In the cryptocurrency space, the new gold rush today is non-fungible tokens (NFTs), as digital artists have continued to use their work for cashing out. Mike Winklemann is one such digital artist, who is also recognized as Beeple, and he recently made a whopping $69.3 million by selling his pure digital work known as Everyday’s – The First Five Thousand Days Artwork’. A virtual session was conducted in the prominent and renowned art auctioning house called Christie’s for auctioning digital art. A contemporary and postwar art specialist at Christie’s is Noah Davis and according to him, the nascent space of these non-fungible tokens (NFTs) seems to have exploded.
Christie’s has now become the first art auctioning company after this record sale to have actually managed to sell a purely digital piece of artwork that doesn’t have any physical components. The art-house was established as a digital art space leader in a tweet and Christie’s disclosed that the digital art piece by Beeple had been sold for a massive $69,346,250. This has helped make Beeple one of the three most valuable artists alive after Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) by David Hockney and Rabbit by Jeff Koons.
According to Davis, the sale of digital artwork for $69.3 million has helped established NFTs as the next frontier in the world of art. American media house CNBC organized a program called Power Lunch on Thursday where Davis had spoken at a virtual talk show after the sales had closed. He said that Beeple had always had a rich spirit, but now he was also a rich man. NFTs have seemingly become the next favorite thing of nearly every art collector. Beeple gave an interview recently to an art news outlet where he said that the pandemic had played an important role in the rise of crypto as well as the rise of blockchain-based assets.
As interest in cryptocurrencies has gone up, investors have now turned their attention towards subsectors like the NFT market. He regards this as a blessing because selling artwork via traditional means has become a lot harder due to lockdowns. Speaking to CNBC, Davis said that the procurement of the record-breaking artwork would allow the respective buyers to have a long string of letters and numbers. He said that to put it simply, the artwork is a code that’s placed on the Ethereum blockchain. It basically serves as a block and becomes part of the owner’s Ethereum wallet.
NFTs are basically digital collectibles that are secured cryptographically in the blockchain network. They are known as non-fungible because it is not possible to break them into smaller parts, thereby making them unique. The emerging art space has generated sales of about $375 million due to NFT growth in a short period of time. Beeple himself has attested to the rapid growth of NFTs. The digital artist said that he had only taken an interest in presenting his work in October last year, but the wide adoption does boggle the mind.
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