Porsche knows how to sell you something expensive. The German carmaker, founded in 1931, built its name convincing people that a car can be worth six figures. The 911, the Cayenne, the Taycan
Porsche knows how to sell you something expensive.
The German carmaker, founded in 1931, built its name convincing people that a car can be worth six figures. The 911, the Cayenne, the Taycan — Porsche's whole business is persuading buyers that the badge means the price is justified.
In 2022, it tried that trick on something you can't drive, park, or even touch. This week, it admitted the experiment is over.
Pudgy Penguins CEO Luca Netz on an NFT comeback in 2025 (3:34)In November 2022, Porsche launched a collection of NFTs, digital artworks of a white Porsche 911, created by Hamburg-based artist Patrick Vogel.
If you've heard the term NFT and nodded along without knowing what it means, here's the simple version. An NFT is a digital certificate of ownership, recorded on a blockchain, a shared online ledger kept by a network of computers, where records can't be altered or deleted.
Anyone can download a picture of a Porsche. The NFT is the receipt saying you own the original.
It sounds absurd until you remember people paid serious money for NFTs. The most famous NFT, a collage by the American artist Beeple, sold for $69.3 million in 2021.
Luxury brands piled in, and Porsche's pitch had a twist: buyers (capped at three NFTs each) could influence the design of their own collectible. The company talked about weaving blockchain into its future products.
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Companies, especially those creating high-end brands, have launched NFT collections for promotional purposes.
Porsche joined the bandwagon in 2022, unveiling the Hamburg-based artist Patrick Voge's NFT collection around the white Porsche 911.
A Porsche Panamera Turbo Sport Turismo luxury automobile in the Porsche SE showroom in Dortmund, Germany, on Wednesday, Sept. 7 2022.
Getty Images
Though one buyer could purchase only three NFTs, they had the option of influencing the design of their collectibles.
The company also said back then that it was working to integrate the potential of blockchain technology into existing and future processes and solutions.
But the NFT mania began to fade out soon after. Porsche, which was supposed to launch 7,500 NFTs, stopped creating them after the supply hit 2,363 digital artworks.
OpenSea, an NFT marketplace (where people can buy and sell) data shows that an average Porsche 911 NFT's price often used to surpass $4,000 in the first few months of its launch: Jan-March 2023.
Porsche 911, Source: OpenSeaBut as the NFT bubble burst, the price collapsed and is yet to recover. It is currently trading only slightly above $200.
Though the collection has a total trading volume of more than $20 million, it has sold only $38,700 over the past year.
On Oct. 1, Porsche said it is finally shutting down the NFT project. The existing NFTs will remain with their respective holders and continue to exist on the blockchain, it assured users.
While the community's Discord server will transition to a read-only archive, the X account will not be active, the carmaker added.
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