NON FUNGIBLE NOT : NFTs ART PRECIS

Artists still see the possibility of NFTS - Nonfungible tokens. Prices for digital artworks soared then slumped, but some are still buying. '' It was a mania,'' said Noah Davis. '' But manias are fun.''

Mr. Davis, the former head of digital art at Christie's in Manhattan, was recalling one of the wildest crazes ever.

In his role, he helped facilitate the sale in 2021 of a work by Mike Winkelmann, better known as  Beeple. Titled '' Everydays : The First 5,000 days,'' the piece was a collage that was sold as a unique digital file, or '' nonfungible token.''

An anonymous bidder bought it for $69.3 million. And paid for it in Ether.

Before the record-setting sale, Mr.Davis, 35, did not own a laptop, was not on social media and did not know that the abbreviation ETH stood for a type of cryptocurrency.

After the auction, he was fully on board. '' I became totally immersed in the space,'' he said.

A lot of people, many of them young and male, got caught up in buying and selling apes from Bored Ape Yacht Club or Pudgy Penguins, to name two popular NFT collections featuring cartoonlike, computer-generated artworks.

The digital collectibles, which traded for tens of thousands and in some cases millions of dollars through online marketplaces like OpenSea, were heralded as the future of art and a new form of community.

The Precis Publishing continues. The World Students Society thanks Steven Kurutz.