Singer Grimes sells $ 6 million worth of NFT art
No time right now?
Crypto art as NFT is enjoying increasing popularity. Over the weekend, the artist Grimes was able to see it for herself: Within 20 minutes, she sold digital objects valued at 5.8 million US dollars.
To call Canadian artist Grimes a singer would be an understatement. It belongs more to the Gesamtkunstwerk category and, in addition to music, also produces performance art, videos and paintings.
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Grimes experiments with sales formats
Last Sunday she had a collection called “War Nymphs” that she launched together with her brother Mac Boucher on the NFT platform Nifty Gateway partly sold, partly auctioned. These included digital paintings, but also animations and video clips.
In terms of content, Grimes shows a rather gloomy, extra-planetary world populated by differently armed cherubins. The animated sequences contain specially composed music. As the artist explains on her auction page, she wanted to show how digital art can create boundless worlds.
In terms of the type of sale, Grimes experimented with different formats. She had set two animated images called “Earth” and “Mars” for a unit price of $ 7,500. Up to 9,999 copies per illustration were for sale. Ultimately, she was able to sell between 300 and 400 pieces of both works of art. A number of paintings under the umbrella term “Newborn” were sold 100 times each for $ 20 each. The format of the silent auction was chosen for two larger paintings. Interested parties submit a bid and the ten highest bids are accepted for one copy of the work of art each. Individual auction participants bid up to $ 111,000.
For the video “Death of the Old” the open auction format was used. The crypto artwork ultimately went over the blockchain for around $ 389,000. In total, Grimes was able to bring in over six million dollars, the lion’s share of it within 20 minutes, like Austonia reported.
For the next sales campaign, Grimes, the partner of Tesla and SpaceX boss Elon Musk, knows which formats she should prefer.
NFT art on the rise
NFT art is slowly but surely moving out of its niche and enjoying increasing notoriety and popularity. This is particularly clear an auction, which the venerable British auction house Christie’s has been running since February 25 and until March 11, 2021: In cooperation with Makersplace, a marketplace for digital art, Christie’s is auctioning an NFT work of art by digital artist Beeple (Mike Winkelmann). The work “Everydays: The First 5,000 Days” is available for purchase. Beeple has already raised more than $ 3.5 million in artwork through NFT auctions.
That’s an NFT
An NFT is a non-fungible token, i.e. a blockchain data set that is unique and not fungible (interchangeable) like Bitcoins or Ether and is only defined by its nominal value. NFT represent a very specific asset and are therefore unique.
They only have the technology of storage on the blockchain in common with currency tokens. This makes them ideal for assets of which there is only one or a few.
While in principle many applications for NFT are conceivable, crypto art and so-called crypto collectibles, digital collector’s items such as elaborately designed playing cards, are currently dominating. But also properties in virtual worlds have already been sold as NFTs.
