This is why digital artist Beeple thinks NFTs might be a bubble

Reynaldo Marquez

Last Updated: March 21, 2021 7:55 pm

2 mins read

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In an interview for CNN’s First Move, digital artist Mike “beeple” Winkelmann talked about “the craziness” he has experienced with the sale of his NFT for $69 million. Acknowledging that the process has been “overwhelming,” beeple the consequences of the marriage of art and technology.

The digital artist has a career that spans 20 years. The work sold for millions as part of a “unique auction” at Christie’s and was created with images made over 13 years. Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT), Beeple said, has become “a real way” to connect with an audience. Beeple said:

To be quite honest, this is not something that I saw coming. It has just been overwhelming (…). Every part of me looks at this and says, “this is insane”. I always thoughted they will be some attention paid to it, I did not think it would be this quick or this much.

The digital artist considers himself a political critic of sorts and showed disbelief about the NFT market during the interview. Beeple believes that digital techniques and media have the opposite effect of devaluing artworks:

I don’t think art is being devalued, I think in some cases a lot of value is being placed on the work. I think there is definitely, on some level, a bubble when you have NFT of toilet paper selling for $2,000. That seems kind of ridiculous.

Comparing NFTs to the early days of the internet, Beeple said the technology is “exciting.” However, he highlighted how at that time “a lot of bubbles” were created, speculation, hype.

After that stage was over, the Internet reached its next level of development. Something similar, Beeple believes, will happen with NFTs. The digital artist stated:

There is gonna be a huge rush of people into this (saying), ‘ok, here is chapstick, let’s NFT it’. You already see that now. But I think people are going to pretty quickly get wise to that and all that stuff is going to fade away. The things that connect with people in an emotional level, or have a lot of utility, those are the things that are going to stick around.

Calvin Harris and Steve Aoki bid thousands on Beeple’s NFTs

Beeple believes that NFTs will be technologies that will be integrated into many use cases in people’s everyday lives. The digital artist is participating in “The Carbon Drop”. An initiative created by The Social Alpha Foundation.

Via Twitter, Beeple has celebrated participation in its NFT auction. Receiving millions of dollars in bids from Calvin Harris, Steve Aoki, and others, the proceeds will go to the Open Earth Foundation to:

(…) develop innovative open digital infrastructure for improved management of planet Earth —helping track transparently the global progress on the Paris Agreement to avoid the existential risk of climate change.

Ethereum ETH — ETH gaining momentum in the last hour. Source: ETHUSD Tradingview

Reynaldo Marquez

A literature major, Reynaldo Márquez has been deeply immersed in the crypto industry since 2017. His journey began with translating articles for various crypto news outlets, a role he took on with zeal. In 2018, amidst a challenging market, he embraced his first writing assignment, demonstrating his unwavering commitment to the nascent industry and the promise of change it bears for many people worldwide.
In March 2021, he joined the prestigious crypto news outlet NewsBTC and Bitcoinist, where he not only reported on the latest crypto news but also had the privilege of interviewing some of the industry's most influential figures. A year later, his dedication and hard work were recognized, and he was promoted to Managing Editor, a position he currently holds with pride.
He believes in honesty, good communication, hard work, and the power of cryptocurrency and its potential to transform people's lives, especially those alienated by the legacy financial system. Born in 1992 in Venezuela, Reynaldo is familiar with how governments and central banks can negatively affect people, their everyday lives, and their futures by creating inflation and erasing their hopes for a better future. Thus, like many Venezuelans, he embraced this new technology to help him and his family navigate difficult times.
In another life, Reynaldo would have pursued a career as an investigator, most likely tracking down the origins of the Cyberpunk movement with the publication of William Gibson’s ‘Neuromancer.’ The intersection between fiction and reality, with the materialization of Bitcoin in 2009, would have allowed him to dive deep into the crypto sphere as something more than a financial phenomenon but also a cultural shift in society that was brewing since the XX century, and maybe even sooner, in the XIX century with the publication of Henry David Thoreau’s ‘Civil Disobedience.’
But that’s for another life. In this one, Reynaldo has been trading to improve his trading skills. Since 2023, he has been trying to learn Python to create successful strategies and find ways to execute them. It is a difficult task, which continues to keep him busy today and will most likely continue to keep him busy in the near and long term.
In his free time, he enjoys lifting heavy objects, reading, watching movies, and listening to his favorite music. Some of his favorite authors are Walt Whitman, William Faulkner, Allen Ginsberg, James Baldwin, Raymond Carver, Ray Bradbury, George Orwell, Mario Vargas Llosa, Reinaldo Arenas, Rafael Cadenas, and many others. Lately, he has been primarily interested in reading about dystopic societies, a topic that deeply resonates with the crypto industry.
Since 2023, he has lived in Spain with his wife. He loves the weather, the food, and the people and their culture. They both expect to travel much more within the country they now call home and beyond its border. He hopes to retire with his wife, maybe in a quiet place near a beach, but most likely in a city close to a library and a university with his kids and, hopefully, grandkids.

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