How One Artist Earned $738K In 32 Minutes

The COVID-19 pandemic dealt a heavy blow to artists like Cam Rackam. The 42-year-old artist from Huntington Beach, California, witnessed the severe impact on his income-generating activities, with art exhibitions being canceled, sales slowing and commissions drying up.

So, to make a living, Rackam made a strategic shift toward the world of digital art.

Until 2021, Rackam's highest earnings from selling his own art amounted to $11,000, earned through the sale of a painting and a sculpture piece back in 2015. But this all changed when Rackam began creating digital art in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs).

Rackam told CNBC Make It that he took note of the success enjoyed by prominent NFT art collections like the Bored Ape Yacht Club and Beeple's $69 million NFT project. Intrigued by the potential for both fun and financial gain, he decided to explore the space.

Platforms like Freeport provide an opportunity for people from all walks of life to participate and profit from art investment. The platform invites users to explore a thoughtfully curated collection of authentic masterpieces and invest in Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)-qualified fractional shares, aligning their portfolios with iconic artworks. What sets Freeport apart is the additional benefit of earning returns when these assets are resold, offering the potential for significant financial gains on investments.

"I realized that by having all of your clients visible on the blockchain simultaneously, you could start doing some really interesting things with it," Rackam told CNBC’s Make It. "I began to come up with some crazy ideas."

Rackam's foray into selling digital art commenced when he reached out to the popular Wall Street Memes page @wallstmemes on Instagram, proposing a collaboration on an NFT collection. They accepted the offer, and Rackam proceeded to create numerous iterations of a Wall Street-themed cartoon bull. 

With Rackam in charge of designing the artwork and the meme page boosting sales by spreading the word on digital platforms like Discord, the duo managed to sell all 10,000 NFTs in just 32 minutes after the launch on Oct. 27, 2021.

"In the first five minutes, we sold about 2,250 of them," Rackam said. "But by the eighth or ninth minute, we were more than halfway done. I started thinking, 'Wow, we're going to sell out completely.'"

The collection was worth 660 Ethereum, which was equal to $2.6 million at the time of the sale. Rackam made $738,594 that day.

Rackam is not the only artist to succeed in selling NFTs. Sales of the digital assets reached $17.6 billion by the end of 2021, causing some concerns among critics who worry about the impact on traditional art.