Beeple says crypto art is 'irrational exuberance bubble' and 'will absolutely go to zero'

Digital artist Beeple, who recently sold his artwork for a whopping $69 million in form of NFT, expressed his opinion about the new form of cryptocurrency that has quickly become a craze in the digital market. While experts believe cryptocurrency is the future and there is a lot of interest around NFTs, Beeple thinks that the crypto art market is likely in a "bubble". Further, he said that this exchange is for people who are "looking to take some risks" and termed it risky for investors.

Beeple, whose real name is Mike Winkelmann, sold his digital-only artwork “Everydays: the First 5000 Days” as an NFT through Christie’s for $69 million. The whopping bid made him third most valuable living artist, followed by Jeff Koons and David Hockney. The record-breaking sale brought everyone’s attention to the potential in NFTs with more people selling and buying works in the form of non-fungible tokens. And while many famous personalities including Elon Musk, Grimes, Jack Dorsey among others listed their works in form of NFT, Beeple is of the opinion that NFT investment will ‘go to zero’.

“This is for people who are looking to take some risks, because a lot of this stuff will absolutely go to zero,” he said on ‘Sway’ podcast. 

Beeple on future of crypto art and NFT

NFT or Non-fungible tokens are a class of cryptocurrency that has no standard value and they instead have a unique value. NFT can be understood as a "digital file whose unique identity and ownership are verified on a blockchain." NFTs are created by uploading files and are not mutually interchangeable as each of them has a unique value. These "one-of-a-kind" assets can be bought and sold like any other piece of property, but they have no tangible form and exist in form of certificates. 

While there is an increasing hype around NFTs, Beeple simplified it as something that is "all about proving ownership." "The more something is widely shared, the more popular it becomes, the more valuable it will become," he said. "When you go to The Louvre and take a picture of the Mona Lisa and share it on the internet no one is like 'Wow, I just devalued the Mona Lisa.'"

Further, the digital artist opined that people will, in furture, realize that they "assigned insane value to crap". In recent times, the interest in NFTs has grown as cryptocurrency craze took over the maket but Beeple says that the buyers will realize prices for NFTs went overboard. However, the number of buyers of NFT rose 66% in 2020 and the value of the transactions increased from around $63 million to $250 million, as per Nonfungeable.com.

"Just making an NFT does not give it any value," Winkelmann said on the podcast. "There's going to be a moment where we realize we got a little crazy and assigned insane value to crap."

Further, Beeple cited the example of blue-chip to claim that NFTs could possibly meet the same fate and will 'go to zero'. The artist also revealed that it had been less than six months since he first learnt about NFT. Despite the increasing interest and NFTs selling for millions, Beeple thinks it is an "irrational exuberance bubble."

“If you just look at art historically, blue chip stuff does pretty well over time. But most of it goes to zero. That’s just how it is. And I believe NFTs will be no different. And I believe it’s absolutely in an irrational exuberance bubble that is – we’re there.”