Something was definitely in the air that week; the third and fourth dearest NFT sales were made within 48 hours of Beeple’s successful auction. CryptoPunk #7804 fetched US$7.56 million on March 10, while CryptoPunk #3100 was sold for just US$50,000 less just a day later.
With the pounding of a gavel, auction house Christie’s heralded a new age for the non-fungible token (NFT) one day in March 2021. Unlike the typical oil paintings, antique bowls and bottles of rare whiskey, that particular lot was a virtual, intangible piece of work by American digital artist Mike Winkelmann.
Also known as Beeple, he became US$69.3 million ($93.8 million) richer that day, and his work, Everydays: The First 5000 Days, placed third on the list of record auction prices for works by a living artist.
