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– The blockchain technology behind Bitcoin and other digital currencies is shaking up the art world as well as financial markets. Sales of ‘non-fungible tokens’ – works of art or other pieces of digital property confirmed as blockchains for unique originals – exploded, and a 10-second artwork by artist Beeple recently hit a record $ 6.6 million sell, reports Reuters. The video, which shows people walking resembling the graffiti-covered body of a huge Donald Trump, was purchased for $ 67,000 in October by art collector Pablo Rodriguez-Fraile. He resold it almost 100 times as much last week. The 32-year-old tells Bloomberg that he thought it would take longer to rise in value, but it was still a ‘fantastic deal for the buyer’.
“You can go into the Louvre and take a picture of the Mona Lisa, and you can have it there, but it has no value because it does not have the origin or the history of the work,” the Miami-based . says the collector. “The reality here is that it’s very, very valuable because of who’s behind it.” Bloomberg notes that the boom in digital art has a precedent in the photography market. Beeple, real name Mike Winkelmann, is a digital artist. who has been creating a drawing a day for 13 years. An auction of two weeks of his work began at Christie’s last week. He tells the New York Times that he only started looking at NFTs in mid-October. As with many other NFTs, the blockchain that verifies its work also requires it to receive 10% of the price each time it is resold. “If you buy the artwork, you’ll enter into a relationship with me,” he says. (Read more blockchain stories.)