Queues formed at the entrance to the Jack Hanley Gallery in Manhattan when Beeple recently opened his first gallery show: He promised the first two hundred visitors a poster as a gift, fans told journalists.

A poster – how old-fashioned for an NFT artist who wants to revolutionize the art world.

But for Mike Winkelmann aka Beeple, whose NFT “Eerydays: The First 5000 Days”, which was sold at Christie's for $60.5 million last year, marked the beginning of the global NFT boom, art lovers, blockchain enthusiasts and celebrities like entertainer Jimmy crowded around Fallon in the Tribeca neighborhood.

The pictures, which he now showed physically in a gallery for the first time under the title "Uncertain Future" (Uncertain Future), were sold immediately - at prices of 75,000 to 300,000 dollars.

Of course, each work has an NFT that guarantees authenticity.

There are large-format prints on aluminum or smaller oil paintings with apocalyptic scenes that Beeple designed on the computer from 2021 to 2022 in his well-known, crude style between sci-fi, cartoons, memes and satire.

The focus is on the network companies Facebook (now Meta), Amazon, Google and Netflix: their brand names shine brightly in the gray of destroyed landscapes.

In a mud desert in front of industrial plants, Jeff Bezos' head lies gigantic as if severed.

The picture is called "You Got Mail".

On “Zuckerborg V2” brains swell from the head of an oversized Mark Zuckerberg surrounded by tiny people in hazmat suits.

The aesthetics are reminiscent of "Robocop" or "Mad Max".

Where naked women on their knees give their blood - a symbol for data - to an oversized robot, Beeple was inspired by the science fiction genre.

The criticism is in vain

It's not all subtle.

It doesn't get any more impressive because Beeple has only existed virtually in the form of image files on the Internet or as NFT on the blockchain.

A large format called "Toxic Masculinity," which shows Bezos' heads covered in male genitalia, might seem even more monstrous in a gallery than on a display.

Beeple's criticism of the network giants is superficial: it wouldn't be what it is without the industry.

The medium of his success collides even more violently with the destroyed landscapes in the pictures: According to estimates, NFTs worth between 25 and 41 billion dollars were traded in 2021.

The energy consumption of the blockchain technology that underlies the cryptographic "minting" of the coveted certificates of ownership,

Winkelmann says he is working on making his plants "climate neutral" - for example by investing in climate protection projects.

Other artists like Joanie Lemercier have said goodbye to NFT because of the energy consumption.

Still others are waiting for the Ethereum blockchain to switch to a power-saving procedure, as has been announced for some time.

Either way, NFT are becoming more and more present.

Mark Zuckerberg's Meta, recently announced, plans to make NFT an integral part of its metaverse.

NFT creatives broader recognition.

In an interview, Marcus Fox, Global Managing Director at Christie's, assures that the fear of a speculative bubble is disappearing.

Now it can be seen which NFT artists stayed and actually had "staying power".

Nobody has more of it than Beeple at the moment.