A digital artwork has been sold for nearly $70m after it was put up for auction in the US.
It is the first time a purely digital artwork has been sold by a major auction house and marks a major step forward for non-fungible token (NFT) artworks.
The piece, entitled ‘The First 5,000 Days’ by US artist Beeple is a collage of digital works created over more than 13 years.
Beeple, AKA Mike Winkelmann, began posting the works on May 1st 2007 and brought them together in the collage exclusively for the Christies Auction House.
The $69,346,250 sale makes Beeple one of the top three most valuable living artists.
holy fuck.
— beeple (@beeple) March 11, 2021
NFTs are effectively unique files encrypted on blockchain to ensure they are one-of-a-kind.
They have exploded in popularity in recent weeks, with a number of high-profile sales.
Twitter founder Jack Dorsey recently offered his first-ever tweet for sale as an NFT, with bidding due to end later this month.
The current highest bid is $2.5m.
