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Non-fungible tokens and digital art: game-changers for Asian collectors or just another bubble?

  • From Beeple’s US$69 million JPEG to Jack Dorsey’s first tweet, eye-watering auction prices for NFT creations have made the arts scene sit up and take notice
  • Fans say art history is being made, with the new tech tilting the balance of power between East and West. Sceptics say buyers simply have too much money

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A digital collage titled ‘Everydays: The First 5000 Days’ by Beeple. Photo: AP
When a piece by digital artist Beeple recently sold for US$69.3 million as a non-fungible token in a one-of-a-kind auction by British auction house Christie’s, ripples of excitement spread throughout the global arts scene.
The piece – a JPEG collage of 5,000 images titled Everydays: The First 5,000 Days – is now the most expensive digital artwork in the world. It was bought by Singapore-based technopreneur Vignesh Sundaresan, who previously went by the pseudonym Metakovan.

In a post revealing his identity in the online newsletter Substack, Vignesh explained that the typical “palette” of investors, financiers and patrons of arts tended to be “monochrome”. By winning the landmark artwork, he was adding a “dash of mahogany”.

“The point was to show Indians and people of colour that they too could be patrons, that cryptocurrency was an equalising power between the West and the Rest, and that the global south was rising,” Vignesh said.

Shortly after, another closely watched non-fungible token, or NFT, was sold to Sina Estavi, a Malaysian-based businessman who owns blockchain company Bridge Oracle. The US$2.9 million artwork was the image of the first ever tweet by Twitter’s chief executive Jack Dorsey in March 2006 which reads: “just setting up my twttr”.
Jack Dorsey’s first tweet. Photo: Twitter
Jack Dorsey’s first tweet. Photo: Twitter

So what exactly is an NFT, why the buzz and is their rise the start of a new wave of art investment?

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