A 32-year-old fashion influencer from Singapore has spent years snapping selfies of herself at the world’s most glamorous fashion events. Now she claims to have earned more than US$5 million (S$6.7 million) by endorsing brands on Instagram – including fashion houses Chanel, Burberry and Prada – before retiring in January 2018 to launch an ecommerce company that sells virtual collectible cats for online games.
“This life may be my last,” says Irene Zhao, a pseudonym she uses when speaking about her business, which involved accumulating hundreds of thousands of digital cats, called NFTs.
“This is the most dangerous part that no one has ever tried before.”
A virtual cat – or non-fungible token (NFT) – looks like any other photo on Instagram, but holds value only within the blockchain-based system of its creator’s online game. Zhao says she earned US$66,000 in December alone by selling her NFTs to players through her company CryptoDiva Fashions Pte Ltd. She claims 200 million Instagram followers for herself after nearly six years posting photos about fashion and beauty tips.
Statistics Show Number of active cryptocurrency wallets worldwide 2018 | Statistic This statistic gives information on the number of active cryptocurrency wallets worldwide from 2014 to 2018. In January 2016, there were 11.9 million active cryptocurrency wallets worldwide with a total of 128 million wallets in the world that have been used at least once by 2017
Zhao says she spent every day at the luxury hotels and designer brands of Europe for four years while part-time marketing herself on Instagram as a fashion influencer. When she raised US$1 million from investors including friends and family last year, Zhao quit her job to launch her business selling NFTs before retiring in January this year – when price volatility in blockchain assets saw her losses shrink by 75% within six weeks.
“Everybody told me: ‘Irene no more social media’. But I said: ‘No, I don’t care. I want to create my own life.’ It is the only way that we can influence others,” she says.
Irene Zhao, who uses a pseudonym when speaking about her business, has spent years snapping selfies of herself at the world’s most glamorous fashion events – including Chanel, Burberry and Prada. With 200 million Instagram followers for herself after nearly six years posting photos about fashion and beauty tips, Zhao claims to have earned over US$5 million endorsing brands on Instagram before retiring in January 2018 to launch an ecommerce company that sells virtual collectible cats for online games.(4)
Now she claims to have earned more than US$5million by endorsing brands on Instagram – including fashion houses Chanel, Burberry and Prada – before retiring in January 2018 to launch an ecommerce company that sells virtual collectible cats for online games.