NFTs: How a Technological Trend Redefined Art Ownership

By Antonia von Appen.

In the past months, digital artworks sold through Non-Fungible Tokens (“NFTs”), also referred to as “crypto-art”, have become one of the most influential trends in the mainstream art world.^[1] This movement, which was certainly spurred by the pandemic and the necessity to buy online, recently peaked in terms of public attention and pricing in the auction of Beeple’s (né Mike Winkelmann) “EVERYDAYS: THE FIRST 5000 DAYS” (“EVERYDAYS”) by Christie’s in March 2021.^[2] The collage consisting of 5,000 single images fetched $69.3 million and was the auction house’s the first sale of a purely digital artwork backed by an NFT.^[3] Also for the first time, payment for a lot was possible in the form of the cryptocurrency Ether.^[4]

The description of Beeple’s collage on the webpage of the online auction indicated that “This work is unique.”^[5] Interestingly enough, the 5,000 works included in EVERYDAYS are also uploaded on Beeple’s website and can at any time be freely accessed by anyone with an internet connection.^[6] Against this background, the question arises: Why are investors willing to pay incredible sums for a freely accessible work consisting of ‘only’ digital images?

Voices have been raised suggesting that it is not the artistic quality of the work that plays the decisive role in such sales. ^[7] As Mary Schneider Enriquez, curator at the Harvard Museum, pointed out in an interview with the Harvard Gazette: “It seems to me that this is about money, and it’s about ownership, more than it is about a form of art in the spheres of which I, as a curator, have been trained to think about a work of art and its care.”^[8] But how can value be created for a publicly available and infinitely multipliable asset?