Video game retail giant GameStop is entering the crypto world through a partnership with an Ethereum-based digital assets marketplace.
In a new press release, GameStop says they are teaming up with Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution Immutable X (IMX) to create a joint non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace.
“Immutable X will also become a layer-2 partner and platform for GameStop and the company’s NFT marketplace that is expected to launch later this year.”
The deal will establish an up to $100 million fund in IMX coins to kickstart the creation of NFTs, and the possibility of earning $150 million more in tokens if certain achievements are met.
“The partnership establishes an up to $100 million fund in Immutable X’s IMX tokens, which the parties intend to use for grants to creators of non-fungible token content and technology…
In addition, the terms provide for Immutable X providing up to approximately $150 million in IMX tokens to GameStop upon the achievement of certain milestones.”
The gaming retailer first stated its intentions to create an Ethereum-based NFT marketplace last May, though they had not yet picked a partner at that time.
News of the partnership sent Immutable X skyrocketing, as the token went from a seven-day low of $2.49 to a peak of $4.13 in just a few days, a staggering 66% increase. IMX has since stabilized and is exchanging hands at $2.94 at time of writing.
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Featured Image: Shutterstock/Natalia Siiatovskaia/WindAwake
Sportswear titan Nike is stepping towards the metaverse as it announces the purchase of a non-fungible token (NFT) studio that creates virtual apparel.
According to Nike CEO and President John Donahoe, the company’s acquisition of RTFKT Studios allows Nike to broaden its digital footprint and bridge the gap between the worlds of sports, crypto and gaming.
“This acquisition is another step that accelerates Nike’s digital transformation and allows us to serve athletes and creators at the intersection of sport, creativity, gaming and culture.
We’re acquiring a very talented team of creators with an authentic and connected brand.
Our plan is to invest in the RTFKT brand, serve and grow their innovative and creative community and extend Nike’s digital footprint and capabilities.”
RTKFT Studios was founded in 2020 and is known for using blockchain technology and augmented reality to create viral sneaker designs, memes and other fashionable digital collectibles, according to its website.
Before launching last year, the firm was an unnamed collective providing design concepts for fashion brands and video game companies. RTKFT was originally slated to launch in 2040 but is able to thrive today due to the rising popularity of the metaverse.
The collectibles firm took to Twitter to tell its 208,000 subscribers the news.
“We will continue to evolve our brand, innovations, products and community with Nike resources and talents.
Nike is the only brand in the world we always looked up to and got inspired by when starting RTFKT.”
RTFKT is now a part of the NIKE, Inc. family. 🌐👁🗨 pic.twitter.com/5egNk9d8wA
— RTFKT Studios (@RTFKTstudios) December 13, 2021
The terms of the deal have yet to be disclosed, according to Nike.
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Featured Image: Shutterstock/Desainacak/Natalia Siiatovskaia
Nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace Rarible has introduced a new functionality titled “lazy minting” that promises users the ability to create nonfungible tokens at zero cost — all while enhancing environmental sustainability on the platform.
Instead of the traditional method whereby data is stored on the blockchain immediately after minting, Rarible announced Monday that, under its new program, NFTs are “minted not at the moment of creation, but at the moment of purchase. It’s the buyer who pays the gas fees when purchasing the item.” In this case, data will be stored on a decentralized peer-to-peer storage system called IPFS.
Amid the influx of new retail participants into the NFT space over the past year, a large segment has been perturbed by the consistently high gas fees on the Ethereum network, increasing their barrier-to-entry and diverting many investors to alternative blockchains, such as Solana.
According to data from Rarible Analytics, the current average gas price on Rarible for minting a single ERC-721 token is 0.022ETH, equivalent to $82.26 at current prices. This is actually a favorable time to mint on the platform, in comparison to frequent times of high network activity where gas fees can soar to hundreds of dollars.
This is why the Rarible implementation will be welcomed as a positive initiative by the community, though it is yet unknown as to its potential impact on the wider market.
Related: Rarible’s daily transactions see a rapid decline
Popular cryptocurrency exchanges Coinbase, FTX and Binance have been among the latest iteration of crypto firms expressing intent to build products and services in the NFT space. Coinbase garnered enormous social attention for the upcoming launch of its NFT marketplace, registering 1.1 million email signups in the first 24 hours. One week on, this figure is now 2.35 million.
To add greater context to this figure, leading NFT marketplace OpenSea has recorded a little over 263,000 unique users across the last 30-days, in addition to in excess of $3 billion in total volume.
Coinbase recorded 68 million verified users and 8.8 million monthly active users across the second quarter of 2021, according to its latest shareholder report.
Analytics data from DappRadar reveals that Rarible has recorded 10,100 unique users over a 30-day period, RARI, the platform’s native token, has experienced positive growth over the past month, rising 80% from one year lows in late September to the current value of around $22.20.
Trading volumes on peer-to-peer nonfungible token (NFT) marketplace OpenSea have surged by over 12,000% in 2021.
DappRadar data shows that the total incoming value to OpenSea’s smart contracts increased to $56.07 million on Wednesday compared to $73,556 on Jan. 1. Meanwhile, the marketplace’s user count increased from 315 to 14,520 in the same period — a 4,423% increase.
OpenSea historical activity. Source: DappRadar
A major portion of OpenSea’s trading volume spike happened after June. At the start of the month, the capital entering the marketplace’s smart contracts was just $3.6 million. But by Sunday, it had surged above $71.238 million.
What’s more, on the previous 30-day average alone, OpenSea processed 1.18 million transactions worth $1.06 billion. The marketplace’s cumulative volume year-to-date was $1.02 billion as of Aug. 2, according to Messari.
OpenSea has officially surpassed $1 billion in gross market volume after a record few days.
More impressively @opensea facilitated $1 billion in volume in 2021 alone!
2018 – $473k
2019 – $8 million
2020 – $24 million
2021 (YTD) – $1.02 billion
Just absolutely insane growth. pic.twitter.com/loH0jw5cqr
— Mason Nystrom (@masonnystrom) August 2, 2021
NFT boom
OpenSea’s cheerful performance surfaced amid a surprising boom in the NFT space earlier this year.
Investors bought millions of dollars worth of unique digital collector items, be it a photo, a meme, a music album, a basketball highlight, a collage, a tweet, a video, etc. In March, Mike Winkelmann, known professionally as Beeple, sold an NFT for $70 million, igniting a flurry of digital collectible sales across marketplaces such as OpenSea and Rarible.
In some instances, ask rates for blockchain-based NFTs representing paintings of Picasso and Monet matched the prices of the physical artwork. As of late, CryptoPunks have attracted the most investments in the NFT space, nearly $207 million in sales in just one week.
Dang, these punks are valuable. One sneaky buyer paid an Ethereum miner 22 ETH to apparently prioritize their bid for one CryptoPunk in particular. https://t.co/Mz2HLbj6qK
— Cointelegraph (@Cointelegraph) August 5, 2021
Blockchain-based gaming platform Axie Infinity, which enables the sale, purchase and breeding of digital pets (NFTs again), had witnessed a record 6,500% revenue growth by the end of July. While Stoner Cats, an animated show about cannabis-smoking cats, sold its collection of NFTs for around $9 million.
Sales are up, but active wallets matter
Research platform Dune Analytics noted the total sales volume for NFTs increased to $2.5 billion in the first half of 2021 compared to $13.7 million in the first half of 2020.
OpenSea’s average daily fee revenue in 2021 was $4.2 million, about 7% higher than decentralized exchange service Uniswap. In June, it posted a record $150 million in crypto collectible sales.
The NFT boom witnessed in the first and second quarter of 2021 saw about 60,000 new wallets interacting with NFTs, data on NunFungible.com shows.
The data tracking service noted that more than 45,000 new wallets engaged with crypto collectible services in May and June alone. It added that despite the dip in sales in April and early May, the number of active NFT wallets increased from 3,107 (January to February 2021) to 6,418 (March to April 2021).
Related: Are NFTs being used for money laundering? Yes, they are, claims Mr. Whale
“This indicates a good proportion of new users who became interested in NFTs at the very beginning of the 2021 hype then remained active over the following months,” the NonFungible report read, adding:
“The USD indicator is certainly always interesting to observe but looking more deeply at the number of active wallets and especially new wallets gives much more precise indications on the state of the NFT market.”
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.
Ethereum (ETH) has experienced a significant adoption rate thanks to booming non-fungible token (NFT) and decentralised finance (DeFi) sectors. As a result, ETH’s trading volume across different platforms has been on an upward trajectory.
Reportedly, Ethereum accounts for almost half of the trading volume on top exchanges compared to a quarter a year ago.
The Ethereum network is one of the most sought-after in the crypto ecosystem because it aids in the development of different features like smart contracts and NFTs.
The reason for the booming NFT sector is that it offers a unique application of blockchain technology when creating unique and finite tokens.
For instance, OpenSea, a popular marketplace, recently processed $95 million worth of NFT transactions in two days compared to the cumulative volume of $21 million recorded in the entirety of 2020.
Moreover, the big four accounting and auditing firm Ernst & Young (EY) created NFTs for an award-winning Italian film using its blockchain-as-a-service platform, which runs on the Ethereum network. Therefore, this explains why ETH’s trading volume has been on an upward trajectory on top exchanges.
It is still the early days for Ethereum in DeFi
According to crypto data provider Documenting Ethereum:
“Only ~1.81% of all Ethereum addresses have used decentralized finance so it’s still the very early days.”
DeFi is a blockchain-based form of finance that does not use centralised intermediaries like banks and brokerages to offer traditional financial instruments. Therefore, it uses blockchain-powered smart contracts.
Cryptoart’s value skyrockets
The total market value of crypto art recently hit $684 million.
September 2020 marked the first time a crypto art piece was bought for at least $100K, following the unprecedented sale of “Matt Kane’s Right Place & Right Time” on Async.art. This served as a signal to show the untapped potential in this emerging market.
The crypto art industry also heavily relies on the Ethereum network.
The price of Axie Infinity’s native token AXS more than doubled in just three days of trading amid speculation that it is going to revolutionalize the blockchain-enabled gaming industry forever.
The AXS/USD exchange rate reached a record value of $32.69 on Friday, up 31.28% intraday, and circa 131% from its Tuesday low of $14.09. That placed the pair in the list of best-performing digital assets on a year-to-date timeframe; its 2021 gains are now above 5,000%.
Axie Infinity’s massive upside moves appeared due to its rising popularity as a play-to-earn gaming service. In detail, the Ethereum-enabled blockchain project is a Pokemon-like game wherein players adopt, breed, and trade digital pets—called Axies—in the form of non-fungible tokens.
Axie developer Sky Mavis called the game “a nation with a real economy,” which allows people to shape economic policies and practice local governance in a metaverse. The virtual environment has gained traction among netizens, insomuch that its total revenue closed towards $120M in July versus $1.92M at the beginning of this year.
Axie Infinity revenue is close to hitting $120M. Source: Axie World
Analysts at Delphi Digital forecasted that Axie’s revenue would reach approximately $153M by the end of July and $1.1B by the 2021’s close.
What’s AXS?
Axie developers focus on creating a play-to-earn model. In doing so, the project rewards players for the effort and time they put in both playing and growing the ecosystem. Every functional ecosystem needs tokens to transfer value. In Axie’s case, two assets fill that role: Axie Infinity Shards (AXS) and Smooth Love Potion (SLP).
Players earn SLP through Axie gameplay. They can later exchange the token for fiat, enabling a system where playing time turns into person-hour wage. Axie reported that many of its players were making $5 a day by playing Axie, but the income surged to $20 as of late.
play-to-earn is basically yield farming, only it’s prettier and it appeals to a larger base of people
that’s it, that’s the tea
— 0xElle (, ) (@0xElle) July 23, 2021
Meanwhile, AXS operates as a settlement currency inside the Axie Infinity ecosystem, using trading fees, governance, and Axies’ buying and selling. As a result, its holders receive 95% of Axie Infinity’s total revenue, just like a government that receives tax revenues from its citizens.
Sky Mavis holds about 20% of the total AXS tokens.
The proposition has helped to push AXS demand higher even amid an ongoing sector-wide downtrend. Since its launch, the Axie Infinity token has raked in more than 18,000% profits for its investors.
AXS price technicals
The latest AXS rally also surfaced in the wake of a sector-wide rebound, led by Elon Musk’s revelation that his space technology firm SpaceX holds Bitcoin. He also committed that Tesla would resume the Bitcoin payment option for its electric vehicles once the flagship cryptocurrency would switch to green energy solutions for mining.
Related: Axie Infinity (AXS) axes almost half its value following 971% bull run
Bitcoin’s rebound from below $30,000 sent altcoins in a similar retracement trajectory, thereby benefiting AXS. However, the Axie Infinity token posted better short-term profits than its digital asset rivals, given the euphoria surrounding its gaming project.
AXS has been in a steady uptrend since launch. Source: TradingView.com
Technically, AXS’s latest move uphill had it break above its parabolic resistance. The cryptocurrency now holds $24.07 as its interim support while eyeing a run-up towards its next potential upside targets at $36.48, $56.57, $76.65, and so on.
Conversely, slipping below $24.07 exposes AXS to deeper downside levels at $19.78, $16.40, and $14.03.
AXS trading volume, market sentiment rise
Additionally, VORTECS™ data from Cointelegraph Markets Pro detected a bullish outlook for AXS on June 23, before its recent price rise.
In detail, the VORTECS™ Score, exclusive to Cointelegraph, is an algorithmic comparison of historic and current market conditions derived from a combination of data points including market sentiment, trading volume, recent price movements and Twitter activity.
VORTECS™ Score (green) vs. AXS price. Source:Cointelegraph Markets Pro
As seen in the chart above, the VORTECS™ Score for AXS first flipped green early on June 23, 0015 UTC, after which the AXS prices began to rise, reaching as high as 78, four hours before the price peaked at $32.14.
At the time of writing, the VORTECS™ Score for AXS has slid back down to 65, suggesting that the conditions are still favorable for more upside price potential.
The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Cointelegraph.com. Every investment and trading move involves risk, you should conduct your own research when making a decision.
The New York Stock Exchange, or NYSE, has jumped on the NFT bandwagon by minting nonfungible tokens celebrating the first trade made in the shares of prominent U.S. companies.
In an April 13th announcement, NYSE’s president, Stacey Cunningham, described NFTs as a “new, fun way to mark the moment” of a company’s first trade on the NYSE.
The first six NYSE NFTs commemorating the first trades for Spotify, Snowflake, Unity, DoorDash, Roblox, and Coupang, with Cunningham confirming “there will be many more NYSE NFTs to come.”
The first NFTs are already listed on Crypto.com’s NFT marketplace, with the tokens hosting a 10-second video clip presenting information about the company’s first trade — including its time, date, and listing price.
NYSE’s First Trade NFT for Spotify: Crypto.com
NYSE’s announcement received a mixed response on social media, with Twitter user “Aaron” saying he “had to check the calendar just to make sure it wasn’t April 1st” upon reading the news.
Infamous crypto Twitter troll “Bit Lord” was less political with his phrasing:
“You clowns haven’t even listed $BTC, get off my timeline scammers.”
Alex Gausman, the founder of nonfungible token fractionalization platform, NFTX, noted he could not find the contract address for NYSE’s tokens, adding: “That’s like the least cool/artistic thing ever. Just buy the stock.”
While NYSE’s NFT listings are yet to receive any bids, similar tokens issued by rival publications including Forbes, Times, and the New York Times have sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars this year.
Forbes’ first NFT featuring its latest issue cover with Gemini owners and billionaires the Winklevoss twins sold for $333,333 on April 8 this year. Times Magazine has issued nine NFTs to date with each individual cover NFT selling for between $100,000 and $250,000.
A column in the New York Times was tokenized for charity in March, raising more than $550,000 for NYT’s Neediest Case Fund.
Prominent online art portfolio platform ArtStation has caved in to pressure from artists and environmentally-conscious users hours after announcing a series of non-fungible token, or NFT, drops from several notable artists.
On Mar. 9, the platform announced the program was scheduled to begin today and featured works from artists including Halo Infinite art director Nicolas “Sparth” Bouvier, retired NASA astronaut Nicole Stott, Assassin’s Creed franchise art director Raphael Lacoste, painter Craig Mullins, and Magic: The Gathering illustrator Alena Aenami.
Following a furious bombardment of criticism, all mentions of the announcement were pulled down and replaced with a short message on the website stating that “In light of the critical reception on social media regarding NFTs, it’s clear that now is not the right time for NFTs on ArtStation.” Despite the setback, the firm didn’t shy entirely away from the technology, hinting at its potential future use:
“We are very sorry for all the negative emotions this has caused. Despite our attempts to validate our approach, we clearly made a mistake and admit fault. It was our bad. We feel that NFTs are a transformative technology that can make significant, positive change for digital artists.”
Dapper Labs founder and CEO Roham Gharegozlou stated the decision to cave in was “short-sighted” adding that “for one, blocks will get mined anyway — for the other, the criticism basically doesn’t apply to proof of stake blockchains like Flow Blockchain [used by NBA Top Shot].”
Woo hoo, we bullied ArtStation into not selling NFTs! https://t.co/rZb3LnVUC0
— Michael Klamerus (@MichaelKlamerus) March 9, 2021
ArtStation’s original plan appeared to use the ERC-721 token on Ethereum which remains a power hungry Proof of Work blockchain until most transactions move to the more efficient Proof of Stake blockchain Eth2. It is unclear if the platform considered other blockchains that can host NFTs using a fraction of the power.
This apology only appeased some of the community, however, with artists like Ashley Grace taking to Twitter again to voice their concerns about the apparent inconclusive wording of the post, likening NFTs to an “ecological nightmare pyramid scheme.”
glad to see the backpedaling (lmao), but the “now is not the right time” obviously means you still want to do it, just not right now while everyone is freshly pissed off. just don’t? do it at all??? no one wants to be tokens in a goddamn ecological nightmare pyramid scheme https://t.co/MAYIPPDntP
— Ashley Grace / previously a.g.irish (@willowsquest) March 9, 2021
Prior to pulling down the initial announcement, ArtStation unsuccessful attempted to placate the push-back, adding that it will be “contributing to offset the carbon footprint costs of any given piece of digital art transacted on the platform.”
Twitter user “Bleached Rainbows” stated that “ArtStation going into NFT and saying ‘but don’t worry! We’ll pay for carbon offsets’ is the equivalent of setting a house on fire then placing a single potted plant on the burned property as ‘compensation’.”
The backlash came on top of other controversies including rumored sexism and adult content, with artists threatening to cancel their subscriptions. Other issues included the unregulated nature of the NFT space and ability for scams to arise, and criticisms the move was a cash grab for the platform and most prominent artists.
If the completely unmonitored front page, the rampant sexist bullshit, and the literal porn on what’s supposed to be a professional portfolio website wasn’t enough, now we have this
I’m canceling my sub, and Artstation can eat it pic.twitter.com/IZVTeHEqtn
— Xavier (@xavierck3d) March 8, 2021
Despite the intense controversy, NFTs continue to garner widespread support with Beeple’s Everydays: The First 5000 Days auction on Christie’s heating up. Kinetic founder Jehan Chu attempted to join but was outbid at $7.25 million with 2 days still to go.
Just got outbid on my maxbid… with 2 days left, seems early for people to be flexing so hard! Christmas coming early for @beeple and @ChristiesInc pic.twitter.com/uuJk5RuHoJ
— Jehan Chu (@collectionist) March 9, 2021
The highest bid is currently $9.75 million.
Nine hours after ArtStation canceled the NFT launch, NFL tight end for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Rob Gronkowski announced his new NFT collection of four cards to represent his four championships. The cards will be sold at auction via Opensea on Mar. 10.
A crypto artist known as neitherconfirm recently listed 26 non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, for sale on OpenSea’s digital marketplace. Things took an unexpected turn earlier today, however, after the artist changed the images associated with each token from computer generated portraits into photos of literal carpets.
The pieces, which originally featured people and animal faces in a seemingly stained glass style, are now nothing more than an expensive metaphor for why you can’t trust the store-of-value proposition of any asset that maintains an aspect of centralized control.
I just pulled the rug at my NFT collection on @opensea . Nobody got hurt.
It is pretty easy to change the jpg, even if it does not belong to me or it is on auction. I am the artist, my decision, right?
A thread from somebody making his living with art irl about the value of NFTs. pic.twitter.com/LNAZqPpDMZ
— neitherconfirm (@neitherconfirm) March 9, 2021
“All discussions about the value of NFTs are meaningless as long as the token is not inseparable from the artwork itself,” said neitherconfirm. “What is the meaning of creating an unforgeable token on a highly secured network if somebody can alter, relink or destroy your possession? As long as the value of your artwork is reliable on a central service you do not own anything.”
The current price disparity between the artist’s seemingly similar rugs seems to lend some validity to their claims. At time of publication, the top bid on many of the NFTs is for under $1.00, while one (which currently has no offers) is listed for an astonishing $139 quadrillion — or around 80,000x the market cap of the entire crypto space. Neitherconfirm has since implied that they have received more offers on their rugs than they did on the original portraits.
Though the artist’s identity is unknown, they stated on twitter that their full-time job is “making sculptural art” under a top-selling artist that regularly sells pieces for more than $10 million. It is unclear if neitherconfirm created unique computer generated rug images to prove their point, or simply found pictures of carpets online and turned them into NFTs.
The crypto space is currently experiencing a massive boom in the quantity and value of non fungible tokens. While crypto artists were auctioning their works for up to $130,000 late last year, 2021 has seen NFT prices inflate to once-unfathomable amounts. Back in February, the owner of an NFT created by Mike Winkelmann, also known as Beeple, resold the piece on Nifty Gateway for a record-breaking $6.6 million.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey recently jumped in on the action as well, auctioning off tokenized ownership of the first ever tweet. He has promised to convert any proceeds into Bitcoin (BTC), and donate them to nonprofit organization GiveDirectly’s Africa Response. At time of publication, the highest offer on the tokenized tweet is $2.5 million.
“Right now the appeal of NFT’s is the status of owning one,” said MyEtherWallet founder and CEO Kosala Hemachandra. “NFTs are hot in the same way lambo’s are hot to Bitcoin purists. I think this current version of non-fungible tokens will continue to evolve into bigger and broader use cases.”
However, neitherconfirm claimed that pieces of art are “only a store of monetary value if they possess artistic value” as well as subjective beauty:
“Certainly a token can bring a huge benefit for moving rightful ownership, especially for digital art. Without any doubt there is revolutionary value in distributing ownership. Just the token itself is not the artwork — it certainly can be, but this is a different story.”
The artist noted in a pinned tweet that they will donate 51% of all profits from the rug-pull NFT series to charity.
Cointelegraph reached out to neitherconfirm for comment, but did not receive a response in time for publication.
Buzzy digital artist Mike Winkelmann, aka Beeple, made NFT history yesterday with his piece, “Crossroads”, netting $6.6 million on the secondary market via Nifty Gateway.
Like many Beeple artworks, Crossroads was inspired by the 2020 U.S. presidential elections. It was designed to feature one of two animations, depending on the outcome of the election — one a triumphant Trump, the other a forgotten, despondent one.
Originally purchased by a user called Pablo for $66,666.60 on Nov 1, the new owner, who chose to remain anonymous, paid almost 100 times more, breaking the price record for a single NFT sale. Previously the record was held by CryptoPunk 6965 which sold last week for 800 ETH, with a sale value of $1.55 million.
Beeple’s work has already captivated art collectors around the world with $3.5 million in sales generated over a single weekend in December on the Nifty Gateway, with some of the artwork being resold the same day at inflated values of more than 1000 times the original price.
Not everyone agrees with the high value being placed on these pieces of digital art with Crypto YouTuber Lark Davis stating Beeple’s $6.6 million NFT sale was a non-sensical purchase:
“This Trump themed #nft just sold for 6.6 million dollars, NFT mania is heating up big time. People showing they have more money than sense.”
The renowned artist is in the process of breaking another record with the first NFT being sold in a traditional auction house. Christie’s is listing the item in partnership with NFT marketplace MarkersPlace for more than two weeks, ending on March 11.
The auction for the piece titled “Everydays: The First 5000 Days”, which started on Feb. 25 for $100, has its estimated value listed as unknown. The listing has already received 120 bids with the latest bid at $2.2 million.
Comprising 5,000 unique images that he produced one each day for almost 14 years, there are themes about society’s obsession with and fear of technology, the desire for and resentment of wealth, and America’s turbulent political scene.
“We’re at this moment in time where there could be a drastic shift—a demographic shift, a generational shift—when it comes to what excites younger collectors,” Christie’s specialist in post-war and contemporary art in charge of the Beeple sale Noah Davis told Art Market Monitor. “Christie’s as an organization is really excited about a moment in time where you see $3.5 million of sales just organically appear out of thin air. That’s something we want to capitalize on.”
Digital artists aren’t the only ones being recognized by this new era of technology with Trevor Jones seeing increased attention for his paintings turned into augmented reality. On Feb. 25 Jones’ open edition art titled “The Bitcoin Angel” sold 4,157 editions within 7 minutes at a price of $777 each, netting the artist more than $3.2 million.
Congratulations to @trevorjonesart
Last night “The Bitcoin Angel” Open Edition closed at 4,157 editions minted for ~3.2M breaking the Open Edition NG record!
