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Beeple-backed NFT project WENEW launches with a selection of moments from Andy Murray’s Wimbledon 2013 victory.
Beeple Launches NFT Project
Beeple, the digital artist who sold an NFT for $69.34 million at Christie’s in March, has revealed a new venture called WENEW.
very excited to announce the launch of https://t.co/K0TMwMJWwZ !!!
this is a new project we've been working on centered around giving people the opportunity to collect iconic moments in music, sports, comedy, history, etc. on the blockchain. 🚀🚀🚀 pic.twitter.com/WqhkFwLFBo
— beeple (@beeple) June 24, 2021
The project will sell “iconic moments” from music, sports, comedy, history, and other cultural fields in auctions and sales. Every moment will be stored as an NFT on Ethereum and represented in a physical glass casing similar to the ones Beeple has used to sell his work in the past. The project will also use Arweave to include editorial works alongside each piece.
The concept of bidding on “moments” bears some similarities to NBA Topshot, an NFT game where basketball fans bid on clips of their favorite NBA moments.
NFTs, otherwise known as non-fungible tokens, are a type of asset that have their own data stored on the blockchain. They can take the form of music, digital art, videos, or anything else that can be tokenized, and offer verifiable ownership of a given asset. They mostly take the form of ERC-721 tokens on Ethereum, and unlike ERC-20 tokens, they are not interchangeable from one another—the data that gets stored on the blockchain for each piece differs.
The WENEW website notes that the project has partnered with Open Earth Foundation “to establish practices designed to minimize energy-intensive transactions.” It will also fund climate initiatives and offset its carbon footprint.
NFTs have received widespread criticism for their purported environmental impact as the technology has grown in popularity in recent months. As most NFTs live on Ethereum, they rely on the energy-intensive Proof-of-Work consensus algorithm. Ethereum will soon merge to a Proof-of-Stake system, though that could still be months away.
WENEW launched with five NFTs related to Andy Murray’s Wimbledon 2013 win, each of which has a different level of scarcity. The winning moment from the match, for example, is available as a one-of-a-kind, while his victory speech is available in an edition of 50.
In addition to Wimbledon and Open Earth Foundation, WENEW’s partners include TIME, ENDEAVOR, IMG, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group. Beeple, real name Mike Winkelmann, is listed as one of four co-founders.
Announcing the new venture, Beeple said:
“this is another use case for NFTs completely separate from digital art. as i mentioned many times in interviews, this technology is EXTREMELY broad and flexible and we are at the absolute beginning.”