A piece of digital artwork by Mike Winkelmann, known as Beeple, sold for nearly $70 million last week.
Digital art backed by non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, are exploding in popularity and value, and Beeple is riding the wave.
In an exclusive interview, Beeple told Insider about his unexpected fortune and the future of NFTs.
Mike Winkelmann, better known as Beeple, has sold the most expensive work of digital art in history.
It s part of an explosion in the market for NFTs, or non-fungible tokens digital tokens that prove ownership of things like Beeple s image that you can t even touch. I honestly, like, I never thought I could sell my work, Beeple said in an interview at his home in South Carolina. Kind of late September, early October, people kept hitting me on being like, Oh, you got to look at this NFT thing.
And that s before the games have even taken place.
The Japanese public is largely against holding the Olympics, and there s no guarantee they will happen at all. Now, the City of Tokyo, the International Olympic Committee, and athletes themselves are bleeding cash to keep the dream alive.