It's a short ten-second animation, which shows what looks like a gigantic naked body of ex-US President Donald Trump, scrawled with slogans, lying in a park and in front of onlookers who do not care much. Warning.
This digital work by artist Beeple - real name Mike Winkelmann - was sold on Friday February 26 by American collector Pablo Rodriguez-Fraile for $ 6.6 million.
He had acquired it five months earlier for just $ 67,000.
An impressive capital gain and a record transaction in the very little known world of NFTs.
CROSSROAD
By @beeple
The # 1/1 from beeple's first NG drop has just resold on the secondary market for $ 6.6 million.
History has just been made.
Congrats to beeple and of course to @pablorfraile for the sale.
pic.twitter.com/mTYG4VABSw
- Nifty Gateway (@niftygateway) February 25, 2021
From artist Grimes to Christie's
These are, in fact, three letters which mean nothing to the general public.
But for a growing number of artists, investors, stock marketers, collectors, or techno-enthusiasts, these NFTs are a new El Dorado.
This acronym designates Non Fungible Tokens, or non-fungible tokens, which "are unique digital assets existing on the blockchain [an online public register of all dematerialized transactions, Editor's note] and which can represent any other type of product, whether they are virtual - such as images or videos - or real, such as paintings and real estate ", explains Nadya Ivanova, director of operations at L'Atelier BNP Paribas, an independent subsidiary of the French bank specializing in research and prospective, contacted by France 24.
These NFTs are the digital equivalent of title deeds.
Thus, the collector Pablo Rodriguez-Fraile did not resell the Beeple clip as such, but the NFT that the artist had created for his video.
There were encoded the unique characteristics of his creation.
"It is all the metadata such as the name of the work, the name of the author (s), any tags to describe it, etc.", explains Gauthier Zuppinger, co-founder of Nonfungible.com, the most important platform to the world of analysis of the NFT market, contacted by France 24.
And these NFTs are snapping up.
Canadian artist Claire Elise Boucher, better known by the stage name Grime, sold in 20 minutes, Sunday, February 28, the NFTs for her collection of drawings and images inspired by Norse mythology - an operation that paid her $ 5.8 million.
French street artist Pascal Boyart (PBoy) had no trouble finding buyers for the NFTs of his latest graph, the Underground Sistine Chapel, a 100-meter fresco painted on the wall of an old gold foundry from Ivry-sur-Seine.
The famous Christie's auction house has also embraced the NFTs.
She is currently organizing her first "crypto art" sale for a collage made by Beeple.
"This is totally new territory for us and in less than ten minutes there were already hundreds of entrants with bids exceeding one million dollars," said Noah Davis, a contemporary art specialist for Christie's, when asked. by Reuters.
New models for artists
The experts at Nonfungible.com, who have produced an inventory of the NFT market every year since 2018, have also observed that interest in its dematerialized tokens has exploded.
"There were $ 983 million in transactions over the first two months of the year, nearly five times more than for the whole of 2020," said Gauthier Zuppinger.
A hell of a rise for a digital asset that has only existed since 2017. At the time, the first creations based on NFT technology to meet with some success were the Cryptopunks, a series of 10,000 small characters made in pixels that had been distributed free online by the Californian company Larva Labs.
"Today, they are trading at a minimum of 40,000 dollars, and some Cryptopunks sell for more than a million dollars," notes Gauthier Zuppinger.
But it is not until 2020 that the sauce really begins to take.
"Well-known brands, such as the NBA, the publisher of video games Ubisoft or even F1 have developed products backed by NTFs, which has made it possible to attract a wider audience", underlines Nadya Ivanova, of the Atelier BNP Paribas.
The NBA "Top shots" have, in particular, contributed a lot to the popularity of these NFTs.
These are short videos of the best actions of American basketball stars to which one can acquire the rights.
On February 21, 2021, the American basketball league sold 2.6 million dollars worth of "Top shots" in 30 minutes.
For artists, NFTs are a real boon.
"They allow the development of new revenue models," says Nadya Ivanova.
It is thus possible to encode in these digital tokens clauses stipulating that each time their work is resold, they receive part of the price.
"It's a way of having recurring income", specifies the expert from L'Atelier BNP Paribas.
New windfall for speculators
?
But what is the point of acquiring an NFT for a painting or a piece of street art that you cannot exhibit in your living room?
Or even for a short video that everyone can watch for free on Twitter or YouTube?
This new technology is currently experiencing a phenomenon of "gold rush similar to that which benefited cryptocurrencies," said Gauthier Zuppinger.
In other words, some of the new converts to NFTs are speculators hoping to profit from the current boom.
A phenomenon that owes a lot to the health crisis.
"There is an enormous amount of liquidity currently available in the markets thanks to the stimulus packages of central banks to support economic activity, and investors are looking for investments that pay off, and it is often risky assets like these NFTs that can make it possible to win (or lose) big ", summarizes Nathalie Janson, economist and specialist in cryptocurrencies at the Neoma Business School management school, contacted by France 24.
But it is not only the stock marketers who make the planet NFT go round now, assures Gauthier Zuppinger.
"We also meet a growing number of rich art collectors who see in these works new territories to satisfy their passion, and enthusiasts of new technologies who have made their fortune thanks to cryptocurrencies and who believe that it is necessary to invest in these NFTs. because they offer new perspectives that still have to be explored, ”he lists.
It remains to be seen what are these new opportunities that these dematerialized property titles will allow to create.
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