Digital Artwork sells for $69.4M

[Meclazine for Israel]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-12/nft-digital-artwork-sells-for-nearly-us-70-million-beeple/13241076

"An artist has netted $US70 million ($90 million) from the landmark sale of a digital artwork that does not exist in physical form."

US$70M for a jpg file.

[Sirius_]

This will likely become commonplace in the future as digital artwork is increasingly recognized as a legitimate medium which takes skill and effort.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-12/nft-digital-artwork-sells-for-nearly-us-70-million-beeple/13241076

"An artist has netted $US70 million ($90 million) from the landmark sale of a digital artwork that does not exist in physical form."

US$70M for a jpg file.

Certainly not a jpg, since that's a lossy file format. Probably either a PNG, an SVG, or a TIFF that's inside the NFT.

This will likely become commonplace in the future as digital artwork is increasingly recognized as a legitimate medium which takes skill and effort.

NFTs yes, but not these sorts of crazy prices.

[KoopaDaQuick 🇵🇸]

haha nice

[John Dule]

I'm gonna start charging you people to view my memes from now on.

[Cokeland Saxton]

haha 69

[Never Made it to Graceland]

Art is a ponzi scheme.

[YE]

Pls tell me it was sold for 69420K.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

This will likely become commonplace in the future as digital artwork is increasingly recognized as a legitimate medium which takes skill and effort.

Yes but paying for a .jpg is...pretty bizarre. Like I can't even see the collectability value in that. It'd be one thing if it was a print of piece of digital artwork. And if the new owner wants to "sell" it...wouldn't that just mean making a copy? And for that matter why can't the artist just sell an effective infinite number of copies?

[Tender Branson]

I thought it was a precinct map from poster RI about the 2008 election and the buyer paid 1$ for every Obama-vote ...

[dead0man]

my step son makes a living (barely) selling digital art online

[wimp]

NGL this really seems like money laundering. What kind of people are spending millions of dollars on animated gifs they can download for free?

[Meclazine for Israel]

Art Galleries of the Future...

[KoopaDaQuick 🇵🇸]

Digital art is still real art. Just because it isn't on a canvas or carved in marble doesn't mean jack in terms of its value or its creativity.

[Tender Branson]

Art Galleries of the Future...

As outlined in the Harry Potter books.

[ultraviolet]

Pls tell me it was sold for 69420K.

$69,346,250. So disappointing. Could the buyer not cough up and extra 74k?

[Never Made it to Graceland]

Pls tell me it was sold for 69420K.

$69,346,250. So disappointing. Could the buyer not cough up and extra 74k?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

NGL this really seems like money laundering. What kind of people are spending millions of dollars on animated gifs they can download for free?

Upon doing some research, you can't really just download it for free because it's being sold as a "non-fungible token" or NFT as they've been called. Which is basically a way to make digital copies (be it artwork like this or music, as Kings of Leon just became the first band to release an NFT album) unique, by accompanying it with some type of uncopiable blockchain code like what's used for cryptocurrency. So while we all can download this image, just as it's possible to buy a wall poster of the Mona Lisa on Etsy for $10, that's not the same thing as owning the original just as owning said poster isn't owning the Mona Lisa, because it lacks the accompanying blockchain code.

Why that is worth over $69 million, I couldn't tell you.

...Now with all that being said, the fact that the art industry and the insane prices that paintings often sell for is really just a front for money laundering and tax fraud is an open secret that no one in the know really denies.

[Never Made it to Graceland]

Somebody went through and reviewed the art that comprises this mosaic and.... It's not good. Oof, I wouldn't spend $20 on any of this crap.

https://news.artnet.com/opinion/beeple-everydays-review-1951656

This isn't even from a genre-criticizing standpoint. "Beeple" is a tasteless, talentless hack.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Somebody went through and reviewed the art that comprises this mosaic and.... It's not good. Oof, I wouldn't spend $20 on any of this crap.

https://news.artnet.com/opinion/beeple-everydays-review-1951656

This isn't even from a genre-criticizing standpoint. "Beeple" is a tasteless, talentless hack.

It has talent, but as a performance artist, not as a visual artist. I could maybe see someone spend 5 or 50 thousand on this homage to 5,000 of daily crapposting, but over 50 million, no way. It didn't get that value from being good art (even by mediocre standards of  performance art) but by being the first NFT auctioned by a major auction house. Whether it keeps that value is debatable. I sincerely hope not.

[Sirius_]

This will likely become commonplace in the future as digital artwork is increasingly recognized as a legitimate medium which takes skill and effort.

Yes but paying for a .jpg is...pretty bizarre. Like I can't even see the collectability value in that. It'd be one thing if it was a print of piece of digital artwork. And if the new owner wants to "sell" it...wouldn't that just mean making a copy? And for that matter why can't the artist just sell an effective infinite number of copies?

I'm sure the artist made more money only selling one than selling infinite copies, after all it wouldn't be worth 69420 69 million if they did that. And copyright applies for the owner selling copies. I wouldn't spend millions on a jpeg but I also don't have millions to spend on a jpeg. Ultimately the value of artwork is subjective and enough people believed this was worth millions for it to sell for millions.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Beeple has a story:

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/a35500985/who-is-beeple-mike-winkelmann-nft-interview/

His work is highly sought after and he has been doing this for a long time, 5,000 days to be exact.

I did not realise how grotesque his artwork was. It's very....how would you put it....direct.