Coachella’s NFT-Based Lifetime Passes Stuck Amid FTX’s Collapse

Coachella’s NFTs lifetime passes are stuck in limbo following FTX’s fallout. Also dubbed Coachella Keys, the 10 non-fungible tokens were sold in February for $1.5 million as part of the festival’s partnership with cryptocurrency exchange company FTX. 

Six months later, all of Coachella’s lifetime passes are collateral damage as its crypto partner – the second-largest cryptocurrency exchange – filed for bankruptcy last week. This places the California festival’s lifetime passes in a defunct exchange, where owners can’t access or use them.

Coming into the form of collectible NFTs, those special passes granted lifetime access to the Coachella festival, on-site VIP perks, luxury camping, and gourmet meals.

The most expensive digital collectible fetched a whopping $270,000. Whoever owned the Infinity Key was granted access to front-of-house views for one music act, transportation to and from the festival, meals in the Rose Garden prepped by a professional chef, and food vouchers. 

Owners of digital hub FTX cited a “severe liquidity crisis” as the reason behind its abrupt crash. According to Bloomberg, the company owes $3 billion to its 50 largest creditors. 

In the aftermath of FTX’s fallout, one staff member took to Coachella’s Discord server, saying “like many of you, we have been watching this news unfold online over the past two days and are shocked by the outcome.” 

“We do not currently have any lines of communication with the FTX team. We have assembled an internal team to come up with solutions based on the tools we have access to. Our priority is getting Coachella NFTs off of FTX, which appears to be disabled at the moment.”