According to Decrypt, digital artist Beeple recently discussed the current situation and progress of the NFT market in an interview. He said that although the speculators in the NFT market have left, there is still a group of “enthusiasts who understand this technology.” Beeple also used his own work as an example to explain some “new functionalities” that digital art can achieve but physical art cannot.
Beeple, whose real name is Mike Winkelmann, auctioned his NFT artwork “Everydays: The First 5000 Days” for a record-breaking price of $69.3 million in 2021. Since then, the NFT frenzy has cooled down significantly, 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 could tell that right away.” He said that when the “Everydays” auction took place, he knew it was 100% a bubble in this market.
Although Beeple acknowledges that the NFT market will “come back to reality” and speculators have “left,” he pointed out that “the enthusiasm surrounding this thing is still very high.” Beeple mentioned the millions of dollars in sales achieved earlier this year by the well-known NFT series CryptoPunks, saying “it’s amazing how normalized this thing has become, it’s unbelievable to me,” and even such large sales are no longer considered news.
The fragmentation of the NFT market
Beeple also pointed out that the NFT market has seen “distinctions,” with some projects deviating from the true vision of this technology. Many NFT uses and related projects are not entirely within the realm of art and there are situations where different usage scenarios are mixed. For example, the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT series focuses on the aspect of collectibles, but the development team is trying to create a social club and other related applications for it.
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 virtual ownership of many different things.”
Beeple added that in order to achieve widespread application of NFTs in the authentication of physical art, a universally recognized “NFT standard” is needed.
Dynamic NFT art
Beeple stated that although the NFT market has cooled down, there is still a passionate group of NFT enthusiasts who understand this technology and see it as a medium for expressing artistic ideas, something that was not possible before.
Beeple mentioned that NFT technology allows him to create dynamic art pieces where the changes in the artwork are recorded on the blockchain. As an example, he mentioned his physical artwork called “Human One,” where he changed the landscapes that the walker traverses in the artwork.
Beeple stated that museums have difficulties accepting the idea of dynamic art pieces, even just the concept of “Human One” changing. He said, “When I talk to people from museums, they would say, ‘Hold on, I don’t know what it’s going to present.'” Beeple added that museums and collectors will eventually accept the “new functionalities” of dynamic digital art.