I found myself pondering upon the most recent NFT bomb that was Beeple's 'The First 5,000 Days' and its implications as to whether NFTs are in a bubble or not. 

Earlier today we saw another massive sale for around $8M. To no surprise, it was a CryptoPunk. Both had absolutely insane valuations, though one of them is clearly more valuable than the other, right? Let's see. 

Christie's Auctions off Beeple's 'The First 5,000 Days' for $69 Million

Before I get started - yes, you read it right. The actual sale price was $69,346,250, according to the official tweet. Find it here: 

For those of you who're unaware, don't worry, I wasn't either until a couple of weeks back when the name Beeple was headlined by literally every crypto outlet. He's a well-known artist who's putting the emphasis on digital artwork. 

This is how his work, which just sold for an amount enough to feed 10,000 average Americans for around 2 years (no jokes, the average American spends $7.64/day on food: here's the source) looks like: 

I didn't get it at first. It just looks like a bunch of pictures stacked together on an imaginary digital canvas with absolutely no purpose whatsoever. Then I did a little digging and it turns out this dude has been doing 1 digital image per day for the last 5,000 days. That's some serious, mad, unrivaled dedication. Imagine having the discipline to do something every single day for almost 14 years. That's almost one and a half decades. A lot of the new crypto traders have lived just slightly more than that. 

Then it started to make sense. If I had unlimited money to spent, I'd probably pay a decent chunk of change for that as well. It's just cool. An artist channeling all of his efforts towards the creation of 5,000 different images with the idea to put them all together on one digital canvas... it has a certain ring to it. 

Thing is... even with this kind of thinking it's still hard to justify $69 freaking million. That's a LOT of money. And here are my problems - I've no way of knowing whether his story is true. How do I know he didn't just print them in bulk? If these were all minted on a blockchain with a timestamp and provable authenticity - I'm all up for it. But they can't be because the first one was created a couple of years before Bitcoin's network saw daylight, let alone some random dude thinking of immortalizing digital art, minting it on a blockchain. 

Anyways, I don't want to take absolutely anything away from Beeple - this is truly remarkable and whatever the case may be, this piece of art is that - a piece of art. I like it. Now, let's see the other one. 

CryptoPunk Sold for $8 Million

I wish this particular post could be turned into a video for dramatic effect. After reviewing the most expensive NFT sale EVER and thinking about how the artist allegedly spent 5,000 days making it, let's see what's currently the SECOND most expensive NFT sale. Without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, the pipe-smoking alien CryptoPunk. 

But, Nek1dd, what's alien about it? Beats the hell out of me... 

This absolute atrocity of an art piece was sold for eight million American dollars. Well, to be fair, it was sold for 4.2K ETH which is currently worth around $8 mil, but still. 

What is it that makes it special? No idea. What is it that makes it worth so much money? No idea. Was it a wash-bidding? Perhaps. I'm going to leave this as it is, because I sincerely have nothing else to say about this true representation of degeneracy. 

So, are NFTs in a Bubble?

Well, that's the thing - we can't really know for sure. I truly believe that CryptoPunks make the strongest case that they are in a bubble. But on the other hand, hard-working artists like Beeple who pour their soul into something turn it around. 

The thing about art is that its value is arbitrary. It might be worth millions to someone and jack sh*t to someone else. Does it look bubbly... that's an entirely different question, and I think most of us can agree that it does. 

Beeple's art is an exception in the NFT space. In fact, a lot of what is being sold and a lot of what's hot on the NFT market can hardly be called art. Waifus, cryptopunks, and all that derivative crap... that's just ridiculous. I'm sorry if I come across as someone who doesn't appreciate what non-fungible tokens bring to the table - I do! Rarity, authenticity, digitalization, I get all of it. All I'm saying that right now, in this precise period of time, the current NFT market is likely to be a big fat bubble that will, at some point, pop. No one can convince me that those ridiculous 3-minute drawings of a dude are valuable because there's only 1 of those who are "alien" and smoking a pipe simultaneously while having their hat facing the front. If someone puts a collector's value of $8 mil on that, then I'm clearly part of a different species. 

Again, I'm not bashing NFTs, I really think they are super cool as a concept and a serious step forward when it comes to decentralization and digitalization. They can also be super empowering, provided artists don't have to pay those ridiculous fees to mint them on Ethereum right now, but I guess that'll be fixed soon as well. 

Anyways, that's that. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please leave a like. I would also love to hear your thoughts on this, so please don't be afraid to use the comment section down below!