NFTs for the people
The digital artist Beeple has been making waves since his $3.5M Nifty Gateway drop in 2020. Nobody writes about NFTs without mentioning that sale.
And now heās back with a new NFT: THE FIRST 5000 DAYS, a collage of all the pieces of his Everydays habit thus far.
And guess what? Itās being auctioned by motherfucking Christieās, one of the largest auction houses in the world. Itās the first time theyāre selling a digital art NFT, and this is unprecedented! As they themselves say in the Opus:
. . . this make[s] estimating Beepleās first sale at Christieās impossible to predict. āWeāre replacing our typical āEstimate on Requestā with āEstimate Unknownā,ā says Davis. āWeāre breaking such new ground with this piece, your guess is as good as ours.ā
The auction starts on February 25th, and thereās no doubt it will end in another historic sale. But we wanna dive into something else that will be historic: the simultaneous repricing of Beepleās other NFTs.
Imagine the scenario with physical art. If this was a print and it sold at some historic price, it would be slow to rerate the rest of Beepleās prints. Youād have to deal with shipping and logistics and all the hassle of physical pieces.
But Beepleās work are sold as NFTs, which is comparatively more liquid and low-maintenance, right? His current collectors can put their pieces for sale at any time, and others can buy at any time, no matter where they live in the world. Easy.
Not to mention, as covered in Issue 3, the fund Metapurse fractionalized the Beeple 20 NFTs into an ERC-20 token, B20. The token is as liquid as it getsāyou can buy as little as $10 of this token right now on Uniswap, and voila, you get Beeple exposure in your portfolio.
So what feels unprecedented, to us, has been the activity around this announcement. Itās been approximately 24 hours since the announcement, and his pieces on Nifty Gateway have been relisted for higher prices. The B20 token is up by 100% today.
I think itās fair to say that people think this will be a historic sale.
So itās going to be exciting to see how the auction progresses, but we want to keep an eye on the other Beeple pieces too. Think about it: weāll be able to observe, in real-time, as his current NFTs and the B20 token get rerated according to this new NFTās bids.
When in history has it even been possible to so quickly reprice an artistās body of work before?
Other news
š¼ļø Nifty Gateway saw $500K of secondary volume in 24 hours. By āsecondary,ā it means that the sales were from collectors listings, not the auctions, so whoa. Thatās a lot of demand! And the cool part is: artists get a 5% commission on every secondary sale.
āļø If youāve been here for the last few issues, you know weāve been tracking the progress of $ESSAY. Well this week, the NFT for the essay sold for 3.5 ETH, which means the $ESSAY token holders can redeem a portion of that sale! Really hoping that this is a milestone moment for enabling writers, in the same way NFTs enabled artists!
š NBA Top Shot was covered by ESPN! Whoa.
š§¾ A new-to-us project: Proof of Beauty. They generate a piece of art based off of the data of an Ethereum hash. Check out their manifesto too.
Reading list
Andrew Steinwold explains what he calls the āpromise effectāāfunctional NFTs, like game assets, have more expectations on them. Therefore, the more function an NFT has, the slower the value accrual.
Twitter thread: NFTs and how they can solve issues with subscriptions.
Collector fafafofo did a SuperRare Reddit AMA, and the insight in the responses is just *chefās kiss*
Always love to read what creators think of NFTs. So from Bobby Hundreds, the co-founder of a famous streetwear brand, hereās "Cryptomedia, NFTs, and the Next Internetā.
An adjacent read: eBay's 2021 "State of Trading Cardsā Report. Loved it for this insight: ānew collectors are entering the trading cards space as another avenue of investment to diversify their portfolios.ā NFTs = alternative investments, confirmed.
Plus, there were a lot of good things on Twitter this week, so weāre going to let the embeds speak for themselves.
Creative corner: Klarens Malluta
We covered Beeple today. And it seems like fate that earlier this week, we fell in love with this artist who also does a daily practice!
Klarens Malluta is on his 4th year of Everydays, and if we had to describe his style, it would be āpsychedelic heads.ā Or maybe thatās just the latest version! Scrolling through his Instagram gives a satisfying glimpse of Klaren refining his psychedelic style in public.
But we really, really love his psychedelic heads.
Find Klarens on Instagram, MakersPlace, and SuperRare.
Try this: apply for the Illuvinati Council
The Council will play an important role in the upcoming auto-battler game, Illuvium. These members will be required to debate on any improvement proposals, with potential for compensation for the work! You can read more about the role here.
If youāre interested, head to their Discord and make sure you get your nominations in by Friday, the 19th of February 2021 9:00 UTC.
Extra: the creators of the game are brothers of the founder of Synthetix, the famous DeFi protocol! So if you were in the SNX Discord, join the Illuvium Discord before 9 AM UTC, Friday to get an ILV airdrop. More details here.
Thatās it for this week! The inbox is always open for feedback, or if youād just like to chat.
šµ See you again next Wednesday.