NFT Digital Art Piece Sells For Record Price of $69 Million

A piece of digital art, known as an NFT, sold on Thursday morning for more than most Picassos.

The piece, called “Everydays: The First 5,000 Days” was auctioned off by Christie’s, an institution in the art auction space that was selling digital art for the first time. The final bid was $69.3 million. With a 14.5% buyers premium, the final price was $68.9 million.

The payment will be made in Ethereum, marking another first, as Christie’s has never before accepted crypto as a method of payment.

Artist Mike Winkelmann, known in the art world as Beeple, made a digital work every day for 5,000 days. “Everydays” is a 1 of 1 piece of art that features every work in one.

Of all the digital artists, Beeple, in only five months, has emerged as its Picasso.

In December, Beeple grossed $3.5 million in a sale of his Everydays works on Nifty Gateway.

Bidding started at $1 and was bid on 353 times to reach its final price, which more than doubled the record paid for a single piece of digital art. That record also belonged to Beeple, as one of his works entitled “Crossroads” sold for $6.6 million last month.

An NFT is short for non-fungible token and means that its security on the blockchain is its main role, but the underlying token doesn’t have any exchangeable value such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, which can be converted into cash.

The NFT, in the form of a picture or video, does have marketplace value and the art can, of course, be resold. Artists also get a piece of the pie every time their work is sold.