Updated on: Feb 20, 2022
| ARTIST | Beeple |
|---|---|
| PRICE | $6.6 Million |
| STYLE | Animation |
| MARKETPLACE | Nifty gateway |
Crossroad NFT is one art piece that sparked a lot of controversies. This NFT is pretty unique as the final image was depending on the 2020 US elections. If Trump had won, there would be one image, and if Biden won, there would be another image. As you may know, Biden was on the winning side, so we got that image.
This is possible due to the fact that each NFT has baseURI property. This property allows you to set a link to a document or in this case an image. The author has used this property to change the image of the Crossroad NFT. As we have mentioned earlier, the final art is controversial, and you’ll quickly understand why if you take a quick look at it down below.
Now you can understand why it’s “controversial”. Basically, that’s Trump laying naked in the grass. There are different insulting graffiti written all over him, and you may notice a Twitter bird sitting on him with the clown emoji. As you may know, soon after the elections Trump got a ban from the Twitter platform due to the capitol incident.
This is not the first time this author has included Trump in his NFTs, but more about that later on.
Beeple, also known by his real name Mike Winkelmann is the author of Crossroad NFT and many others. He is most famous for his “The First 5000 Days” NFT which was sold for $69.3 million on the famous Christie’s Auction House. One interesting thing about him is that he doesn’t have any art background.
Actually, Mike has a computer science degree, but he says programming is pretty boring for him. He has since decided to spend every day drawing and creating images. That’s when the 5000 days idea came along, basically, he was drawing each and every day for 5000 days and still counting. Needless to say, his skill is pretty impressive now. Let’s assume he spent 2 hours (and he probably spent way more) on each art, that’s 10,000 hours.
It’s safe to say that no matter what you do for 10,000 hours, you’ll get good at it eventually. Other than drawing, he also helps do light shows as he did for Super Bowl and Justin Bieber. We don’t know really know why he decided to create NFTs, perhaps it’s because of his computer science background.
Crossroad was minted for $66,666.60 by anonymous user “Pablo”, however, he later sold it to another anonymous user “Anonymous10” for $6.3 Million. Since the blockchain can preserve your anonymity, that’s exactly what has happened in these transactions. However, the NFT was later transferred to a user named “babybeluga”.
When you think about it, it’s both crazy and awesome that someone can spend a couple of million on art and remain anonymous. This does provide some ground for money laundering too, but when the government regulates blockchain, things will be different. Most likely, you’ll be able to buy stuff and remain anonymous to the public, but there will be a central figure who’ll know your identity in case of fraudulence. This kinda beats the whole “decentralization” concept, but as the things are moving forward, it seems this is the way it will unfold.
Crossroad NFT was sold on the Nifty Gateway marketplace. This NFT marketplace is a bit different as it allows you to purchase with your credit card and it supports a bunch of other payment methods. We are unsure why Beeple chose this marketplace, but since it’s one of the best marketplaces, it’s a great choice.
This is not the first Beeple’s NFT on Nifty Gateway. Some of his other work on Nifty includes “POLITICS IS BULLSHIT” and “CRYPTO IS BULLSHIT”. However, as we know his most valuable NFT to this date was Christie’s auction/marketplace. We do not know if he picks these NFT marketplaces completely randomly or there is a specific reason behind it.
In case you want to learn more about the best NFT marketplaces, take a look at our rankings.
No, at this moment there is no utility behind Crossroad NFT. Why do we say “at this moment”? Because utility can come later on if the original creator decides to add it. However, Beeple didn’t mention he’ll do such a thing with his NFTs.
Right now you should look at Beeple’s NFTs as pure art. Some people don’t see the point in NFTs and digital art in general. However, with NFTs, you can at least be sure that they are authentic, with physical art it’s much harder to do so. Imagine paying a couple of million dollars for a painting, only to find out later on that it’s fake. This is exactly what happened at Knoedler, one of the most respected galleries in New York.
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