NFT Craze Takes Over the Internet: $6.6 Million for Trump Painting, $2 Million for First Tweet, $568,000 for Nyan Cat Meme and Banksy Painting Burned

Another boom in the cryptocurrency industry.

Since the beginning of 2021, the NFT industry has been gaining popularity. Celebrities and ordinary users are closing deals worth thousands and even millions of dollars, while observers far removed from the cryptocurrency industry do not understand what is going on.

TK Media has looked into the latest events and is ready to explain in detail the fashionable technology, major sales and the opinions of cryptocurrency industry representatives on the prospects of the digital art market.

In fact, non-fungible tokens (NFTs) have been around for more than a year. But only in 2021 did this type of virtual asset start selling at truly fantastic prices.

On January 19, Justin Roiland, creator of the cartoon series "Rick and Morty," sold his debut collection of digital art for 1,300 ETH (more than $2.2 million at the exchange rate at the time of writing) at a Nifty Gateway auction.

The collection, titled "The Best I Could Do," includes 16 works with unique embedded identification information. Anyone can copy these images, publish them and even try to sell them. But there will be only one owner: the holder of the NFT.

For example, you created a GIF of a flying cat with a cookie-shaped body that leaves a rainbow trail behind it. It became a popular meme on the internet, and you decided to attach the original to a token in order to sell it.

Chris Torres, the author of the Nyan Cat meme animation, sold his work for 300 ETH (more than $500,000 at the exchange rate at the time of writing). Anyone can send the GIF to friends, save it and publish it online, but there is only one owner.

Silly? Perhaps. But the value of real paintings works on the same principle. You can set the Mona Lisa as your smartphone wallpaper, save it to your laptop and even send it to your mom. She may enjoy it, but the original Mona Lisa will still remain in the Louvre and will not lose value because of your actions.

Another popular collection became NFT cards featuring the greatest NBA dunks of all time, called NBA TopShots. According to CryptoSlam, over its lifetime the sales volume of NFTs in this collection has exceeded $315 million. For comparison, CryptoPunks sold for $104 million.

On February 11, actress and singer Lindsay Lohan sold her NFT for $17,360, and an hour later it was resold for $57,290. The creator of the "Deal with it" meme sold his within a day for 15 ETH (more than $25,000 at the exchange rate at the time of writing).

On February 25, the work "Crossroad" by the most popular digital artist Beeple (Mike Winkelmann), depicting former U.S. President Donald Trump, who lost the election, lying in a pile of garbage, was resold for $6.6 million.

In December 2020, Beeple sold "Crossroad" for $582,000 at a Nifty Gateway auction and, to put it mildly, was upset by the amount for which his work was resold.

In February, the world's largest auction house, Christie's, put up for auction another Beeple work, titled "Everydays: The First 5000 Days." The lot will be sold on March 11, and at the time of writing the highest bid stands at $3.75 million.

In early March, singer Grimes (the partner and mother of Elon Musk's sixth son) sold a collection of NFTs with paintings and unreleased music for about $6 million.

The rock band Kings of Leon released its new album "When You See Yourself" as NFTs in three editions. The holder of the VIP edition will receive a lifetime front-row seat and a personal assistant service during concerts.

Unknown buyers purchased one of 650 copies of the painting "Morons" by the famous street artist Banksy for $95,000 and burned it live to create an NFT. Now the token will be auctioned for charity.

Notably, Banksy's work mocks art collectors: it depicts participants of an auction selling the painting, with the inscription "I can't believe you morons are actually buying this shit" in English.

Finally, on March 5, well-known cryptocurrency supporter and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey came to the NFT market and put up for sale his first tweet from March 21, 2006, as an NFT. Within a day, bids of $2 million were offered for it.

Billionaire Mark Cuban predicted incredible popularity for NFTs over the next 10 years. The Canadian analytics company NonFungible forecast significant growth of the non-fungible token market as early as 2021.

According to its report, the total market capitalization of NFTs reached $338 million by the end of 2020. Mason Nystrom, analyst at Messari Research, suggested that in 2021 this figure could increase two or even four times.

According to CNBC, in 2020 the NFT market grew fourfold to $250 million, and the number of digital wallets trading non-fungible tokens doubled to more than 222,000.

According to OpenSea, an NFT trading platform, market turnover in February 2021 amounted to a record $86.3 million. In January it was only $8 million. A year earlier, according to the company, monthly turnover was $1.5 million.

However, there are also critics of the fashionable market. Charlie Lee, creator of the Litecoin cryptocurrency, is convinced that NFTs will lose value over time due to the "zero cost" of creating them.

According to him, rising popularity will lead to an increase in the number of artists looking to profit from the hype, after which supply will outstrip demand and prices will collapse.

Later, Lee compared the popularity of NFTs to the initial coin offering (ICO) mania of 2017 and the enthusiasm for altcoins in 2013. According to him, each boom is accompanied by inflated prices driven by hype, the simplicity of the technology, attracting new audiences to the industry and the support of celebrities.