Digital artist Mike Winkelmann, known as Beeple, made history in March when his NFT titled “Everydays: The First 5000 Days” sold for over $ 69 million at Christie’s.
NFTs or non-fungible tokens are unique digital assets, including jpegs and videos, that are represented by code recorded on the blockchain, a decentralized digital registry that documents transactions. Each NFT can be bought and sold, just like physical assets, but the blockchain allows you to track the ownership and validity of each.
On average, NFTs become extremely agitated. Winkelmann’s NFT – a jpeg file of a digital collage with 5,000 daily futuristic images he took every day from May 1, 2007 to January 7, 2021 – made him a very rich man. (The buyer was Vignesh Sundaresan, the founder of the Metapurse NFT project.)
But there is a key thing in buying NFTs, including selling its eight-digit NFT, which most people misunderstand, Winkelmann tells CNBC Make It.
“I don’t think people understand that when you buy, you have the symbol [or NFT]. You can display the token and show that you own the token, but you do not own the copyright “on the art represented by the token,” says Winkelmann, 37.
Just like “if you buy a [physical] painting, you just bought the painting, “he says.” You did not purchase the copyright on that image. And so it’s very similar to these chips. “
NFT’s “Everydays: The First 5000 Days,” which Winkelmann auctioned at Christie’s, for example, was sold, including a massive jpeg file and an Ethereum blockchain code, but did not include copyright ownership of the art.
In fact, on Monday, Winkelmann put up for auction one of the individual images from “Everydays” called “Ocean Front”, which he created on 4,344 in March 2019. It sold for $ 6 million on the NFT Nifty Gateway market ( where the proceeds were opened at the Open Earth Foundation, a non-profit that aims to develop a better digital infrastructure for the environment).
Sundaresan, the NFT buyer at Christie’s auction, would not be allowed to sell any of the individual images. Winkelmann, on the other hand, has the right, as the copyright holder, to continue to sell the images (or “shares” as they are called) of his work for profit.
“That’s kind of hard to understand about this,” says Winkelmann.
Although it may seem strange or unwise to just buy a jpeg, “honestly, at the end of the day, if someone pays for it, then you can sell it,” says Winkelmann.
Even without copyright ownership, Winkelmann still sees NFTs as valuable because the interests between the artist and the buyer align, he says.
“I want to see them [NFT] it grows in value and they want to see me succeed as an artist because it’s a win-win. We’re on the same team here. “
All in all, “I’m very, very optimistic about technology and space in the long run,” says Winkelmann. “I think people need to be careful right now because there’s a rush and it’s so new. It’s pretty speculative.”
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