Christie’s auction house has announced the sale of a digital portrait of the Bitcoin code for more than $130,000, as it marks the first time a non-fungible token (NFT) was auctioned at a major auction house, and the price exceeded expectations.
It has been reported that an unknown buyer purchased “Block 21,” comprised of a physical piece of art and an NFT representing Satoshi Nakamoto for $131,250 at Christie’s on October 7 as part of its “Post-War and Contemporary Day Auction.” Bidding started at $22,000.
#AuctionUpdate Robert Alice's 'Block 21 (42.36433° N, -71.26189° E) (from Portraits of a Mind)' — a work based on Blockchain technology — sold for $131,250 and achieved more than 7x its high estimate. https://t.co/fJ4un7gHGW pic.twitter.com/bptv3k06DN — Christie's (@ChristiesInc) October 7, 2020
However, the artwork, created by Ben Gentilli with the Robert Alice project, is one of 40 creations in a series and holds exactly 322,048 digits of Satoshi’s original Bitcoin code.
The series, titled “Portraits of a Mind,” shows the cryptocurrency’s 12.3 million digits of original code individually engraved and painted on 40 different circular panels stretching more than 50 meters in length.
Likewise, Christie’s auction was for just one of the paintings in the series, “Block 21,” whose name references the scarcity of Bitcoin is capped at 21 million coins.
A crypto art lover purchased an NFT featuring 322,048 digits of Satoshi Nakamoto’s original BTC code for $131,250 at Christie's. https://t.co/HpiSams0XD — Cointelegraph (@Cointelegraph) October 7, 2020
Changpeng Zhao (CZ), the CEO and founder of Binance and Matthew Rozsak, the Chairman of Bloq, have also purchased pieces from Portraits of a Mind.
The Robert Alice website stated:
“The work is a symbolic expression of Satoshi’s vision, forged out of the very code that lies at the genesis of it all. Portraits of a Mind explores the multi-faceted identities of Satoshi Nakamoto, in turn reflecting on the nature of both identity and portraiture in a newly decentralized age.”
Thus, the most expensive piece of digital art sold at auction was Matt Kane’s NFT “Right Place & Right Time,” based on Bitcoin’s fluctuating price, which sold for $101,593 in September.
The first NFT-Real World Piece sold at Christie's. Estimated $12-$18k. Guess how much it went for? $131,250USD! 😱😱😱#crypto is crazy, and the real world is starting to find out. https://t.co/4ryWGSLh1F — dclblogger.eth (@DCLBlogger) October 7, 2020
Source: Cointelegraph | Image: Architectural Digest