On Thursday, a digital artwork less than a month old hammered for $60.25 million at Christie’s in New York, shattering every previous record set for the medium and pushing the non-fungible token (NFT) market into the price range of blue-chip masterworks. With buyer’s premium the total comes to $69.3 million (about ¥7.5 billion).
A spokesperson for Christie’s declined to name the buyer. Initially it had appeared Justin Sun, founder of cryptocurrency platform Tron, gave the winning bid of $60.25 million according to information provided by a Tron representative. Later, the statement was clarified to say he was outbid at the last minute.
Prior to the sale Noah Davis, a specialist at Christie’s who organized the sale, said that "there have been a handful of really dogged, really serious clients pursuing it, and they are mostly people who are very steeped in crypto.