At Christie's auction.

Apparently 33 bidders bid in the last few minutes of the auction.
Not sure what to conclude from this.

 

Yup thats odd, but try a google of "NBA Top Shot" and see people paying over a million usd for digital (basketball!?!) trading cards. What will blockchain affect next?

 

Such an odd space. There are also electronic sneaker trading cards going at mind blowing premiums.

one distinction of the electronic trading card space vs Christie’s: presumably Christie’s did not accept synthetic/Bitcoin currency?

 

Or not!

“Please note that you may elect to make payment of the purchase price for this lot in the cryptocurrency Ether. Payment in Ether must be made via a digital wallet transfer of Ether to Christie’s. The digital wallet must be maintained with Coinbase Custody Trust; Coinbase, Inc.;”

 

The story of this piece, and what it actually is compared to the photo above, is pretty interesting:

“In May 2007, the digital artist known as Beeple set out to create and post a new work of art online every day. He hasn’t missed a day since, creating a new digital picture every day for 5,000 days straight. Individually known as EVERYDAYS, collectively, the pieces form the core of EVERYDAYS: THE FIRST 5000 DAYS, one of the most unique bodies of work to emerge in the history of digital art.”

Basically, the 5000 works of art are organized into a single piece, but each may be zoomed in on individually, etc.

I’m not saying it’s $69M interesting to me, but I can see someone in the blockchain believer space having several million in stranded synthetic currency currency laying around...

 

I have seen people saying on art forums that it diversifies risk away from Eterium and into art without having to convert ETH to USD. I am skeptical.

Nevertheless astounded by the result (3rd highest ever for a living artist), I see people saying NFTs are the future, especially with any sales being able to be easily tracked (and artists taking a cut). To me, it looks like a bubble, but thats what I said when BTC was at £500, so what do I know.

 

Past tense of "to bid" is "bid"...

 

Somebody bought an expensive wallpaper for his/her computer

 

Fixed. English is inconsistant at times...

 

I wonder what the point of converting ETH into NFTs is vs USD. The IRS will hit you with cap gains taxes based on USD equivalent values anytime you exchange. Maybe other countries are different.

 

Jack Dorsey is selling the very first tweet in NFT (non fungible token) form. Last I saw the high bid was $2.5 million. It's just crazy what people are paying for stuff, especially in non-physical form. Gimme a watch, anyday.

 

Remember there can be copies just one owner. This is the stupidest thing ever.

 

Is this not just a function of the fact that crypto-currencies are still pretty much Monopoly money. If someone got in early and benefited from a massive appreciation in the value of their holding, while having limited ways of using the “coin”, may it not be tempting to treat it like toy money and pay stupid amounts for something they would never pay in a conventional currency?

 

There is no real value in money. It's a trust between everyone that a tiny piece of paper can be traded for something else considered valuable. In the end, they are just swapping trust that the bits they hold will still hold value.

Ignoring the inequities of a person having that much money, it always warms my heart a bit to see art so highly valued. Of course, it's naive to think they didn't just think of it as an investment. But it's nice to think people believe art will hold value.

Still, that's a lot of watches.

 

This all seems like "greater fool" investing to me, but what do I know.

 

Perhaps. But does anyone really think a Snoopy2 or Tin tin or old Rolex or any other old hunk of metal is intrinsically worth tens of thousands of dollars (or more?)

Circles of fools all trusting in the same things.

 

That argument is definitely valid for Paul Newman's Daytona and watches in that class, but that's a different league. I think that most people buying mass produced watches like the ones you mentioned, aren't mainly focusing on them as investments or assets. At least that's the way I feel about it, as do most of the collectors I know.

These outrageous NFT purchases, or even the crypto itself, seem to be focused on repositories of wealth. The owners aren't buying them for the joy that they will get from living with them. Just my view of it.

 

I agree. I am just guessing but I suppose they convince themselves they appreciate them.

Still, there are many people who think we're nuts for spending more than a few hundred on a watch.

I suspect the people that spent 69 million have their own private forum of sorts. Wonder if they have a pet section? They probably just get the same satisfaction out of that purchase as we do finding a low production vintage in good condition. The poor sods just have so much money it's hard to get satisfaction anymore. Pity really....

 

There might be plenty of satisfaction in having something their zillionaire buddies don’t have. At their price ranges, it might be quite a challenge. I, of course, wouldn’t know.

 

Indeed! Irregular verbs can be a pain. German and French have them too...