a digital artwork by a relatively
unknown american artist known as beeple
has sold at christie's for nearly 70
million dollars that's 50 million pounds
and become the first ever sale
by a major auction house of a work that
doesn't physically exist
entitled every days the first five
thousand days
its starting price was just a hundred
dollars but a record
22 million people watched online as it
reached its astonishing price
making beeple one of the top three most
valuable living artists here's will
gompertz
so here it is the 69 million dollar
artwork which doesn't actually exist in
the real world
it lives virtually online authenticated
as unique
by a digital certificate known as a
non-fungible token or a
nft the ownership of which caused a
bidding frenzy to acquire this collage
by mike winkelmann otherwise known as
beeple who is now a very rich man
the money is crazy and awesome and i
think it's gonna you know do a lot of
good and i'm gonna you know
do as much good for the world with this
money too how would you describe the
aesthetic
the look the style well again like now
it's kind of like
weird gross sci-fi like stuff like it's
some of them are kind of a bit nasty if
i'm being honest
and how easy is it to make an nft it's
honestly not that hard
it's you know there's a bunch of sites
out there where you can make them quite
easy it's sort of what that nft
represents it's kind of like i look at
it kind of almost like
you know it really all it is is a proof
of ownership it's really
proving you own some digital file so it
can be attached to anything
christie's began the bidding at a modest
hundred dollars before witnessing the
price go up in one
million dollar increments the kind of
excitement um in our
bidding pool right it was amazing to
behold
this is the future uh we are boldly
stepping
into it um i think that this past
year more than any year of my life
um really did break down that
kind of membrane between the virtual
life
and the real life nfts are the new kid
on the auction block
the price paid today certainly surprised
this art market expert
i think it's completely insane quite
frankly
absolutely bananas that being said you
know
people wanted to buy it it's people who
is extremely well known
um in in that particular field there's
an absolute
frenzy about cryptocurrencies at the
moment
encrypted digital art is today's
investment craze
it might be tomorrow's burst bubble or
the beginning of a new story in the
history of art
if it is this collage will appear on
page one
will gompers bbc news