Makersplace

Two limited-edition Beeple pieces released last week have been valued at a premium of up to 50,000x on the secondary market. 

$7 NFTs Selling for Six Figures 

Beeple organized two surprise drops through MakersPlace, the same marketplace that arranged his historic Christie’s sale, last week. Each piece was released in an edition of seven and priced at $7. Would-be buyers were required to enter a raffle within a few minutes to be eligible to purchase the pieces.

The first raffle, which happened in the early hours on Wednesday, ran for 30 minutes. Another piece was sold on Saturday with a time window of only 21 minutes to enter. 

Both pieces form part of Beeple’s now-famous “Everydays” project, in which he’s created a new piece of artwork daily since May 2007. 

Despite the short timeframe, there were more than 16,000 entries across the two raffles. The winners then had 24 hours to make the $7 purchase. 

Since the sale closed, the pieces have hit six-figure valuations on the secondary market.

One edition of “ILLUMINATED PATH,” the Wednesday release, sold for 158 ETH last night. That’s just over $266,000 at today’s prices. 

Several other winners said that they had received six-figure offers after purchasing the pieces. One Twitter user, who also releases NFTs under the alias Corrosive, said that someone had privately offered them $350,000 for the latest piece, titled “TRILL KILL,” within an hour of the auction closing. “This could be truly life-changing for me,” they wrote.

They went onto say that they’d received multiple offers “fairly deep into the six figures.” 

Guys, this could be truly life changing for me.

Iv had a private offer for 350K for the Beeple I have just won. This feels absolutely ridiculous to say but if anyone can beat 350k, Id be sorely tempted to let this go, As i said before, this stuff does not happen to me.

— Corrosive (@corrodestuff) March 27, 2021

Many of the editions have received offers that far exceed the $7 price tag, though $350,000 is the highest known bid so far. 

Beeple’s NFT Rise 

Though unheard of with practically any other asset or piece of artwork globally, 50,000x returns are less surprising today given Beeple’s recent ascent. The digital artist, real name Mike Winkelmann, has been extolled as a shining light of the NFT movement in recent months, thanks in no small part to his historic Christie’s sale earlier this month. 

His “Everydays: The First 5,000 Days” piece sold for $69.34 million, shocking the art and crypto worlds at once. The sale makes Beeple the third-most valuable living artist to sell in an auction. It was widely reported in the mainstream media, leading to much skepticism over the value of a “tokenized .jpeg.” 

Beeple is arguably the most successful digital artist who’s made a name from tokenizing his work on Ethereum. In addition to the Christie’s sale, several other rare pieces of his have sold for millions of dollars in the last few weeks. “OCEAN FRONT,” released as part of Open Earth Foundation’s CarbonDrop auction, sold for $6 million on Tuesday.

TRON founder Justin Sun, who was narrowly outbid in Beeple’s Christie’s auction in the final seconds, bought the piece. 

By creating non-fungible tokens on the blockchain, Beeple and other digital artists have found that they can now assign provable scarcity and ownership to their work. While some have questioned the value of NFTs and their environmental impact, the space has gained huge momentum this year.

Many musicians have embraced the format, while rare “OG” NFTs like CryptoPunks have become highly sought after in recent months. 

Given the price speculation some NFTs have attracted, critics have pointed to a possible bubble. Nonetheless, for now, the market seems to think that Beeple’s work is some of the most valuable art on the planet. 

Disclosure: At the time of writing, the author of this feature owned ETH and several other cryptocurrencies.