An NFT painting of Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin dressed as a jester has sold for 200 ETH, equivalent to $392,308 at the time of sale, on the secondary market – injecting a new ray of hope into the long-sluggish NFT ecosystem.
The digital painting, a unique NFT titled “EthBoy”, created by the crypto artists Trevor Jones and the late, pseudonymous Alotta Money, broke records when it first happened sold at auction in November 2020 for a whopping 260 ETH, making it the most expensive NFT artwork ever at the time. Based on fluctuations in the price of ETH in the intervening years, the value of that sale – about $140,000 at the time – pales in comparison to that of this week’s resale.
When “EthBoy” was first released, it entered an NFT ecosystem that was very different from the current one. Crypto art and PFP NFTs consistently broke sales records during their climb to the final crescendo of the 2021 NFT bull run.
Crucially, too, the new medium was so eagerly embraced by traditional artists like Jones (a painter by trade), because of the priority given to creator royalties – fees, typically between 2.5% and 10%, which are then mandatory were linked to any secondary income. sale of an NFT, and given to the creator of the piece.
Gm! Ethboy just sold on the secondary market for 200 ETH! 🤯 pic.twitter.com/QpqoBu2RTM
— Trevor Jones 🎨 (@trevorjonesart) November 16, 2023
Over the past year, creator fees have become the focal point of an escalating crisis in the struggling NFT ecosystem. Once considered one main incentive for artists enforced by all major NFT marketplaces, the fees have now become optional at large platforms such as OpenSea, which do have that struggled immensely to attract customers and keep sales stable amid the current bear market.
Although “EthBoy” was sold via the OpenSea marketplace this week, it appears that the NFT’s new owner chosen– of their own volition – to pay the maker’s fee for the work, despite the fact that they are not obliged to do so. The 10% creator royalty of 20 ETH, paid automatically to Async Art, the platform that coordinated the piece’s creation, essentially amounted to a $39,230 tip.
Check your wallet: Your NFTs might not be so worthless anymore
When “EthBoy” was first released, its creators — who then wanted to demonstrate the unique selling points of on-chain art sales — pledged to share one-third of the creator fees generated by future sales of the artwork with the first buyer of the piece.
That first owner, the pseudonym MaxStealth, has been sticking with “EthBoy” since 2020. So, in addition to the base revenue they collected from the sale of the work yesterday, they should also soon receive just over $13,000 worth of ETH as their share of the creator fee. It’s a tantalizing, but potentially soon-to-be-obsolete, taste of the economic potential of the NFT art market.
Edited by Andrew Hayward