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Musician and visual artist Grimes has sold a collection of NFTs for over $6 million.
NFTs are non-fungible tokens—cryptographically secured collectables that can be anything, but that have become a popular (and lucrative) medium for visual art. You buy them with Ethereum through Ebay-esque marketplaces like Zora, Foundation, and NiftyGateway.
The NFT art market has exploded within the last year. According to a report from Nonfungible.com, the market grew by 2,800% in 2020 and is now valued at nearly $200 million. Musicians like Jacques Greene, Yaeji, Mura Masa, and Toro Y Moi have all gotten involved with NFTs in recent weeks.
Grimes’ collection is centered around “WarNymph”—the digital avatar the artist created for herself in the wake of her fifth album, Miss Anthropocene—which looks like a kind of demon baby.
Partnering with NiftyGateway, which is owned by the Winklevoss twins, Grimes sold nine pieces this weekend. Seven of these were limited editions, and two were “open editions”—during a set window on Sunday, anyone could purchase and “mint” an edition of those two works.
There’s also a 10th piece, called “Death of the Old,” which sold today; the high bid was $388,938.
While most of the pieces are still images, “Death of the Old,” as well as the two open editions, “Earth” and “Mars,” are animations set to unreleased music.
NFT drop in 20 mins 🧚🏻♀️ pic.twitter.com/LChtcudm1O
— ☘︎𝔊𝔯𝔦𝔪𝔢𝔰 (@Grimezsz) February 28, 2021
CryptoCobain, an influencer who’s put money into high profile NFTs like the CryptoPunks series, said he snagged a piece over the weekend:
yay i won one pic.twitter.com/y6YUfdAFSS
— ∞ CO฿IE (@CryptoCobain) February 28, 2021
Some of the limited editions are already on sale in the secondary market—one user is asking $2.5 million for his “Newborn 2” NFT.