 | |  | | | | The Little-Known Asset That Will Lead Our Digital Economy |  | By Amanda Heckman, Editorial Director |
| Did crypto just get classy?
This week, Christie's - the storied art auction house - opened a first-of-its-kind auction in its 300-year history...
The sale of a digital art collection that is backed by tokens on the blockchain.
And the auction is accepting payment in cryptocurrency - Etherium, to be exact - for the first time ever.
It's a fascinating move that proves we're just scratching the surface on everything the crypto and blockchain market has to offer.
Art Goes High-Tech
Digital art as an investible asset has been around since the 1960s. Andy Warhol was perhaps the most famous purveyor of the craft.
But one of its major problems has always been authenticity. Digital art is easily copied. That makes it hard to verify where it came from.
Enter the blockchain... and its decentralized, ultra-secure technology.
It's now easier to prove the rightful owner and the origins of a piece of digital art.
How?
It's all thanks to something called non-fungible tokens... or NFTs.
NFTs are not typical cryptocurrencies, like Bitcoin or Etherium. They are not interchangeable... like how one Bitcoin is the same as another.
Think of them as unique digital "files" that live on the blockchain... and can be owned and transferred like any other asset. Their value comes from what someone is willing to pay for them...
Just like art.
With the Christie's auction, the artwork will be delivered directly to the buyer, along with the unique NFT - which will contain the artist's unforgeable signature and be identified on the blockchain.
Now, NFTs have been around only since 2012, so they're a fairly new asset class. But their market tripled in 2020, growing to more than $250 million. We saw major brands like Nike, Louis Vuitton, the NBA and Paramount all jump in last year. They created virtual products, collectibles and games that live on the blockchain.
Simply put, NFTs are primed to become a leading asset class - and an important authentication tool - as we shift into a digital economy.
This is exactly why Andy has pounded the table that the opportunity with the crypto market has very little to do with replacing the dollar.
No, he says, "They're tokens that pay the admission to a powerful platform. Without one, you can't get on the other."
This platform is trying to solve real problems to make all sorts of digital transactions safer, cheaper and more reliable.
As the Christie's auction proves this week... no market is immune to the revolution taking place over how we spend and invest.
Not even the buttoned-up art world. | | | | | SPONSORED | | Is the Internet About to Collapse? Because of COVID-19, the web is becoming overloaded with users...
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| Our culture is facing a real dilemma... We're more dependent on others than ever before. As Joel Salatin writes this week, "We all feel this tightening, suffocating oversight. The areas in which we can exercise true choice are nearly nonexistent." What's the result of all this corporate, technological and governmental dependency? Click here to find out. | | | | | | |
| Good timing... Within mere days of Janet Yellen giving the nod for a national digital currency... the whole system goes down. Our nation's money-transfer system failed. In the grand scheme of things, it's not a big deal. But when we start to add up all the individual pieces of this story... the plot gets clear. Click here to see what comes next. | | | | | | |
"It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see."
- Henry David Thoreau |
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