Digital-only artwork fetches nearly $70M at Christie's

An NFT is like a piece of paper titled with the name of the artwork and signed by the artist. Meanwhile, the artwork hangs in a museum and you have no control over it.<p>Imagine going to the museum and showing people this paper. “Look, I bought this piece of art!” But even though you bought it, you don’t <i>own</i> it, so you aren’t able to take it home or anything like that.

Is this high-class money laundering, or something else?

but it doesn&#x27;t come with any rights.<p>You don&#x27;t get the copyright for this artwork, you own the token, not the art it&#x27;s self.<p>its sheer lunacy.

Here&#x27;s a direct link to Christie&#x27;s which has a photo of the artwork:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;onlineonly.christies.com&#x2F;s&#x2F;beeple-first-5000-days&#x2F;beeple-b-1981-1&#x2F;112924" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;onlineonly.christies.com&#x2F;s&#x2F;beeple-first-5000-days&#x2F;be...</a>

Here&#x27;s a video about Beeples Everydays. I&#x27;m not a fan of NFTs (at least yet), but the video does mention Beeple&#x27;s years of work as an artist. Whatever you think of the technology, it&#x27;s really good to see artists getting paid.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=9zTpJJoHmnE" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=9zTpJJoHmnE</a>

How much does it cost for an NFT of a photo of a Beanie Baby?

OK HN help me out on this one. This whole NFT phenomenon just has to be primarily driven by money laundering right? Like there&#x27;s no possible way a person, who is in possession of $69 million dollars, has decided that they&#x27;d rather have this image file right? It&#x27;s impossible.<p>So we must conclude that what&#x27;s actually happened is they have $69MM in gains, and they&#x27;re a known entity, and they&#x27;d like to offset that with $69MM in loss somehow and transfer the gain to an unknown or untraceable entity. Or whatever the more accurate version of that basic dynamic is.<p>Am I wrong?

Wanna talk about NFT lunacy? I was able to sell an NFT of Mona Lisa. Granted, I only got $5 out of it, but the fact that I can make any profit off it is ridiculous.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jerseyfonseca.com&#x2F;blogs&#x2F;nft" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;jerseyfonseca.com&#x2F;blogs&#x2F;nft</a>

A little more info from an NPR article on the sale:<p>&quot;That is, until about four months ago. That&#x27;s when Mike found out about a new kind of blockchain technology that has been rippling through the digital economy: NFTs, or non-fungible tokens. NFTs are like certificates of ownership — unique barcodes that can&#x27;t be duplicated — that can be attached to all sorts of digital files and make them into exchangeable assets. Mike&#x27;s story offers a window into how NFTs are on track to dramatically reshape the art market.&quot;<p>(<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.npr.org&#x2F;2021&#x2F;03&#x2F;10&#x2F;975782582&#x2F;market-power-to-the-beeple" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.npr.org&#x2F;2021&#x2F;03&#x2F;10&#x2F;975782582&#x2F;market-power-to-the...</a>)<p>So NFTs are the new DRM?

Blah blah money laundering blah blah beanie babies. This is getting old, it&#x27;s like when Google launches a service and comments are &quot;So when will this be shut down?&quot;. It&#x27;s lazy and brings nothing to the table.<p>On the topic, can anyone explain how the &#x27;official&#x27; Beeple entry is identified on the blockchain? As opposed to any other address that claims to be the &quot;Official Beeple &#x27;5000 days&#x27; NFT ownership token&quot;. My understanding of this is sketchy at best.

What if the artist himself had all the crypto? Created hundreds of fake personas (addresses) and took part of the auctions to create hype on what essentially is buying his own work? Catching a few gullible people on the way.

Isn&#x27;t this how the entire field of &quot;collectibles&quot; works? Makes total sense to me. Why do people think this is lunacy and selling music isn&#x27;t? (just curious)

Now theres going to be a gold rush of anyone and everyone trying to capitalize on this.<p>Also, am I the only one that feels this is a new level of bonkers?

I think we need a strong wealth tax here in the US. It would take Emoji domain guy 70,000 years to make this auction price.

Stupid question time. Apologies in advance. Could the buyer print it out and put it on their wall?

Anyone have the full-size image?

So could someone explain how NFTs can be used to launder money? Because otherwise they seems pretty useless with the exception that these can be used to access decentralised software as a license key.

Good grief

Art auctions, the favorite money laundering scheme of the rich, meets cryptocurrency, the second-favorite money laundering scheme of the rich. A match made in heaven.

Why can&#x27;t I create an MTF that looks identical to a popular one that has already been sold? I can sell that fake NTF to myself for the same price the real one sold (so it looks like it has value and is real). Then I can market mine as the real one and sell it to someone for a profit.

Seriously!? They don&#x27;t discuss the artwork; what file format, if any, that the artist used; how it was stored; how it&#x27;s accessed, nothing!<p>While the concept sounds very interesting, the reporting leaves much to be desired!