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Marco Verch via flickr
Sotheby's is auctioning Quantum, a digital work by American artist Kevin McCoy, which the auction described as "the first known NFT" and "perhaps the most historically important piece of crypto-art".
NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are a form of digital art storage. While any internet user can see and download a virtual work, there is only one "authentic" copy. NFT confirms this authenticity: it stores information in the blockchain about the creation and creator of the token, as well as all subsequent transactions with it.
Quantum is a short geometric animation showing a "pulsating" octagon that changes colour and shape inside. According to Sotheby's website, the token with this work was created on 2 May 2014. In the lot description, Sotheby's compares it to works by Picasso, Malevich and Duchamp, who also discovered new directions in art - for example, cubism or abstraction.
Sotheby's held its first NFT auction in April: virtual works by the artist, known as Pak, sold for a total of $16.8 million. In March, another auction house, Christie's, sold an electronic painting by contemporary artist Beeple for $69.35 million - a record amount. The record before that transaction was $6.6 million, the amount an investor paid at the end of February for another Beeple’s work in the form of a token - a 10 seconds long video clip.
source: forbes.com
NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are a form of digital art storage. While any internet user can see and download a virtual work, there is only one "authentic" copy. NFT confirms this authenticity: it stores information in the blockchain about the creation and creator of the token, as well as all subsequent transactions with it.
Quantum is a short geometric animation showing a "pulsating" octagon that changes colour and shape inside. According to Sotheby's website, the token with this work was created on 2 May 2014. In the lot description, Sotheby's compares it to works by Picasso, Malevich and Duchamp, who also discovered new directions in art - for example, cubism or abstraction.
Sotheby's held its first NFT auction in April: virtual works by the artist, known as Pak, sold for a total of $16.8 million. In March, another auction house, Christie's, sold an electronic painting by contemporary artist Beeple for $69.35 million - a record amount. The record before that transaction was $6.6 million, the amount an investor paid at the end of February for another Beeple’s work in the form of a token - a 10 seconds long video clip.
source: forbes.com
