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JPG File Sells for $69 Million, as ‘NFT Mania’ Gathers Pace (Beeple)
New York Times ^ | 03/11/2021 | Scott Reyburn

Posted on 03/11/2021 11:35:09 AM PST by Responsibility2nd

“Everydays — The First 5000 Days,” by the artist known as Beeple, set a record for a digital artwork in a sale at Christie’s.

After a flurry of more than 180 bids in the final hour, a JPG file made by Mike Winkelmann, the digital artist known as Beeple, was sold on Thursday by Christie’s in an online auction for $69.3 million with fees. The price was a new high for an artwork that exists only digitally, beating auction records for physical paintings by museum-valorized greats like J.M.W. Turner, Georges Seurat and Francisco Goya. Bidding at the two-week Beeple sale, consisting of just one lot, began at $100.

With seconds remaining, the work was set to sell for less than $30 million, but a last-moment cascade of bids prompted a two-minute extension of the auction and pushed the final price over $60 million. Rebecca Riegelhaupt, a Christie’s spokeswoman, said 33 active bidders had contested the work, adding that the result was the third-highest auction price achieved for a living artist, after Jeff Koons and David Hockney.

Billed by the auction house as “a unique work in the history of digital art,” “Everydays — The First 5000 Days” is a collage of all the images that Beeple has been posting online each day since 2007.

~snip~

Beeple’s collaged JPG was made, or “minted,” in February as a “nonfungible token,” or NFT. A secure network of computer systems that records the sale on a digital ledger, known as a blockchain, gives buyers proof of authenticity and ownership. Most pay with the Ethereum cryptocurrency. “Everydays” was the first purely digital NFT sold by Christie’s, and it offered to accept payment in Ethereum, another first for the 255-year-old auction house.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Arts/Photography
KEYWORDS: beeple; christies; digitalart; mikewinkelmann; nft
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To: ClearCase_guy
Gotta be full sized for full value


21 posted on 03/11/2021 12:19:47 PM PST by Pollard (Bunch of curmudgeons)
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To: DannyTN; Gamecock; SaveFerris; PROCON
Looks like a Magic Eye painting.

I wonder if the O'Henry heiress put in a bid?

22 posted on 03/11/2021 12:21:06 PM PST by Larry Lucido (Donate! Don't just post clickbait!)
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To: DannyTN

Dear Rich People:

I’ll make crap like that for you every day, and only charge $6500.

Yours Truly,
Starving Artist


23 posted on 03/11/2021 12:21:24 PM PST by JennysCool ( "It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled." ― Mark Twain )
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To: Responsibility2nd

Psst, I got a 4k screenshot of a Beeple I’m trying to move, you interested?


24 posted on 03/11/2021 12:27:30 PM PST by Boogieman
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To: DannyTN

“What other explanation makes sense?”

Well, there’s always speculation. Speculators are not always particularly smart in their speculations.


25 posted on 03/11/2021 12:29:03 PM PST by Boogieman
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To: Boogieman

Yes!

I’ll give you 5 dogecoin for it.


26 posted on 03/11/2021 12:29:55 PM PST by Responsibility2nd (Trump is a deposed Pres. in exile. America is truly a banana republic. Our govt. has been overthrown)
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To: JennysCool

That’s why they won’t pay you, you are charging too little.

Rich people can’t impress their friends with a piece they only paid a piddly 6 1/2 grand for.


27 posted on 03/11/2021 12:30:04 PM PST by Boogieman
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To: Responsibility2nd

A lot of idiots are worth that and more.


28 posted on 03/11/2021 12:30:51 PM PST by .44 Special (Tp)
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To: Responsibility2nd

I’ll have to check the exchange rates, I usually only trade in trollfacecoins...


29 posted on 03/11/2021 12:31:57 PM PST by Boogieman
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To: Responsibility2nd

Back in 2005 a guy made a million dollars selling ad space.
Free Republic needs some static ads... you get rich!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Million_Dollar_Homepage
http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/


30 posted on 03/11/2021 12:32:16 PM PST by minnesota_bound (I need more money. )
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To: Vermont Lt

What is the actual product that was bought? A JPG file? 5000 PPGs? Emperor’s new clothes?


31 posted on 03/11/2021 12:32:41 PM PST by philetus (Keep doing what you always do and you'll eventually get what you deserve)
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To: Responsibility2nd

It’s on a blockchain. It’s a one off.

Bitcoin is on a blockchain. They MUST be the same thing.

They aren’t. They are on the etherium network. That is a network where you can tokenize things and write smart contracts.

That is digital. It is different than Bitcoin.

I know it reads as petty—but we are entering a world where the terms have specific means and they function in specific ways.


32 posted on 03/11/2021 12:43:22 PM PST by Vermont Lt
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To: Boogieman

Oooh! Oooh!

Dogecoin is currently trading at $0.0560!

That ‘s up 1.24%!

I’m feeling generous. I’ll raise my bid to 10 dogecoins!


33 posted on 03/11/2021 12:50:18 PM PST by Responsibility2nd (Trump is a deposed Pres. in exile. America is truly a banana republic. Our govt. has been overthrown)
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To: Vermont Lt
And buying a JPEG is pretty dumb. A JPEG, by definition is an image that has been compressed—and thus has let than perfect quality.

It depends. The JPEG standard has implemented lossless compression.

34 posted on 03/11/2021 12:51:52 PM PST by Rightwing Conspiratr1
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To: rfp1234

[Another sign of a declining civilization.]

I tried to scan a few of the images in there. Some of them are rather odd.

But then, some people have been collecting disturbing “art” haven’t they?


35 posted on 03/11/2021 12:54:17 PM PST by SaveFerris (Luke 17:28 ... as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold ......)
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To: notted

That’s why Hunter Biden is reportedly getting into the business


36 posted on 03/11/2021 12:56:53 PM PST by j.havenfarm (20 years on Free Republic, 12/10/20! More than 3700 replies and still not shutting up!)
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To: Rightwing Conspiratr1

Wouldn’t you rather a TIFF?


37 posted on 03/11/2021 12:59:00 PM PST by Vermont Lt
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To: Responsibility2nd
I got an image like that from a 1-bit error in a .jpg file.
And it never even occurred to dumbass me that it could have been worth money.

38 posted on 03/11/2021 1:09:54 PM PST by BitWielder1 (I'd rather have Unequal Wealth than Equal Poverty.)
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To: Responsibility2nd

Tulips are tasty.


39 posted on 03/11/2021 1:14:14 PM PST by StAnDeliver (Eric Coomer of Dominion Voting Systems Is The Blue Dress)
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To: Vermont Lt
TIFF/RAW->JPEG is almost negligible PShop compression.

But I agree with you in that I would want the original, sole source file/files and also that the artist retains no digital capture of the image/images whatsoever.

In the case of the composite, I would have insisted on all of Beeple's 5000 source images, and the composite, and that he be left with none.

But these cryptokids are dumber than rocks. "High school with money." - Martin Mull

Can't wait until the fakes arrive...

40 posted on 03/11/2021 1:27:27 PM PST by StAnDeliver (Eric Coomer of Dominion Voting Systems Is The Blue Dress)
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