According to a report by Decrypt, digital artist Beeple recently discussed the current situation and progress of the NFT market in an interview, stating that while speculators have left the NFT market, there is still a group of “enthusiasts who understand the technology.” Beeple also used his own work as an example to illustrate some of the “new functionalities” that digital art can achieve which traditional physical art cannot.
Beeple, whose real name is Mike Winkelmann, made headlines in 2021 when his NFT artwork “Everydays: The First 5000 Days” sold for a record-breaking $69.3 million. Since then, the hype surrounding NFTs has significantly cooled off, with transaction volumes dropping by over 90%.
Beeple added, “We lost a lot of people, but those people were never here for the art, I can tell you that right away.” He said that during the auction of “Everydays,” he knew that the market was 100% a bubble.
Although Beeple acknowledges that the NFT market “will come back to reality” and that speculators have “left,” he also pointed out that “enthusiasm surrounding this sort of thing is still very high.” Beeple mentioned the well-known NFT series CryptoPunks, which reached sales figures in the millions earlier this year, saying “the fact that something like that has become so normalized is absolutely mind-blowing to me,” and even such large sales are no longer considered news.
Market Segmentation of NFTs
Beeple also noted that the NFT market has seen “segmentation,” with some projects deviating from the true vision of the technology. Many NFT uses and related projects do not actually belong entirely to the realm of art and have encountered situations where different usage scenarios have been mixed. For example, the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT series focuses on the collectible aspect, but the development team is attempting to create a social club and other related applications.
Beeple said that NFT technology is unrestricted, similar to a webpage, “a webpage can be many different things, and an NFT is a way of proving ownership of many different things.”
Beeple added that achieving widespread application of NFTs in the realm of physical art authentication requires a universally recognized “NFT standard.”
Dynamic NFT Art
Beeple stated that although the NFT market has cooled off, there is still a passionate group of NFT enthusiasts who understand the technology and see it as a medium for expressing artistic concepts that were previously impossible.
Beeple mentioned that NFT technology allows him to create dynamic art pieces, with the changes in the artwork being recorded on the blockchain. Using his physical piece titled “Human One” as an example, he changed the landscapes traversed by the walker in the artwork.
Beeple mentioned that museums have difficulty accepting the idea of dynamic art pieces, even just the concept of “Human One” changing. He said, “When I talk to people at museums, they say, ‘Wait, I don’t know what it’s going to be.'” Beeple added that museums and collectors will ultimately accept the “new functionalities” of dynamic digital art.
