One of the founders of the cannabis company THC Design, Edward Fairchild, divulged that he “stumbled” into buying an NFT from the famous digital artist Beeple in December. Since then, its value has increased by 30,000%.
The art collector declared that he was a fan of Beeple for a long time, but that he didn’t know anything about NFTs and that when he made the purchase, he didn’t think anybody would care about collecting tokenized art.
“I had no idea what an NFT was and I’d never heard of Nifty Gateway […] I really didn’t see the point,” Fairchild said, adding: “I had no idea that spending $969 on a work of art would, within three months, turn into an asset valued around $300,000.”
Fairchild said that he saw a video by Beeple on Instagram in December 2020 and, even if he was skeptical about the whole idea of tokenized art, he was interested in Beeple’s “2020 Collection,” which included works converging NFTs with physical art.
As a result, Fairchild decided to buy “The Infected Culture” for $969. The artwork shows one of three works as a gif on a loop from a screen in an ornamental display box. It was also accompanied by a certificate of authenticity and even a hair sample from Beeple.
Fairchild thought that he might resell the artwork in a couple of years for a 100% gain as he wasn’t aware of the increasing NFT market boom. Meanwhile, secondary sales of Beeple’s works were already being sold for double their original selling price within minutes of the auction’s completion.
Three months later, “The Infected Culture” has been appreciated by 30,000%. A different copy under the same name was sold for $288,000 in late February 2021.
Less than a week ago, Beeple auctioned off his newest creation, “Everydays,” for a record-setting $69 million on NFT marketplace MakersPlace.