- NFT sales exploded in the past month, with the highest purchase at $ 69 million.
- Musicians, legacy companies and consumer brands are now incorporating this into their marketing.
- See more stories on Insider’s business page.
If you’ve been on the internet recently, you’ve almost certainly seen stories about non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as the blockchain phenomenon becomes more and more common to everyone from Paris Hilton to Christie’s auction house.
NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, have been around for a while, but the crypto-art boom is just getting underway.
The first shift to bring NFTs into the mainstream has to do with institutional support. This is where Beeple and Christie come in.
Crypto artist Beeple has made headlines for selling the highest rated crypto piece to date, for an incredible $ 69 million. The figure is enough to make heads turn, but what is especially important is that a legacy auction house like Christie is entering the NFT boom.
Increased media coverage and market growth in the NFT space have also led celebrities to exploit the potential of digital art.
Grimes was a relatively early contractor and sold pieces of crypto art in February at a valuation of $ 5.8 million, Insider reported. Other singers like Steve Aoki and Kings of Leon released music as NFTs and garnered millions of sales. And Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is auctioning off the very first Tweet to raise money for charity.
Paris Hilton auctioned off a drawing of her cat on the NFT platform Cryptograph, Decrypt reports. And the Associated Press, one of the largest news agencies in the world, sold its NFT “The Associated Press calls the 2020 Presidential election on Blockchain – A View from Outer Space” for about $ 180,000, reports Coindesk.
And while he may not be a celebrity, the creator of the Bad Bad Brian meme sold an NFT of the original photo for $ 36,000 earlier this week.
The NFT market experienced huge growth last year, with buyers selling well above a $ 250 million market.
The value of NFTs is based in part on the originality of the product. NFTs cannot be destroyed, deleted or duplicated. The token exists exclusively on its original platform stored in the Ethereum blockchain. Elements from one platform cannot be moved to another.
For celebrities, collectors and brands, NFTs are also a new way to reach fans or customers and make money.
The NFT boom has become so intense that the platform Nifty Gateway, a popular site for selling NFTs and crypto-art, had to close one of its CEO’s email accounts after an influx of traffic to the site mailbox overwhelmed.
Major brands that accept NFTs suggest that this boom is not just well-known.
One of the earliest trademark holders was the NBA, which released its “NBA Top Shot” NFT collectibles in October. According to an analysis by cryptoslam.io, a data tracking operation that collects sales of cryptocurrency per platform, the daily sales volume for NBA Top Shot is currently $ 354,327,277.38.
More recently, Taco Bell released a series of $ 1 NFTs to commemorate the return of their beloved potatoes. Insider reports that the fast food restaurant sold out quickly and that some buyers were selling the NFTs for as much as $ 3,000.