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Digital artwork which exists as JPG file sold for Rs 501 crore - Who's the artist behind it?

The work, called "Everydays: The First 5000 Days" is a collage of 5,000 individual images, which were made one-per-day over more than thirteen years.

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(Image: Twitter/ChristiesInc)
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You may have read news of paintings of famous painters from all over the world being auctioned for hundreds of crores of rupees, but you will be surprised to know that for the first time in the world, a digital image was also auctioned and that digital-only artwork was sold for nearly USD 70 million, or around Rs 501 crore.

This digital image was just a JPEG file, that is, a photo saved on your computer. The auctioneer, Christie's, conducted the auction. In this, the JPEG file of American artist Mike Winkelmann, known as Beeple was auctioned for Rs 501 crore. The work, called "Everydays: The First 5000 Days" is a collage of 5,000 individual images, which were made one-per-day over more than thirteen years.

The work is in the form of a new kind of digital asset: a Non-Fungible Token (NFT). This means that it is authenticated by blockchain, which certifies its originality and ownership.

The buyer of the digital-only artwork was named on Friday by Christie's as a crypto asset investor who goes by the pseudonym "Metakovan."

Metakovan, whose real name was not disclosed, is the founder of Metapurse, the world's largest NFT fund, Christie's said in a statement. It sold for USD 69,346,250 (42,329.453 ETH), which Metakovan paid in the form of cryptocurrency Ether.

The auction to buy the work by digital artist Beeple, which ended on Thursday, was the first ever sale by a major auction house of a piece of digital art that does not exist in physical form. Everyday's is the name of a series of artworks created by Beeple, who has been creating a new digital picture every single day since 2007.

The famous auction house had tweeted last month that it was going to hold the auction for Everydays - The First 5000 Days, by Beeple, a digital artist, as the first purely digital work of art ever offered by a major auction house.

The sale put Beeple into the top three most valuable living artists, Christie's said, trailing only David Hockney and Jeff Koons.

"When you think of high-valued NFTs, this one is going to be pretty hard to beat. And here's why - it represents 13 years of everyday work," Metakovan said in a statement released by Christie's.

"Techniques are replicable and skill is surpassable, but the only thing you can't hack digitally is time. This is the crown jewel, the most valuable piece of art for this generation. It is worth $1 billion."

But for the first time, someone has earned such a huge amount from a digital image that is cut-pasted in a computer file. However, this digital file is unique, as it has been authenticated through Bitcoin. Only one person can get a copy of The First 5000 Days.

The market for NFTs has soared in recent months as enthusiasts and investors use spare savings to buy up items that exist online. Last month, a 10-second video clip featuring an image of a fallen Donald Trump, also by Beeple, sold for USD 6.6 million on an NFT marketplace called Nifty Gateway.

Various digital objects can be minted as NFTs and traded as assets, including art, sports collectibles, patches of land in virtual worlds, cryptocurrency wallet names and even tweets. Twitter Inc boss Jack Dorsey is conducting a digital auction of his first ever tweet, in NFT form.

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