$69M Beeple NFT Artwork May Have Been Used To Pump B.20 Token Price By 6200%, Reports Suggest

Beeple’s $69 million NFT may have been used to pump the price of B20 – a token tied to the value of an NFT Bundle comprising of several Beeple artworks.

What Happened: According to a report from Amy Castor, the individual who successfully purchased the Beeple artwork after his successful $69 million bid added it to his “NFT bundle,” which is available for users to invest in.

The winning bid was placed by the pseudonymous “Metakovan,” who also owns Singapore-based Metapurse – a crypto-focused investment firm that acquires NFTs to democratize access and ownership to artwork.

Metapurse has reportedly been acquiring several Beeple NFT artworks, along with three virtual museums, and offering people the opportunity to invest in it as a combined NFT bundle. In order to invest, however, people need to buy Metapurse’s new B.20 tokens.

“It is important to note that we’re fractionalizing ownership, not the assets themselves. These fractions will be available as 10 million B.20 tokens and can be referred to as the “keys” to this digital vault,” explained Metapurse in a blog post.

Despite the apparent intention to democratize ownership, the token distribution of B.20 is largely concentrated. Metakovan himself owns 59% of B.20 tokens, while Beeple owns 2% of its total supply.

Why It Matters: WhaleStreet, a decentralized token swap protocol, hosted the B.20 sale on Jan. 23, where $1.6 million B.20 tokens were sold to the public for $0.36 per token.

According to CoinMarketCap, the value of B.20 shot up to $23 on the day of the final sale of the Christie’s auction, after steadily increasing over the course of the two weeks since the Beeple NFT was first up for bidding on Christie’s. This would mean that B.20 token's surged by over 6200% since the token sale on Jan 23.

The value of B.20 tokens is now at $12.68, however, 60% of the token’s supply remains with Metakovan and Beeple.

Image: Christie's Limited Images 2020