Christie’s selling the Beeple artwork at over $69 million stirred up global news that gained recognition on all platforms. The JPG file named “Everydays: The First 5000 Days’, by Beeple is a virtual mosaic, and its sale has turned many heads in the world. Mike Winkelmann, the real name of the US artist, suddenly became a huge topic of discussion in the NFT art market.
The achievement for Beeple also indicates a formidable point of recognition in the history of arts, with only two artists,have achieved a higher price. The two artists include US virtual artist Jeff Koons and British painter David Hockney. Now, the latest piece of news related to the sale of Beeple’s NFT art is Metakovan, the mystery buyer of the piece of art.
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Metakovan: A New Name on the NFT Landscape
Vignesh Sundaresan, also known as Metakovan, revealed his identity as the buyer on a Substack blog post. At the same time, the Singapore-based blockchain entrepreneur and angel investor also announced a fellowship worth $500,000 for ‘crypto storytellers.’
He also stated that his crypto investment company, Metapurse, would fund the fellowship for ‘crypto storytellers.’The Beeple artwork buyer also reflected on his journey into the domain of crypto assets and NFT in a blog.
The blog on Substack is titled, “How two immigrants from Tamil Nadu bought a piece of digital art for $69 million. And what we’re funding next”. The blog also showcased the journey of the firm’s steward, Anand Venkateswaran, or ‘Twobadour.’
Sundaresan is presently a CEO at Portkey Technologies, a software technology firm, and is a Y-Combinator alum. Most important of all, he is the founder of Lendroid, the blockchain startup, and also the co-founder of BitAccess, a crypto startup. Interestingly, BitAccess has established around 100 Bitcoin ATMs across 18 countries in the period from 2013 to 2015.
True Connoisseur of the Value of NFT
According to Metakovan, Beeple’s artwork is a considerably tough competitor when it comes to high-valued Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). He believes that it is impossible to beat the 13 years of hard work through every day. Furthermore, he added that techniques and skills could be replicated, or some new technology or skill would come along, but it is impossible to hack time.
The auction witnessed many prominent bids going till its final stretch. The price of the NFT art started from $15 million and reached its selling price in just 30 minutes. Christie, the auction house, has announced that around 33 participants took part in the auction. In addition, 64% of the auction participants belonged either to Gen Z or Millennials.
Good News for NFT Art
The record-breaking artwork sale has encouraged interactions around NFTs, basically digital certificates of authenticity of an asset and its ownership. The concept of NFTs basically refers to digital certificates residing on a secure system or the blockchain technology. The meme of a cat having a pop-tart body went on sale for $600,000. Furthermore, transactions exceeding $300 million an NBA Top Shot, the new marketplace for officially licensed basketball highlight clips.
The popularity of Beeple artwork has definitely taken an upward turn, especially with the next most expensive piece of NFT art belonging to Winkelmann. The piece of art under concern was able to bring in $6.6 million on Nifty Gateway, anNFT marketplace.
NFT art has started to gain recognition in recent times as it can convert digital artworks into verifiable digital assets. This is another great example of asset tokenization using the blockchain. The NFT assets are unique and are eligible for trading on blockchain, thereby gaining popularity profoundly in recent times. NFT assets have also been featured in notable examples, such as the 10-year old ‘Nyan-Cat’ GIF for $600,000. A video clip featuring LeBron James was sold as an NFT for more than $200,000. With so many renowned names coming in the domain of NFT, the blockchain space is definitely getting riled up.
News of a Global NFT Fund
Sundaresan also announced details about Metapurse, their crypto-exclusive fund, specializing in identification of early-stage blockchain projects throughout blockchain infrastructure, virtual estate, finance, unique collectibles, and art. Storytellers such as writers, content makers, and producers would get the grant in a span of 12 monthly stipends. The mystery buyer, Metakovan, also added that Metapurse has a long-term vision of the NFT revolution. He also believes strongly that Metapurse is presently the largest NFT fund in the world.
The investments of Metakovan in the field of NFT include references to art platforms such as Superrare and Async.Art and blockchains such as Flow. NBA Top Shots is an online marketplace for officially licensed digital collectibles from the NBA and lifestyle NFT platforms such as Grow Your Base. Flow currently hosts NBA Top Shots, which is an online marketplace for digital collectibles from the NBA with official licensing.
Most important of all, Sundaresan revealed that Metapurse was responsible for initiating a high-profile open auction involving NFTs. The auction resulted in the sale of around 20 single edition Beeple artwork pieces at almost $2.2 million. Subsequently, the NFT pieces were bundled together and then converted into B20 tokens. Beeple also received 2% of the tokens.
Spelling a New Era of Popularity for NFT
Therefore, it is clearly evident that the revelation of the mystery buyer of a $69 million NFT art brings the limelight on non-fungible tokens. The art market is commonly subject to problems of counterfeiting fraud, thereby resulting in the need for verifying authenticity of ownership of art. Blockchain usage in enabling the security of information and details pertaining to the asset can ensure authenticity. For example, NFTs have become popular alternatives for trading gaming artifacts. In addition, NFTs are also suitable choices for the licensing and certification industry.
As a result, you can clearly witness how the news of Metakovan has sent the whole world to discuss about NFT. Enterprises would look for opportunities to navigate different ways for leveraging NFTs. However, the comparatively new introduction of NFTs to market is responsible for lack of information about their functionalities and implications. Just like any other technology, NFT has slowly started to make a mark in different enterprise blockchain use cases across various industries. So, the potential of NFTs could bring a new approach to transaction of assets in real life and digitally.
