The person who made 69 million dollars from NFTs four years ago is still making money

Author: Cookie

Beeple, the man who sold an NFT for a staggering $69 million, has always been seen as a symbol of the once golden age of NFTs.

Although the glory of NFTs has faded, Beeple and his team remain active in the NFT space. At this year's Basel Art Fair, he brought back a "golden dog" to the currently quiet NFT market—Regular Animals.

Yesterday, several Regular Animals were sold on OpenSea for over 10 ETH (approximately $35,000), and this work was given away for free at the Basel Art Fair, totaling 256 pieces. Based on this price, Beeple gave away NFTs worth nearly ten million dollars at the Basel Art Fair.

The project that Beeple and his team brought to the Basel Art Fair is Regular Animals. This consists of a bunch of robotic dogs, as shown in the image below. They look a bit eerie because these robotic dogs have human faces, and they are all well-known figures, such as Elon Musk, Andy Warhol, Mark Zuckerberg, Picasso, and even Beeple himself.

Of course, it’s not just the eerie visual effect; these robotic dogs observe their surroundings with cameras in their heads and use an evolving visual algorithm to create art.

The celebrities represented by these robotic dogs were not chosen randomly. They were selected because they have influenced the way humans perceive the world, whether through algorithms, art, or politics. As humans, we observe the world through these perspectives, and so do these robotic dogs. At the Basel Art Fair, these robotic dogs and humans observed each other, and each moment of observation became an artwork created by these robotic dogs, which are like autobiographies of these dogs.

Interestingly, Regular Animals also has a physical series, totaling 1024 pieces. On eBay, someone has already listed one for a fixed price of $6,500. The market suggests that NFTs are worth much more than physical artworks, reminiscent of Damien Hirst's "The Currency" series from years ago, which allowed holders to choose between physical and NFT versions.

Before achieving great success in the NFT field, Beeple had been creating art daily since 2007 but had never sold anything for more than $100. After gaining fame and fortune, Beeple did not squander his wealth like some artists or crypto project founders. He acquired a studio/gallery of about 460 square meters and assembled a team of dozens of 3D artists, engineers, and researchers (including former Boeing engineers), inviting former director of the Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art, Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, as an advisor, continuously exhibiting at art fairs around the world and creating new artworks.

Beeple's robotic dog exhibition has garnered attention not only in the crypto space due to its pricing but has also been reported by traditional media such as the WSJ.