Digital Artwork Sells for $69.3M

[FelineOverlord]

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The artist’s friend is thrilled:

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The artist’s reaction:

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[blugbox]

1. They better convert it to PNG pronto!

JPG is a "lossy" compression format, and might not be the best long term format to use for such a high priced image...

[intrepidity]

2. That'll cost another 50 mil

this auction was for the .jpg only

[blugbox]

3. I'll do it for bargain basement prices

I'll do it for 15 mil... you might even be able to talk me down to 10...

Hell, I'll even make it read-only

[Goodheart]

4. Pretty funny. I just downloaded it for far less than $69 million.

[Buns_of_Fire]

6. People will need a Certificate of Authenticity for it to be official.

I'm prepared to print one off for the First Edition Exclusive price of only $2500 (buy now and avoid future regret!).

Bad artists copy. Good artists steal. ~ Picasso

[Celerity]

7. The NFT is the manifestation of authenticity

[brush]

12. What a pitch person. I still want my art on the wall, not in a digital file though.

You know, real, one-of-a-kind out of paint on canvas or board. Or carved from stone or welded from steel.

Something ya can hold in your hand and not duplicable by dragging it while holding down the option key, or PDFing it.

All that other technical arble-garble jargon might be good for investment vehicles for moving funds around electronically, but for original, one-of-a-kind art, no.

Call me a luddite if you will be no.

[Buns_of_Fire]

22. Durn. And here i was on the verge of starting a whole new company

to print and distribute Authentic Certificates of Authenticity (suitable for framing).

I was even going to offer wallet-sized Certificates, but I have a feeling that whoever can afford $69 million doesn't bother carrying around a wallet.

[brush]

5. Wonder what it'll be worth when that technology is outdated?

Last edited Thu Mar 11, 2021, 05:45 PM - Edit history (1)

I threw out some old cassettes and VHS tapes last month.

As far as art, I prefer art I can see on the wall or on a stand.

[hunter]

9. My wife and I buy art to support artists.

Not as "investment," but because we like it.

My parents are artists who always had day jobs.

They didn't become full time artists until my dad retired with a good union pension.

[brush]

11. They sound like art lovers as well as artists.

Wonder if they would buy digital file as art?

[hunter]

16. My mom can do digital art and sell it. My dad understands digital art but prefers paper.

My wife prefers paper for her own art but can rock both paper and digital. She can casually draw stuff with her finger on her cell phone that makes me think I'm the luckiest human in this universe.

Six decades in, I still don't know what my talent is.

[hunter]

8. Bitcoin is stupid as well.

I'm sure a few good people were surprised by their tulip fortunes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_mania

But most of them were not good.

[Celerity]

13. blockchain is here to stay for a long time, and no, BTC is neither 'stupid' nor anything like tulips

Tulips are not fungible, are not divisible, cannot be easily transferred, are not scarce by design, are not durable, and are not verifiable.

The analogy fails at a multiplicity of levels.

[hunter]

17. Bitcoins are just bits.

Anyone can make them.

My bits might be worth billions of dollars someday. Even trillions.

Sadly, it's most likely these dollars wont be worth anything then. Maybe even within my lifetime.

I never forget my mean state is crazy dumpster diving homeless guy.

Even when I've got money in the bank and a secure place to sleep.

[Celerity]

26. 'Anyone can make them.' You are talking about mining new BTC

Each BTC is a complete unique key that is verified via the blockchain ledger. It is now impossible to make duplicates (ie double spend). There are only 21 million possible to mine into existence, and around 18.7 milion have been mined. It is extraordinarily hard and costly now. to mine the last 2.3 million. At current rate of mining, the final BTC (remember, they are capped by design at 21 million) would not be mined until approximately 2140 pr so.

Estimates are that around 3-4 million have been permanently lost. My BTC are on separate offline, hardware-based (and redundant) wallets called IronKeys (secure special flash drives.) Not hooked up to the net in any way, completely externally unhackable, the keys are not stored online anywhere.

There are a lot of basic non hype sites out to learn more. All the giant banks are deeply involved so it has massive institutional backing. The delta is very high, extraordinarily so, so I do NOT recommend day trading it. Many decent ways to invest in blockchain (BTC is but one usage of blockchain tech) overall though. I am not a salesperson, so I leave you to discover (or not discover) those on your own.

Cheers

[edhopper]

10. More power to him

but yes is just bragging rights by people with too much money. There is a world of difference between an original Van Gogh or Picasso and a print or digital image. There is virtually no difference between the one here for $60 million and a file of the same size I can download.
This is not a rare first edition Dickens, it's a PDF file of Great Expectations.

[Celerity]

15. It is not a PDF file, it is an NFT that is verifiable via the blockchain, a vast difference.

[edhopper]

18. No its not

the image itself is no different from any of the same size you can ownload. There is a unique code attached, but that does not change the art.
An original Van Gogh on canvas is not the sMe as a print of it or digital image. The painting is unique. This digital image is not.
If people want to make this fungible, be my guest, they just are playing a game with their money.

[brush]

19. Oh, us luddites get that, but we're not so luddite-y that we don't know...

Last edited Thu Mar 11, 2021, 07:31 PM - Edit history (1)

that image of the file on this thread can be easily turned into a PDF, or copied to a desktop, opened in Photoshop and have the dpi set at 300 or higher and voila, you have a hi-rez image that can be enlarged, printed, and framed and viewed on a wall. You know, seen, viewed, appreciated for its beauty or for it's statement/meaning.

But wait, I know these NFTs are supposed to be kept on some server on the cloud somewhere with several hoops to go through to verify authenticity and view...no, not view, just have knowledge that one has it somewhere as an investment, which is not the purpose of art.

WTH? I want my art out of paint on canvas or board or out of stone or steel on a pedestal...something real, one-of-a-kind that you can touch and view and get pleasure from.

I don't know, could be just me, but I doubt it. And I think most other artists view it similarly to this painter who had a job as an art director to pay the bills.

[edhopper]

23. With you brush

there is nothing unartistic about digital art. But to treat an easily reproduced file as an valuable object d art is truly silly.

[Vinca]

14. Proof positive some people have too much money.

[Peacetrain]

20. This!!!!

[Arthur_Frain]

21. Actually, it's just legalized money laundering.

In plain sight.

[edhopper]

24. This

as well.

[brush]

25. Ageed. This digital art, and currrency to a degree, sounds like what...

they used to say about cocaine back in the '70s and '80s...it's for people who have too much money.