(Paris) Thousands of artists now create images that are sold online as unique digital tokens (NFTs), the most popular of which fetch millions of dollars. But are these computer files really worth their price?
Posted at 10:10 a.m.
No material work is exchanged in these transactions, everything is virtual: buyers receive a “Non-Fungible Token” (“non-fungible token” or NFT), in other words a certificate of authenticity, linked in this case to a work of art.
If the content of the digital work can be copied, this NFT remains the only “original”, whose ownership is made unique with blockchain technology.
Thanks to spectacular auctions, the craze exploded in 2021, when the equivalent of more than $40 billion worth of NFTs were traded worldwide, according to the specialist firm Chainalysis.
And the enthusiasm does not seem to wane, according to the success of a collection called “Bored Apes Yacht Club”.
These images of monkeys – 10,000 today – sold for an average price of around $250,000 in January. Singer Justin Bieber, for example, paid $1.3 million for his in January.
Technological complexity
Behind the big deals, critics only want to see the profit motive of big financial players, but there are also enthusiasts who are genuinely in love with these works, for whom technological complexity is an integral part of value.
“You can’t put the whole NFT community in the same basket,” mumu_thestan, a Malaysian artist who creates NFT works, told AFP.
Mumu, 33, sells his creations – glittering pixel constellations or sci-fi women and dragons – for a few hundred dollars each. His work particularly appeals to the artist David Leonard, who collects this type of work.
“An artist myself, I behave like the collector I would like to meet… I wouldn’t want my audience to think only of its potential added value,” he says.
But it is speculation, fueled by social networks, that strikes people.
Last year, the must-have collection was the square-designed “CryptoPunks,” some of which were acquired by celebrities like rappers Jay-Z and Snoop Dog.
A $252,000 trash can
Justin Bieber presented his monkey to the 200 million admirers who follow him on Instagram, fueling interest in a collection also highlighted by tennis champion Serena Williams or football star Neymar.
Prosaic, the American artist Robness managed to sell 252,000 dollars an image of trash can.
After disputes with the specialized market place SuperRare, the image of the trash can that he had put on the token became a meme – an image disseminated widely on the internet – and a collector wanted to acquire it.
“He called me, because he wanted to know more about this story” of trash, “and we talked for 30-45 minutes,” Robness told AFP. “He wanted to have the image in his collection, I gave him a price, and that’s how it was,” he adds.
Mumu, for her part, admits having been helped by the visibility of one of her admirers, Mike Shinoda, musician of the American rock group Linkin Park. She has 13,000 followers on her Twitter account – compared to 600,000 for the “Bored Apes Yacht Club” account.
This audience on the internet is the key for NFT producers, whether they are sold at a high price or not.
A feature that is reminiscent of the traditional art market, where some young artists devote as much effort to building up a clientele as to working on their works.
Brian Beccafico, a French collector, is not distracted in any case by the astronomical price reached by a work by the American artist Beeple, sold for 69 million dollars last year.
He, who managed to buy a work by Beeple in 2020, before his sudden glory, will not resell it, even if it is worth more than 100,000 dollars today. Because “I know that I could never buy another one”.