Best Of: What the Heck are NFTs? Let’s Ask Beeple.
Podcast |
Hard Fork
Publisher |
The New York Times
Media Type |
audio
Categories Via RSS |
Technology
Publication Date |
Feb 21, 2022
Episode Duration |
00:47:58

From Snoop Dogg to Melania Trump, it seems like everyone has gotten into the NFT craze in the last year, with billions of dollars worth of sales made in 2021. NFTs may be colloquial now, but the craze really picked up almost a year ago, when an artist named Michael Winkelmann (also known as Beeple) sold his work, “EVERYDAYS: THE FIRST 5000 DAYS,” for a whopping $69 million — the third-highest auction price involving a living artist, after Jeff Koons and David Hockney.

So this week, Kara is revisiting her March 2021 conversation with Beeple. They talk about whether his virtual collage, which stitches together 5,000 images (including lactating humanoid breasts and Buzz Lightyear with a bloodied chain saw) is actually worth $69 million, how he grapples with the environmental impact of crypto minting, and how NFTs will change how we buy and flaunt digital ownership.

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more information for all episodes at nytimes.com/sway, and you can find Kara on Twitter @karaswisher.

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