Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, exploded last year when curiosity into the world of blockchain digital art took the mainstream by storm.
Collins Dictionary made “NFT” the word of the year, while Post Malone, Stephen Curry and Jimmy Fallon invested in popular collections. Average sale prices rose from less than $100 million to $23 billion.
LSU juniors Hunter Cagle and Brennan Williams refused to miss out on this virtual money-making opportunity, as there are millions of dollars being exchanged every day on NFT trading sites like OpenSea.
Their friendship seems to be a match made in Metaverse heaven, despite stark differences.
“I’m an art major and he’s a business major; when it comes to creating and selling NFTs, we just bounce off each other,” said Williams. 
Cagle, less involved in the artistic aspect of NFTs and more so in day-trading them, started investing when the pandemic hit.
“I was stuck in my room. I didn’t know what to do. I had maybe like $6,000 to my name,” Cagle said.
“I remember investing in Tesla and I did pretty well.”
Cagle and Williams gave credit to entrepreneur and internet personality Gary Vee for their early jump onto the NFT bandwagon.
Cagle had ditched all his Tesla stocks by May 2021, investing all of that money in NFTs instead. He has been collecting and selling NFTs over the past year and a half; he is currently the owner of 20 NFTs. 
“The first NFT I bought was … 2.7 ethereum, $6.5k at the time. Now the cheapest one is 40 ethereum, which is $50k,” said Cagle.
His success was by no means easy or a stroke of luck. Day-traders like Cagle had to act quickly and precisely to take full advantage of the volatile NFT market.
Cagle said he earned over $163,000 last year, and has earned an additional $40,000 just this month from trading NFTs.
Cagle and Williams have started working on their own NFT collection called “Smiles ‘N Stitches.” They plan to release the collection later this year. 
“Once it’s out there, it’s out there forever, so we don’t want to do it wrong. We want to put something out there with quality and meaning,” said Williams.
Cagle and Williams are confident about the NFT hype and are convinced that LSU sees the potential in NFTs too.
In September 2021, RECUR, a leading NFT company, launched a new Collegiate NFT Marketplace, NFTU. They announced that LSU was one of the first colleges to join the program.
Trevor George, Co-CEO of RECUR, mentioned LSU and Syracuse University for their meaningful early entrances into the college NFT arena, an action he believes could result in more fan engagement.
Since LSU and Syracuse joined RECUR, the number of schools now a part of NFTU has grown to 49.
Like many other individuals, institutions, and corporations worldwide, Cagle and Williams have faith in the NFT market’s future success despite its volatility.
“I can’t even fathom the space five years from now,” said Williams.
“The world is going so tech and digital, there’s no way I can see NFTs and the digital life not sticking around,” added Cagle.