MAFS contestant Georgia Fairweather’s new passion: NFTs

Georgia Fairweather has swapped reality stardom for the heady world of crypto, and is hoping to raise thousands with a new auction.

Ex-MAFS contestant Georgia Fairweather. Source: Supplied.

Ex-Married At First Sight contestant Georgia Fairweather may not have ultimately found love on the show but she‘s engaged in another passion – NFTs (non-fungible tokens) – and has teamed with a mental health organisation to tee up what she says is Australia’s first NFT auction for charity.

Ms Fairweather has this week partnered with Outside The Locker Room to auction off artwork featuring MAFS celebrities, and is hoping to thousands to both support mental health awareness, and get Australians more familiar with the wacky world of NFTs.

Some NFTs have sold for tens of millions of dollars, and the reality star is confident that their popularity is no flash in the pan. NFTs are digital representations of assets, such as art and music, coded with smart contracts that allow for strict governing of ownership.

“We want to introduce NFTs into Australia into the mainstream, because people may not understand this industry or might be new to it,” Ms Fairweather said.

Georgia Fairweather as featured in one of the NFTs up for auction. Source: Supplied.

“While commercial entities and billionaires rush to monetise NFTs for personal gain, I want to take a step back and see how we can use these tools to help those in need. Blockchain and other similar emerging technologies have been controversial over the years, but if you look at how it‘s progressed, particularly from 2017 to now, it’s very clear that the adoption of this technology is real and something that I truly believe will become mainstream.”

Ms Fairweather began her career with three years working for blockchain platform developer Block.one, then as a Director of London-based Fintech Worldwide, and then an additional year as an on-screen host for financial technology media group Fintech.TV. She also credits her mum, long-time cryptocurrency expert Dr Jane Thomason, for sparking her love for the nascent technology.

She added that while the likes of Telsa chief executive Elon Musk and others had criticised cryptocurrencies like bitcoin for their rampant energy usage, she said blockchain overall didn‘t deserve the criticism.

“Bitcoin specifically, and proof of work that comes with that, consumers a lot of energy. And there have been new protocols since then that have come out that use proof of stake, which has a much better level of energy consumption,” Ms Fairweather said.

“That‘s the difference there. The environment is something I’m very interested in, and moving in to more environmentally friendly ways of using technology.”

The ex-reality contestant, who was partnered with fellow contestant Liam before a fiery break-up at show’s final episode, said she ‘loved’ appearing on MAFS, and feels she didn’t get an unfair edit by producers.

“If you take it for what it is, you can choose to enjoy it and make it a positive thing,” she said. “I had a lot of fun in there, it wasn‘t always easy and it was quite challenging, but that’s kind of the beauty of it. I have not one regret doing it, it was a fabulous experience.

“I would love to be the first reality star who didn‘t just go off and be a reality star. That’s because I never really thought about going on MAFS, but when they asked me, I was like ’why not?’, and I think I was quite a bit different to who they who would normally have on the show.

“I‘d love to break that stereotype.”