Digital artist Beeple is “a rich man” after his non-fungible token was sold for nearly $ 70 million at an auction, Noah Davis, Christie’s postwar and contemporary art expert, told CNBC on Thursday.
Davis made the comments in an interview on “Power Lunch” after Christie’s bidding window closed on Thursday. Beeple’s NFT – a collage of images titled “Everyday: the first 5,000 days” – sold for $ 69,346,250, according to Christie’s.
In a tweet, the auction house said the sale price placed Beeple, whose real name is Mike Winkelmann, as “one of the three most valuable living artists”. Christie’s was the first major auction house to sell a purely digital work of art.
“Mike Winkelmann is a rich man today,” Davis told CNBC. “He was always rich in spirit … I am very proud of him.”
Sales of NFTs, which are blockchain-based assets, have exploded in popularity recently, spanning the spectrum of highlights from basketball to the first post on Twitter and now a digital-only piece of art worth tens of millions of dollars.
NFTs are stored in digital wallets and are unique by design. This shortage, proponents say, is critical to its value. The ownership of each NFT is registered on a blockchain network, the digital ledgers that also feed cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin.
Winkelmann sought to explain the rise in NFTs in an interview with CNBC last month.
“There are a few different analogies that I like to use. One of them is the Mona Lisa. Anyone can take a picture of the Mona Lisa, but that doesn’t mean you have the Mona Lisa,” said Winkelmann, referring to the portrait icon painted by Leonardo da Vinci.
The “Squawk Alley” interview took place on February 25, the same day that his NFT was opened for bidding at Christie’s.
“Another one that I like to use is like MP3s. You may have a copy of Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’, but … you won’t be able to convince people that you own the original ‘Thriller’ recordings, “Winkelmann said.” You can still have copies of digital art online and everyone can see them, but the blockchain, the NFT, is what proves that that person is the owner. “
The buyer of Winkelmann’s creation gets “essentially a long sequence of numbers and letters,” Davis, of Christie’s, explained to CNBC. “It is a code that exists in the Ethereum block chain. It is a block in the chain that will be placed in your Ethereum wallet.”
“They will also get a giant JPEG. A huge, high-resolution JPEG. That’s hundreds of megabytes,” added Davis.
Some people see the NFT craze as temporary, believing that ownership of digital assets will eventually disappear and cause their values to decline dramatically.
At least when it comes to the fact that NFTs are considered art, Davis said the sale of Winkelmann’s work is a milestone.
“I don’t think it’s an isolated case, and I think it’s a validation of the collecting category,” said Davis. “NFTs are clearly more than just an emerging and nascent collection space.”