Musician and artist Grimes has sold a collection of digital artworks that include images, animations, film-clips, and even poetry, for nearly $6 million, using the latest cryptocurrency trend ‘non-fungible tokens’ (NFTs).
A total of 10 artworks, created in collaboration with Grimes’ brother Mac Boucher, branded as ‘WarNymph Collection Vol 1’, were sold at auction.
The collection was sold as NFTs, part of the cryptocurrency sector that tokenises artwork.
Two of the pieces, short video works titled Earth and Mars, were available as large editions for $7,500, which over the 48 hours they were on sale, sold 300 copies.
Dropping NFTs tomorrow at 2pm EST. enter the void pic.twitter.com/l9fNFUCheX — ☘︎?????? (@Grimezsz) February 28, 2021
Meanwhile others where sold as one-offs only available to the high-bidder, which saw the video piece called Death of the Old sell for almost $400,000 following a bidding war between four wishful buyers.
NFTs have come under recent scrutiny, as when a digital asset is sold, the owner only receives an entry on a records with the artwork still protected with conventional copyright.
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Moreover, every NFT transaction uses a significant amount of electricity, increasing its environmental burden. The sale of 300 editions of Grimes’ ‘Earth’ video equated to the electrical energy the average EU resident uses over 33 years and producing 70 tonnes of CO2 emissions.
