So get started, and go to okcoin.com/pomp ======================= Cosmos is building the Internet of Blockchains, marking a new era of interoperability, scalability, and usability. The free flow of assets and data between blockchains with bridges to Ethereum and Bitcoin will unleash the potential of DeFi, NFTs, and much more. Dive into Cosmos at cosmos.network/pomp ======================= Matrixport, Asia’s fastest growing digital asset platform with $10 billion in assets under management and custody, it offers one-stop crypto financial solutions including fixed income, DeFi in 1-click, structured products, Cactus Custody™, spot OTC as well as lending. You can earn from high single digit with fixed income to high double digit yield with their Dual Currency Product. If you hold crypto and look for yield, this is the app you don’t wanna miss out. Go download the Matrixport App and enjoy a welcome offer of 30% APY on USDC here: https://invest.matrixport.com/en

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Anthony Pompliano?

  What's up everyone, this is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, simply the best podcast out there. Now let's kick this thing off. Benjamin Ahmed is a 12-year-old from London who has made more than $400,000 selling NFTs in the last few weeks. He's incredibly smart and was a joy to speak with. In this conversation, we discuss NFTs, booking $400,000 in revenue, being 12-years-old, teacher's reaction, potentially buying the school and renaming it, and what Benjamin is planning next. I really enjoyed this conversation with him, and I hope you do as well. Before we get into this episode, though, I want to quickly talk about our sponsors. First up is OKCoin. If you haven't started building your crypto portfolio on OKCoin, there's

• 0:46Anthony Pompliano?

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• 1:26Anthony Pompliano?

  easy-to-use app at OKCoin.com/Pomp. Again, OKCoin.com/Pomp. They're one of the fastest-growing global exchanges around. OKCoin.com/Pomp. Go check them out. Next up is Cosmos. They're building the Internet of Blockchains, marking a new era of interoperability, scalability, and usability. The free flow of assets and data between blockchains with bridges to Ethereum and Bitcoin will unleash the potential of DeFi, NFTs, and much more. Dive into Cosmos at Cosmos.network/Pomp. Again, Cosmos.network/Pomp. The Internet of Blockchains, marking a new era of interoperability, scalability, and usability. Cosmos.network/Pomp. Last but not least is Matrix Port. Have you

• 2:10Anthony Pompliano?

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• 2:54Anthony Pompliano?

  and enjoy a welcome offer of high yield on USDC for new users. Again, go to the description, click on the link there, and download the app. You can also go to matrixport.com. All right, let's get in this episode with Benjamin. I hope you guys enjoy this one.

• 3:09Speaker 01

  Anthony Pompliano runs Pomp Investments. All views of him and the guests on his podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Pomp Investments. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp or his guests as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his personal opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.

• 3:32Anthony Pompliano?

  Benjamin, what's up, man?

• 3:34Speaker 02

  Hello?

• 3:35Anthony Pompliano?

  How are you?

• 3:36Speaker 02

  I'm doing very well.

• 3:37Anthony Pompliano?

  I'm doing great. Where are you, geography-wise? What city do you live in?

• 3:43Speaker 02

  I'm currently in London, UK.

• 3:45Anthony Pompliano?

  Amazing. All right, you're 12 years old, right?

• 3:49Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 3:49Anthony Pompliano?

  Man, I wish I was still 12. That's a fun time to be alive. All right. How did you first come across Bitcoin, cryptocurrencies, NFTs, etc.?

• 3:59Speaker 02

  So I got interested in NFTs earlier this year. My dad's friend, who's been in Bitcoin for a very long time, bought a rare Pepe, which is one of the few NFT collections on the Bitcoin network, for $27,000, and I instantly became fascinated that someone was willing to spend this much money on a JPEG. So I did some research into NFTs.

• 4:24Anthony Pompliano?

  Dude, legend. Alright, when you started looking at the NFTs, why were you so interested? You saw your friends, uh, your dad's friend buy it for a lot of money and you obviously were probably laughing like, "Why are you buying a JPEG for tens of thousands of dollars?" But why were you interested in it?

• 4:40Speaker 02

  In every industry, the digital format has massively outperformed the analog format. I don't think of NFTs as artwork. I don't think of them as digital artwork. I think of them as programmable digital artwork.

• 4:53Anthony Pompliano?

  You are a legend. You're right. Yes, that is exactly what this is. Alright, so once you decided that, which by the way, there's a ton of boomers on Wall Street that you need to go tell that to because they're still confused. But once you decided that, what was the first thing that you did with NFTs?

• 5:09Speaker 02

  So I watched a few YouTube tutorials about NFTs and started work on my first collection called Minecraft We Have, because I'm a big fan of Minecraft. I've been playing it for a long time. And it consisted of 40 small Minecraft characters. Unfortunately, I didn't sell any of them, but I gave one away on Twitter. And then after that, I wanted to enter the generative space in this NFT sector. So I started work on Weird World.

• 5:35Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay, so when you first started looking at NFTs, the first thing that you did was you went and you did a YouTube tutorial. Is that where you normally learn is on YouTube rather than in school?

• 5:46Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 5:48Anthony Pompliano?

  Alright, which tells me, I always say that YouTube's better than regular school, right?

• 5:53Speaker 02

  Uh, I guess.

• 5:55Anthony Pompliano?

  Alright, when you decided that you were gonna do this, did you tell any of your friends?

• 6:00Speaker 02

  Uh, no, I kept it a secret at the time.

• 6:02Anthony Pompliano?

  Alright, did you tell your dad?

• 6:04Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 6:04Anthony Pompliano?

  What did your parents think when you told them that you were gonna go sell JPEGs on the internet?

• 6:09Speaker 02

  Well, my dad was quite interested, I have to say.

• 6:15Anthony Pompliano?

  So he got it right away as well?

• 6:17Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 6:18Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay. And then when you went and what was the first one that you actually sold? I think there was about 40 of them in the NFT collection?

• 6:26Speaker 02

  Yes, my first collection, the Minecraft B-Ha, I didn't sell any of them, but I gave one away.

• 6:31Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay. And then the second collection, what did you do?

• 6:34Speaker 02

  So in the second collection, it was generated automatically generated. So I fed all the traits and base layers into an open source Python script, which generated all of my 3,350 whales. I then started work on a smart contract as it's quite easy with the smart contract. You just look at the standard smart contract that the other NFT collections have used and just change the variables. So when it says the maximum supply of tokens, you change that to your maximum supply. The hard and difficult bit, which I needed my dad to help me, was when you connected the smart contract to the website. So that's one thing that my dad helped me on at the end. And then I then posted a thread on Twitter on how I was able to do this.

• 7:17Speaker 02

  And I had not that many followers at the time, but I think another NFT collection retweeted it and the thread just blew up. It went viral. People just connected with my story because I was so young.

• 7:30Anthony Pompliano?

  Benjamin, are you gonna come on my show and flex on me and tell everyone that you're smarter than me? That was incredible. All right. So how many NFTs have you actually sold right now? Do you know what the number is?

• 7:43Speaker 02

  I sold all of the 3,350 on the mint. And then I think we've done over 1.6K volume traded in ETH on secondary shares.

• 7:53Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay. In dollar terms, how much money have you made so far?

• 7:57Speaker 02

  I've made 400,000 US dollars.

• 8:02Anthony Pompliano?

  Legend. All right. Your friends know about this now?

• 8:06Speaker 02

  I kept it secret, but when a major outlet in the UK wrote a story about it, literally all my friends just found out and started making jokes that I was able to buy the school.

• 8:18Anthony Pompliano?

  The same jokes.

• 8:20Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, I saw that.

• 8:21Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. All right. So what do your friends say? Like when they first read the story, you're 12 years old. Do your friends call you, text you, they come over to your house? Like what like what do they react when they find out that you're richer than some of their parents?

• 8:34Speaker 02

  Well, they're quite shocked that I made $400,000 from selling JPGs online.

• 8:41Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. And then when your parents find out that you've made all this money, what do they think?

• 8:46Speaker 02

  Well, it was just all meant to be a learning experience. I was, I just expected to make like 20 pounds from this. I never expected to make $400,000 and neither did my parents.

• 8:59Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. And so you got paid in ETH?

• 9:01Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 9:02Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. Did you sell the ETH? Are you keeping it in ETH? Are you moving it to something else? What are you doing with what you got?

• 9:07Speaker 02

  Uh, I'm keeping it in ETH and I'm hodling.

• 9:10Anthony Pompliano?

  Wow. Okay. And when you look at the volumes of the secondary market, are you paying attention or doing anything with that collection? Or you're kind of just letting it run now?

• 9:21Speaker 02

  So I'm letting it run. Now and then I do some changes to the website. So I think a few days ago, I changed the gradient on the Weird Wells text on the website. So I just do small changes here and then.

• 9:34Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. Now here's the big question. When that article came out and they said that you had made $400,000 selling this on the internet, what did your teachers and principal at school say?

• 9:44Speaker 02

  Well, one of my teachers messaged me and said that they were surprised and couldn't wait to see me in September when I go back to school.

• 9:55Anthony Pompliano?

  Wow. Teachers in his DMs.

• 9:58Anthony Pompliano?

  That teacher may be asking you for a job soon.

• 10:04Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. So can we, can we talk to you about an idea that we have?

• 10:08Speaker 02

  Um, yeah, sure.

• 10:09Anthony Pompliano?

  We think that you should take $20,000 and buy the school. We think that we should buy your school and just name it Benjamin School moving forward. What do you think?

• 10:19Speaker 02

  Uh, that's an interesting idea, I have to say.

• 10:22Anthony Pompliano?

  Are you interested? What, what if we together, what if we together, you put 20,000 up, we put 20,000 up and we buy your school and rename it after you? What would your teacher say then?

• 10:32Speaker 02

  Uh, I'm not sure to be honest, um, they might be shocked.

• 10:38Anthony Pompliano?

  We, for 50,000, they may make you the principal.

• 10:41Speaker 02

  True.

• 10:44Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. So talk to us about what are your plans moving forward? What are you gonna do? Are you gonna do another NFT drop? Are you gonna do something else in the space? What are you thinking now?

• 10:52Speaker 02

  So I don't want to be known as the weird Welsh kid for the rest of my life. I don't want to be a one hit wonder.

• 11:00Anthony Pompliano?

  You are a long-term thinker. Okay.

• 11:02Speaker 02

  In the future, I want to do an infrastructure business, which is where the opportunities are at. How, with my brother, who's also an amazing coder. However, in the meantime, I'm working on small NFT collections to get some experience.

• 11:16Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay. Where is, uh, how old is your brother?

• 11:19Speaker 02

  He's one year older than me.

• 11:20Anthony Pompliano?

  So you're 12, he's 13?

• 11:23Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 11:23Anthony Pompliano?

  What do you guys eat for dinner? What are your parents feeding you? Why are you guys so smart?

• 11:28Speaker 02

  Um, well, I have normal food, I guess.

• 11:33Anthony Pompliano?

  What questions do you have for Benjamin?

• 11:35Speaker 04

  Benjamin, uh, thanks for doing this. Nice to meet you. Uh, you're great, dude. You're awesome.

• 11:41Anthony Pompliano?

  We love you. If you ever come to America, you have to come see us.

• 11:44Speaker 04

  Yeah. I, I, I could learn a lot from you, it seems.

• 11:48Speaker 04

  Speaking of, what are you learning in school? Like, I was looking up the other day when we were talking about you on the show and I made a comment like, when I looked it up, it said decimals and percentages and negative numbers. Like you, it seems like you know all that. So like, what's happening in the class? Are you paying attention or are they teaching you new things? What's going on there?

• 12:06Speaker 02

  Um, I'm paying attention. Uh, yeah, I have to, uh, apart from that, um, school has been interesting. I do not learn coding at school. Most of that was mainly taught to me by my dad at home.

• 12:21Anthony Pompliano?

  What do they teach you in math class right now? Is it decimals and stuff?

• 12:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's decimals. I think we did like nth term before we went on break, summer holidays.

• 12:32Anthony Pompliano?

  Man, you guys are doing nth terms at 12?

• 12:34Speaker 04

  I mean, it's crazy. It seems like what you're saying is you've learned more from YouTube and at home from your dad than you're necessarily learning in school.

• 12:42Speaker 02

  That's a fair point.

• 12:43Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. John, what questions you got? John and you are about the same age, Benjamin.

• 12:47Speaker 04

  Just kidding, kidding.

• 12:49Anthony Pompliano?

  Benny, it's nice to meet you. Thank you for coming on the show. You are an absolute legend in my mind. One, I love how you're going after like the infrastructure. Don't want to be a one hit wonder. Genius. But can you, I'm just curious, can you confirm something? Did your weird whale sell out in nine hours?

• 13:07Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 13:08Anthony Pompliano?

  3,000, over 3,000 JPGs you sold in nine hours?

• 13:13Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 13:14Speaker 04

  Are your friends like asking to go to dinner and stuff like, are they like hitting you up like, hey, man, when are we gonna go out? What's, what's going on there? What are they saying?

• 13:23Speaker 02

  Uh, I think they regard me as a JPG dealer from now on.

• 13:30Anthony Pompliano?

  That's what, that's your nickname in the halls of, uh, of, uh, school is the JPG dealer?

• 13:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:36Anthony Pompliano?

  Did you buy anything once that you made the money? Did you even buy like anything, a pair of shoes, anything for yourself?

• 13:43Speaker 02

  I treated myself with a few really cheap NFTs, but apart from that, I'm trying to keep my money in crypto and not spend it.

• 13:50Anthony Pompliano?

  So you, well, hold on a second, back up. You made $400,000 worth of ETH, of cryptocurrency, and you didn't take a single piece of that money and buy anything in the analog world? You simply bought a couple of other NFTs in the digital world and that's it?

• 14:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it's surprising, but I don't have a bank account yet.

• 14:14Anthony Pompliano?

  Because you're too young?

• 14:15Speaker 02

  Uh, I think I can get one, but I've never gone to register.

• 14:21Anthony Pompliano?

  Because you don't need it, right?

• 14:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm bankless.

• 14:28Anthony Pompliano?

  The 12 year old made $400,000 and he's bankless. I love it. Has any of the bankers called you yet? Do you, are the wealth managers calling you up like, yo, kid, I got some ideas for you?

• 14:39Speaker 02

  Uh, I've got a few requests in my DMs in Discord, but apart from that, not really.

• 14:46Anthony Pompliano?

  Amazing. And then what, you talked about infrastructure. What do you think the opportunity is, uh, for infrastructure? Like you want to build like an exchange or what do you want to do?

• 14:55Speaker 02

  So when I look at NFTs in the digital art scene, To me, they come in three groups. So the first group is arts that people are willing to spend loads on. So this is like CryptoPunks and art blocks. These, this artwork outlines your crypto renaissance. The second group is artwork which will turn into billion dollar brands. For example, Cool Cats, Board Ape, these will expand into merchandise, games and a whole host of other sectors. And the last group is NFTs that are really cheap but have a lot of utility. So this is NFTs like avatar pictures and skins and cosmetics in different games and weapons.

• 15:39Speaker 02

  And I think in this group is where a billion dollar infrastructure business lies.

• 15:45Anthony Pompliano?

  I, I like that idea. Can I, can I make a deal with you?

• 15:48Speaker 02

  Uh, if you want.

• 15:50Anthony Pompliano?

  If you start a company, can I invest?

• 15:53Speaker 02

  Uh, sure.

• 15:55Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. All right, we'll talk later, but if you do something, I'll invest. I, I don't know if you'll be successful or not, but it sounds like you're smarter than me, so I'm in. All right, Joe, Joe and John, you guys got any other questions?

• 16:08Speaker 04

  No, you're a legend, Benjamin. Thanks for doing this. Keep it up.

• 16:12Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 16:13Anthony Pompliano?

  Benjamin, we're gonna bring you back on the show. I feel like you're gonna do other crazy stuff. We're gonna have to keep bringing you back.

• 16:18Speaker 04

  Are you on Twitter?

• 16:20Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 16:20Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah.

• 16:20Speaker 04

  What's your username?

• 16:22Speaker 02

  At Obi Wan Benoni.

• 16:24Anthony Pompliano?

  Why, why did you pick that name? That's an awesome name. You're, you, look at the photo.

• 16:29Speaker 04

  Pictures all the time too.

• 16:30Anthony Pompliano?

  Benjamin, the photo makes you immediately, if I see that photo on Twitter, I'm like, this guy's a G. He's, he's locked and loaded. Why'd you pick Obi Wan Benoni?

• 16:39Speaker 02

  So, uh, since I was born, I, I don't know why, but my family nicknamed me Benoni. And then a few years ago, my brother came across the screen named Obi Wan Benoni and he told me about it. So I just adopted that as my username on every single platform I go on. So in games, I'm at Obi Wan Benoni and on Twitter, I'm at Obi Wan Benoni. So that's why I chose it mainly.

• 17:02Anthony Pompliano?

  That's amazing. And, uh, is your brother doing NFT drops too, or is it just you?

• 17:07Speaker 02

  Uh, my brother's not doing NFTs. However, he's an amazing coder just like me. We're, we've both been coding from a very young age. He's less, he's more shy on social media and these platforms. However, he's just, he's just as a good coder as me.

• 17:23Anthony Pompliano?

  Ah, I love it. I love that you're supporting your brother too. Alright, last question. I saw somebody asking in the comments. Are girls coming after you? Do you got like a whole line of list of people who want to be your girlfriend now?

• 17:34Speaker 02

  Uh, well, the thing about my DMs, I've closed them to only people that I follow. So I don't really follow that many.

• 17:43Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, you're not even worried about the local school?

• 17:50Anthony Pompliano?

  Obi-Wan Bononi is absolutely global. Got to close the DMs. Alright, what can we do to help you right now? Is there anything that we can do other than tell people to go follow you on Twitter?

• 17:59Speaker 02

  Um, I think you allowing me to come on this show has just helped me a lot, to be honest.

• 18:06Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, you, listen, you have an open invitation. Whenever you do anything, you can come on the show. People love you. We love you. And we're gonna, uh, next time that we talk, you're gonna tell me what company you're gonna build. I'm gonna invest. And then I'm gonna go brag to everyone that I invested in a 12-year-old that's smarter than me and my brothers.

• 18:23Anthony Pompliano?

  Sound good?

• 18:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:25Anthony Pompliano?

  Alright buddy, thank you so much. Oh, by the way, hold on, I just put, uh, in the chat, I just put your Twitter account. So everyone go follow him. But is there anywhere that we should send them to see your collection on OpenSea or somewhere?

• 18:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, you could send them the OpenSea link. You search up Weird Whales and it's the one with the flashy gift.

• 18:44Anthony Pompliano?

  Weird whales? Alright, hold on, I'm gonna do it right now. Weird whales on OpenSea?

• 18:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:48Anthony Pompliano?

  I just dropped in the chat for everyone his Linktree. Ooh, John. We got Weird Whales. I'm gonna put that in the chat as well. Why did you think of Weird Whales? Why'd you call it that name?

• 18:59Speaker 02

  So most of the collection I've seen, they have their, whatever their NFT is, and then adjective before it. So you have cool cats and they've got cool is the adjective. And I thought of an adjective beginning with W and the first one that came to mind was weird. That's why I went with it.

• 19:15Anthony Pompliano?

  I like it. I like it. I like it. Well, guess what? You know who else liked it? The audience, because you sold $400,000 worth of NFTs.

• 19:26Anthony Pompliano?

  Absolutely legend. When's your birthday, by the way? When do you turn 13?

• 19:30Speaker 02

  Uh, my birthday is on March the 9th.

• 19:32Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. So it's coming up here in a few months. Can we get, can I give you a challenge?

• 19:38Speaker 02

  Uh, sure.

• 19:39Anthony Pompliano?

  You're at $400,000 in sales now. Can you get to a million before 13?

• 19:43Speaker 02

  Uh, I'm hoping I can.

• 19:45Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. Cause then you could tell your brother that you were a millionaire before 13 and he wasn't.

• 19:51Speaker 02

  That's an interesting flex.

• 19:55Anthony Pompliano?

  Listen, I, I, I'm too old to try to do that. So you, uh, you're, you're my last hope. All right. So a million dollars by the time you turn 13, or I'm sorry, yeah, 13 in, uh, March. That's the goal.

• 20:06Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 20:07Anthony Pompliano?

  Uh, you got this, man. We're cheering you on. Everyone make sure that you go follow him on Twitter. Make sure you go check out OpenSea. John dropped the link tree in there. Uh, any last words, Benjamin?

• 20:17Speaker 02

  Um, thanks for having me on the show.

• 20:21Anthony Pompliano?

  You're a legend, man. All right. We're definitely going to bring you back on. We'll talk later, but I appreciate you coming on. Tell your dad, thank you. And, uh, tell your brother, let's go. We, uh, we got two, uh, two geniuses. You guys are the true super coders, by the way. In the U S, they say that's a bad thing and, and my eyes, that's a good thing. So keep it up. You're doing a great job.

• 20:39Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 20:39Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. See you later, buddy.

• 20:41Speaker 02

  See you later. Bye.

• 20:42Anthony Pompliano?

  Bye.