How two friends made art history buying a US$70mil digital work


A digital collage titled ‘Everydays: The First 5,000 Days’, by an artist named Beeple. The Beeple sale broke a record for the most expensive NFT ever sold and kick-started a global conversation about NFTs, their value and whether they are a lasting addition to the digital landscape. — Christie's via AP

It took a few minutes for Vignesh Sundaresan and Anand Venkateswaran to realise that they’d parted with US$69.3mil (RM287.35mil) for a digital artwork stored in a JPEG file, coincidentally securing their place in art history.

“We weren’t sure we won,” said Venkateswaran, describing the nerve-racking final moments of the online auction for a collage of 5,000 images by the artist known as Beeple. “We kept refreshing the page.”

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