Digital artist Mike Winkelmann, known as Beeple, made history in March when his NFT entitled “Everydays: The First 5000 Days” sold for more than $ 69 million at auction at Christie’s.
NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are unique digital assets, including jpegs and video clips, represented by code recorded on the blockchain, a decentralized digital ledger that documents transactions. Any NFT can be bought and sold just like physical assets, but the blockchain ensures that the ownership and validity of each can be tracked.
As a medium, NFTs become extremely busy. Winkelmann’s NFT – a jpeg file of a digital collage with 5,000 daily futuristic images that he took every day from May 1, 2007 to January 7, 2021 – made him a very wealthy man. (The buyer was Vignesh Sundaresan, the founder of the Metapurse NFT project.)
But there’s one important thing about buying NFTs, including selling its eight-digit NFT, that most people misunderstand, Winkelmann tells CNBC Make It.
‘I think people don’t understand that you have the token when you buy something [or NFT]You can display the token and show that you own the token, but you don’t own the copyright “to the art represented by the token,” says Winkelmann, 37.
Like “if you have a [physical] painting, you just bought the painting, ‘he says.’ You did not buy the copyright to that photo. And so it is very similar to these tokens. “
For example, the “Everydays: The First 5000 Days” NFT that Winkelmann auctioned at Christie’s sold including a huge jpeg file and Ethereum blockchain code, but exclusive copyright ownership of the art.
On Monday, Winkelmann even auctioned one of the individual images in ‘Everydays’ called ‘Ocean Front’, which he took on day 4,344 in March 2019. It sold for $ 6 million on NFT marketplace Nifty Gateway (where proceeds go to the Open Earth Foundation, a non-profit organization that aims to develop digital infrastructure that is better for the environment).
Sundaresan, the buyer of the NFT from the Christie’s auction, would not have the right to sell the individual images. Winkelmann, on the other hand, has the right, as a copyright owner, to continue to sell the images (or “stock” as they are called) of his work for profit.
“That’s the thing that’s hard to grasp here,” says Winkelmann.
While it may sound odd or unwise to just buy a jpeg, “honestly, if someone is willing to pay for it, 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 are aligned, he says.
“I want to see them [NFT] go up 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 optimistic about the technology and space in the long run,” says Winkelmann. ‘I just think people should be careful now because there is a rush and it is so new. It’s quite speculative. ‘
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