NFT Artist Beeple Sells Latest Work for $29 Million at Auction

It's not quite $69 million. But, hey, $29 million isn't too shabby.

Beeple, the digital artist whose tokenized artwork "EVERYDAYS: THE FIRST 500 DAYs" sold for a record $69.3 million at a Christie's auction this March, has followed it up with a $28.9 million sale today of a hybrid physical and digital work. It's the second-largest sum paid for an NFT—or, at least, a piece of art accompanied by a "dynamic" NFT.

HUMAN ONE is a 3D moving sculpture depicting a person in a spacesuit moving through a variety of climates. Christie's, which expected the piece to fetch about $15 million (or its equivalent in Bitcoin or Ethereum), brought the hammer down at $25 million. The auction house netted $3.9 million on top of that for the buyer's premium. Ryan Zurrer, former venture partner at Olaf Carlson-Wee's Polychain Capital, claimed the winning bid.

HUMAN ONE is the first physical piece of art from Michael Winkelmann, otherwise known as Beeple. The accompanying digital piece is connected to a deed of ownership issued on the Ethereum blockchain.

Beeple's "EVERYDAYS" holds the record for the most-expensive NFT ever sold and helped propel non-fungible tokens out of the dusty corners of crypto and into mainstream conversation. Athletes and artists are keeping busy cashing in on the trend. For example, CryptoPunks, a collection of 10,000 pixelated characters, regularly sell for millions online, while Bored Ape Yacht Club NFTs—which look just how they sound—have claimed large sums at Christie's competitor Sotheby's.

The 15 Most Expensive NFTs Ever Sold

Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, are changing the way we think about art—and investors are starting to take notice. In the last year, NFTs have shot to the forefront of the crypto space. The cryptographically-unique tokens make it possible to create real-world scarcity for digital objects, and artists have seized on the opportunity presented by the technology. The NFT market exploded in 2021, generating some $25 billion worth of trading volume, and the momentum hasn’t slowed so far this year. This...

NFTs originated on the Ethereum blockchain and were first popularized by CryptoKitties, collectibles that allowed people to spend ETH on breeding unique animated cats. The tokens have since become a key component in rival blockchains' expansions strategies, showing up on Solana, Tezos, and the Flow Blockchain.

Trading volume for the digital tokens extended past $10 billion in the third quarter, a year-over-year increase of 38,000%.