NFT, a billionaire techno fad or a revolution in the art market?
Audio 03:35
“Everydays: The First 5,000 Days” (detail), digital work by American artist Mike Winkelmann alias Beeple, sold on March 11, 2021 at Christie's for $ 69.3 million.
© Handout / CHRISTIE'S AUCTION HOUSE / AFP
By: Dominique Baillard Follow
8 mins
The art market is igniting for a new digital medium, the NFT.
It is not the work in itself that we buy but its computer code, it can be exchanged at a stratospheric price.
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The phenomenon exploded in 2020 thanks to an unlikely meeting favored by confinement: that of idle artists, no longer knowing quite how to value their work and bitcoin billionaires eager to place their capital in a new form.
Because an NFT, a non-fungible token, that is to say unique in the world, is sold in cryptocurrency.
The American graphic designer Beeple, who usually works for singing stars, started making a lot of money last year by selling these digital creations in the form of NFTs.
With a collage of 5,000 digitized drawings, he hit the jackpot, $ 69 million, at an online auction organized by Christie's and followed by 20 million people.
This astronomical award propelled this unknown artist into the trio of the world's most cherished living artists, alongside Jeff Koons and David Hockney.
What is the point of exchanging a work in this form?
The NFT is associated with a tamper-proof digital certificate using
blockchain
technology
, which is also the backbone of bitcoin.
An appreciable guarantee of authenticity for the collector.
For centuries the art market has been plagued by fakes, which are not always obvious to detect, including by the greatest connoisseurs.
The act of sale is much more transparent, another positive development for this market.
It is above all a very good deal for the artist: each time the NFT is resold, a percentage is paid to its author, which revolutionizes the distribution of the value often captured by collectors or intermediaries.
At the moment the NFT is used for digital, musical or video works.
The very first post from Jack Dorsay, the founder of Twitter, even sold in this form for almost $ 3 million.
Is a financial bubble forming in this new market?
The market went from 40 to 338 million dollars between 2018 and 2020. Such a sudden success seems quite artificial in view of the works exchanged.
Beeple, for example, had hardly ever sold anything before.
One of his NFTs sold for $ 66,000 was bought back for $ 6 million a few months later.
If the odds are soaring, it is mainly because the buyers have deep pockets, they are mainly whales, these investors who make the markets go up by pouring out a lot of money.
This frenzy borders on the hysteria that crosses the financial markets.
Whether on the stock exchange or the bitcoin market, investors are on the lookout for good deals, including the more exotic ones, as long as their value climbs.
An effervescence propelled by the low rent of money.
Do NFTs have a future outside of this exceptional context?
It will depend on the enthusiasm for these essentially digital works, because for the moment the NFT does not apply to old master paintings.
The NFT can also renew the consumption of works of art not only through purchases but also why not subscription.
There could be a Spotify of digital works allowing certain works to be shown at home via a subscription, this would democratize access to art.
In the immediate term, the NFT has above all the merit of attracting new collectors, younger, richer, often from tech.
IN SHORT
► Hong Kong and Macao have just suspended the Pfizer / BioNtech vaccine, due to defective packaging on a batch.
A measure taken in the name of the precautionary principle.
The share of Fosun, the Chinese pharmaceutical company that manufactures and distributes it for this area fell 5% following the announcement.
► In Europe, the Commission is now presenting stricter regulations for the export of vaccines.
If a manufacturer does not fulfill his contract with the Twenty-Seven, he will not be able to export to a third country, especially if the latter itself blocks exports or if it is very advanced in its campaign.
A hardening that targets the United Kingdom and the United States.
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