Technologies

Twelve-year-old coder reportedly slated to earn more than $400k from NFTs

Benyamin Ahmed’s NFT collection Weird Whales launched just last month.

Benyamin Ahmed, a 12-year-old coder based in London, is getting a lot of attention lately thanks to the flurry of press he’s gotten for creating a collection of digital whales that are selling as NFTs. According to CNBC, Ahmed is on track to earn over $400,000 from the collection, which launched just last month.

The young entrepreneur started learning to code at 5 years old after being inspired by his dad Imran, a web developer. Earlier this year, Benyamin became interested in NFTs, those ubiquitous nonfungible tokens tied to everything from videos to artwork to tweets. Like cryptocurrency, NFTs are recorded in a digital ledger, so there’s a listing of who owns what.

Ahmed launched his first NFT collection earlier this summer consisting of 40 avatars called Minecraft Yee Haa he coded and designed himself. While that collection didn’t sell right away, he started work on another in June called Weird Whales, featuring 3,350 pixelated whales with attributes like different colors and hats. He learned to code the collection from online tutorials and people he met on gaming chat app Discord, he described in a Q&A video on YouTube.

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The collection launched in July and reportedly sold out in nine hours. That day, Ahmed made more than 80 ether (another cryptocurrency like bitcoin). According to CNBC, he’s kept those profits in ether, which with today’s pricing amounts to over $255,000. With the additional 30 ether he’s earned from resales (he reportedly gets a 2.5% royalty on each secondary sale), Ahmed has now made more than $350,000, and told CNBC he’s slated to reach over $400,000 (roughly 290,592, AU$547,046) by the end of the month.

Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian tweeted about Ahmed on Friday, writing, «Ya’ll paying attention yet?» along with a link to CNBC’s story.

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Ahmed, who currently has more than 10,000 followers on Twitter, told the publication he only has a cryptocurrency wallet, not a traditional bank account, adding: «I plan to keep all my ether and not convert it to fiat money. It might be early proof that, in the future, maybe everyone doesn’t [need] a bank account and just has an ether address and a wallet.»

He’s reportedly already working on another NFT project.

«If I carry on as I’ve been,» he told the publication, «I might end up like other tech entrepreneurs out there like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos.»

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Friday, Oct. 31

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Oct. 31.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Happy Halloween! Today’s NYT Mini Crossword features the word «BOO!» in a square on the last line of the grid. That’s not just a Halloween greeting, it’s part of the answer that spans both 9-Across and 10-Across, so read the answers to both those with the «boo» in the middle to solve it. And then, the puzzle-makers use that «BOO!» again, to help make the answer to 3-Down. Read on for all the answers, complete with added boos. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Buffalo hockey player
Answer: SABRE

6A clue: «I’ll have the ___» (frequent customer’s order)
Answer: USUAL

7A clue: Contents of a volcano
Answer: MAGMA

8A clue: Adjust to a new environment
Answer: ADAPT

9A clue: With 10-Across, last car on a train
Answer: CA

10A clue: See 9-Across
Answer: SE

(The «Boo!» shown in the grid helps make the word CABOOSE)

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: «Poison» shrub
Answer: SUMAC

2D clue: Carne ___
Answer: ASADA

3D clue: Imaginary cause of fear
Answer: BUGA

(The «Boo!» shown in the grid helps make the word BUGABOO)

4D clue: Accessible alternatives to staircases
Answer: RAMPS

5D clue: Make extremely happy
Answer: ELATE

Technologies

Live-Action ‘Call of Duty’ Movie Reportedly Being Co-Written by Taylor Sheridan

The Yellowstone co-creator will reportedly team up with Peter Berg on the Paramount film.

Yellowstone, Landman and, now, Call of Duty. Taylor Sheridan, co-creator of the aforementioned hit shows, will co-write Paramount and Activision’s upcoming live-action video game adaptation, according to a report from Variety on Thursday.

Peter Berg will also co-write and direct the movie, which was announced last month. Berg previously directed films including 2018’s Mile 22, 2012’s Battleship and 2013’s Lone Survivor, while Sheridan’s movie credits include 2016’s Hell or High Water and 2017’s Wind River. Berg, Sheridan and David Glasser will produce the Call of Duty film.

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Call of Duty is a first-person shooter military video game series that debuted in 2003. CNET senior writer David Lumb calls it «arguably the biggest shooter franchise in gaming, with millions of players picking up every year’s new entry to the series.»

Lumb said the franchise is known for its bombastic single-player campaigns, which feature globe-spanning plots that rival those of the Mission Impossible films. «A Call of Duty movie has a lot of material to draw from,» Lumb said.

He also noted that Berg’s direction of Lone Survivor would fit the grim military heroism of Call of Duty, while Taylor Sheridan’s spate of neo-Western films and shows could lend a frontier adventurism to the film.

«Their collective works seemingly harmonize with the jingoistic pro-military tune of Activision’s shooter franchise — which is probably a good thing for Call of Duty fans,» Lumb concluded.

A release announcing Paramount and Activision’s film deal teased that it’ll be «designed to thrill its massive global fan base by delivering on the hallmarks of what fans love about the iconic series, while boldly expanding the franchise to entirely new audiences.» It didn’t include cast or plot information.

The update follows recent news that Sheridan is leaving Paramount for NBCUniversal. Paramount did not immediately respond to a request for comment.