Saturday 17th April 2021
Crypto art under the hammer
NFTs? For Sotheby’s the new million dollar thing
Crypto art is booming. As a virtual good, so-called non-fungible tokens come under the virtual hammer for many millions of dollars. Auction houses like Christi’s or competitor Sotheby’s have long since noticed. They too want to sell NFTs at the highest price.
Blockchain technology is now not only spurring on cryptocurrencies, but also the market for digital art. The first auction based on NFT technology brought in Sotheby’s just $ 16.8 million. The boss of the auction house Charles Stewart admits in an interview with “CNN Business” that people without a preference for the subject have difficulties understanding what all this means. “But we got into it because we believe it is one of the most exciting things and that we can reach a whole new audience and a new group of artists with it.”
The abbreviation stands for Non-Fungible-Token: a virtual good that is unique and not exchangeable. Like cryptocurrencies, the system is based on blockchain technology. Unlike cryptocurrencies, however, NFTs are unique and to a certain extent a virtual collector’s item that can only be sold or exchanged with a certificate.
Much of the bidders have strong ties to the crypto scene, says Stewart. Among other things, a series entitled “Cube” by the artist Pak, which includes countless files of animated illustrations, was auctioned in New York. The illustration files rotate so that they appear to show a 360-degree view of a translucent white cube against a black background. Over a three-day period, 23,598 of these animations were purchased by 3,080 collectors for $ 14 million. Pak also sold two unique works for a combined total of approximately $ 2.8 million.
Stewart sees parallels in the success of the auction with the rise of street art in the 1970s and 1980s. “Digital art in 2021 could be what street art was in the 70s,” says Stewart. The business still consists almost exclusively of physical art and that will stay that way for the foreseeable future. But the community is growing. “You’re passionate. You’re dedicated. It was really interesting to see how that turned out,” Stewart tells CNN Business.
According to Stewart, it is still too early and the field too volatile to predict where the digital art market will be in five years’ time because it is strongly linked to the value of cryptocurrencies. Much more he relies on the idea of blockchain ownership and authentication. “That has a potential impact on physical and digital art and will continue to grow and develop in the years to come.”
Over the past few months, prices achieved with the sale of NFT files have made headlines over and over again. Grimes, pop musician and partner of Tesla billionaire Elon Musk, sold a series of short videos for a total of around six million dollars. A clip in which basketball star LeBron James pounded the ball into the basket changed hands for more than $ 200,000. Twitter boss Jack Dorsey is currently auctioning a digital copy of the very first tweet from 2006 that anyone can still see online. Million dollars. Buyers speculate that at some point the NFT-certified files could be worth as much as the rare trading cards used by baseball players today.
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