TL; DR
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Towards the end of his life, Keith began experimenting with making digital sketches on his Commodore Amiga computer.
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For the better part of three decades, it was virtually impossible to assign a monetary value to these digital works because their scarcity could not be verified.
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These images can now be captured on the blockchain in scarce quantities, marking the difference between a digital file and a verifiably scarce digital asset.
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Christie’s is auctioning five of Haring’s original digital works as NFTs, for $300 to $500,000 each, creating new value through verifiable digital scarcity.
Full story
Do you have a friend who still can’t handle NFTs? Send them this article.
If you don’t recognize the name Keith Haring, you almost certainly recognize his work (it looks like this which is almost everywhere nowadays).
What you need to know before this article really sinks in is this:
Keith’s work is of great importance (he was a key figure in the New York art scene of the 1980s). His signed prints go for thousands of euros, while his one-offs go for thousands of euros millions.
Anyway, towards the end of his life, Keith started experimenting with making digital sketches on his Commodore Amiga computer.
That’s cool – BUT!
For the better part of three decades, it was virtually impossible to assign a monetary value to these digital works because their scarcity could not be verified.
NFTs solve all that.
Similar to how Keith numbered and signed his physical prints to note the difference between an original and a reprint (which would be virtually identical without a signature):
These images can now be captured on the blockchain in scarce quantities, marking the difference between a digital file and a verifiably scarce digital asset.
(Sure, they might look the same. But one comes with a digital ‘proof of authenticity’, the other doesn’t – just like Keith’s physical prints).
The nice thing is that this isn’t just a possibility – it really happens!
Christie’s is auctioning five of Haring’s original digital works as NFTs, for $300 to $500,000 each, creating new value through verifiable digital scarcity.
(Something that could not have happened 10 years ago!).