Zelensky Spreadsheet NFTs Fund Ukraine Victims

By John Jeffay, NoCamels August 14, 2022 < 1 minute

Two of the Excel NFT artworks, depicting President Volodymyr Zelensky. Courtesy

A startup has created the first NFT artworks using Microsoft Excel to help victims of the Ukraine war.

Datarails, based in Tel Aviv, Israel, helps companies make the most of their spreadsheets.

It commissioned artist Saif Ali to create five NFT (non fungible token) images of President Volodymyr Zelensky, which will be be sold for 1 ETH (Ethereum) each, currently equivalent to around $2,000.

“This marks the first time XLS files, the default format used for spreadsheets in Excel, have been made available in an NFT collection,” said the company.

Buyers will own the rights to a 620 x 620-pixel image, which will be registered on the blockchain, and they’ll be able to trade them.

All proceeds will go to victims of the war, through the non-profit Heart to Heart International.

The files have been uploaded to OpenSea, the largest web3 marketplace for NFTs. It’s the first time XLS files have been made available in an NFT collection.

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“Excel is the canvas used by anyone in finance to create ideas, innovation and financial models,” said Didi Gurfinkel, Co-Founder and CEO of DataRails.

Its the first artist-led Excel project to enter the blockchain, but creators have previously experimented with it in other artistic contexts.

Tatsuo Horiuchi, an artist from Japan, creates masterpieces in Microsoft Excel – used by more than 70 per cent of finance teams around the world – to depict rural Japan, and Emma Stevens, a landscape architect, creates art skylines using the spreadsheet.

DataRails, founded in 2015, is a financial planning and analysis platform that has raised over $100 million in funding.

It automates data consolidation, reporting and planning, while enabling finance teams to continue using their own Excel spreadsheets and financial models.