No digital art piece has garnered as much attention thus far as “Everydays: The First 5,000 Days," the non-fungible token, or NFT, by the artist known as Beeple. Selling for almost $69.4 million at Christie's, Noah Davis, the specialist in post-war and contemporary art for the auction house, explained that the emergence of big-time digital art was bound to happen.
"We decided to hold this auction because it just honestly was inevitable that we would enter this space where the virtual and the real kind of collided and then became one," Davis told Cheddar. "I think that this last year in the pandemic we all were preparing for this mentally in some way or another, and it was just the right place and the right time."
Davis touted blockchain's unique ability to store information that NFTs rely on to preserve the "authenticity" of particular digital works of art, such as Beeple's piece. But, he also noted that, at first, he hadn't imagined it would be put to use in this fashion in the auction world.
"I probably would have expected, if I'm being honest, that blockchain technology would have been utilized in the art-at-auction field more as a kind of clerical device first rather than an actual collectible category," he said.
The auctioning of crypto art is so brand new that Christie's Auction House was unable to set a dollar value range estimate for the expected sale price labeling it "unknown," according to Davis, who said it was among the first things he had to clear with the firm's legal department.
"The estimate was unknown. We went from a $100 starting bid to $1 million in a little more than eight minutes," he said. "The kind of activity in bidding, the frenzy around this lot is like nothing I have ever seen in art-at-auction before."
Despite NFTs being the hot (in perhaps more ways than one) commodity right now and the traditional auction consumer getting up to speed with virtual auctions amid the pandemic, Davis doesn't see tangible artwork disappearing from auction houses any time soon.
"I don't think that auctions of physical art are going anywhere," he said. "But it does mean that there is a new space where art auction houses can operate and it's a purely digital space."
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
William Falcon, CEO and Founder of Lightning AI, discusses the ongoing feud between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, and how everyday people can use AI in their lives.
U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum “will not go unanswered,” European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen vowed on Tuesday, adding that they will trigger toug
The Trump administration has ordered the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to stop nearly all its work, effectively shutting down the agency that was created to protect consumers after the 2008 financial crisis and subprime mortgage-lending scandal. Russell Vought is the newly installed director of the Office of Management and Budget. Vought directed the CFPB in a Saturday night email to stop work on proposed rules, to suspend the effective dates on any rules that were finalized but not yet effective, and to stop investigative work and not begin any new investigations. The agency has been a target of conservatives since President Barack Obama created it following the 2007-2008 financial crisis.
Jeff Benedict, author of 'The Dynasty,' weighs in on the Kansas City Chiefs being the next big dynasty, who he thinks will win Super Bowl LIX and more. Watch!
