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 "Everydays - The First 5000
Days" is a digital work by American artist Mike
Winkelmann, known as Beeple. It is a collage of
5,000 individual images, which were made
one-per-day over more than thirteen years.
The sale of the work for $69,346,250 put Beeple
in the top three most valuable living artists,
Christie's said in a tweet.
The work is in the form of a new type of digital
asset - a Non-Fungible Token (NFT) - meaning it
is authenticated by blockchain, which certifies
its originality and ownership.
The market for NFTs has soared in recent months
as enthusiasts and investors use spare savings
to buy up items that exist online. Last month, a
10-second video clip featuring an image of a
fallen Donald Trump, also by Beeple, sold for
$6.6 million on an NFT marketplace called Nifty
Gateway.
"Without the NFTs, there just legitimately was
no way to collect digital art," said Beeple, who
makes irreverent digital art on themes such as
technology, wealth and American politics.
Asked what he thought of the multi-million
dollar bids on his work, the 39-year-old graphic
designer, who has created concert visuals for
the likes of Justin Bieber, One Direction and
Katy Perry, said he was lost for words.
"I don't know... maybe you can put an emoji into
the story," he said. "It's so crazy."
For NFTs, the artist's royalties are locked in
to the contract: Beeple receives 10% each time
the NFT changes hands after the initial sale.
"I do really think that this is going to be seen
as the next chapter of art history," Beeple
said.
NFT FRENZY
Various digital objects can be minted as NFTs
and traded as assets, including art, sports
collectibles, patches of land in virtual worlds,
cryptocurrency wallet names and even tweets.
Twitter Inc boss Jack Dorsey is conducting a
digital auction of his first ever tweet, in NFT
form.
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 Art NFTs make up around a
quarter of the all-time NFT sales volume ($415
million) according to NonFungibles.com, which
aggregates sales history data for the Ethereum
blockchain, the most commonly used ledger for
recording these types of assets.
Musicians are also getting in on the hype, with
American rock band King's of Leon having
launched an album as an NFT.
Beeple says the explosion in NFTs is due in part
to the increased amount of time people are
spending online during the pandemic. Like many
enthusiasts, he also believes they could
represent the future of ownership.
"Equities have been the predominant asset class
for the last hundred years, or whatever. I don't
think it's guaranteed that that's always going
to stay like that. I think kids today hate
corporations... So the idea that they're just
going to automatically blindly give them their
money to invest, I don’t know about that,"
Beeple said.
But, like many new niche investment areas, there
is a risk of losses if the hype dies down. Many
NFTs will eventually become worthless, Beeple
added.
Although NFTs can function as a legally
enforceable contract, they also raise issues
relating to insurance, tax and intellectual
property, said Max Dilendorf, a cryptocurrency
lawyer and partner at Dilendorf Law Firm in New
York.
"If you are a buyer of an expensive piece of NFT,
you have to know what features and terms you are
subject to," he said.
"From my experience, participants in NFT markets
are not really thinking it through carefully."
Dilendorf said that he expects the entire
physical art market to be digitised in NFT form
in the next five years.
(Reporting by Elizabeth Howcroft; Editing by
Rachel Armstrong, Alexandra Hudson)
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