Digital artist Mike Winkelmann, known as Beeple, made history in March when his NFT entitled “Everydays: The First 5000 Days” sold for more than $ 69 million at an auction at Christie’s.
NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are unique digital assets, including jpegs and video clips, which are represented by code written on the blockchain, a decentralized digital ledger that documents transactions. Each NFT can be bought and sold, as well as physical assets, but the blockchain allows the ownership and validity of each to be traced.
As a means, NFTs are becoming extremely complicated. Winkelmann’s NFT – a digital collage jpeg file with 5,000 daily futuristic images he made every day from May 1, 2007 to January 7, 2021 – made him a very rich man. (The buyer was Vignesh Sundaresan, the founder of the Metapurse NFT project.)
But there is one important thing about buying NFTs, including selling your eight-digit NFTs, that most people don’t understand, Winkelmann told CNBC Make It.
“I think people don’t understand that when you buy, you have the token [or NFT]. You can display the token and show that you have the token, but you do not own the copyright “of the art represented by the token, says Winkelmann, 37.
Just like “if you buy one [physical] painting, you just bought the painting, “he says.” You did not purchase the copyright for that image. And it is very similar to these tokens. “
The NFT “Everydays: The First 5000 Days” that Winkelmann auctioned at Christie’s, for example, was sold including a huge jpeg file and Ethereum blockchain code, but did not include the copyright ownership of the art.
In fact, on Monday, Winkelmann auctioned off one of the individual images for “Everydays” called “Ocean Front”, which he created on March 4, 344, 2019. It sold for $ 6 million on the NFT Nifty Gateway market (where the revenue went to the Open Earth Foundation, a non-profit organization that aims to develop a digital infrastructure that is better for the environment).
Sundaresan, the NFT buyer at Christie’s auction, would not have the right to sell any of the individual images. Winkelmann, on the other hand, has the right, as the copyright holder, to continue selling the images (or “shares” as they are called) of his work, for profit.
“This is something difficult to understand about it,” says Winkelmann.
While it may seem strange or unwise to just buy a JPEG, “honestly, at the end of the day, if someone pays for it, then you can sell it,” says Winkelmann.
Even without copyright ownership, Winkelmann still sees NFTs as valuable, because the interests between the artist and the buyer align, he says.
“I want to see the [NFT] increase in value and they want me to succeed as an artist because it’s a win-win situation. We are on the same team here. “
In short, “I am very, very optimistic about technology and space in the long run,” says Winkelmann. “I just think people need to be careful now because there is a rush and it is very new. It is very speculative.”
Output check: Use this calculator to see exactly how much your third coronavirus stimulus check could be worth
Don’t miss out: