A piece of virtual art entitled “Every day: the first 5000 days.” Created by digital artist Beeple, it is the first NFT-based artwork to go up for auction at Christie’s.
Christie’s
A non-fungible token by the artist Beeple sold at Christie’s for more than $ 60 million, making it the most expensive NFT ever sold at auction.
The final sale price may rise as final bids are processed and auction fees are added, which can bring the total to more than $ 69 million. But the sale has reached the limit of two weeks of frantic online bids and ushered in a new era in collectibles, where prices for blockchain-based digital images now rival the prices paid by Picassos and Monets. While the future of NFT pricing and its long-term role in the art world remains an open question, and many see it as speculative fashion, Beeple’s eight-digit price has made the art world suddenly realize.
“As soon as I saw this, I saw enormous potential for it as a platform for digital ownership of a lot of different things, not just art,” artist Mike Winkelmann, better known as Beeple, told CNBC. “Moving forward, I think this will be seen as an alternative form of asset class.”
The record work, called “The first 5,000 days”, was the first to be sold at a large auction house.
In 2007, Winkelmann decided to post a new digital work of art every day for the rest of his life and did not miss a single day. The first 5,000 of these works, which he calls “Everyday”, were compiled to form “The first 5,000 days”.
NFTs, which are any digital assets with registered property on a blockchain, became a $ 400 million market – much of it last month. Jack Dorsey turned the first tweet of 2006 into an NFT that currently has a maximum bid of $ 2.5 million. NBA Top Shots, which are NFTs of prominent NBA videos, have exploded in popularity, with sales reaching $ 200 million and a video of LeBron James selling for $ 208,000. Grimes, the musician and artist, sold more than $ 6 million in videos and music.
Until the sale of Christie’s, the most expensive NFT ever sold was a Beeple piece sold by its owner for $ 6.6 million.
It is not clear whether the main art auction houses will come. Sotheby’s said it did not make any announcements about future NFT sales and Phillips said it has “no NFT news to share” at the moment.