Beeple NFT Sold For A Record $69 Million

Christie’s auction house just sold Beeple’s ‘The First 5000 Days’ NFT based digital artwork for $69 million.

What Happened: The two-week auction first began on February 25. The bidding had originally started at a mere $100.  

In fact, until the very last 30 minutes, the going price of Beeple’s digital artwork hadn’t crossed $15 million.

Last-minute bids pushed the price up to a resounding $69 million.

The sale now puts the artist “among the top three most valuable living artists,” according to the auction house.

“I believe it serves as clear validation that digital art is as important as what we know as traditional art with Beeple its clear leader and symbol,” said Miami art collector Pablo Rodriguez-Fraile who described the sale as an extraordinary moment.

Why It Matters: ‘The First 5000 Days’ is the first digital NFT sold by the centuries-old auction house Christie’s. Following the sale, the auction house that now accepts the cryptocurrency Ethereum as a means of payment went on to state that it would hold more digital art sales in the future.

See also: What is a Non-Fungible Token (NFT)?

“NFTs in general really touch on all the things that I’m interested in. It’s got the art aspect…the technology aspect..and it’s got the investing aspect”, Beeple, whose real name is Mark Winkelmann, told Anthony Pompliano in an interview earlier this week.

The NFT market has surged over the past few months, with newfound interest from celebrities like Mark Cuban and Lindsay Lohan. The month of February alone saw the number of NFT transactions increase over 400% from the previous month, according to data from DappRadar.

Beeple himself admitted to the hype surrounding the NFT boom in his conversation with Pompliano, saying, “It may be a bubble, but it’s one of those things where I also see a huge amount of legitimate long term value for this as an asset class.”

Image: Courtesy of Christie’s auction

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