Beeple’s “Everydays: The First 5000 Days” is the priciest NFT ever, selling for a whopping $69.3 million
The priciest NFT ever sold was purchased for more than six figures—alongside the ever-so-famous CryptoPunks, Art Blocks, Bored Apes and more.
Reasons for the popularity—therefore high prices—of non-fungible tokens boils down to decentralization offering freedom for creators, artists, brands and more.
The contrasting use cases and artworks of these digital assets also entices buyers. There’s nothing that isn’t achievable through NFTs.
But which digital asset is the priciest NFT ever sold and why?
About Beeple’s “Everydays”
Beeple’s “Everydays: The First 5000 Days” is first in line for being the priciest NFT.
The digital art is a large, square image file of 21,069 by 21,069 pixels. It represents a digital mosaic consisting of images Beeple has been creating since May 1, 2007.
In short, “Everydays” is basically a digital sketchbook. And, like most sketchbooks, you can see the artwork excel as you get closer to the present.
When initially looking at the image of Everydays as a whole, you get a brief idea of what the artwork is about, but, because there’s so much going on, it’s hard to see everything clearly.
So instead, go to Beeple’s official website, “Beeple Crap,” to check out his images in detail and flick through 13 years of his work—assuming you have a spare day, that is.
Much of the artwork represents topical subject matters in a humorous light, like a cartoon image of Trump dominating Covid, for example. When focusing on one particular image, you will most likely find it relatable and get a chuckle out of it (one way or another). Check out his Instagram account for examples.
Reasons Behind the Purchase
Last year in 2021, Singapore-based programmer Vignesh Sundaresan, who goes by the name MetaKovan, acquired the artwork for a whopping 32,329 ETH ($69.3 million) at the world-renowned British auction house Christie’s.
One of the reasons behind the sale boils down to the buyer and seller having considerable interest in driving up the work price through “B20 tokens”—a speculative asset related to “Everydays” and twenty more of Beeple’s artworks.
Although, unfortunately for Sundaresan, the tokens in which he held a majority stake reached its peak at the beginning of the Everydays auction, collapsing straight afterward.
Nevertheless, Sundaresan now proudly displays his purchase in a digital museum through a tech-savvy web browser.
He also hired architects to build a gallery in an online metaverse to showcase the artwork and launched a crypto token to give buyers a stake in his art piece.
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