Some of these NFTs are stand-ins for collectibles in the tradition of CryptoKitties – like Non-Fungible Pepes, a postmodern bid to reclaim the meme frog from the alt-right others are objects intended to be used in video games but more and more they are linked to pieces of digital art designed by honest-to-god creators such as Beeple – who, two months ago, sold a token for $777,777 on Nifty Gateway.Ĭurrencies and cryptocurrencies (like the US dollar or bitcoin) are by nature made up of fungible, namely perfectly swappable, units: my two bitcoins are worth the same as your two bitcoins, and if we exchanged them neither of us would feel stiffed. On online platforms such as Rarible, OpenSea, and Nifty Gateway (backed by twins Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss) people are shelling out big sums of cryptocurrency and legal tender to buy tokens representing ownership of digital objects, which are then often re-auctioned at higher prices. One recent report by, a company releasing market insights on NFTs, says that, in 2020, NFT trading was worth over $250m, an increase by almost 300 per cent from the previous year. NFTs are selling like hotcakes, and this time the Ethereum network, which has been upgraded since 2017, is better equipped to deal with the endless sloshing. Cryptocurrency payments are of course accepted. Its end point is an auction starting tomorrow, in which a token associated with a digital collage of 5,000 images by graphic designer Beeple will go under the hammer at auction house Christie’s. But the process the goggle-eyed cats set off did not end there. That was eventually solved – and that was, for most people, the last they heard of CryptoKitties. The trading game quickly caught on among the crypto-initiated, so much so that CryptoKitties-related transactions clogged and slowed down Ethereum.

Each image was associated with a unique string of digits – a cryptocurrency “non-fungible token” or NFT – that could be traded on the Ethereum blockchain platform as a title deed granting the holder ownership of a particular kitty.

In December 2017, the dopey-looking cartoon cats, created by Canadian company Dapper Labs, debuted as tradable collectibles, like Pokémon cards for the bitcoin era. The First 5000 Days will be auctioned at Christie's starting this week Christie's/Beeple

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